Defender's Advantage (Jump point battles)

[lennson (OP)]

I was wondering if anyone has RP'ed (playing as both the attacker and the defender) a large scale jump point assault and how it played out. It would seem the defender has a very large advantage.

Perhaps most importantly the defender can choose the range at which the battle takes place. This means that an attacker's technology advantage is largely negated. Speed and range advantages that would normally make a battle one sided have little effect since the defender can force the battle to take place at almost point blank.

To limit the effect of jump shock the attacker needs to use squadron transit but this has the adverse of effect of scattering the attackers ships around the jump point. This then greatly reduces the effectiveness of the attacker's missile defenses due to each squad needing to fend largely for itself.

It would seem that because of this a technologically inferior empire can hold off a highly advanced empire that they would normally have no chance against in a open battle.

Assaulting a jump point seems to matter very little on technology and rather mostly on production power (i.e. whether the attacker can assemble a fleet with higher total hull strength and burst firepower).

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The defender does not have as much advantage as you'd think, actually.

First and foremost there is the stationing problem.  Keeping a fleet on station is expensive in assets and fuel, even if you have a habitable world in system for shore leave.  My rule of thumb is generally one extra squadron on rotation per one deployed; it's plausible to attain a higher efficiency than this, but much more of a pain to micromanage. 

Second is the benefit accrued by anything but basic-technology jump drives.   Even a 250k-rated jump drive gets you 250,000 kilometers from the jump point - only the fastest designs can move from sitting on the point to effective beam range in time to accrue an advantage.  And if the attackers drives are faster than the defenders - the defenders probably won't get the short range slugfest they were hoping for.  You can set up cordons offset from the jump point to offset this problem, but now you're dividing your forces. It does help, but even a strong defence could get locally overwhelmed by two squadrons jumping in near eachother.

The massive vulnerability of jump point assaults is box launchers ( and to a lesser extent, being critically damaged by sprint range missiles in general).  It is too short range to mount an effective defense - and your sensors arn't turned on anyway. You can only hope your armor and CIWS can tank it.

This is all leaving aside the logistical limits faced by attackers in terms of jump ships.   The damn things drop like flies...never have enough of them... *mutters*

[Iranon]

IMO, one of the better jump point defences is a hangar pod containing ludicrously fast microwave-based fighters and some boarding shuttles. Against moderate numbers, this should make sure that nobody makes it out of jump blindness, and gives an excellent opportunity to acquire some shiny new ships.

[lennson (OP)]

IMO, one of the better jump point defences is a hangar pod containing ludicrously fast microwave-based fighters and some boarding shuttles. Against moderate numbers, this should make sure that nobody makes it out of jump blindness, and gives an excellent opportunity to acquire some shiny new ships.

On that note, do shields stay up though jump transit?
(If they do this would be a pretty good use case for shields to block microwave damage.)

I seem to recall conflicting claims.


@TheDeadlyShoe
Yes, you are right about the attacker being able to quickly escape beam range with a technology advantage but what I pictured was both sides fielding ships equipped with large numbers of box launchers since they provide the best burst damage.

Box launchers have also very low crew and maintenance requirements making the issue of the defender needing to keep defenses on station less of a problem.

It would seem that with both sides using box launchers for burst damage heavy losses on both sides are pretty much inevitable. Possibly to the point of both fleets getting annihilated and only circling missiles being left. Such a scenario is of course a win for a low tech empire that couldn't even get in range of the ships of a high tech empire in an open battle.

[Michael Sandy]

The defender should not assume the attacker will come in a squadron transit.  They might build a jump gate and punch through the center. Going through the center makes a lot of sense if the attackers plan on transiting, dropping their own minefield or sensor equipped missiles, and transiting out immediately after 30 seconds.

So the defenders absolutely have to dominate a range in which they can kill their enemy in less than 30 seconds.

One option is to heavily mine the jump point so the enemy can't jump OUT safely.  Sure, they can pop out 250,000 km from the jump point, but getting out, they would have to run the gauntlet.

Mines would be of a great help to the defense, but if the attacker sends in a single ship to draw fire, a huge number of missiles could be wasted.  So having more thermal mines than are necessary to kill a couple of ships would likely be a waste.

But EM homing weapons are a different story.  You would need the range to cover transit plus the distance the attackers would go before their active sensors come on line, but as long as the defenders can handle solo ship probes before the actives trigger the EM mines, the EM homing weapons can be effective.

On the defenders advantage, they can have a lot of 'mines' that are simply active sensor drones.  Perhaps with armor, or just very, very cheap.  If the defender's problem is a tech disadvantage, a huge number of active sensors might just help a bit in getting details of the attacker's technology.  Complicates their point defense calculation as well.

[lennson (OP)]

Does going though a jump gate make the jump shock time of standard transit less? Or is it that you can transit out even while still under jump shock?

Mines definitely have the weakness of being baited into overkill.

It seems that 'defense platforms' (box launcher equipped 'ships' with no engines that are dropped into place by a carrier, or towed into place by a tug) can be very effective due to avoiding the both draw backs of a mine (overkill/targeting) and of a ship (maintenance/deployment time) since they can easily have an operational time of 10s of years.

[Bremen]

Does going though a jump gate make the jump shock time of standard transit less? Or is it that you can transit out even while still under jump shock?

Mines definitely have the weakness of being baited into overkill.

It seems that 'defense platforms' (box launcher equipped 'ships' with no engines that are dropped into place by a carrier, or towed into place by a tug) can be very effective due to avoiding the both draw backs of a mine (overkill/targeting) and of a ship (maintenance/deployment time) since they can easily have an operational time of 10s of years.

IIRC, going through a jump gate makes jump shock worse. Squadron jumps are supposed to have less jump shock than standard jumps.

But yeah, the range advantage isn't as big as one might think. Even if they emerge on the jump point, ships suffering from jump shock can still move. So, despite the fact that it seems like a defense base full of big laser cannons (or plasma cannons) would be awesome at jump point defense, in practice it might get one or two shots and then the enemy will move out of range until jump shock ends.

I think there are two great options for jump point defense; box launchers have already been mentioned, but short range meson fighters/FACs also work really well. Since they're likely faster than enemy capital ships they can follow them if they move, and mesons will penetrate heavy armor/shields if the enemy is using specially designed assault ships meant to be tough enough to take a box launcher salvo.

Another idea I've theorized but never tried is a passive EM minefield. Jump shock turns off active sensors, so I would think that an EM mine wouldn't fire until the enemy starts leaving jump shock. Combine that with a defense fleet and you can blow up scout ships before they leave jump shock while keeping the minefield intact for a major enemy assault. You can blow up ships freely as long as they're going through shock, but as soon as they recover and turn on their sensors, boom.

Shields also emit EM, though, so that would be one possible flaw in the minefield plan.

[TT]

I'm curious Bremen, would the em mines attack your ships when you turn on your actives? I've always been a little reluctant to use passive mines for fear that they'll home in on my ships.

[Bremen]

Like I said, I haven't actually tried them, but I believe mines are supposed to be able to tell the difference between friendly and hostile/neutral emissions.

[MarcAFK]

I believe thermal and em mines will only avoid your own and allied ships. Neutral NPR's will be targeted and quickly stop being neutral :p

[ZimRathbone]

I have used passive thermal mines in the past and they didn't target my own ships or my civillians. They DID unload on an invasion by a hostile race, but due to a mistake in my release distance, they never hit anything.

However I understand that another player experienced problems with them firing on non-hostile aliens that transited into a guarded system.

[83athom]

Passive sensor mines have IFF indicators that will not fire on any of your ships or aliens marked as "Allied". However they will fire on any passive contact, including neutral and non-hostile aliens. Active sensor mines will only target contacts designated "hostile".

[TT]

Thank you Bremen, MarcAFK, ZimPathbone and 83athom,

It appears I've been cautious to a fault