Why bother defending? Exactly that.
Don't bother defending. Do the attacking instead.
I only ever build level 1 garrison to prevent the infiltrator attacks.
I am basically never defending, always attacking. And counter attacking.
I leave my border worlds minimally defended on purpose. So when the enemy attacks, they take it, and then i can counter attack, destroy their whole fleet and army, and take the planet back.
Just some good old baiting.
Its a trap n stuff.

I dont think i have ever seen a motor(Mortar?) team in action by the AI.

Originally posted by Kajar:

Why bother defending? Exactly that.
Don't bother defending. Do the attacking instead.
I only ever build level 1 garrison to prevent the infiltrator attacks.
I am basically never defending, always attacking. And counter attacking.
I leave my border worlds minimally defended on purpose. So when the enemy attacks, they take it, and then i can counter attack, destroy their whole fleet and army, and take the planet back.
Just some good old baiting.
Its a trap n stuff.

I dont think i have ever seen a motor(Mortar?) team in action by the AI.

If you don't build a star base on your board worlds and just camp 2 tie interceptor gozanti and a bomber the AI will only send small groups of ship to attack you and you can usually win. Works best on worlds that have captureble mines in orbit for extra funding. :)

Yeah, mortars are annoying. They fire from a great range, so the defender may have to leave their safe spot to engage them. They're so tiny that it's difficult for aircraft to target them. Their projectiles ignore shields, which in a way makes them better than most advanced artillery systems. Frankly, the only way I've been able to counter them is with indirect-fire artillery; and even then it can be tedious when they're outside the player's field of view.

My opinion on them has... *matured* since I first started playing the mod. I only *mostly* hate them now. iirc there's only two units in the game that have access to them: one is a stealth unit with a build limit; and the other is an expensive tier 3 unit, which means the AI is less likely to train them en masse. Still, I find it frustrating that the most effective response to mortar fire is to retreat all my infantry unless there happens to be a bunker nearby.

The issue of land defense tactics is the same issue as in vanilla: unlike space battles, the defending side of a land battle is limited to no more than 10 units. Imagine only having 10 ships for every space battle, while the enemy could doomstack as much as they want. Absurd! Unfortunately it seems this is a core feature of the game that must be dealt with.

I find the other responses to this thread amusing. One response gives up on land defenses almost entirely, while the other response, in my opinion, is a borderline exploit. Personally, I try to select a few key worlds that have good defensive infrastructure, such as effective Turbolaser Tower and Base Shield setups, and dedicate them as "war worlds," designed to inflict maximum casualties.

Anyway, I'm glad someone else is talking about it. A developer told me they aren't thinking about removing it because "no one else has talked about it." I think even minor changes to it would go a long way.

My train of though is pretty simple.
If you are defending, it means you aren't attacking, and therefore losing.
If you build expensive defences, thats a lot of money spent on something that isn't hurting the enemy, and will most likely be destroyed anyway. In the meantime it just sits there, does nothing but eat up even more money via maintenance costs.

If you spend money on defending, you spend money on delaying your defeat. You are not spending money on winning.
In this game, the attacker always has the advantage. So keep attacking.

The mortars do sound pretty nasty, if they are this hard hitting, i don't think i have ever encountered them, or used them. Guess i'll give them a poke the next run.

Build up your defenses on chokepoint worlds. I always go 100% mechanized (AT-PTs will shred enemy inf) , except one support troop for healing that stays way back. Mech. units take limited damage from mortars and if defending close to a repair station (which you always should) they can almost be ignored (unless they target that pad).

Anyway.

You should have 1-2 long range arty on each such world. When you see the mortar contrails, pause the game. They will be visible as a tiny dot. Manually target that dot with your arty (or kamikaze them with your TIES or speeders) and problem solved. Yes they are OP, at least range should be nerfed. If having landing platforms, your TIEs can be withdrawn and healed there if you also have a power generator which you should have as they also increase tower damage.

Hope I don't get the mods confused/mixed up, if so I apologize :)

next update are gonna make the mod more like rogue squadron from N64 to GameCube. So your gonna need your tie-fighters. It is gonna be the best update yet. AT-ST is gonna get better against inf next patch.

cheep anti inf units is the best counter to inf spam like army troopers and AT-PT. Also the AT-DP if you figure out how the ability works it can be decent vs light rebel speeder

so you should just never defend and cheese the game got it