planet defense to weak

[Nettie]

seems to me it's to easy to capture planets. this game is to offensive.

[RCMidas]

You can make some planets really tough nuts to crack, but it requires investment into their Defence branch, all the military slots you can fill, and ideally a starbase. The more you invest into actually fortifying your systems, the longer it will take for them to fall, and perhaps the hostile fleet will even flee if sufficiently damaged.

[SilentScav]

I've like to see planets shoot off some missiles, or even send a few strike squadrons and such at incoming enemies.

[Vandom]

I think the main issue is that there are too few defence slots. You wont stop anything unless you get at least 1 item to increase the number of slots.

Many structures feel underwhelming, like the hangars just have too few squadrons. I feel it should be a LOT easier to house and maintain strike craft from a stationary structure over a mobile ship.

The lack of PD on anything but starbases also hurts a lot, which is another thing stationary defences should have an abundance of.

[IIFriggII]

i like its not as strong as in "sin;rebellion", a single starbase could hold off an extremely big army, which was broken, honestly.

and defence is still incredibly strong; mostly now bc off passive buffs, healing, resurrection, regen, dmg-reduction, massive-ultra-weapons etcetc.
you can get a large advantage due to these buffs, combined with repairs+structure support it can be a pain to crack open :P

a few things;
starbases can make the planet immune to dmg untill the starbase is dead; if you max out it's defensive it will take a while even for a titan army to crack it.

if you max out the defensives off the planet it will hold itself for a long time, need dedicated anti-planet ships to do anything.

if you use global abilities advent, you can basically make a planet impossible to take, if you just spam it on the planet when off cd.
if you use phase-gates you can bring your army in extremely fast.
if you utilize free units you always have extra meat. etc.

each race has some incredibly good defensive setups;
but No, and luckily so, a fully upgraded starbase with full upgraded defenses will not win a fight vs. a 2k army with titans in it, or make it close; but throw in 500-1000 supply and it will absolutely wrack the attacker.

base defense is quite expensive both to research and built to a point where it can hold half decent for the game stage you in;
so every planet which you don't tank up will easily be changed.

also be aware that unity, advent, can take over planets Easily if they have cultural dominated influence in that system, which their globels can do reasonably decently;
as such if you don't watch out you can lose important planets, having to kill them off and rebuilt them from scratch: so it's important to keep your anti-cultural defence up vs. advent ^^

[Nerva Matapan]

Honestly, I've uninstalled over this. Defenses are so weak that a planet is often lost before a fleet even 3 jumps away can arrive on-scene. I don't expect planetary defenses to be insurmountable, but if I invest 20,000 credits (plus metal/crystal) or something in defending a given body, I expect to see a 20,000 credit ROI in buying me the time to reposition units.

Again, this all comes back to the bad AI, which is designed to only attack in such overwhelming force that it internally assumes something like a 90-95 percent likelihood of victory. What this essentially means is that the AI never gambles ships, and thereby always assembles deathstacked fleets that overwhelm whatever they strike... or sit passively doing absolutely nothing until such time as the AI feels it has achieved forces necessary to do that.

All of this is in marked contrast to the first game, where the AI tended to more poke-and-prod multiple opponents/planets at once with smaller, more manageable forces. Yeah, you still saw huge bodies of ships, but the AI in the original was willing to experimentally lose numbers whereas this one just isn't.

There's too much concentration of forces in SOASE II - there's too much harboring of strength. I'm just not satisfied with this experience. Is this a more stable product than the first game? Absolutely. Is it even half as fluid and fun? No.

[Nettie]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

You can make some planets really tough nuts to crack, but it requires investment into their Defence branch, all the military slots you can fill, and ideally a starbase. The more you invest into actually fortifying your systems, the longer it will take for them to fall, and perhaps the hostile fleet will even flee if sufficiently damaged.

but I'm talking about your planet defense getting taking down so easily by bombardment. The starbase for example doesn't stop that. I have always built a starbase still planet goes down before i can make 2 medium length jumps to save it. In the first game you get way more time.

[z|A|bik2]

Originally posted by CJS:

but I'm talking about your planet defense getting taking down so easily by bombardment. The starbase for example doesn't stop that. I have always built a starbase still planet goes down before i can make 2 medium length jumps to save it. In the first game you get way more time.

Starbase can be upgraded with a module to prevent bombardment damage. Also, if you find your defences out of position, you can rotate them (including the starbase!) in the direction of the threat - and all structures will move around the planetary orbit.

I also recommend getting the item from minor faction, which gives you health and military slots, as health boost is substantial, while the 10 extra slots will make sure to help your turrets to shoot down any planet bombers :)

[Vandom]

Originally posted by z|A|bik2:

Also, if you find your defences out of position, you can rotate them (including the starbase!) in the direction of the threat - and all structures will move around the planetary orbit.

I haven't used this because it doesn't really feel like it matter much where defences are, they just get rolled quickly if the enemy has a fleet, and mine is two jumps away.

The best way I've found to stall is to have defences all over the place, as far from the invaders so they take longer to run around and kill them.

Defences feel like they aren't worth the investment unless I am placing a couple for decoys. But buying all the planet upgrades for those orbit defences slots, then buying the structures is a large investment in time and resources that has a delayed payoff, one that never feels like it is worth the investment.

Maybe if planet defences had firing arcs where they had directional shields and powerful weapons that would make the mechanic more viable. That could also buy more time forcing fleets to move around to engage, or more costly for quick head on fights.

[Antpile]

Originally posted by Vandom:

Originally posted by z|A|bik2:

Also, if you find your defences out of position, you can rotate them (including the starbase!) in the direction of the threat - and all structures will move around the planetary orbit.

I haven't used this because it doesn't really feel like it matter much where defences are, they just get rolled quickly if the enemy has a fleet, and mine is two jumps away.

If they are bringing a big enough fleet to easily roll over your starbase + whatever military structures you built to cover it, that is not a small fleet. That is a pretty major fleet. Because starbases are very tanky even without items. If you build defensive items on them, they get even more ridiculously tanky.

So the problem you had here isn't that your defenses weren't sufficient... It's that you somehow let a massive enemy fleet catch you totally by surprise. Don't forget to keep making scouts now and then throughout the game. Study techs that let you see enemies jumping in from further away.

But most importantly, always try and keep tabs on where the bulk of your enemy's forces are. It's pretty hard to hide a fleet of that size, especially if it is anywhere near your border.

On the other hand, if you were aware that massive fleet was sitting just one jump away, ready to strike at any moment... Well, you should have had a decently sized fleet of your own there to back up your defenses. You don't need to match their numbers, not when you got a starbase and hangars as backup. But you can't expect your defenses to handle a massive fleet all on their own.

[Vandom]

Originally posted by Antpile:

So the problem you had here isn't that your defenses weren't sufficient... It's that you somehow let a massive enemy fleet catch you totally by surprise.

I can know exactly where an enemy fleet is, but that doesn't mean I can afford to assign a fleet to it. There are often other fronts to worry about. I just want to be able to spend my resources to muck up that fleet, long enough till my own fleet can find time to come help.

The resources I spend on defences are best used buying time. TTK is lower than travel time through a gravity well, so the best defence is one that is spread all over a gravity well, forcing the enemy fleet to run around.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Give the stationary defenses the same range (or higher with upgrades) as any attacking anti-building unit (torpedo cruisers or alike) and make them a priority target, unless ordered manually otherwise. They are stationary after all, with a planet or asteroid behind, they should be able to target things further away. This slows down the loss of the attacked planet, as it is now able to defend against some of the attackers

[HappyCamperBubbleBelow]

I feel like anti structure units shouldn't be out ranged, but Missile spam shouldn't be viable death blob to all defences including star bases.

Oddly enough, starbases in the beta patch are even weaker to missile spam.

If you got missile upgrade you could at least shoot back and kill some missile ships, now if they have a few flak ships the starbase missiles are hard blocked while the missile mass while reduced some by the star bases PD is not blocked.

Originally posted by Nicolai Maximov:

Give the stationary defenses the same range (or higher with upgrades) as any attacking anti-building unit (torpedo cruisers or alike) and make them a priority target, unless ordered manually otherwise. They are stationary after all, with a planet or asteroid behind, they should be able to target things further away. This slows down the loss of the attacked planet, as it is now able to defend against some of the attackers

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by HappyCamperBubbleBelow:

I feel like anti structure units shouldn't be out ranged, but Missile spam shouldn't be viable death blob to all defences including star bases.

Oddly enough, starbases in the beta patch are even weaker to missile spam.

]

This, exactly this...

[Lothair888]

For a game to be quick and fun you cannot turtle to easily. Otherwise the game will be too static. It feels worse to loose fleets while hitting a brick wall that a planet or two during engagements. Territory should switch between players (at least base on my experience in Sins 1)

[Mander]

Planetary Defenses feel a little weak atm, I've to agree.
A fully upgraded starbase struggles to remain alive even against medium sized fleet in late game, even when supported by regeneration bays. It is especially evident against (or when using) Vasari, thank to their phase missiles. A slight buff to health and armor ( and maybe higher ROF) would do wonders for them.