Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not really, because to have a noticible effect economically you have to have enough fighters to make him alter his designs, to use more pdc then he would otherwise. If he's just always building ships with a couple pdc either way and you don't throw enough fighters at him to overcome that, you aren't doing anything at all. And even if you did throw more fighters are him, you are in fact makeing it cheaper for him because pdc are cheaper by a significant margin then other weapons he might have otherwise chosen.

If the fighters were a viable threat then the slightly smaller amount you are spending would be a significant difference. Instead, you end up paying a little less, but get a lot less in the way of effective offensive punch. That isn't really a good tradeoff.

[ January 23, 2004, 19:38: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

I would like to see a greater expansion on fighters and perhaps linking in with mines, drones and satelites ? fighter type a can pick up sats and move em around during combat ?

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

The enemy's combat bonuses are the bane of units.

A single talisman can really help a stack of 100 SATs or a stack of WPs.
In one game I hoped to use the talisman SAT stack, but there were too many warp points. Also by time I got the talisman the enemy was well on the way to getting the warp point creator.


In fact the combat bonus system is so unbalancing, I blame it for killing interest in the game.

[ January 23, 2004, 19:52: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is pretty much what I would have said.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, you are not weird. That is the only strategically intelligent way to play. Stop using PDCs and you are just asking your enemy to stomp you with missiles and/or fighters. Not using any PDCs is always a bad idea. That is not a blanket statement anyone could argue against very successfully, unless they want to bring in weird stuff like disabling fighter and missile techs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 23, 2004, 20:02: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

Geo (and Fyron)
Believe what you will. I have seen plenty of players overreact to the early fighters and overextend their economy, and I have seen some loose vital systems because they dismissed fighters as useless. I have also seen a few guessing just right and neutralized the threath with minimal cost.

Point is: I, as the fighter builder sit with all the cards.
If I build more fighters than you build PDC, I have a potent weapon.
If You build more PDC than I build fighters, You have to pay extra maintanance.
Either way I win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

When it comes to late game fighters, it's true they are micromanagement hell. That is why I seldom choose to use them, but it does not mean they are useless. There are plenty of small dirty tricks that makes limited use of them very effective as decoys or weapons. But as I do not believe they are any good as the main fighting force.

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

So you are assuming an inexperienced player against and experienced one then? Of course you can beat inexperienced players that do not know that fighters are not very powerful when you have sufficient PDCs, but you do not really need to go overboard...

And again, I will repeat that the economic impact of an extra PDC on your ships is so minor that it does not matter. I would be very surprised to see a game where this was the only determining factor in victory, or even a major one. Except, possibly, in that extremely small slice of MP games that are 1 v 1 games.

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

How did I get in a debate on the same side as Fyron? Somebody, change the subject. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Cause you have been leeching my SE4 strategies for years? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif j/k ofc

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope. Cause the other guy have to guess, experience does not matter (much). I have seen some of the most experienced and well respected players guess very very wrong.

Also, for late game with Battleships and Dreads, you are right in your statement that an extra PDC does not matter. When people are putting 3 on their destroyers and LCs and then add some extra PDC ships to their fleets, it does matter.

Re: Ship weapon loadout
 

Most MP games do not have very much war with destroyers... and even then, 3 PDCs is not a big investment over 2 PDCs on destroyers and LCs. A PDC ship or two is also still not a big factor. Especially if you do not rush for shields or armor right away, but instead concentrate on CS and ECM (as combat bonuses are far more important than shields or armor, without a lot of research invested into the shields...), so you might not even have shields or armor to use, so that space can have an extra PDC or two easily and not have it be a significant chunk of the economy. And even if you have to give up 2 armors, it only weakens your ships by 2 shots worth of unmounted DUC Vs, or one shot worth of a large mount DUC V. This can make a bit of a difference, but not much, unless your forces are otherwise identical in numbers... 3 PDC is not by far heavily invested in, or paranoid.