Since the last update, defensive platforms are able to defeat fleets of equal costs. This makes sense, since defensive platforms can't escape battle nor pick their own battles.
But how different should the cost be for defensive platforms? As someone who hasn't played multiplayer yet, I theorized the right balance would be 1 to 3, as in it costs 3 times less resources to build a defense platform "fleet" than it would cost to build a fleet of equal power. This would mean that, as long as you have two chokepoints or less and are only interested in defense, it would be a better choice to invest in defense platforms (66% of the cost for equal power, although you would probably need more to compensate for the emergency retreats on the other side) and that from 3 chokepoints upwards it is better to just build a fleet, since it can be used as mobile defense to cover any sides (building 3 "fleets" of defense platforms would lose in attritional warfare, since emergency ftl would save parts of their fleet, but none of yours).
In that context, the perks and traditions for defense platform strength could increase the ratio to 1-4 or 1-6. This would allow to increase the cost-effective limit to 3-5 chokepoints. While that is a significant expansion, it is countered by the eventual discovery of jumpdrives that makes defense platforms unable to deal with enemy fleets on their own and requires that at least half of the resources for defense are invested in fleets (to be able to counter a fleet weakened by the jump), which would de facto send the limit of defended chokepoints back to 2 (or 3, if you hit the fleet capacity limit).
Do you agree with my analysis? Do you think I am missing an important factor or my lack of understanding of the multiplayer meta leads me to the wrong conclusions? What should the ratio be?
But how different should the cost be for defensive platforms? As someone who hasn't played multiplayer yet, I theorized the right balance would be 1 to 3, as in it costs 3 times less resources to build a defense platform "fleet" than it would cost to build a fleet of equal power. This would mean that, as long as you have two chokepoints or less and are only interested in defense, it would be a better choice to invest in defense platforms (66% of the cost for equal power, although you would probably need more to compensate for the emergency retreats on the other side) and that from 3 chokepoints upwards it is better to just build a fleet, since it can be used as mobile defense to cover any sides (building 3 "fleets" of defense platforms would lose in attritional warfare, since emergency ftl would save parts of their fleet, but none of yours).
In that context, the perks and traditions for defense platform strength could increase the ratio to 1-4 or 1-6. This would allow to increase the cost-effective limit to 3-5 chokepoints. While that is a significant expansion, it is countered by the eventual discovery of jumpdrives that makes defense platforms unable to deal with enemy fleets on their own and requires that at least half of the resources for defense are invested in fleets (to be able to counter a fleet weakened by the jump), which would de facto send the limit of defended chokepoints back to 2 (or 3, if you hit the fleet capacity limit).
Do you agree with my analysis? Do you think I am missing an important factor or my lack of understanding of the multiplayer meta leads me to the wrong conclusions? What should the ratio be?
