Killing another fleet?

Not that I know of. If they happen to jump to a system where you have a Phase Jump Destabilizer, it will take them a lot longer to jump. Also, using the Ion Bolt / EMP Charge on ships disables their ability to make phase jumps. But yes, I agree that it's annoying.

The BEST way I've found of dealing with it is simply ignoring it. If your fleet is really that big, then you might as well just go for their capital. Hopefully whatever planet of yours they are attacking is well defended so that, at worst, they will take longer to get rid of the your colony. At some point, the AI will panic and will start diverting it's forces to it's home planet which you are attacking. If you manage to take out it's homeworld, the AI just might surrender.


Mad Cat

Yeah, that's what annoys me about the AI... Their fleets always attack random worlds, then instantly flee when your main fleet arrives.
What helped me is having a phase jump inhibitor, two repair Stations and several hangars built at my frontline planets.
The hangars are usually capable of destroying small fleets and scouts, if they try fleeing they will be severely slowed down by the PJI.
However, if they bring flak frigates and heavy cruisers/capships you're screwed.

Really, the best planetary defense is a good offense and a fleet containing one capship with several support units.

Build 2 - 3 phase jump inhibitors, then leave the world, let the enemy come in with their fleet. Then jump back in to your world and kick his butt. He will be unable to run away for quite some time. Muahahaha.

Phase Jump inhibitors is the best way. If you don't have them, or if you're fleet is big enough to just stomp theirs, then make a bee line for their homeworld. They will stand and fight at their homeworld.

I don't use PJI but I do make a secondary fleet of about 250-300 ship slots (starting 2nd to max fleet size).

· 9 flak
· 6 and 6 support cruisers
· 15 HC
· 5-10 light frig (cobalts etc.)
· LRM's

I use this to harrass planets from a different angle. The objective is to jack a few structures and bug out once a fleet arrives. AI rarely has more than 2 big fleets. You'll always dominate a single AI fleet because chances are you aren't scouting as much as AI does.

Dominate planets with your big fleet and harrass with your small fleet. The beauty is that if you forget about them, a properly built fleet can last quite a while against an AI fleet 3 times it's size. Guardians are great for fleeing if you get into that mess. You might sacrifice the guardians but the rest of your fleet gets away.

Move 2 planets away with your fleet while rebuilding lost ships. Their fleet should move somewhere else. If you're heavily defended around that area I'll sometimes jump the small fleet 1-2 planets past the big fleet to pre-dispose culture centers for quick planet domination. If the little fleet gets harrassed just jump in the big fleet.

I've also used the small fleet to home planet move to take out the cap & frig factories. Destroy defensive structures along the way. Follow with bombers along the same trail after you get to the home planet. The AI come to defend home and you start nuking the planets along the trail. Your main fleet will snag a planet or two and your bombers will jack up aruond 2-3 more by the time the home planet fleet is destroyed. Just keep a careful eye on those bombers since a single HC can rip em up.

Every race has a capital ship that can disrupt phase jumps too, and used in combination with a phase jump inhibitor can be deadly. I recall once completely annihilating a fleeing AI fleet worth over 3000 experience when I used gravity-warhead as they were trapped in a phase jump.
brrrrrRRRRRR....
Oh, look, they're warping again. Gravity Warhead, do your stuff.
RRRR*thump*Rrrrrr... *fizzle*
pew pew pew boom pew pew boom
brrrrRRRRR...
Well, looks like they're trying to warp again... Gravity warhead time!
RRRR*thump*Rrrrr.... spzz sput sput kachunk

Repeat.

It was delicious.

-- Retro

Vasari is by far the best faction for trapping fleets. Build your own fleet with plenty of Enforcers, ~10 Subverters, however many Sentinels you think you need, an Evacuator, Marauder, and a Kortul. Warp in, zoom over with the Marauder's ship speed ability, gravity bomb the main pile trying to escape. While that ticks away, micro a few subverters to start their stun routine. Once one of those stuns lands, game over. Use Explosive Nanites, keep cycling Subverters, collect scrap metal.

The other races can only really trap capital ships, so the best options are what have been mentioned. Phase Jump Inhibitor in every system you own, and sometimes they'll stick around and fight something attacking a home planet.

The AI is also pretty stupid when it comes to turrets. So if you just max out tactical slots, build 2 or 3 repair stations, then build a bajillion turrets right around where they jump in (make sure they are in range of the repair stations) they will sit there and attack the turrets and get torn to pieces before they finally retreat.

it takes small to medium sizes fleets almost as long to destroy a turret as it takes to build a new one, so you can keep them busy for a very long time rebuilding turrets as they kill them - it helps that turrets are much cheaper then ships too so the AI is losing there as well.

Also always build a PJI - it does not take up very many slots and it's VERY useful. It has a very low targetting priority for the AI, so don't be afraid to put it out in the middle of nowhere away from your turrets and repair stations to cover likely jump points - the AI will head straight for the turrets and ignore it.

Do PJI stack or is one enough?

PJI's do not "stack", but unless you've got a small gravity well, you'll often need more than one to cover all the phase lane exits that enemies can use. If your PJI's area of effect just touches the "line" that represents the phase lane's attachment point (say, everything to the left of the line and just the line itself is within its area), half of the enemies (in this case, all enemies leaving to the right) can still warp out without incurring the phase-lock penalty.

-- Retro

The game isnt designed to just slaughter the opposing fleet in one battle easily. You have to grind them down. Stuff like PJI and subverters and other disablers make it a lot easier thou.

Are turrets or hangar defenses better? I've onlye ever built 3 or 4 turrets and they get crushed really easily.

Also, I've had the same problem when I had a fleet that was marginally stronger than the enemy's, but they kept fleeing. The trick I used was to get some siege frigates and utilize my Novalith Cannons (if playing as TEC) and destroy all their planets. Then I used the Akkan Battlecruiser in my fleet to colonize the planets. That gave me a quick economic boom while slowing down the enemy's economy. I just kept pumping out ships, mostly LRMs and sending them to the frontier.

I pushed forward with my fleet and destroyed everything in my way until the enemy fleet was trapped in a pair of planets. I sent Arcova scouts with sensor drones to each of the planets, found out where the enemy was and sent siege frigates to the other planet. Shortly after, I sent a bunch of LRMs, and sure enough, the enemy fleet sent half of their fleet to engage my siege frigates. I split up my now far superior fleet and sent half to each planet. The enemy fleet had nowhere to go so they had to flee to the planet I had just come from, all the while moving right through my fleet and getting decimated. After that, they reached one of my newly colonized worlds which had around 10 squadrons and a PJI and I finished them off there.

Unless you spam them, turrets are mostly to delay a sizeable enemy attacking force until your own mobile fleet can get there. You can significantly increase their lifespan by building a regeneration bay in the immediate area. A good turret collection is invaluable if you're playing unfair AI as you can't be everywhere at once and you need some time to fend off the assaults from their grossly larger fleets.

Hangar defenses are high-priority, and their strikecraft are really good for picking up bounty from enemy scouts as they can fly anywhere in the gravwell. I usually build one hangar and a collection of turrets with a regen bay and a PJI. Assaulting fleets usually pay a pretty heavy penalty when they retreat.

-- Retro

Are you playing SP or MP? In MP, hangars and turrets usually get destroyed by flak and LR frigates.
In SP however, it depends on the attacking force and available tactical slots... theRetroboy pretty much summed it up.
Personally, I'd build two hangars (4x fighter) to shoot down scouts and fill the remaining slots with one shield station/antimat recharger/weapons jammer, one PJI as well as several turrets clustered around 2-3 repair stations.