User blog:ManiacMika/Defences - Pros & Cons

https://board.en.ogame.gameforge.com/index.php?thread/814923-defensive-structures-advantages-and-disadvantages/

By Grimm Feb 6th 2020

Following up my Combat Ships guide, here's the "Turtle" guide. I'm going to be talking about each defensive's structure advantages and disadvantages against fleets, and I'll also expand on the "uber" side of turtles as well.

For starters, let's add here the advantages and disadvantages of Defensive Structures in comparison to Combat Ship.

ADVANTAGES:

 * -Most notably, they do not generate Debris Field, and thus are never profitable to fight against without resources/other ships behind. This of course is different when it comes to Defence into Debris Field Universes which have that special feature. And by not being profitable to fight against, in large numbers, they very effectively protect your daily resource production alongside Satellites and Crawlers.
 * -For the same price, they are generally stronger than their fleet counterparts. Only exception to this rule is the Plasma Turret. Defence generally have greater attack power than their fleet counterparts and less Hull. On the low-mid tier side, defences have also greater shields but on the high-top tier class, fleet has better shields.
 * -After a battle, lost defences have up to 70% chance of being "revived", with the Engineer this chance is increased even further.

DISADVANTAGES:

 * -Defences can't move and because of this fact, they cannot give you profit or increase your income, unlike fleet.
 * -You cannot buy or sell defensive structures in the marketplace.
 * -They are subject to IPM attacks which they have no counter against if you are not online and also because the ABM-IPM ratio in this game is broken and unbalanced as fuck. Multiple people can IPM you and there's no bashing rule for this.
 * -They don't have rapid fire. Only exception to this rule is the Ion Cannon post version 7 of the game. So even espionage probes can be used as fodder against it.
 * -There's far less variety than combat ships. Only 6 usable defensive structures compared to 10 combat ships.

And... I think that's pretty much it. Let's go for the turtle units shall we?

Rocket Launcher


ROLE: Cannon Fodder


 * -The one defensive structure every defence needs to have. It's the only defensive structure, or rather, only combat unit in the game, that only costs metal, it's the cheapest one in the game as well. Nothing aside from Cruisers, Bombers and Deathstars have Rapid Fire against it so it's perfect for the role of cannon fodder to protect more expensive defensive structures from the shots of the attacking ships. However, 2 out of the 3 ships that have Rapid Fire against it are generally not much of a threat because, in the Bomber's case, very few players build them because fleeters prefer to spend their precious resources in ships that can actually bring income by destroying other fleets which is what generates Debris Field, and in the Cruiser's case, most players avoid using them against defences where a considerable number of Gauss Cannons and Plasma Turrets are present, and they are also rather fragile and easy to take out. So, only the Deathstar can realistically be a real problem, this however can be countered by adding Deathstars behind the defence, since the defending Deathstars will damage the attacking Deathstar's shields and allow for the numerous Rocket Launchers to damage the attacking Deathstar's hull. Note however that adding Deathstars can make your defence profitable, so it's not a good idea to leave it overnight sitting behind it.

Light Laser


ROLE: Cannon Fodder


 * -This one pretty much has the exact same role as the Rocket Launcher, however it's about 20% more expensive due to the extra crystal cost. However, it also has 20% more attack power so the price difference is kind of nullified. These however should be built in less numbers than the Rocket Launchers just because of the fact that they trigger Rapid Fire from Destroyers, which unlike the Cruiser, are tough enough to even withstand the hits of Plasma Turrets and is generally a ship that is used against defence because of this fact alone.

Heavy Laser


ROLE: Strong Cannon Fodder + Light Fighter slayer


 * -If we compare the price and the stats between this and the Light Laser, a lot of people will think, and rightly so, that the Light Laser offers considerable more attack power for it's price, which is true, however, the Heavy Laser deals more concentrated damage, enough so that it can one-shot Light Fighters. A large number of these will generally scare away fleeters from using Light Fighters. We have to consider that when a fleeter is attacking a defence, he will generally send enough to obliterated your defence in 1 or 2 rounds. They also don't trigger any Rapid Fire from anything aside from Bombers, which again, are rarely if at all build by fleeters in considerable numbers, and Deathstars, which can make give them somewhat of a role in being a cannon fodder since they are still considerably cheaper than any ship beyond a Cruiser.

Ion Cannon


ROLE: Shield Fodder


 * -After the version 7 of the update, Ion Cannons have become cheaper, just a bit more expensive than the Heavy Laser and they have also become the only defensive structure with Rapid Fire against ships, in this case, against the Reaper, which is kind of useless because Reapers are never in large numbers when attacking a defence or not used at all and if they are, they will have fodder like Light Fighters protecting them so this Rapid Fire value isn't of much use, and it's still the lowest value as well of 2 (50% chance of firing again if it targets a Reaper).
 * For a defence which has the purpose of just protecting your Crawlers+Satellites and daily production, it's much more recomended to use the Heavy Laser instead because it's cheaper and deals more losses to the attacking fleeters Light Fighters.

Gauss Cannon


ROLE: Cruiser Slayer


 * -Now we are getting into the big guns, the Gauss Cannon is a very cost effective defensive structure that can deal lots of damage to attacking ships, namely Cruisers where it can one-shot them. It's also the first defensive structure that has high enough power to damage the Deathstar. However, it's still not very effective against the Deathstar because it has a very high Rapid Fire value from it sitting at 50. It's also not good enough against Destroyers since they can take it's hits fairly easily and they also get one-shot by them. For protecting your daily resources, sometimes it's better to just spend the extra Crystal on Plasma Turrets and increase the number of Cannon Fodder or Heavy Lasers even further.

Plasma Turret


ROLE: THE Slayer + Deathstar Rapid Fire Breaker


 * -The ultimate defensive structure. It's the only unit in the game that does not trigger Rapid Fire from the Deathstar, aside from the Shield Domes but those you can only build only one of each, making it the perfect defensive structure to repell away Deathstar attacks. You only need 7 of them to get a draw against a single Deathstar. On top of this, it has the highest attack power in the game only behind the obvious Deathstar. It can one-shot any ship in the game, even the Bomber who's supposed to be the nemesis of defensive structures. Only the Destroyer and the Reaper can survive hits from this weapon of mass destruction. High numbers of Plasma Turrets are generally the reason why your defence can protect your daily resources in your planets.
 * However, it has a drawback and that is, it's price. It costs a considerable amount of Crystal and Deuterium to build, it's more expensive than even the Destroyer, almost in the same price bracket as the Reaper, and because of this, alongside it's lack of Rapid Fire, it's very vulnerable on it's own against attacking fodder ships like the Light Fighter and the Heavy Fighter.

Small Shield Dome


ROLE: Shield against Cargos


 * -You can only build it once (don't let the picture above fool you). It serves no purpose other than being a beginner defensive structure to avoid fleets of only cargos to farm your planets, since Cargos don't have enough attack power to even damage the shield itself. They can still absorb any damage up to a Destroyer so, it's always right to have this built. No reason whatsoever to not build this. Don't forget that shields regenerate every round.

Large Shield Dome


ROLE: Shield against Light Fighters


 * -Same reasons used for the Small Shield Dome can be applied here as well, but this one has 5x greater shields and thus protect you at the beginning of the game against Light Fighter raids, since Light Fighters don't have enough attack power to damage it's shield. This particular Shield Dome however has been known to be a decider between a loss and a draw, where in some cases it has been the last standing unit, preventing the defenders from being farmed, this is because of it's very large shield where it can soak a lot of damage.

UBER TURTLE GUIDE:
An uber turtle is a defensive player that goes far beyond what he needs to defend himself, usually having enough defence to make it impossible for any attacking fleet to profit from no matter what they send.

To be an uber turtle, you simply have one job. Spam defensive structures in the shipyard. That's it. Make sure you build enough Plasma Turrets but also try to build as much as you can on the other types of defensive structures, namely fodder, and in this case, since you are building a turtle that is "supposed" to be comparable to even the mightiest of fleets, you can actually opt for using Ion Cannons instead of the Heavy Laser because if the number of military between an attacking fleet and a defending turtle are not that far apart, the Ion Cannon is actually much better than the Heavy Laser at dealing with Light Fighters because it takes 11 Light Fighter hits to finally be able to damage the Ion Cannon's Hull while it only takes 3 to damage the Heavy Laser, and the Ion Cannon with it's attack power is still capable of one-shooting Light Fighters, although not as easily as the Heavy Laser. Ion Cannons here will also provide a nice shielding boost when dealing with Cruisers since their shield is actually strong enough to negate a Cruiser's attack, and since Shields regenerate every round, this could actually be a pain in the ass to deal with. Obviously no fleeter will want to attack such a defence with "speed fleet" (fleet composition of ships minus the Deathstar) but there exist people who would actually go this far so... And if the attacker or attackers instead decide to use pure Deathstar fleets to try to damage your uber turtle, just build a few Deahstars behind it so that it can cause considerable losses to the attacking Deathstars, but don't build too many of them so that you become profitable against a pure speed fleet or a combo of speed fleet+Deathstars. IPMs are also a choice for the attackers but, IPMs do cost quite a bit of deuterium and metal to build, and sending IPMs on a perfectly built uber turtle will still be unprofitable no matter the scenario. If the attacker however simply wants to bully you, then you are kind of helpless as soon as you go offline (again because the fucking ABM-IPM ratio is unbalanced as fuck in this game.)