I find it distressing....
 

...that, in a relatively short time, I've completely researched the tech tree, technologically, left the competition behind, outfitted my ships with the latest gear made an incursion (yes, I'm MEE now and I haven't done anything to anyone, but, that's another post) into a competitors airspace and with over 100 ships against his dozen battleships was completely decimated. So, I am now reduced to isolating his systems, one by one, and just attrition-izing him to death.

The gripe: I gain no advantage at all by being the most developed race.

The fix: I ought to be able to keep researching stuff and, like MOO, develop miniaturization on the particular components. This would allow me to put more of an item in the same slot space and would give an advantage to being intellectually superior.

Just a thought...


------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Maybe find some human players instead?

------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

Re: I find it distressing....
 

I think you misunderstood http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif This game is the most challenging so far and I'm at the medium settings I have no problems with that. Its just that I was so far ahead, technologically, that I should have been able to do much better that I did in my first combat....I had over 100 ships, over two dozen of those were dreadnoughts, battleships & battle cruisers; the rest were a mix of cruisers (gunships...walking cannons), light cruisers (performing as a fast attack ship...lots of movement) & missile carrying cruisers. I attacked his stack of 12 battleships and whammo, I was decimated. I know for a fact that I was WAAAAAAYYYY ahead tech-wise....that should have counted for something http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif


------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

What kind of weapons/shields did you and your opponent have. I agree that a ten to one ratio on the suface seems like it should have resulted in a masacre the other way, but say for exaple your opponent had a lot of PDC to account for your missles, and shield skipping weapons, it's not out of the question that he could have done some serious damage, especially if your ships were mostly missle ships.

Can you give us some more details about the battle.

High tech doesn't always help if you enemies strengths play to your weaknesses.

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Spyder, It sounds to me as if maybe you don't know how to put Heavy Mount weapons on your ships. In any event, analyze the enemy ships. They're doing something you're not defending against.

In my current game (large universe, many Modpack races, med bonus to opponents) I was recently No. 3, in major war with Darloks, when the No. 1 race the Narn appeared in my space with a fleet of 40 cruisers, glassing several of my planets. They're way ahead of me in numbers of techs, but I think I have the BETTER techs! I counterattacked with the best I had nearby--one small fleet with four battleships and one carrier with heavy fighters. My guys smoked their 40 cruisers without taking any damage at all. It evens out.

Re: I find it distressing....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
What kind of weapons/shields did you and your opponent have. I agree that a ten to one ratio on the suface seems like it should have resulted in a masacre the other way, but say for exaple your opponent had a lot of PDC to account for your missles, and shield skipping weapons, it's not out of the question that he could have done some serious damage, especially if your ships were mostly missle ships.

Can you give us some more details about the battle.

High tech doesn't always help if you enemies strengths play to your weaknesses.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First, I did the strategic battle. So, I don't know what exactly he had except that he had the organic tech tree.

All my ships had beam weapons except for the Missile ships. The missile ships had a mix of capital missiles & one other type of long range missile/torpedo (forget name). All my beam ships had one Null Phase Cannon each, and a mix of Photon Beam weapons & phased beam weapons (I apologize, I can remember the exact names right now) all at max technology (XII for Photon Beam, V for Phased, V or III for Null Phased), and, all on the biggest weapon mounts the frame could carry. I had about 25 missile ships, 10 support ships & the rest were beam ships of which about 25 were Battle Cruiser or bigger. The combat took two turns (I should have quit after the first, but, I thought I could finish him). Afterwards, I had most of my support ships left and he had 5 of his 12 battleships left.


------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Did all of your ships have Combat Sensors III and ECM III?

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Did you use shields?

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Ok, here's my theory, of course it is based only the limited info I have.

I would guess his ships had extensive organic armor, as well as shields combined with organic weapons and Point defense. IIRC organic armor is pretty tough to crack with standard beam weapons, and regenerates damage during combat? Somebody correct me on that point if I am wrong.

If he had enough PDC's to handle your missles, his organic weapons probably took a heavy toll on your beam ships that would have to close to fire.

If you saved the turn right after the combat you should have acess to combat replay where you can see exactly what happened. At the very least you can use the combat sim and approximate the number and type of ships on each side. Now that you have faced those ships in battle you have a description of their design, armaments, etc.

Geo

Re: I find it distressing....
 

spyder/geoschmo: If you ahve PP and in max sized mounts for ships you should be able to smoke him IF you have advanced shields and armor your self. also you didn't mention what level shielding your opponent had. advanced shielding added to organic armor which Does regenerate can be a tough nut to crack.

until I got advanced shielding the Xi'Chung (bugs) were whipping the snot out of me in my current game. once i got that, I have been decimating them. Just waiting for quantum reactor so I have the legs to go after him and suceed.

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Raynor...yes to both.

Lastseer...yes, one on smaller ships, two on larger ships.

I took a second flotilla in Last night and soundly whipped him. There was no appreciable difference except that he had 18 capital ships this time. I have no idea.


------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

It may be that you had too many ships in the first battle. I recently watched a battle where I had about 30 fighter Groups, plus a dozen ships, trying to attack a planet. It appeared that the computer had trouble moving all those fighter Groups within range of the planet; rather than spreading them all around, they all got concentrated over one "corner", and a couple of the Groups stayed out of range for a while. Now, some Groups moved away because they had 2-turn reload times (planetary napalm or whatever the fighter equivalent is), but some just couldn't get closer because there wasn't any maneuvering room. The ships were OK because they had much longer range, but even then the ships sometimes bumped into each other.

I imagine the same thing could occur with 100 ships; especially if they were treated as one big fleet. Imagine trying to maintain formation with 100 ships! And if your leader was a missile boat, it may have kept trying to run away for two turns out of every three while the missiles reloaded.

BTW - only two shield generators on a dreadnought? I usually try to have three, maybe four on large (BB, DN) beam ships. And I'll generally put two on each cruiser. On basehips, I'll put four or five shield generators. But I also tend to build small fleets, so I can't afford to lose many ships.

Re: I find it distressing....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
BTW - only two shield generators on a dreadnought? I usually try to have three, maybe four on large (BB, DN) beam ships. And I'll generally put two on each cruiser. On basehips, I'll put four or five shield generators. But I also tend to build small fleets, so I can't afford to lose many ships.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, I tend to look at combat in a very aggressive manner....it also is the same way a small person (should) looks at a fight (yes, I am a small person)...short and fast. I want to hit you hard the first time, and then finish you off while you're on the ground. With that in mind, My ships have the most, largest weapons I can get on them; as much movement as I can get without jeopardizing firepower; and just enough shields/armor to survive your initial burst. If the fight Lasts too long, then I'll tend to be in trouble. This makes me wonder if it isn't the AI that screwed me in the first fight.....



------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Spyder,

Don't forget with the latest patch a target doesn't have to be destroyed before teh AI changes targets. That could be having an impact too.

------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

Re: I find it distressing....
 

I set those numbers (I think) up to 100%...but, how to use those settings are much less than clear to me...I posted a question about them below.


------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: I find it distressing....
 

2 shield generators on a dreadnought?! I have been in several huge fleet engagements and I know from my own experience that dreadnoughts with 2 shield generators would never survive. Especially against a human opponent.

When I build a dreadnought - it has at least 1500 points in phased shields, usually more...


[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 15 March 2001).]

Re: I find it distressing....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AJC:
2 shield generators on a dreadnought?! I have been in several huge fleet engagements and I know from my own experience that dreadnoughts with 2 shield generators would never survive. Especially against a human opponent.

When I build a dreadnought - it has at least 1500 points in phased shields, usually more...


[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 15 March 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I hear that.. my CRs and BCs usually have 3 phased shield generators, that makes for about 1000 points at max levels. A DN should have about 5 generators to protect such a costly asset.

Re: I find it distressing....
 

This reminds me of when I first got SEIII. The first time I researched Point defense cannons I thought "Look at that range, look at that damage. I am going to kick some serious butt now"

Built me a fleet of a dozen or so destroyers loaded with PDC... and nothing else.

The first enemy fleet I ran across had a couple of destroyers with a handful of frigates with measly old Meson BLasters and Anti-proton beams. "Humph, I thought, I don't even need to bother fighting this one in Tactical mode"

Boy was I confused watching all those little blips flying around, and all my little blips kept going out...

That's when I went back and actually read the weapons description. "Only targets seekers" What's a seeker? Boy was I confused. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Spyder: Use more shields! Heck I put two shields on one fighter as it is!

Re: I find it distressing....
 

Heh...my FAS (Fast Attack Ships) don't even have shields. I DID go back and added one more shield generator to each design (except FAS) and removed all the extra solar sails I had stacked in there for movement (found out that they don't stack http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif ). On the FAS I added more guns http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif. The FAS start out as destroyer class ships and are now Cruiser class.

I have two flotillas now, one fighting the blue guys and one fighting the yellow guys. Both flotillas have 100+ ships, although, I just fought a major battle with the yellow guys (the ones with the Organic Tech tree) and that Fleet is currently being reinforced...he had two fleets of 18 Battleship class ships, I won both engagements, but my Fleet was dropped to about 30, of which 15 were support ships http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif.

I have nothing smaller than cruiser class in any of my fleets. My missile ships & FAS are both Cruiser class. I am winning. I am stealing about 70000 of each resource each turn and my enemies are running out http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I am pumping almost a million points into Intelligence.

This has been my most challenging game so far and I haven't installed the 1.30 upgrade yet (want to finish this game first). I don't think that either of my foes are the number one empire. The turn counter tells me that I have 20 foes out there (I killed two upstart races already). Foe #5 takes a very long time for his turn http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I'm looking forward to meeting him.

By the way, part of the Arachnid traits is a -10% to ship attack & defense. I think this definitely contributed to my getting blown away in my first combat.



------------------
Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium