Best way to engage enemy sitting on other side of gate?

[nuklearwanze (OP)]

Had this problem in the past multiple times, and I usually just bring more and better armored ships.  But this time the investment would be a bit high for that:
I have a hostile fleet on the other side of the gate with some 200 ships.  When I jump in my ships immediately get shredded by energy weapons - there are dozens of hits doing nearly 300 damage EACH!

A fleet composed of ten 120,000 ton close range brawlers with 30 armor layers plus a lot of shields gets instakilled the moment it jumps through the gate.  I could of course bring more, but i just dont see it being worth the investment nor time.

I also jumped through with 200 fighters - they too get taken out immediately, even though they should have a huge speed advantage over the enemy ships (hostile ships reach speeds of 32k, my fighters are 50k fast)

Any ideas on alternative strategies? Something that at least survives the first tick, so i can fire my own weapons. . .

[Andrew]

1)Improved Jump engines with the jump emergence distance far enough to be out of beam range
2) Find another route into the system
3) Wait for them to come to you while preparing for 1 or 2

[nuclearslurpee]

When I jump in my ships immediately get shredded by energy weapons - there are dozens of hits doing nearly 300 damage EACH!

A fleet composed of ten 120,000 ton close range brawlers with 30 armor layers plus a lot of shields gets instakilled the moment it jumps through the gate.  I could of course bring more, but i just dont see it being worth the investment nor time.

120,000 tons is not a large fleet at all, no matter how much armor you put on the ships. Ten 12,000-ton ships are also not very large individually, you will regularly see NPR capital ships in the range of 20k to 25k tons or so. A typical NPR battle fleet will displace 200k to 300k tons in total, and the NPR could easily station multiple fleets at this jump point if you have not already chewed through several of them in a war of maneuver and attrition. I suspect a large part of your problem is that you simply do not have a large enough fleet to do the job. Similarly 200 fighters is at most only 100k tons of easily-destroyed ships, not nearly enough.

Really there is not an alternative offensive strategy here besides "build more ships". Of course you can play defensive while exploring for a new way in, as Andrew suggests, but Aurora is by and large a game about long-term strategic decisions more than brilliant tactical cleverness. Of course there is always some of the latter, but if you come up against a situation where you need ten million tons of ships, or ground units, or etc. that you do not have, usually the only answer is to take the time to build what you need, and the only way you could have "played around it" was to have built these already in anticipation of a future need (and this is not always something which was possible).

[RaidersOfTheVerge]

How much is a lot of shields? 30 layers of armor doesn't help much vs 300 damage point weapons. Lower the armor and add more shields?
I've had 30k ton ships with 2k+ shields. High speed and high ECM can reduce hit chances.


But really better jump engines with 500k+ radius (and more ships) are a great idea vs a beam heavy defense. I hope you aren't just using standard transits with your big ships.
With fighters you kind of have too. Unless you have solid assault carriers that can be jumped in at range and survive Long enough to launch.

Combined arms can also be good. Hundreds of fighters going in standard with scores of high defense assault ships jumping in as squadrons at range. Or consider damage sponge type ships, little more
than bases with a dinky engine, massive shields, deep armor and a couple of weapons or a lot of antimissile defense (CWIS if they spread fire, full Gauss PD if they concentrate) in the case where the enemy is using missiles.

One of the first things you are fighting for is info, and to get that it helps if some ships survive. Get a scout ship through the JP and into space to look at what the enemy has. How fast they can chase.
If some ship can survive to launch and get missiles to hit (use very high speed missiles with range < 5mil km) to test missile defenses. Spam size 1 missiles to tie up missile defenses.
Have high damage spinal mounts of you own if they only get to fire once.

The other question to ask is do you NEED to fight this battle. Prepare a JP defense or a deeps space running fight if you have space to give. If they send ships through that you can kill in droves, you may be able to assault afterward.

[Pedroig]

When I jump in my ships immediately get shredded by energy weapons - there are dozens of hits doing nearly 300 damage EACH!

A fleet composed of ten 120,000 ton close range brawlers with 30 armor layers plus a lot of shields gets instakilled the moment it jumps through the gate.  I could of course bring more, but i just dont see it being worth the investment nor time.

120,000 tons is not a large fleet at all, no matter how much armor you put on the ships. Ten 12,000-ton ships are also not very large individually, you will regularly see NPR capital ships in the range of 20k to 25k tons or so. A typical NPR battle fleet will displace 200k to 300k tons in total, and the NPR could easily station multiple fleets at this jump point if you have not already chewed through several of them in a war of maneuver and attrition. I suspect a large part of your problem is that you simply do not have a large enough fleet to do the job. Similarly 200 fighters is at most only 100k tons of easily-destroyed ships, not nearly enough.

Really there is not an alternative offensive strategy here besides "build more ships". Of course you can play defensive while exploring for a new way in, as Andrew suggests, but Aurora is by and large a game about long-term strategic decisions more than brilliant tactical cleverness. Of course there is always some of the latter, but if you come up against a situation where you need ten million tons of ships, or ground units, or etc. that you do not have, usually the only answer is to take the time to build what you need, and the only way you could have "played around it" was to have built these already in anticipation of a future need (and this is not always something which was possible).

I believe you are misreading the OP, it is not a fleet of 10 12,000 ton ships, it is a 1.2 million ton fleet composed of 10 120,000 ton ships.

It is funny how shields come online "instantly" and weapons suffer from "jump sickness"...

One of the ways to do this is to put through a "pod" (or hundred), going to 1 second intervals, once it goes through, "release" the missiles on it (them) have them all two stage, with a decent separation value, and make sure they all have sensors on them, will thin out the awaiting fleet, basically ya dump a minefield on the JP for them to deal with, and then bring the ships in afterwards...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't bother to guard JP other than as a very temporary solution for very short periods and I very rarely break through them either. I rather let them come into the system so I can deal with them more effectively with less losses. If they don't come in to my system... then... well... I just leave them alone in their space. I have plenty of other space to explore.

In general I would withdraw from the JP, have a fortified base of operation with ground troops and STO, defensive bases and a border fleet. These places are way cheaper to maintain, build and more flexible. Designing ships with the purpose of JP defence or attack makes them relatively useless in regular space combat.

But if you really want to attack through a JP... then you just need to do what you do.... build even larger ships with smeg tons of the best shields that you have. Use the best jump drives that you have to get some distance to the enemy. Deploying mines if you have missile ships is a very good idea too... But as I said... designing ships that is built for JP attack are expensive and not that useful for much else. But overwhelming the opponent on the other side is the only way to deal with them and accepting losses is something you just have to deal with.