How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

So you got a key warp point you want to go through? But you know it is heavily defended on the other side. What to do? Wouldn't it be nice if you could go through and shoot first? Well that's what I just managed to do. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif For details on how to do this send one dollar to.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Sssssshhh.

Don't spill it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

I'd like to know how you can do it consistantly.

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Get there before the enemy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Or just benefit from random flukes of SE4 that put ships separated sometimes (especially with multiple empires instead of just 2 in the combat).

Even better is to close that WP down and create a new one to bypass those defenses. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Damn. now this would be a lot more impressive if I could recreate it in a test.
I thought the trick was to give my fleet 'attack' orders instead of 'warp' orders to get to the other side. Since I had a scout on the other side of the warp I did this and my ships attacked first. They enemy fleet was just sitting there so it's not like they moved into the warp point after I did.

Edit. And we did start right next each other.

[ November 18, 2003, 00:15: Message edited by: DavidG ]

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Just one more of these randomly striking battle-deciding bugs, I guess. Like strategies that keep being ignored sometimes. A pity that SEIV is not being patched any more, but I do hope for SEV and a better basic design, without dropping a lot of good features, i.e. a better upgrade than from SEIII to SEIV.

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You are mistaken, there is a final patch for SE4 underway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">SEIV had radical changes from SEIII, actually. It drove half of the die-hard SEIII fans away (at least, half of the vocal ones in the Online community).

[ November 18, 2003, 05:49: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

its all a very complicated model of morale effects and the chaos of battle. sometimes those guys warping through will catch the defender off guard. sometimes crews will fail to perfectly execute their orders, and will not follow the correct strategies. why do you insist that its a bug, when its actually one of the most realistic models of space combat available?

okay, your right. its a bug. but if they SPUN it differently in the manual and press material, it would be a FEATURE.

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yea I like this explaination. I mean when I did it it just made sense. I could see the ships on the other side of the warp. He cold not see me comming. He'd been sitting there for 4 months. My ships all had 'attack' orders. Of course they should shoot first. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

You could do what one player did to me in one of my earlier PBW games.

You could park a cloaked starkiller next to the star and wait for my battle fleet to come through then blow the star. And before I can get another fleet through the system, create a new star and blow it when my second fleet came through. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dude, you fell for it twice, in the same system? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Does anybody tried special fleet formations for warp point assult ? The idea is to position ships away from the center. Then even if defender goes first, he might have to fire from the long range or even do not reach most of your ships http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Interesting. Might work. A line formation with one ship of "volunteers" 10 rows out in front. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

On the other hand when facing a very large enemy fleet stationed at the worm hole it probably wont help much. Usually in those cases the fleets are all overlapping anyway.

[ November 18, 2003, 14:06: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">None of the standard formations are any good for larger battles, but for those early breakthroughs in KOTH games I have used the Arrowhead formation with some success. With less than 30 ships, it will put the oldest ships in front. Retrofit the oldest designs with ship-capture or cobalt warheads. If the enemy targets nearest first they will take the damage, if he has something else they will block the way and have a chance to do some damage later. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

"You could park a cloaked starkiller next to the star and wait for my battle fleet to come through then blow the star. And before I can get another fleet through the system, create a new star and blow it when my second fleet came through. "

God I love that tactic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Used it once myself, destroyed an armada of over 150 ships, mostly dreadnoughts and battlecruisers with a few baseships as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Was the scout in the enemy warp point sector? It might be that if you have a ship that is not moving there, then you can move in with other ships, and get a 50/50 chance to strike first, since both of you started with at least one unmoving ship already arrived. I doubt it was the type of movement order you used.

Another idea would be to synchronize your move with one or more allies - this often results in a much wider distance between starting positions, at least in open space encounters.

PvK

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope the scout ship was sitting in the corner as far from the warp point as possible.

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

If you watch the Strategic movement replay, do you see them moving any ships into the battle sector before you arrived? That might lose them the first shot.

PvK

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Warped through with my fleet, met some sats, shouldn't be a problem.... but....
One of the sats had the Talisman device, I didn't get to shot back!
Oh, I hate that Talisman and the religious ones! Next time I'll be religious myself! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, that is a great idea Ruatha. Thanks for letting me know! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif *Thinks of the game where he is playing a religious race, with quite tense relationship with the Swedes* *Smirks*

But do you really want to be corrupted by this unholy device? I mean, I thought the Swedes wanted to remain free from any influence, so why would you submit to the infamous Talisman, I wonder. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

If you send a cloaked ship in first, then send in your fleet at a later move or later turn, does this then give you a 50/50 shot?

Of course the defense need to not have detecting devices. This may even put the defense outside of range at first shot?

[ November 20, 2003, 20:28: Message edited by: Parasite ]

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

I think it probably would give you a 50/50 chance at first shot, if you can get a ship there before your attack fleet, which is not moving when the attack fleet arrives.

PvK

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Which is why the defender always should drop some mines on the warppoint. Bye bye to the cloacked ship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

And that's why attacker should send in a fleet of minesweepers on suicide mission. Bye bye to the nasty mines. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And that's why any paranoiac player should have a minelayer with mines (duh) at any warp point likely to be attacked. Then your cloaked ship would still not make it to the warp point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

And if you are an even meaner player, you could build a special minelayer able to only launch two or four mines each turn, ordered to lay mines every turn. (Repeat order) Thus, even if you sent your cloaked scouts and the suicide minesweepers on the same turn, the scout will still get blowed. (Except if there is some oddity in the list used to determine the order of... orders)

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

That doesn't help, though. If the cloaked ships have enough sweeping ability, then the actual attack fleet no doubt will, as well. The real defense is a device to see through the cloak.

PvK

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

WP anecdot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif :

I was attacking AI' warp point. I have a fleet of about 15 frigates and destroeyrs. WP was defended by 20+ satellites with missiles. My ships have 1 PDC per ship. I lost half the fleet but during replay I noticed that ships did't shoot as many missiles in the first salvo as I expected. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif The reason - ships strategy included "don't fire on seekers". As you all know, this is a reasonable setting to keep missiles and torpedo ships to go forward after missiles during the reload phase (PDC will autofire on missiles in the range anyway). But, in the warp point batlle, my ships materialised next to satellites. Satellites (defenders) went first but my ships used all PDC to fire on satellites instead of missiles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif I reset the strategy to make ships fire on missiles and replayed the turn. Now, I lost only one ship http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Cheater! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif People just don't let the AI get any breaks, do they?

PvK

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

In the times of SEIII I developed a tactic to avoid the WP combats: because the "retreat" was allowed, then, used a few ships as "decoy" with the startegy "optimal Firing range", and the others ships with the "don't get hurt" strategy (usually a sun destroyer, but could be a fleet too).
Then, the decoys gave time to the sun destroyer to retreat to an adjacent sector... and at the same turn blow up the star! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

After this, the people started to surround the warp points with ships, and then, don't allow to the enemy ships to retreat (in SEIII a ship could not retreat to a sector where already exist an enemy ship).

[ November 24, 2003, 23:02: Message edited by: Master Belisarius ]

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

Would have been a better fix for SEIV to make retreats only into the sector the ship came from (after all its called retreat not advance), instead of inventing blocking corners for open space combat.

Re: How to kick A$$ in Warp point combat.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hey ! It was non-conected AIC game against medium bonus AI ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif I need any breaks, not AI http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif