[AE] Defences and farming (Learning the hard way)

So I've been attacked a couple of times, rejigged my cities now though so should be much harder but a couple of lessons learnt that I thought I'd share.

Defences - The positive
If you've not built any yet and haven't been attacked yet, try building some. Each one defence building at full strength is actually 5 units not 1. Plus they are stronger than the equivalent credits of units. Level 1 Missile Turrets only costs 20 credits (same as 1 Corvette) but gives 5x16/16 in strength, the equivalent of 20 Corvettes for the cost of one.
The buildings don't seem to get destroyed, once defeated and you liberate your occupied astro they start to recover but very slowly.

Defences - The negative
They take 1 each of area and population, plus energy. So barracks etc will almost certainly need ultimately demolishing if you build them now
Strength is scaled upon your defences. If you've not been attacked yet its 100%, but after getting conquered it drops to 0 and only recovers at the rate of 1% per hour unoccupied. IE it will take 4 days & 4 hours upon removing an occupier before it recovers fully. At least this is free though.

The problem is that if you (like me) wait until you're attacked before building defences they're built at 0% strength and slowly rising, rather than 100% strength. New ones built after conquest are just as damaged as old ones! So build them sooner than later. I've built 1 each of Barracks, Laser and Missile Turrets and am about to start Plasma Turrets. Ultimately will demolish Barracks and Laser.

Farming
I was shocked at how many credits they took from me when I was conquered - over 700 in one attack alone. I don't know yet how the mechanics work, but those credits did not come from my treasury I'm pretty sure. So its well worth farming if you can it seems.

Ouch. When you get occupied you lose 30% of your economy at that city. I just passed 24 hours since the pillaging and figured I'd regain my missing economy - but no. It regains at a measly 2 economy per day.

That means its going to take A WEEK to regain my missing economy. You really don't want to be conquered in this game it seems, so boost up those turrets and other defences while you can.

I'm going to be slowing down my economic growth because of this. I'm already at 9.59 and I don't want to hit 10 without having enough ships and defenses to survive the kinds of attacks Rand has been seeing. I figure I still have at least 4 Days of an upgraded account to use my income to colonize new planets, should at least spend a day or so building defenses for the ones I have.

If you downgrade eg. a spaceport or something can you go below level 10?

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Originally Posted by Illusions

I'm going to be slowing down my economic growth because of this. I'm already at 9.59 and I don't want to hit 10 without having enough ships and defenses to survive the kinds of attacks Rand has been seeing. I figure I still have at least 4 Days of an upgraded account to use my income to colonize new planets, should at least spend a day or so building defenses for the ones I have.

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You don't actually need very much. It depends on the economy of your planet, but 2 missiles and a single fighter are probably going to be enough to keep anyone from raiding you if you still have an economy in its 30s. You can go for a missile and a plasma if you're paranoid - it's unlikely anyone will touch that.

Especially considering there are weaker people out there. Why would they attack you if they can attack weaker alternatives?

Agreed. If you look likes tough nut then they'll go for the easier one, even if you're crackable.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

You don't actually need very much. It depends on the economy of your planet, but 2 missiles and a single fighter are probably going to be enough to keep anyone from raiding you if you still have an economy in its 30s. You can go for a missile and a plasma if you're paranoid - it's unlikely anyone will touch that.

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So 15 fighters, 5 corvettes, 1 destroyer, 2 missile turrets, and 1 plasma turret per base is a bit overkill then I assume? :noob: Going to have to start downgrading certain buildings soon and replacing them with better ones (ie. gas plants for fusion plants) since I'm running out of area. Stupid moons.

Depends on the economy. You can use the corvettes and destroyer once you start pillaging other players though, so it's not a bad investment. I've got a minimum of 2 missiles 1 plasma on each of my planets, and more than that on a couple. At least 25 fighters in orbit around each so far too.

I have 3 missile turrets + fighters on each planet. And some corvettes, a destroyer, and a frigate who move about a bit and hit undefended targets for now, while I'm building more.

Have you guys been pillaging the trade routes?

I found that 12 bombers, 12 fighters, a few corvettes, and 6 frigates can profitably take down 5 missile turrets.

Wraith, I have 6 planets. Should I make the 7th a crystalline (I already have 1) or another rocky?

Rocky.

Why?

Crystals aren't the limiter on economy at higher tech levels. Fertility & defences is more of a limiter, and metal is always useful.

So you'd recommend not getting crystallines at all from this point?

Probably, yes. Maybe in late game when we're building planetary rings they'll be useful again, once we get to the point where we feel unassailable. But that won't happen for a while.

Going to aim for a carrier tonight. 45 bombers wipe out 10 missile turrets by themselves.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Probably, yes. Maybe in late game when we're building planetary rings they'll be useful again, once we get to the point where we feel unassailable. But that won't happen for a while.

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Metal is probably better than crystal even/especially then. If you're getting credits from raids then production speed is more important.

I think we'll run out of most raid targets once the trial period ends.

There are NPCs later in the game - both easy and hard.