How do you design your defense stations to kill off Xenons at JG

[Sesikee]

I usually put up a administration center and connect bridges to it then some hangers then use discs to surround it. It feels underpowered.

[ExavierMacbeth]

My favorite Defence Station Design
https://imgur.com/si4Nda4

If you do it right you can place the station right next to the gate & after the plot is placed expand it over a gate or another station. Basically anything that comes out of the gate gets murdered from all directions.

Mixture of Heavy Beams, Heavy Cannons, Medium Lasers/Flak, Medium Missile turrets set for anti-capital. The 4 docks are for launching Defence Drones & the Piers make it easier for me to bulk ship in missile & drone components.

The Gap in the middile of the dock area is for an Argon Admin center if I decided I wanted ownership of the sector whos gate I am locking down :)

EDIT: Plot size ends up being 3x3 3x3 7x13. Though I have a shorter version for when I am not playing with the VRO mod that makes L weapons have much higher ranges.

Took me 4hrs & 3 attempts to get that in place Hatikvah's CHoice gate... and physically ramming 2 Xenon Ks with a destroyer to keep them out of range of the early platforms & builders before the first guns came online lol. That was fun.

[Playbahnosh]

Wait, so Defense Stations actually work? Since when? Do they fire on ships in range now?

I thought stations only used their defenses when under attack, I couldn't even manually set station turrets to Attack All Enemies because it immediately switches back to "---".

[ExavierMacbeth]

The only time I have seen defense statiosn switch back to "---" is when they actually don't have any functional turrets. If you fly past the defence platform in a ship & actually look at the turret spots you might just see turret contstruction plots rather than turrets.

This usually happens if you build the module & release the builder (job finished) before the Advanced Electronics & Turret Components for the turret get delivered to Build Storage. Apparently the builder decides "I will do it later" and moves on to the next module... It will add them later if it gets the materials but if all the modules are built it doesn't wait. Just declared Job Done and moves on.

Only fix for this is often to deconstruct that defence module & order it rebuilt.

But yea as long as I ensure the weapons actually ge built, The manager defaults all turrets to "Attack all Enemies" and all Missile Turrets to "Attack Capital Ships". And happily open fire on everything that comes into range.

Part of the reason for the Admin/Docks being so far from the gate is to have time to gank the fighters that go through the gate at Travel Speed. They come out about 10km from the gat and right into gun range :)

[Playbahnosh]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

If you fly past the defence platform in a ship & actually look at the turret spots you might just see turret contstruction plots rather than turrets.

Yes, I've seen that with defense modules after the "---". I switched to "External View", and I did see the turrets weren't built correctly. I assumed they were still under construction but the builder was no longer assigned. I reassigned the builder, it meandered around for a few minutes then unassigned itself again. So I actually have to deconstruct the entire station and construct it again? (My Defense station is only an Admin module and a frackton of defense modules).

[ExavierMacbeth]

pretty much have to move the Defence platform so it gets deconstructed back to build storage & then rebuilt. Thats why all my Bridges & Disks are on the outer edge of things. If i have to deconstruct it and rebuilt it I only have to move & rebuilt 1-3 modules.

You might also try editing the module Loadout & changign the turret config around. Maybe that will trick the builder in to just rebuilding the turrets & not force you to rebuild the whole module. I know it works when I swapped out some Flak for extra Medium Beams (too much friendly fire when it was all flak)... but I dono if it will work with broken turrets.

EDIT: Just be sure if you do the deconstruct that your build storage has all the Electronics, Turret Components, Field Coils, & Shield COmponents before you assign a builder to rebuild the thing.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Btw here is what the station looks like in space in External View
https://imgur.com/faijGHZ

The trick to lining it up is to line up the 2x2x2x2x2x2 default build plot with the gate as close as you can get it. You can easily line it up with the gates box. Then expand your plot afterward :)

Any Xenon K or I that comes through that get gets hit with AoE Missiles & Plasma from every direction which quickly strips most of its turrets & pulls its teeth.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

My favorite Defence Station Design
https://imgur.com/si4Nda4

Fascinating.

How did you figure out you could just put defence disks in "mid-air" like that? I would never have thought of it.

But yeah, nothing is going to get through that in a million years. Shred-o-matic.

[Playbahnosh]

Hmm, interesting. I always thought modules would only function if they are connected to the main complex. So you actually can construct defense modules "solo"? Do they actually fire on things? What about missile turrets, where do they get the ammo from?

[Bozz 💀]

Originally posted by Playbahnosh:

Hmm, interesting. I always thought modules would only function if they are connected to the main complex. So you actually can construct defense modules "solo"? Do they actually fire on things? What about missile turrets, where do they get the ammo from?

Mass trafic maybe, NPC factions also place defense modules like that sometimes.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Basically that was the original purpose of the frame around the gate. I hadit connected to all the defence platforms & the dock area... then just selected the connecting pieces and removed the module connecting them. I find that leaving them in mid-air like that causes fewer traffic collision issues than having connecting bars... even if the connecting bars would add extra Hull HP to the station as a whole. Thats why the frame around the gate still survives in newer designs. Gives the Xenon something to shoot at that isn't important :P

Yes the turrets fire & the missile launchers draw ammo properly from the base.

Honestly I think production modules also work disconnected like that as the whole "plot" is still considered a single station though I like my over engineered production stations with everything connected lol

I like to believe "Lore Wise" the station uses the same cargo drones it uses for L ships to move wares about the complex. After all if I had a 20km across station, even connected, I would have internal cargo drone lanes anyway.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

My favorite Defence Station Design
https://imgur.com/si4Nda4

But yeah, nothing is going to get through that in a million years. Shred-o-matic.

Vanilla I would agree with you... VRO mod is another story lol
Like I said it took me a while to get the first few defence disks online because the Xenon just kept a constant stream of ships going through the gates. And the AI's heavier use of missiles (especially the AOE ones) kept disarming the ambush disks...

It will flatten any single assault but even OOS it can go down to attrition, which is why I keep adding to it :)

[Sesikee]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

But yeah, nothing is going to get through that in a million years. Shred-o-matic.

Vanilla I would agree with you... VRO mod is another story lol
Like I said it took me a while to get the first few defence disks online because the Xenon just kept a constant stream of ships going through the gates. And the AI's heavier use of missiles (especially the AOE ones) kept disarming the ambush disks...

It will flatten any single assault but even OOS it can go down to attrition, which is why I keep adding to it :)

WOW! Thank you for the extremely informative posts. I never thought about surrounding the gates with a frame. I just slapped a admin center and some discs around it and on top right in front of it and it would do okay but eventually gets destroyed. This is brilliant. Can't wait for 3.2 to come and you can share this design (if you're willing)

[Playbahnosh]

Originally posted by Sesikee:

Can't wait for 3.2 to come and you can share this design (if you're willing)

You can do it right now if you switch to the beta branch.

[Sesikee]

Originally posted by Playbahnosh:

Originally posted by Sesikee:

Can't wait for 3.2 to come and you can share this design (if you're willing)

You can do it right now if you switch to the beta branch.

I'm afraid to do that as it may have bugs or something that can kill my own saved game.

Speaking of which, omg, I totally spaced out last night and deleted my own saved game so I wouldn't overwrite. I did this while in the game and caused the whole thing to crash. Pretty damn hysterical yet frustrating as I lost about 45 minutes of progression. *thud head on desk*

[Playbahnosh]

Originally posted by Sesikee:

Originally posted by Playbahnosh:

You can do it right now if you switch to the beta branch.

I'm afraid to do that as it may have bugs or something that can kill my own saved game.

Thanks, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time XDDD

You do realize what game you're playing, right? Saying an X game might have bugs is like saying the ocean might have water :D Opting in to the beta branch only means you'll get patches sooner, which, ironically enough, might even fix bugs.