PPV Strats w/o high mineral use

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Since STO's dont seem to provide PPV, what are some of your strats to protect your high pop colonies without massive mineral use?

[Bremen]

I just use ground units. They don't provide PPV, but they do prevent unrest, so in practice it works out (with the only real difference being ground units on one colony won't avoid protests for lack of PPV on another colony in the same system).

[Malorn]

Ground units are the way to go for isolated/small colonies.

But if you want honest PPV, then the way to go is large amounts of engineering spaces. That gives the ship massively low rates of failure, meaning maint supply consumption is kept very low. Also, don't build for endurance, but for firepower and survival until that firepower is used. First of all PPV only cares about weapons, nothing else. But also, if needed to actually defend your colonies, you will likely either be swatting flies or facing overwhelming power. In the latter case it WILL die, so the important question would how much damage it does before it dies. Your point defense will be overwhelmed, and multiple salvos won't be big enough to do much of anything.

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Thanks for the ideas.  I've conquered a primitive world with a large pop...that is now part of my empire.  Maybe its time to adjust the atmosphere a bit.

[bsh]

Thanks for the ideas.  I've conquered a primitive world with a large pop...that is now part of my empire.  Maybe its time to adjust the atmosphere a bit.

I tried that once... They built infrastructure way faster than I could do terraforming.

[Vandermeer]

Thanks for the ideas.  I've conquered a primitive world with a large pop...that is now part of my empire.  Maybe its time to adjust the atmosphere a bit.

I tried that once... They built infrastructure way faster than I could do terraforming.

For even faster 'terraforming', spawn an NPR (rebel group?) and unleash increased radiation ammunition on them.

[Andrew]

Cheap garrison troops can help. Units with  just infantry armed with Light personal weapons do a perfectly good job of reducing unrest while being cheap

[nuclearslurpee]

Cheap garrison troops can help. Units with  just infantry armed with Light personal weapons do a perfectly good job of reducing unrest while being cheap

To clarify on this, since it's a common misconception: INF+PWL are not magically cheaper, in build points per ton, than INF+PW or other INF-based formations. That is, 5,000 tons of INF+PWL costs the same as a 5,000-ton battalion of INF+PW, INF+CAP, INF+LAV, ...

However, the police strength calculation uses the square root of unit size times the number of units to calculate police strength. So 5,000 tons of INF+PWL provides SQRT(3) * 1,666 * 0.01 = 28.6 police strength, while 5,000 tons of INF+PW provides SQRT(5) * 1,000 * 0.01 = 22.4 police strength. Thus PWL provide the most police strength per BP even though they are not cheaper per ton to build.

Personally, I use my regular infantry regiments as colony garrisons as they are more combat-effective if caught in a defensive battle and can be "temporarily" reassigned to offensive actions unlike pure-PWL formations if more forces are needed. I am already building them so I may as well find them something to do during peace time.

[ArcWolf]

Cheap garrison troops can help. Units with  just infantry armed with Light personal weapons do a perfectly good job of reducing unrest while being cheap

To clarify on this, since it's a common misconception: INF+PWL are not magically cheaper, in build points per ton, than INF+PW or other INF-based formations. That is, 5,000 tons of INF+PWL costs the same as a 5,000-ton battalion of INF+PW, INF+CAP, INF+LAV, ...

However, the police strength calculation uses the square root of unit size times the number of units to calculate police strength. So 5,000 tons of INF+PWL provides SQRT(3) * 1,666 * 0.01 = 28.6 police strength, while 5,000 tons of INF+PW provides SQRT(5) * 1,000 * 0.01 = 22.4 police strength. Thus PWL provide the most police strength per BP even though they are not cheaper per ton to build.

Personally, I use my regular infantry regiments as colony garrisons as they are more combat-effective if caught in a defensive battle and can be "temporarily" reassigned to offensive actions unlike pure-PWL formations if more forces are needed. I am already building them so I may as well find them something to do during peace time.

I still like using a few PWL battalions that "hop" between new colonies and keep the unrest down until i move/build more permanent Defensive battalions to the colony.

That said, every colony gets Maintenance yards or a maintenance station large enough to support a few light cruisers (30-50k tons) so providing PPV to any system other then my home system early game is never a problem.

[GodEmperor]

Since STO's dont seem to provide PPV, what are some of your strats to protect your high pop colonies without massive mineral use?

Patrol fleets assigned to subsector commands. And ground forces.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The role of infantry with PWL weapons is not to destroy an invading force but to delay them until a relief force can arrive to reinforce the colony. For this purpose they work really well. They also will suppress unrest in outlying colonies where you don't have patrol ships cheaper than other troops.

I place PWL infantry on any small colony for cheap with the role of delaying any invasion, I don't expect them to actually be able to win a fight.

For PPV you can usually get away with some cheap beam patrol ships whose role is also as PD for any colony that is attacked in the system. They also can patrol and engage any none military ships that wanders into the system.

For the next version of the game you also want to defend against raiders, so system patrols obviously will get a new meaning.