Defending Home Sector

you could build space stations or satellites around your planets and put weapon platforms there and camp some fleets at warp points... thats what I do.

Seeing as the AI is less than a threat, I leave my home system wide open... along with most other systems. In BM I do tend to defend the outermost systems though, since the AI tends to mount an offensive every once in a while.

For small worlds: Missile satellites + A few weapons platforms
For larger worlds: Recon satellite + Many weapons platforms

Make sure you keep them up to date as often as possible.

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Watch for my mod - codename: Dimensions - coming by Summer, 2007!

Weapon platforms are your friend. Especially in BM

Ach laddies, whatever the planet and situation, Weapon Platforms are yer friends.

Spend yer research points looking after platforms and the platforms will look after yoo.

(I luv to see those enemy fleets blown to hell)

(send cargo cruisers carrying WP's out with your invasion fleets and give an enemy fleet counterattack on a newly conquered planet the "meat grinder" treatment)

yup, weapon platforms are best for defense, especialy early in the game.
mines are to expensive to research so just hit some levels in weapon platforms so you can pack more firepower into it.
if you go for something else than missiles as your favourite weapon also go some levels in mounts.
carrying wp´s with invasion fleets is also my strategy and it works fine.

Satellites are relatively cheap, low maintenance and guard the Warp Points instead of the planets. Weapon Platforms take up a lot of space on smaller planets and then make it hard to build units on those planets.

You can also move the satellites to your outer borders as you expand.

Unless the "WP range is measured from centre of planet" bug is fixed, WPs must have long-range seekers or modded mounts to really be effective - especially on large planets. Homeworlds are Large if "all planet sizes equal" have been set. Then again, if it's a low-tech start then WPs would still be great since damage is spread over them (virtually all WP armour must be destroyed before a single weapon component on them can be hit) so if you have many, planetary defence is just about indestructable (assuming you're not being one-sidedly bombed from beyond WP max range).

Otherwise, suicide fighters (there's a bug at present making them way too overpowered) and satellites (in plentiful numbers so there's enough on side of the planet the enemy is coming from). Inferior to weapon platforms, but they can compliment them quite well. Ships and Bases should not be the first things you build to defend your Home World.

Now, Warp points... that's another matter.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Are you sure its measured from center?

In some battle, i had planet with WPs with CM lvl1 and ship with CM lvl1 and red circle around planet was bigger than around my ship.

Yeah, i think the bug with WP's ranges was fixed ages ago! the range is measure from the surface of the planet!

I'm not suffering from insanity, i;m enjoying every minute of it!

Do no interfere in the affairs of Dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

i personally prefer satellites - true they aren't shielded by the planet during bombardment (you people hiding behind your population, you aggravate me...)

but they are more flexible, can be moved to wp's as our giant said, and to me- perhaps best of all- as my sat. tenders move them forward, should we get jumped, the satewllites get launched - and my fleet forms up around them.
wagon circles, anyone?

Its all about flexibility!

(which btw: try my trick:
make freighters that have 1 satellite bay, 1 mine or drone or fighter bay...
this workhorse wont launch as FAST, but its CAPACITY will far outshine all-launcher vechicles, and it's FLEXIBILITY - all-purpose troop transport, sat. tender, etc. - is unparalelled. The medium freigther should handle repair bays, a necessity for any Tender.

Enjoy!

Anyone who wants power; by definition, cannot be trusted with it...

Once the "units launched into an existing unit group don't get their initial supplies" bug is fixed, then I'll return to satellites. As typically, I run around with fleets of 1 satellite launching ship and many cargo ships. I can easily dump 60+ satellites on a way point in early game in a single turn, but if I do that then only a fraction of them will have supplies, meaning I need further ships with tons of supply storage to then feed them the deficient amount, before scrapping them (as they'd be inefficient to resupply the normal way). Heck, I suppose I could 'cheat' and do that with satellites/drones instead of true supply ships.

In fact, once Drones are fixed, I'd much prefer having drones than satellites on the Versatility Ships - so long as they don't suicidally ram no matter what order I give, I can outfit them with ship weapons and they'd move faster than normal ships. Mmm, but maybe drones were never intended to be like this (in that case, don't let drones be armed with ordinary weapons) - in that case I'm at least going to wait until I can manually select which drones go to which targets.

Incidentally, my preferred troop transport is a frigate. Quantity is useless as a) I only have to deal with Militia troops or b) I bombard the planet until there are no enemy troops left and then drop so that again, I only have to deal with Militia. Now, if this was an intelligently defended planet with both tons of weapon platforms and troops (so I can't safely bombard the planet free of troops), then I'd have to use something other than One Frigate.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.