Todd77

Join Date 03/2006

Planet defense questions

Is Guard and Sentry mode broke?

I have a ship in my system and want to use it to defend the system, not just a planet. I have tried putting it in Guard or Sentry Mode and have had several instances where enemy troops ships fly by unhindered to invade my planet, I didnt even know they were there until they invaded. Why didnt my ship intercept it?

Also, what is the point of having your ships defend a planet when any fleets they were in will be disbanded when you fly them to a planet. If you dont have a fleet manager, your ships will be destroyed one by one. If this is the case you will want your ships in fleets in the system in Guard or Sentry mode (which hasnt worked for me), and therefore other planetary defences will be useless since you dont have ships over the planets.

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There is no "Intercept" mode. All Guard or Sentry does is to put the ship into sleep mode until an enemy (Guard) or enemy/neutral (Sentry) ship comes within Sensor range. So if your ship has no sensors, yes, it's quite possible for an invading fleet to fly by without the ship even waking up.

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also if you want ships in orbit to defend as a fleet you have to get an Orbital Fleet Manager. That way the ships defend together.

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Personally, I put an orbital fleet manager on every single one of my planets, so I don't have to worry about it later. The computer does about the same.

-Derek K Harwell

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There are many ways to cook a goose.

I do not defend my planets.

I keepfleets of fast ships nearmy borders, ready to take action against any incursion. Sensors are imortant for this, as well as speed. Eyes of the universe is perfect for this.

Occasionaly I might have a planet invaded, but that is not frequent because transports are like fish in a barrel.

"Oh look, 3 transports 15 tiles away. Next turn they are toast"

Im not right, Im just different.

There are many ways to cook a goose.

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How can I build an orbital fleet manager? I presume I have to research a certain tech first, but could not find which.

Any help appreciated. Thanks

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

There is a ship screen option to auto attack (quick key k). If you choose this option and put your ship on guard it should attack any enemy that stops in range. Otherwise, guard or sentry only activates the ship and you have to move it

Orbital fleet mgr comes with planetary defense and is a very cheap improvement considering how important it is

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This game heavily favors the attacker, so not defending is a good idea.
I put no more than one cheap ship on each planet to stop some freak troop ship getting thru.
I find the cost of an orbital fleet manager is too much (wasting a square) in most cases to be worth it,
especially when is is only good for the defending (read: losing) side. On hard settings you must have that
first strike attackers benefit in every combat, so a fleet of fast ships on duty is the answer to guarding planets,
and no they won't do it automatically. At least for me, the autoattack thing doesn't seem to work right.

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@Franco fx:
Thanks for your quick reply.

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auto attack doesn't work too well yet...

I agree that your better off defending your territory rather than your planets. It's much cheaper, and more flexible. A lot of times most of my planets won't have a shipyard or the silly fleet manager. (first thing to go on conquered planets too)

You'll end up needing a lot less ships, and they'll be more effective. (if you give them some speed, and have a few concentrations of them)

Eyes of the universe is a must get ....

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If the AI build 50+ speed combat transports, that would shut down the Border Defense strategy.

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The auto attack option switches itself off after a few turns which I find infuriating tbh.

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If the AI build 50+ speed combat transports, that would shut down the Border Defense strategy.

That is a bit of an end game corner case, but even so, I disagree. This is well past the expansion phase, so this is an end game strategy.

If the AI can move any ship 50 spaces in a turn, he can attack anywhere he wants to any time he wants to with whatever he chooses to bring. Essentially, he can attack any of your planets with their entire fleet and then invade it all in a turn. Having a fleet manager and 2 or 3 ships on each planet is not a viable solution to this problem.

What I would pursue instead in this scenario is blockading the enemy planets, preventing him from launching his ships. Extend the blockade, don't pull it in. Assuming you have comparable technology, park a large fleet or two for each grouping of 3-4 of his systems. Each turn, knock out his newly built ships (shields on the planets) and prevent him from forming fleets.

This is not necessarily easy to do, but offense is key. Don't fight in your front lawn, fight in his. You can't successfully defend all points simultaniously against attack. If you can, you should be on offense kicking his butt with all that might.

Additionally, park a well armed tiny on each planet as suggested above to prevent one transport from sneaking through, and keep your soldier skill high and populations up so he needs to bring lots of troops to take a planet.

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We need WARP INTERDICTORS

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