do i have to do anything special to set a sentinal in defence of a corporate planet (with 4:1 odds) or is parking it in the same sector good enough?

I believe the ship has to be manned to work properly, so you've got to sit in it over your planets in order to get the 4:1 odds.


HHH

parking in it in same sector is enough. Please note, it has to be manned to stop someone from landing on your planet.

personally i never liked that tactic. Its just an invitation for someone to kill you

depending on the settings of the tholian, it can be a great asset, especially if you have someone with a permanent connection to refill it as the enemy tries to blow it up. If you're playing with stock ships, the stock tholian sucks. In some editted games, however, it's worth using.

It works really well with a good edit tholian, a planet loaded with figs and a refilling script

Stock tholians are to be avoided. Edited tholians can be useful. In any event, they won't stop someone from photoning you or overloading your sector.

What kind of edits? I am curious of this, and the Gaurdian setting. Is that a set defense or a multiple of its defensive value?

From my limited understanding it is a multiple of 4 times the defensive odds the ship normally has. If 1.0 def odds, like a stock Tholian has, it will have 4.0 def odd guarding a corp planet. If 2.0 def odds, it will have 8.0 def odds guarding a corp planet, etc.

Edited games usually put more figs or shields on a Tholian bonus ship. My Traveller edits for example, add more shields to it. I call it the System Defense Boat in those edits.

Load the Tholian ship up with carbo so if they pod you and do not capture the ship, it will blow up in their face.

One tactic nobody mentioned was a weak ship with 1500+ carbo on it, fewer than 137 shields and no figs guarding the planet. Yes you know that the player in that ship will get destroyed, but with a low def odd ship full of carbo, you will deal more damage to the invader. The low odds make it harder to capture the ship, so use a Colt or Mule or 0.8 or 0.5 def odd ship.

Usually rather than a Tholian ship bonus, use a ship with good def odds that can hold a lot of shields and figs. 10K figs at 4.0 bonus is like 40K figs at 1.0 odds, get a ship with 40K figs and a 1.5 def odds and you can beat the Tholian with 60K figs at 1.0 odds. So maybe an ISS fully loaded in a stock game can defend a planet better than a Tholian.

The reason no one mentioned that tactic is because it's a waste Let's assume you use a corbo ship that has no pod and leave someone in it, the enemy will just use a junk ship to kill it, so you'll only cost them maybe 100k credits worth of damage for you 1.5 million worth of corbo.