DSP veterans I need some advice about planetary defence [Thanks to Solve]

[Rymorea]

First of all why I need advice, I have carpal tunnel syndrome after 30+ year at IT so I play so slow like a turttle. Before DF I play this game more then 2000+ hours but DF too new to me. So I start a new save with DF at passive default settings. After 200+ hours finally I reach white cubes only at starter star, yea I am realy slow to process. Now DF every where, yes we share the planets :)

Now I want to slowly get rid of them by one by to reach other stars. At the same time to block to come again to my planets. I look a lot of videos and search google but they only show how to farm not how to defence, only say use planetary shields. It is enough to put planetary shields to protection and how many of it I do need ? I don't think only shields needed. So how many turrets / cannons or other war buildings needed I don't know. And also do I need big production ammo chain to feed the turrets / cannons / ships ? Do I need to put a lot of signal towers and Battlefield Analysis Bases all of the planet ?

What are your advice to me? It is realy help to continue to play or start from the beginning and adjust the DF settings to minimum instead of not at default to restrict DF ?

Edit : What I am done after your advices...
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- @ Nelivan Thanks to your links, I find a more complex planet wise blueprint. Which is contain 60 Signal Towers, 22 Planetary Shield Generator, and a lot of Solar panel with power towers. I build it without disturbing hive.
https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-signal-tower-planetary-shield-100-with-more-solar-panel
- As your advices I fill up my fleet slots and destroy the relay and then base one by one. At the same time I start to build planetry shield towers and signal towers.
- When all planet safe to new comers, I put some Missile turrets and plasma cannons for future defence.
- When I clean up all 4 planets, the hives has no resource, and one of my planet too close to hive range so plasma cannon destroy it easily.

Thank you all for your advices, take care happy playruns...

[Snopzet]

On default settings it shouldn't be that hard. You properly don't even need shield generators, since df is passive, new bases won't trouble you. There are two problems you need to tackle for your factory planets. Defending against the raid, after killing the relay stations and beating the hive attack. Last one is trivial. The hive will send 5 ships, your corvettes can easily deal with, while you go afk on the planet they attack. The first one might be problematic, depending on how all the bases react. I'd say: Save the game and just try it. The important part is: kill the relays first and wait for the bases to go offline (lights turns off). This takes 2 min or so. Now you only have to deal with the existing units. With just one base, you simply go all in. Fly with the mecha above the core and let your attack drones clear everything. Doing this right, you won't lose a single drone.

If you like to avoid new bases anyway... 8 shield generators. The hive attacks so rarely you don't even need do kill the space attacks. Just sit it out.

[josmith7]

The Dark Fog will not start new bases in any territory covered by a powered up planetary shield.

8 shield generators, properly placed, IS enough to prevent future base landings over an entire planet.
* 1 generators at each pole.
* Then the remaining 6 on the equator, spaced evenly (so, 60 degrees apart)



If you clear a planet and set this up the DF will not come back to it. So there is no requirement to use missile launchers or plasma guns to defend a cleared planet.

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

1) Missile Turrets. If you can clear the poles make a ring of turrets along the tropic lines. Run a belt under them. Feed the belt from a depot.
2) Signal Towers. Once you have a cleared space, place towers along one of the meridians to connect the poles.
3) Blanket. keep making lines of towers every 45 degrees. With 8 of these lines you should be able to clear out the bases anywhere on the planet.

If you need help just reaching the poles, then place a signal tower and surround it with Missile Turrets. Copy and paste.

[Nellvan]

On default settings you only need very little additional infrastructure, plastering missile turrets everywhere is overkill. One small ring around a pole is enough (or a small cluster where ever) - 12 to 18, maybe a bit more in the beginning when they're low tech.

Battlefield analysis bases pretty much only for farming, when you need everything to be repaired (and loot to be collected) without you being there all the time.

You DO need: Signal towers to expand the missile range, either placing them by hand near the fog bases, or use a full grid blueprint.

Signal towers: https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-signal-tower-grid-full-planet-coverage

All in one solar, signal, shields grid (if you're not building stuff on the poles, put shield gen+tower there too) https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-signal-tower-grid-full-planet-coverage

If you don't plan to aggro the hive in a system (don't attack it, don't attack the relays, don't have a dyson swarm/sphere) you only need 8 shield gens, as josmith7 said. Once shields are up you can either pave the darkfog holes over or put a thermal power plant on them, then the relays will leave. With shield coverage they can't build any new bases, so when you got rid of all relays you could dismantle the signal towers and turrets.
8 shield BP that leaves the poles free, if you want to use them for other things: https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-planetary-shield-minimal-cover

To defend a planet from an agressive hive, (e.g. dyson system) ... I had plasma turrets when I started my first dyson sphere, a ring of 16 around each pole have been more than enough so far. The missile turrets never even got to fire, as far as I've seen.

[robfilrhijar]

Originally posted by josmith7:

The Dark Fog will not start new bases in any territory covered by a powered up planetary shield.

8 shield generators, properly placed, IS enough to prevent future base landings over an entire planet.
* 1 generators at each pole.
* Then the remaining 6 on the equator, spaced evenly (so, 60 degrees apart)



If you clear a planet and set this up the DF will not come back to it. So there is no requirement to use missile launchers or plasma guns to defend a cleared planet.

Thank you i was wondering how they should be placed.

[ZeldaFreak]

When you can maintain a stable rocket production, its very easy on normal difficulty. You can clear any planet with them. You only need rockets, rocket launchers, power and signal towers.

Just now I landed on the planet in the black hole system and cleared it pretty easily. The start on a new planet is tricky. Do not build any power production, until you are ready, because then the threat starts to rise and it can be very quick.
Pick a space where you have enough space. Put down your tower for requesting rockets and maybe batteries. They will arrive, even when you don't have power, but the tower in your main base with these resources, obviously need the materials, warp cores and ships, to transport.
Place down some rocket launchers and supply them with rockets and place signal towers around your base, to cover everything. Also some bases for repair and collecting might be wise. When you are ready, supply everything with power and the threat will rise up quickly. Don't be afraid to use the overdrive for the launchers.

Between raids, you can focus on bringing down a base. Just throw down signal towers near the base but keep your distance. I throw down like 3 or 4 close together as close as I can and I have one further back. You will need to put down 1 or 2 closer, to get everything. Put down a thermal generator on the hole and you can go to the next base.
New bases might appear, while you do this, but new bases can be brought down easily, because they have no defense.

To keep the planet safe, put down a signal tower on each pole and on the equator. 120° apart should be enough (so 3 in total) but more also works.
Important is to reconfigure the rocket launchers and enable upper air, so all 4 are enabled. The simplest way is to demolish every rocket launcher, build one, configure it and the copy it (shift + left mouse button) and place it.

This should destroy every relay station, before they can drill a hole. Enabling this option at the beginning is bad, because attacking an existing relay station gives way to much threat. A shield is not necessary but maybe better.

I also want to point out to be careful about game updates. Currently it looks very unbalanced. Not that the Dev changes everything and now this defense is not sufficient. Would be a shame when after the update, your other bases get destroyed and your supply chain now is broken and your save might get unplayable.

[Thalaron]

If the game is going too fast there is a tiny mod called Bullet Time that lets you pause at any moment so you can look around, place buildings and consider your next move without hurry. I love it, because I found that in this game I spend more time planning what to do, than actually executing that plan.

https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/BulletTime/

[Swat__Raptor]

The thing that helped me deal with higger and higher dark fog difficulty settings is having defensive/offensive and production line blue prints ready to go. Blue prints for every situation.

At higher difficulties you have less time so it's best to have as much planning figured out before hand.

I have blue prints for my initial building mall. For all the buildings up to interstellar logistics station. It's broken up into blueprint segments of a size that I'll be able to use at lower tech lvls. If I can just plop down the production line for all the armerments and weapon platforms I'll need then I can just worry about hooking up the raw materials.