Defences do work against AI, its the online play where problems arise. The AI usually just flys right into the defences, but online people just jump past your frontline planets. This problem could be solved quite easily by boosting phase jump inhibitors in some way. One idea i like is PJIs blocking jumps between planets that both have them. Say, planet A is your capital and it has a PJI, planet B is your frontline planet wich also has a PJI, and C is an enemy planet. The enemy can freely jump from C to B (while still being slightly slowed down) But they cant jump from B to A. They would first have to destroy the PJI on planet B, this would make defences more useful, and it would give you more time to move a fleet there, but it would still allow attackers to bypass the planet, but they would have to pay for it in frigates, rather than being able to jump past planets without any damages like it is now.

Good ideas Kai. I think it all boils down to this for me

Defenses need to be
A) More powerful than mobile forces for the money
Effective and
C) Limited in use to where you need them

There are a lot of ways to accomplish this. But if static defenses aren't more effective than money spent on mobile units, why use them? Thats why I suggested making them use fleet supply (they need to be manned) but quite powerful. Maybe we could also link it to your tactical point idea.

This is exactly what I am doing in a 1 vs. 1

Problems are:

1) As I said, I have secured my own star system. This means, the enemy fleet is not retreating to an enemy planet, but to the star of my system.

2) To get at one of the AIs, I have to move a strong fleet to another system. If I do this, I probably won´t be able to hold my own planets against the other AIs.

3) Saving up to rebuild, would be very hard. With only 9 grav wells per system (and thus only 9 planets/asteroids under my control), resources are not realy aplenty. If I want to stockpile enough to build, say 4 capitals and 30 or 40 frigates, I would have to sit around at least 30 minutes doing nothing (no research whatsoever too), which would enable the AI to outproduce (raise cap/shiplimits) and crush me.

4) Even so, it *might* work against the AI (if they keep sending their medium sized fleets at my max defended planets). But I have experienced in my smaller games AI fleets going into hundreds of ships. There is no way in hell, what will be left at home could cope with an attackfleet even half that size.
And against human opponents (not that I have played a multi yet) it would spell doom.


In the stalemate situation I described above, loosing a large part of my fleet would mean defeat, plain and simple. I´m pretty much in a situation as the german High Seas Fleet in WWI. Too valuable to risk loosing it   


As suggested somewhere above, making the cap/ship limit a hard number might not be the best way to do it.

How about this:

Without any further research/developement you get:
0.3 capships per colonized planet
0.1 capships per colonized asteroid
The sum is always rounded up
30 ship points per colonized planet
10 ship points per colonized asteroid
The Homeworld gets a 70 point bonus to ship points.
Reserach/developement increses the basic values much the same way as it does the fixed number now.

I haven´t thought a whole lot about the numbers, but wanted to keep the "1 cap, 100 ship points" at the start of a game, and imagined, if I control 10 planets, I should be able to field at least 3 capital warships even without research.

Ship points might be a bit much. On the other hand. This would mean a fully colonized planet (like earth) could support a whooping 6 Cobalt class frigates. That doesn´t sound as too much.

Perhaps modify the numbers for the type of the planet (terran get full value, desert and arctic 2/3 and volcanic half that.

Also, how about removing the fixed amount of upkeep/support for the fleet (spending 75% of my income on fleet upkeep, even my fleet just got crushed and there are only a handfull of frigates left is kind of stupid)?
How about giving each ship an upkeep cost? Thinking of this, you could do away with the ship points all together, as a small empire couldn´t afford a large fleet anyway.

Yes, I know this isn´t original and was in quite a few games allready. IMO, it worked quite well there, so why fix it if it aint broken?

Quite honestly, the defensive problem really only crops up in 8 player FFAs or something.

Seriously, in what game, at all, ever, is 2v1 really anything but an autoloss against to poor schmuck that gets ganged up against? The key here is to realize -you will lose those planets-

If you're getting offers from other factions to attack one faction, even if he is your ally, take it! Often you can betray your neighboring allies while his fleet is away and make friends with someone else across the galaxy, giving you an easy access to planets and a new ally. The TEC's diplomacy tech works -wonders- for this. Basically, take a look at the map. Choose the biggest,baddest empire and work with him, betray your ally if you need to get his favor. Chances are if you got a mission against someone, you'll double team him when the time comes for betrayal and you win big.

@ Kai Allard

Ah thats nasty situation.... well at least you can go out in a blaze of fire . I'm not sure what i'd do in that situation either. Seems really bad, maybe something went "wrong" earlier.

I have.




I didn't.



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Here's a blue participation ribbon.




You're quickly wearing out your welcome - https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=402&aid=176593

This simply don't work. You are caped by the 2000 fleet points. And your production center don't matter. All your fleets spend all his time pursuing enemy fleets. And game ends here. Your opponents can't take you down. But you no have further ways to advance in the game. If you use any of our fleets in ofensive maneuvor this open a flank that logically your enemy exploits it. And even spending all your resources building up defences it doesn't make any meaningful difference.

The only solution is play on small maps. Further small maps games bottleneck. And this is due to an accumulation of small circunstancies.

1- Fleet don't scale with map size. The fleet cap is 2000 for a map either 1 star system and 6 planets. And also 2000 for several star system and hundreds of planets. Seems a bit illogical to me.

2- In actual state defenses are not very useful. Her price/performance ratio is horrible and at best can slow a bit SMALL attacking fleets. So for a viable defence is needed a fleet to support in defence. And a this point we are back to point 1.

3- PJI and impossibilty to make a effective defence/interception. Plus the mouse and cata issue "or galactic chairs game". Even having a fleet and a solid defence with PJI, turrets, hangars and repair stations, enemy fleets can pass through very easyli and with minor loses.

4- Siege frigates issue, even with patch 1.02 >10 siege frigates are a serius problem that can only be solved with fleet assistance.

5- Poor diplomatic options that lead that you usually end fighting vs all opponents.

And the in medium to large maps in about 6 hours of gameplay the game bottleneck and it's all...

I just returned from a medium random map game with 4 players, and this time I went on the attack. I have managed to wipe out 1 player and cripple the next. Next thing you know 3 of the players attack me from all fronts at the same time.

I had full defenses around around every planet. Every single one was bristled with turrets, hangars and repair stations, with max research for planet health. I couldn't split all my fleets to respond at once, and one by one the planets were picked. When I tried chasing one, the other player attacked me from the rear, when I chased him, the second one attacked from the top. It was as if I'm playing against all of them at once. But that's beside the point.

The major point here was that the planets were all heavily defended, and the enemy fleets went right through the defenses without even losing a major chunk of ships at all, and then kept advancing and advancing until I had to move my fleets to rendezvous with theirs. Playing hide and seek with the AI, or better yet - a game of catch is a real pain in the rear. Defenses should cost alot more, but should also do alot more, in my opinion.

Yeah, I guess this strategy is not that hard to commit properly, it's just that- again, and again, and yet again, defenses should be a more viable strategy, in my opinion.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for calling anyone that disagrees a moron, really adds alot to your point.

I disagree.... while I'm not sure about how easy it is to fortify against real opponents, you can fairly easily use planetary defenses to repel most normal enemy's attacks... unless they're bringing their fleet in to legitimately take your planets. But it's easy to repel a simple raid with defenses alone.

Ahh, there are RTS do existence where you can turtle up and win, I has been playing, Age of Empire, Age of Kings, Stronghold, Stronghold 2, Command and Coquers, Suprecommander, ect, You even't sometime can't rush in Hard A.I if large map. Mostly Hard and normal A.I., not easy A.I. Is why many people doing that, I wonder?

I have to agree on the point that, if defences costs more than a whole new third tier grade grand FLEET, and can't fend off a full first tier fleet, something is unbalanced, either costs and/or dmg done by defense installations...

Still with 1.02, if you want to win online you really need to focus on zergish fleets instead of enjoying the otherwise nicely done research trees and planetary development... a shame really.