Dealing with starbases

Bypass



Bruteforce



Eco

This section will show you what you can do if your enemy is spamming starbases.In general, when the enemy goes extremely defensive with starbases, there are a number of things you can do:Seemlingy obvious, but not seen nearly often enough: bypassing the enemy starbase. If the enemy has made a starbase on the choke, instead of atacking it or saying: "damn, can't do anything now", you can bypass the starbase. Just take your fleet, go around it, and do maximum damage! You want to target enemy orbital structures, ships, bomb planets, etc. If your micro is good enough you can sometimes kill your enemy using this strategy. A good plan is often times to eco up while doing this.Bruteforce, is, as the name implies, just that: make a massive amount of ships and destroy the starbase. In some cases, this is a legitimate strategy. In others, it's an invitation to losing the game. Bruteforcing works best if the enemy does not see it coming. For example, you're against a TEC player, and he made a starbase on the only choke. Confident that he is safe, he starts to eco. You, being the smart player you are, have scouted all his planets and noticed this. You scouted a total of 3 hostile tech labs, meaning he doens't have red button, for which he needs 5. You hide your army, and tech to ogrovs. You make 8 ogrovs, atack him while he is still ecoing, and roll over him. Bruteforcing is a strategy that is dependent on your knowledge of the other player's skill and what he can or can't do. To bruteforce effectively, you've gotta scout everything.If the enemy spends money on starbases, you can spend that same money on eco. As long as you keep scouting to see wether he fleets or not, you'll get ahead. By making a starbase, he's basically said to you: I'm not gonna be agressive. You can get about 4 trade ports for the price of his first starbase. This method works wonderfully if you keep scouting and make sure your fleet is always equal or nearly equal to his.In the next section, I'll talk about how to bruteforce each race's starbase.How to deal with a vasari starbase is hugely dependent on which game phase you are in. In the early game, strikecraft are viable, as well as mass light frigates. In the lategame, strikecraft only work if they surprise the enemy, and a mass heavy cruisers or a titan + cap ship fleet might be a better approach. Of course, when you are Vasari, making your own starbase works well too, if you own the gravity well.The cheapest, easiest way to deal with Vasari starbases is to kill them with light frigates while they are still building. Vasari starbases take a while to build. On friendly territory, you need about 15 light frigates and a cap to kill while it finishes, in neutral territory you need about 25 light frigates, and on enemy territory you need at least 35 and a cap. As advent, you want to get shield restore on your cap ship, because the vasari starbase will deal damage to about 10 ships at the same time, and you can continually shield restore to save them. As TEC, a marza can single-handedly kill a vasari starbase, even if it is already built when you start atacking it. If the vasari got a starbase up on the choke, it is very important to make sure he doesn't own the choke. Bomb it with your cap. As long as you can keep the choke neutral, hope is not lost. If he manages to capture the choke and get repairs up, bruteforcing is out of the picture, and you need to bypass or eco. So, if there's still hope, there's two routes you can go: spamming light frigates, or spamming carriers. If you decide to spam carriers, it is important to realize that carriers take a while to build bombers. So you want to hide your first few carriers on a neighbouring planet while they build strikecraft, so you can surprise the Vasari player. If he sees the carriers coming, they are usually not effective, because he can counter them with his own carriers, by getting fighters on his starbase, or with corvettes. If you make light frigates, keep in mind that you need about 60 light frigates to kill an unupgraded vasari starbase without repair bays, assuming that the Vasari starts upgrading the starbase as soon as he sees you jump in the well.Late game, vasari starbases are less of a big deal, as long as there is no fleet protecting them. A titan with a bunch of caps and 30+ heavy cruisers obliterate Vasari starbases. 100 bombers or so will also kill the starbase in a matter of minutes, despite any hangar defences the vasari might have. Against Vasari starbases, I do not recommend ogrovs, because the Vasari starbase will slaughter them faster than they can slaughter the starbase. Of course, 150 light frigates will also rip through starbases, should you still have them.TEC starbases are very annoying. If you're uncertain wether or not the enemy has red button, you always have to assume the worst. Unless you're absolutely certain the enemy does not have red button, TEC starbases are a pain in the ass to deal with. If the TEC has repair bays and repair cruisers, the starbase can regen 60 hp/s, the equivalent of about 40 LF firing at the starbase at once. So, the repair bays, coupled with red button, make bruteforcing a difficult affair.A really good approach however, is a suprise carrier atack. If the enemy does not have carriers, hangar bays, or mass flak, you can sneakily make carriers on a hidden planet. Make sure he does not scout you. To threaten a TEC starbase surrounded by defences and a fleet, you need roughly 50 bomber squadrons. Keep in mind though, that strikecraft are worth xp. If he red buttons your squadrons, he can make a lvl 1 cap ship lvl 6.Alternatively, you can make a bunch of ogrovs to sacrifice on the starbase, since red button outranges ogrovs. You need 8 ogrovs for a unupgraded starbase, and 4 more for each hp upgrade it has. Ogrovs are usually a bit choice, because they are easily killed and not cheap. If you are vasari, you can enter the well, make your own starbase, and use that to kill all the structures surrounding the TEC starbase. That way you can pick it of with more ease. Another approach that works in dealing with TEC starbases is just sending your titan in, to farm xp on the surrounding ships and structures.Last, but not least, very late game, you can get certain cap ships that negate red button. The TEC akkan cruiser has armistice, which negates red button. The TEC loyalist titan has group shield, which protects against red button (this might have been patched out). It also has disruption matrix, which disables red button for a short duration. TEC have the dunov cruiser, which can temporarily disable red button. Advent have the Radiance, which can temporarily disable red button. Vasari don't have any useful caps in that regard.Watch this youtube video by Paravox to get a better idea about the ins and outs of red button:Advent starbases are generally the easiest to deal with, since advent's damaging AOE ability isn't seen until very late game, because it is very expensive. As long as you see that the starbase doesn't have any antimatter, you can safely atack it. Beware though, that the advent might be setting a trap for you because he can upgrade the starbase while you atack it, and surprise you in a nasty way. Confusion can trap a titan for a full minute, and meteorites can destroy all your light frigates in 3 atacks. To deal with a fully upgraded starbase, you either need a massive amount of bombers, or a cap ship fleet, to drain antimatter. Heavily entrenched advent starbases can be hard to deal with, because the starbase itself can have up to 20 fighter squadrons.