Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?

[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.

[bearclaw]

I like using Sats for warp defense. Once I get sat layers in enough numbers that I can pick up and/or deploy 100 in a single shot, they make for an amazing defense. At the very least, they'll deal heavy damage to a big fleet, and can take out medium to small fleets. No maintenance, easy to build and relatively easy to replace with newer versions. They make for a quick defense which I usually support with a fleet of ships and in areas where the border will maintain for a while I sometimes build fighter-launching bases, but that's usually only in locations that I have no intention of expanding for the forseeable future.

[Artaud]

capnq said:
I usually don't use "all systems connected" for solo games, so I've had a couple where I started off trapped in an isolated pocket of systems, and had to go after warp openers early on. I've designed closers, but don't think I've ever built one.

I always use "all systems connected." How do warp openers work? Can you pick the system where you want the other end to appear?

In my current STM game EVERYBODY except the Ferengi is at war with me, even though I'm ranked only 9th in a 20-empire game. Strangely enough, none of the other empires is at war with any other.

My biggest threat comes from the Kazon. I have been trying to keep them out of one particular system that they have been trying to take for at least a couple game-years. Hence my above question about defending warp points.

They've destroyed 3 of my 4 colonies in the system, but at last I've gone to a 50+ satellites/several light cruisers defense at my 2 vulnerable warp points. One warp point is backed up by a group of 140 shuttles (fighters) stationed over a nearby planet. So far I have been able to stop the Kazon multiple times. They have been sending forces as small as 1-2 ships and as large as 7 cruisers.

They are way ahead of me in weapon technology. I have spent a lot of effort developing atmosphere converters and gas colony technologies in an effort to make the best of the few usable systems I have.

The Bynar occupy a system on a choke point between the 2 halves of Federation territory. They have now declared war, so I am preparing a fleet of minesweepers to eliminate THEIR warp point defense so I can deal with them.

Some SEIV players have issues with the AI, but I've never had complaints about it. The AI is much more efficient than I am.

In my rush to get on to the next turn I often forget to give orders to planets or fleets. I spend lots of research points on things the AI never bothers with, so the AI usually has a big advantage in weaponry and ship design.

It all evens out. As long as the AI mimics a reasonable imitation of a sentient being, I'm happy. I think it does just fine.

To avoid starting another thread I'll ask another question:

Who out there uses resource bases? Resource satellites?

[StarShadow]

One tip for sat/WP defense, drop a shield killing storm over the WP and, depending on the size of the sats you have, stick ionic dispersers on (some/all of) your defense sats. Although unless your ships are armored it'd be best to keep them away. This works even better if your enemy uses cloaking devices, as he'll run out of supples fairly quickly. At that point, I'd recommend boarding and capturing as many as possible, send over a repair ship or three, load them into a pre-existing fleet (to give them some supplies), take them to a planet and either retrofit, or analyze them.

[capnq]

Artaud said: How do warp openers work? Can you pick the system where you want the other end to appear?

Yes, you can pick any system within the component's range. The only thing you can't control is where in the target system the warp point opens, but even that is predictable depending on the relative positions of the two systems.

At most ten warp points can be opened to or from the same system, and a System Gravitational Shield Facility will prevent them from opening in its system (requires Shields 10).

Who out there uses resource bases? Resource satellites?

I use both so rarely that I'll occaisionally forget that I have the option to use them.