Can't break through defenses ... With adequate fleet.

What's your fleet composition? I'm guessing your attack wasn't really "early" if you had a titan, and you should never attack a heavily upgraded starbase head on with your frigate fleet. You'll want to have a group of carriers with bombers or antistructure frigates (preferably the bombers if you have the time to build them, as they can attack any ship) to take out the starbase from out of range. The Ragnarov's snipe ability can also be used to hit the Starbase out of attack range, though it can probably fight in normally for quite a while with normal weapons (starbases are not as good against a few powerful targets like titans can capitalships, as you can retreat these before they are destroyed).

Hey GoaFan77, thanks so much for that information. I believe I just hadn't remembered that  like any colony I needed more anti-structure frigates and bombers, that was where I was lacking. Also, retreating, recovering, and having multiple reinforcements would of probably made things a lot easier. 

No problem. If you're fighting a real tough planet siege with a starbase and a fleet, you may have to secure a section of the gravity well to warp reinforcements in, or even build a starbase with a factory upgrade to produce reinforcements in the gravity well. Feel free to ask if you need any other pointers.

I've been puzzling over a somewhat similar problem recently. I was playing a game earlier where I was TEC Rebel against a TEC Loyalist. My enemy built 2 upgraded starbases and many hangars, along with a titan and a couple of Dunovs. No fleet other than a couple Hoshiko here and there. His titan was only level 1. I got a high level titan of my own and had a vastly superior eco - but no matter what I did it didn't seem to be possible to break through. Any large number of short range frigates would die to button. LRM would, too, with the second upgrade. Ogrovs, while they might be able to take down one of the starbases if I had like 20+ of them, would then just feed his titan, which I wanted to prevent at all costs.

Eventually I used most of my funds an built around 100 bomber squads - but they weren't able to kill any of his units. Focusing the titan wouldn't work because of its flak, its armor, and its 90 hull regen/sec. Focusing a starbase wouldn't work because they're even more tanky than the titan - and with the cultural antimatter upgrades, the 2 level 3 Dunovs are pumping out instant shields every 10 seconds or so.

My own level 5 titan can't take down anything either - Snipe doesn't do enough damage before my titan's AM reserves are exhausted and its DPS drops to too low to be worth tanking 2 fully upgraded starbases and an enemy titan. I can damage one of the Dunovs, but my enemy will just jump out when its hull gets too low, and then jump back in - and in that time my bomber squads have been taken down from 100 to probably something around 70, and the situation gets worse from there. His fighters and hangars with flak upgrades pretty much neutralize my bombers after 2 minutes - the bombers can't kill anything and are only experience food for the enemy titan.

So I'm at a loss of what to do - nothing I can think of building can take him down, even though my income is more than twice his.

If I had a level 5+ Akkan, LRM would probably work if I had enough, but I didn't have a leveled Akkan. Another option I have is to bypass the enemy planet completely, which is doable, but still doesn't let me take out his fortified choke point.

Any ideas?

Heavy cruisers do the work well enough, but prepare for heavy losses. Take out his capital ships one by one, maybe focus on flak? With bombers your fleet will be good enough to break any defense. Taking out factories and repair platforms are good ideas too. With your level5 titan and all your heavy cruisers and bombers focusing on a target you will make a breakthrough some time later, no object can survive this amount of damage per sec.

OR, maybe better to build even more bombers. 150-200 bombers are frighteningly strong, and will not risk the BIG RED BUTTON like the idea above. If you surprise your opponent he will not be able to build enough fighters and he has lost his planet, you move on fast, not letting him build defenses and he has lost the game if you can defend your carriers, but a level5-6 Ragnarov will do the job perfectly, killing all frigates attacking your carriers.

Damn you Shakespeare.. Damn you!

Doesn't work. Even if I built 300 heavy cruisers they would die to button and my enemy would take 0 losses, although he'd probably have to warp out his Dunovs for a minute for repairs - while giving his titan a ton of XP.

With the cultural antimatter upgrades, his fighters will regenerate very quickly even if I can kill some of them. But if I had a decent amount of flak, they would have to be around the enemy starbases in order to shoot at the fighters, because the fighters will be attacking the bombers - and the bombers will be attacking one of the enemy big units, which will be at the starbases. So my flak would probably die relatively quickly under the enemy starbase - and flak give quite a decent amount of XP. And that still wouldn't be enough, because the problem is more the enemy hangars, which do ridiculous amounts of damage to strike craft, and the enemy titan, which has formidable bomber flak as well.

Factories aren't the problem. He isn't building anything from the factories anyway, except for a Hoshiko now and then. As I said in my original post, the only units he has are the starbases, the titan, the dunovs, and a couple of Hoshikos.

I could probably take out a factory in 15 seconds, but that time would weaken my bombers some (~ -10-15% maybe) and wouldn't be of much help. Same for the repair platforms. I'd have to destroy all of them for it to have a noticeable impact on my enemy's regen, and by that time my bombers would have lost quite a lot of their strength, feeding his titan in the process.

Heavy cruisers are useless due to button.

My titan and bombers can take a Dunov to maybe half health, but my enemy isn't an idiot and would just warp it out to repair if it gets low.

The enemy titan can get +90 hull/second, and is innately very tanky - my bombers won't kill it.

The enemy starbases are even tankier than the titan (as I said on my original post). His units, except for the occasional Hoshiko, *can* survive that amount of DPS, with no losses, unfortunately.

When I was playing I was hoping that 100 bombers were frighteningly strong as well. I was wrong

Yeah I was considering getting even more bombers, but my fleet was already at 1090 supply and I didn't want to hurt my eco more by going up a level against a much smaller enemy. Still, if going up would have been enough it would have been worth it.

But yet another problem (ugh) is that the button kills strikecraft as well. My enemy has the option of buttoning one starbase and wiping out all of my bombers, leveling up his caps and titan at the (not insignificant) cost of building another upgraded starbase in its place - I'd have to retreat to let my carriers rebuild their squads. But I'd still rather not give his titan any XP if at all possible.

So far I've concluded that, against this sort of thing, assuming my enemy is smart, I either

* level 5/6 akkan and 250+ LRM (hope the enemy titan doesn't get its AOE ability upgraded before I can kill it)

* bypass planet completely with whatever fleet I have, wipe out all his other worlds and ignore his choke point

Heavily upgraded starbase with a defending fleet with titan is an extremely hard fight (and it sounds like you're playing against a human, not an AI correct?). You will want to try everything possible to engage his fleet out of range of the starbase. Bypassing the planet is certainly a possibility, especially if you're heading to a star or a planet with your culture, as that will quickly make up for the antimatter drain you'll get for bypassing the starbase.

The Dunovs and his frigate fleet is definitely your number one targets. He cannot hold you in check with just an Ankylon and a Starbase. At that point you can just build Ogrovs and either let his starbase be destroyed or force his titan to engage your entire fleet.

If you have more planets than a turtling TEC Loyalist you should not be afraid to expand your fleet supply, especially if you have your own front line decently fortified and either already have starbases at your key planets or have the funds to get them with auxiliary government in the event he tries a Novalith rush. Your larger income potential will overcome the higher upkeep and a couple hundred fleet supply can make all the difference if you use it to take out something like those Dunovs faster.

Yes, but that starbase (if it was also fully upgraded) also costed a lot of money, your bombers are free. As the starbases health gets low, if you can dock some of your bomber squads so you'll have some available to try and take out the starbase constructor when he attempts to rebuild it.

Not feeding the enemy titan is very important, but you need to attack him somewhere, and at least it is only an Ankylon. If you can't force his fleet away, you either got to prepare for a very long war of attrition or just attack anyways.

Again, it is an Ankylon. Its AoE has the least killing power in the game, you'll probably be able to withdraw as long as PJIs are taken care of without too many losses.

You are playing against the AI right?  Switch all your SC from bombers to fighters...dock them all, let the enemy fighters come attack your fleet while your flak eats them up...milk the XP...their AM regeneration is irrelevant if you are killing the fighters faster than the build rates (which you should be)....if your flak are fast enough, launch your fighters and keep them close to your fleet....when his fighters are mostly dead (and you have tons of XP), you can use some ogrovs to slowly kill any structure you need to...hell, you can even use your fighter swarm to wipe out structures, skilled players take down SBs or other large things all the time with fighter spam (it counters corvette spam rather well)...

???? What did you expect? If you want to be chained by your economy, not wanting to ruin it you will never break through. Two fortified starbases are not things to be laughed at, not talking about if they have some support....

1. Against AI just lure his ships out of the range of the starbase, and kill them, no hard fight. AI can't really use red button, but I guess you know it already.

2. Against human, and I guess this is the real case, man I am surprised, you will snipe his capital ships to pieces with your bombers if you attack only one target, he will not be able to damage all your bombers, if yes it's his problem (red button, as his defenses are softened and your titan has the advantage while your empty bomber squads are docked and being rebuilt for free). THERE IS NO UNBREAKABLE DEFENSE in Sins of a Solar Empire. Bombers will do the job well. 100 bombers are not enough? Build more! Sins of a Solar Empire is coded to be a bomber game, from old forums I realized for ages bombers were the key to winning in late game, where defenses are strong and capital ships are high level. Threats to bombers? 200 bomber squadrons will take anything out in a second (including starbases, maybe in 5 seconds), and his fighters can only see his assets being blown up. Annoying amount of fighters? build your own ones by scuttling some bombers or build flak.

200 bombers, I say this because I have done it myself, I killed uncountable Vasari capital ships, his Vorastra many times, many Orkulus starbases by the time he could do something against me. It was a plain stupid ffa with noobs where 2 players decided to team against me, and one ridiculous beginner decided to be neutral (wtf I should have left in that moment, I was idiot for not doing that).

3. Against AI or human, it can work to bypass that stupid planet, I assume he doesn't have the same level defense everywhere, and he can't destroy your fleet if he has phase jump inhibitors as you say he has no real fleet.

Yakimora, you could fully upgrade your flak's autocannons before using them against fighter squads...

Bomber Craft use missiles, not lasers, beams, or autocannons...

I don't want to engage myself in a conversation that involves, docking strike craft, strike craft xp, flak, flak upgrades and titans.

kekeke