Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?

[Artaud]

OK, so the other day I started a new game, using the latest incarnation of the Star Trek Mod (thanks, Atrocities!).

Again, I'm drawn in to this game like no other. The problems are always the same: not enough ships where I need them, and not enough minerals. But the gameplay is so compelling, I'm still captivated. My starting position was unfavorable, with several nearby systems having just asteroids and NO planets. But I'm going to do my best.

Usually I play a defensive game. I expand until I meet an enemy, and then hunker down and let the AI empires smash each other to bits. I begin defending my systems with one or two satellites. Then I switch to mines. But I find that the AI tends to build minesweepers in large numbers, nullifying my defense in a hurry.

Now I've decided to go all-out in satellite construction. I rarely build defense bases at warp points, because the frontier eventually moves on and the base becomes a floating toll booth. Satellites, at least, can be scooped up and redeployed.

And I rarely build weapon platforms, though in my current game I have a torpedo-armed Christopher Pike-class weapon platform that is doing quite a good job.

In my next game, I think I will forgo building mines entirely.

How do YOU defend warp points? Mines? Satellites? Bases? Do you station fleets at strategic points?

As an aside, let me add that one of the things that keeps SE4 so incredibly deep and fresh is the many new and cool technologies our wonderful modders have given us.

Thank you, guys!!!!

[Fyron]

I tend to rely more on mobile defenses than static defenses. Unless you have only a few natural chokepoints into your empire, its hard to put adequate static defenses everywhere.

[Urendi Maleldil]

It's always fun to leave a few mines in a sector that lies along normal traffic lines (between planets, warp point to warp point, etc.). It won't stop a fleet fully equipped with mine sweepers, but it can be a nasty surprise for small groups of enemy reinforcements or enemy ships leaving the front to be repaired or resupplied.

[Combat Wombat]

Mines always for warp points, and maybe stations and sats once I have Wave Motion Guns.

[StarShadow]

My strategy is based (at least in part) by my own personal mod. Mainly (in this case) that I modded armor so that it's a viable choice instead of shields.

My usual staregy is to cover each WP with a shield-killing storm and station ships to guard. If I don't disable mines, I usually use those for a while in the beginning, to give me time to build and use training facilities.

[Suicide Junkie]

The simplest way to make stock armor competitive with shields is to simply remove the weapon mounts.

That way, Normal armor with one or two emissive plates is better than shields vs mesons or long range APB, but weaker against point blank APBs, or WMGs and other high damage per hit weapons.

[capnq]

My defenses vary depending on the stage the game has reached when I need to place them. In stock, satellites can be built from day one, but tend to obsolete once your opponent has enough Point Defense to clear them. For mines, you need to research Construction and Mines first, but run into the minesweeper problem you mentioned. Bases need Ship Construction 5 to get a hull large enough to build a Shipyard Ship. Although bases can't move, you can send a SYS out to scrap obsolete ones, if need be.

[StarShadow]

Suicide Junkie said:
The simplest way to make stock armor competitive with shields is to simply remove the weapon mounts.

That way, Normal armor with one or two emissive plates is better than shields vs mesons or long range APB, but weaker against point blank APBs, or WMGs and other high damage per hit weapons.

My intention was to make armor a viable replacement for shielding. To that end my (best, lvl 8)armor has 80kt structure, starting at level 4 armor becomes 'self-healing', not enough to help during battle, but after battle the armor plates will all regen (if any are left). Finally, I changed emissive armor so that it's no longer an armor and will negate (eventually at lvl 9) up to 40 damage.
Both to make it more useful in the late game, and to simulate that a well armored ship also armors it's internals as well.

It might sound over-powered but it's offset by the fact that crystal and other armor-skipping weapons become an extremely major threat. The Ionic Dispersor (engine killer), also becomes a major threat (shields block it, armor doesn't). Repairs can take longer due to large numbers of armor plates requiring replacement (if ships get stripped of armor in battle).

Personally I think it works out pretty well, and adds a bit more variety to the game. I got pretty tired of everyone only using shields all the time. It also made the (AI)crystal races into cannon fodder, with no one using armor their main weapon was practically useless.

Oh, and I wanted to keep weapon mounts....I like them too much.

[douglas]

Mines I just launch directly from planets.

Satellites I don't think I've ever used for anything but detecting cloaked ships yet.

I have used defense bases exactly once, in the 11-player free-for-all first round of the Race to SEV tournament. I was in the unpleasant position of being the most powerful empire and being at war with the second and third most powerful simultaneously. I closed warp points until one of my opponents had only one way to get to me and then stuck a giant fleet on that warp points to guard it while I dealt with my other enemy. The two front war lasted long enough that I had added about a dozen starbases to that garrison before I could finally start attacking on that front.

Most of the time my warp point defenses are handled entirely by mobile fleets.

[Artaud]

Hmmm...I've been playing SEIV for a long time and I've NEVER built a warp-closing or warp-opening component. I've also never built a Wave Motion Gun.

That's just another example of how deep SEIV is. As many games as I've played, there are so many strategies and so many components I have never used.