In early through mid game, before i can heavily armor ships, what is best way to counter AI bombers?



Specific problem scenario - my 12 to 16 CP fleet usually half CP destroyers and cruisers mix, e.g. 6 destroyers and 3 cruisers. All loaded with long range kinetics.



Slaughtering non-bomber enemy fleet is not the problem. Mass LR kinetics work fine for that and even my lightly protected ships come out fine since i overwhelm them in phase 1.



But when AI uses bombers, especially early to mid game, even if i crush his fleet on phase 1, his bombers still hit me and i lose couple ships at minimum, sometimes more.



As a vet, i reached for the military truism of best defense against bombers are fighters. But that doesnt seem to work for me, or way ive tried it.



In my 12-16 CP fleet, i will usually have 6 squadrons minimum of fighters. But it seems early/mid tech fighters cant really shoot down early/mid tech bombers?

(Which is opposite of military real life - fighters have a crushing superiority over bombers until bombers are much higher in tech vs bombers.)



-So should i stack fighters even more?

-Read point defense modules were useless, but maybe that was old posts before some balance patch ? Are they useful now?



Way i counter them now is either take the couple ships to half fleet loss despite having enough mp to crush AI fleet in phase 1, or advance armor tech enough i can armor up enough without giving up too much mp to live through bomber strikes. This is usually armor tech 4.

I have rarely seen the AI use bombers. However fighters and point defense are the tactics I would use against an AI that uses them. (Normally, I don't use either since the AI isn't using bombers.) You should report back if you come up with an effective defense.

It may just be pure random luck of the draw and I've gotten the rare AI coincidence of it building bomber fleets, or like Civ 5 - the AI factions have some sort of built in preference for certain things, but not sure.



Havent played too many games under my belt yet, but last couple games ive drawn Hissho as one of the random AI and he's always built at least half his fleets equipped with bombers. Last two games now Hissho has been a thorn in my side with his darn early bomber fleets. I crush him in phase 1 with LR kinetics but his bombers still take their last revenge.



I havent seen any bombers by any others in my games so thought they were rare too, but my Hissho sure seems to like them.