Im at the end of the imperial Campaign and have to take/destroy the 5 last rebel planets. They are full of Ion cannons, every 20 seconds one of my ships is disabled and the rebels attack me from the start and kill my poor defenseless ships ... Is there any way to destroy the rebel starbase and fleet without taking horrendous (sp?) casualties? I dont want to use the Death Star on all of these planets, thats just lame and boring.

These Ion cannons are way overpowered, the ships shield dont seem to come back after all ... and they cant move or shoot for a long time.

Well that is what the Ion Cannon is for, I think if you have seen The Empire Strikes Back, that you would reconcider that, I believe just blow up the planet, it is much easier, besides they only have five planets left. In total how big is your fleet at the moment?

And welcome to the forums!

Bring lots of reinforcements. The Rebels will try to disable some of your more powerful ships right off the bat. Try to pull your front line out in front of the disabled ships so that they aren't exposed to direct fire without their shields. The ion cannon can only keep 2 ships totally disabled at a time, so if the Rebel fires on a third, watch your ships carefully and you may regain the use of one of them. If you can, blast the space station hangar to prevent reinforcements from tipping the balance to the Rebels, and from there on in it's just all about slugging away.

Perhaps try to get a range advantage so you won't have to get near the planet. Broadside Cruisers. Maybe even nothing but Broadside Cruisers. They can sit as far from the planet as possible, and they do decently well against fighters and bombers, as well as big enemy ships. They won't be nearly as robust as your ISDs, but they'll hopefully be able to avoid getting ioned into a coma, then blown up at the enemy's leisure.

If you're going to use ISDs (or Victory frigates), then when one gets hit with an ion shot, abandon it. Move you're other ships away, putting the disabled ship between them and the bulk of the enemy's ships. That way the enemy will hopefully destroy it as they move forward, and right past it, to come after you. This will open up a slot you can use to reinforce with a fresh ship.

I've found that bringing Vader and Boba helps, because they don't get targeted by the Ion. (not sure if they are immune) The same goes for magna cannon. Bring in the falcon and Katarn. The hero ships are powerfull enough to turn the tide. Also, the Accuser's special attack still functions, if you can get it close enough before it's disabled. When I know there's Ion cannons, I don't even bring ISD's, as they take up too many pop cap points when disabled. One last thing, capture the space build pads if there are any, and build missile launchers to attack station hardpoints. They are immune to the Ion.

I've found that bringing Vader and Boba helps
Good idea. I don't believe the ion cannon can target small ships, just as the hypervelocity gun cannot.

Yeah, I'm up against this situation in my current game. The loser AI must have more than one ion cannon, because the recharge time is so short. The first thing I'm doing is waiting back on my side of the front line, to make him come to me. I built a couple of magna cannons, and I'm hoping to rid the galaxy of some of his fleet before I attack. He'll probably just try a raid though. What really burns me, is that this planet is so close to Corruscant. The Emperor is not pleased...

If you're going to use ISDs (or Victory frigates), then when one gets hit with an ion shot, abandon it. Move you're other ships away, putting the disabled ship between them and the bulk of the enemy's ships. That way the enemy will hopefully destroy it as they move forward, and right past it, to come after you. This will open up a slot you can use to reinforce with a fresh ship.
Now that's funny! You use exactly the opposite strategy I use. I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say!

I've found that bringing Vader and Boba helps, because they don't get targeted by the Ion. (not sure if they are immune) The same goes for magna cannon. Bring in the falcon and Katarn. The hero ships are powerfull enough to turn the tide. Also, the Accuser's special attack still functions, if you can get it close enough before it's disabled..

First, im playing the campaign and I cant recruit heros, I only have vader, the emperor and veers (the last two are worthless in space).

Money or ships arent the problem, but just throwing ships at them until the enemy is destroyed ... thats boring. Until now I managed minimal casualties in all my battles. There is only one planet with a small fleet (5 ships I think), thats the only one I try to take, the rest will get nuked :blast5:
The Ion Cannon can disable 3 of my capital ships before the first goes online again (or even more, havent played longer :D ). So throwing ships at them shouldnt really work, these damn ion cannons can shot every 20 seconds lol

Edit: These Interdectors should have a ability to jam ion cannon targeting around them, the rebels are already overpowered in space and land (one word: artillery).

Now that's funny! You use exactly the opposite strategy I use. I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say!
:) It also takes a lack of conscience - easy when playing the side of the Empire.

Commander of disabled ship: "Sir, if you leave us here, they'll destroy us."
Fleet Commander: "OK. Thank you for serving the Empire. Have a nice day!

Also, I tried out my Broadside Cruiser strategy, but alas, the ion cannon can reach all corners of the map around the planet. So poo on that strategy. Bring firepower instead.

What may be the best strategy is to just tough it out. Yeah, the recycle time of the thing seems very short, but the stupid enemy AI generally keeps hitting the same ship over and over.

My standard tech 3 compliment with the Empire is four Victorys and four Tartans, and since the effects of an ion blast last several minutes in the game, if the enemy AI was smart it'd hit a different Victory each time and leave me with 4 Tartans to try to destroy their capital ships and space station (not happening).

But instead, since they tend to hit the same ship over and over - with occasional exceptions - I end up left with at least half of my frigates and all my corvettes operational. It takes me longer to kill all the enemy's non-garrisoned ships and then his space station, but it really just comes down to a matter of patience. And accepting that I'm just going to have more losses when there's an ion cannon present.

If the enemy AI were to hit all my big ships with the ion cannon in the first few minutes of the battle, then I'd have been screwed. All I could think of is to use plan A and run my Tartans around to the other side of my immobilized Victorys (away from the enemy ships) and try to get the enemy to destroy them.

Which makes me think of this: Why doesn't the Empire have any sort of special forces that can go down to the planet and destroy the ion cannon? They use bounty hunters to kill enemy heroes. If they hire assassins, why not hire sabateurs as well? After all, the Rebellion has it's Infiltrators. You'd think an empire that has conquered most of the galaxy would have some sort of special forces unit, right?

@AFH: What difficulty are you playing on? I've only faced ion cannons on "medium" so far. I wonder if the game jacks up the AI on "hard" and really tries to ion all your biggest ships, instead of the same one 10 times.

:)It also takes a lack of conscience - easy when playing the side of the Empire.

Commander of disabled ship: "Sir, if you leave us here, they'll destroy us."
Fleet Commander: "OK. Thank you for serving the Empire. Have a nice day!
Reminds me of that great scene from the Battlestar Galactica miniseries when Roslin orders the fleet to abandon helpless civilians...

See, I find it helpful to bring an ISD along, let the ion cannon zap it, and then keep it in the back - protected - while my Victory destroyers come to the fore and engage the enemy. With any luck, the Rebels will try to keep the ISD disabled and continue to fire the ion cannon at it--that's all the ISD is for, to draw ion fire. And if the Rebels forget about it and try to disable the VSDs that are pummelling them...then, whoops, ISD on the loose!

I think the Star Destroyer still spawns fighters even when disabled, though I might not be remembering correctly. In that case, the ISD's fighter complement can come in handy.

I think its OPed like crazy. I was playing rebel campaign on hard. 1 Ion Cannon + Lv5 Station owned Entire Mon Calamari Invasion Fleet. We are talking like 10-15 SDs here (including Accuser). Its just ridiculous.

Looks like bad luck for me. I tried it 3 times, first my ISD, then my 2 or 3 Victorys. One acclamator and tartan is all the ion cannon isnt shooting at.
Its just ridiculous, as stupid as having the bombing run every 20 seconds, just ruining the already not perfect balance even more.
And Iґm only playing on medium ... Iґm waiting for the patch, then I will start the new campaign and kick some more rebel butts =)

what i do is to bring the death star along, place the smaller, and least important ships, (tartans, broadside) in front of the rest of the fleet, to destroy any scouts and to hopefully lure the ion cannon 2 fire at them, then when the deathstar moves into range, blow up the planet and bye bye ion cannon!, then i would assault the space station

I would bring a fleet of highly mobile ships capable of avoiding the Ion Cannon (Acclamators & Tartans). If a ship is continuously moving there is a chance the Ion Cannon will miss.

Im at the end of the imperial Campaign and have to take/destroy the 5 last rebel planets. They are full of Ion cannons, every 20 seconds one of my ships is disabled and the rebels attack me from the start and kill my poor defenseless ships ... Is there any way to destroy the rebel starbase and fleet without taking horrendous (sp?) casualties? I dont want to use the Death Star on all of these planets, thats just lame and boring.

These Ion cannons are way overpowered, the ships shield dont seem to come back after all ... and they cant move or shoot for a long time.

I had the same problem as well. Have you tried taking the last 5 planets on hard mode? The battle over Polus (I think it was Polus) took me over an hour to win because of the stupid Ion Cannon and the endless MK II Frigates I was fighting.

I find that Broadside cruisers help a lot against LV 5 space stations. Bring about 20 Broadside cruisers into battle and use the Barrage ability to destroy the enemy space station, it should only take about a minute or so for the Broadside to destroy the space station (Assuming you have 5 or more broadside cruisers in the battle at one time). Then engage each of the enemy capital ships and concentrate all your fire power on one cruiser at a time until they are all dead. Also, be prepared to suffer heavy losses.