Ramming speed help
 

I have heard that a good possible ship type could be a ramming ship with lots of armor. Just for you numbers guys, a BB with 27 organic armors can take more than 4000 points of damage and still be totally healed at the end of the combat. It sounds good on paper, but when I made a ship, I can not get it to attack anything. It always runs for the corner. I have changed the orders for that type a few times, but even "Ram" "Ram" movement in the "Ram" order seems not to work.

Does it need to have a weapon onboard?

Anything else that would make it go towards enemy ships, and not away?

I have had the captains of several ships shot, but this seems to be a waste if it is my fault for doing the wrong thing. And it has not helped other ships.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Probably needs at leaste a warhead of sometype, or some form of weapon.

Kana

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Dammit Soldier! It Just ain't Ramming Speed without at least one Thermonuclear device On board! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But yeah, CW said it, I think it has to have at least one Warhead on board. Good Luck with this strategy, And Make sure You have some shields, ramming ships get pretty badly beaten up against Engine Destroying weapons.

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Won't the warhead blow me up too?

I have before set colony ships on ram and had them die gloriously for the empire. I suspect it is a setting or something I must have changed. I will keep working on it.

Once I was able to run away from an unarmed escort ship, but the second time we met, he was able to catch me during the first movement and rammed into me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Setting the fleet strategy to kamikaze will not help, since unarmed ships break formation automatically and then return to their individual strategies.

The ship design's strategy must be set to ram instead.
Make sure you're setting the right design's strategy too... if you have multiple versions of a ship class you have to set the strategy on the version that the ship was most recently retrofitted to.

Re: Ramming speed help
 

I think I found it. Thanks for all your help. The "Design Type" was set to a type I had made up called "Rammer". The ship strategies were still set to "Optimal" though, not "Ram". Then it follows that no weapons means run away. Now to find some more lone escorts to test it out again.

I figured I would still post that I think we have found an answer, so someone would not attack my fleet of 20 superdreadnaughts expecting them to run away. Of course, I could just be saying that to keep them from being attacked. Or I could... The watcher watching the...

Seriously, thanks for the help.

Do warheads make it blow up? I had an unarmed colony ship once kill two ships. I rammed the FF and killed it, then a DD with warheads rammed me and was itself destroyed. This was in tactical mode. I suspect that the AI could not have done it.

Re: Ramming speed help
 

A warhead on the ramming ship causes its listed amount of damage to both the target ship and the attacking ship during a ram. It does not destroy the attacker unless it does enough damage to do so. A warhead is not triggered if it is on the target ship.

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Last time I tried the ramming tactic the ships would ram alright, but they would only ram the "most dangerous" enemy ship instead of the closest enemy ship. This totally ruins the strategy against any type of fleet as the ramming ships all get shot to pieces before they get to the "most dangerous" ship in the back (e.g. the minesweepers happen to be a larger ship size than the front line ships). I did quite a bit of fooling around with this and I'm pretty sure that this behaviour is hard cooded and not changeable, but I would love ot be shown the error of my ways! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Go to Empire Status(F11)->Strategies, select the Kamikaze strategy (or whatever you set the ramming ship design's strategy to if that's different), click the Firing button on the right, and edit the Targetting Priorities list to put Nearest at the top.

Re: Ramming speed help
 

Unfortunately that doesn't work. The Firing button controls just that *firing*, the target of the ram is different. Try the following experiment and you will see. Create and enemy fleet with one minesweeper set to "don't get hurt" on a very large hull (say a dreadnaught or battleship). Then create lots of little light cruisers with lots of weapons and goodies. Create your ramming ships with lots of armour and one direct fire weapon (doesn't matter how big or small you make them). In the simulator, the ramming ships will run after the minesweeper, firing away at the "nearest" light cruiser that comes by, but doing no real damage and basically refusing to ram the light cruisers. If you create enough ramming ships they will eventually manage to break through and destroy the minesweeper and *then* they will turn on the LCs. The target of the ram is the "most dangerous" ship (unfortunately also loosely defined as the largest usually, although I am not sure of the exact heuristic).

Re: Ramming speed
 

I have managed to get rammers to ram other ships. That was my original question. But Teal is correct, in that there is something strange going on in the ram orders and priorities.

This did not stop one of my rams from jumping from 20% experience to 26% and emerging unscathed from the battle. I think I like them! They are especially good against PPBs when you have low shields levels.

Re: Ramming speed
 

In one PBW game 10 of my top 12 experienced ships are now rammers. Most of them are in my most highly experienced fleet. And who are they attacking you ask... Religious tailsman wielding fanatics. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Take a ship that will always hit no matter what the experience, and fight a group of people that will always hit you, nmwte. That is efficient use of training. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Ramming speed
 

Hmmm, a bunch of escorts filled with warheads... That would do a lotta damage.

Re: Ramming speed
 

and be shot down quickly. the escort-swarm tactic does not pan out that well. I have used escort swarm boarding fleets before, but that was a special case scenario and I wouldnt expect it to work reliably.

The best thing about ramming is its shield-skipping ability. If someone is relying on shields, an organic rammer will really hose them up. of course, it does not take much to adapt to the strategy once they know you are using it. a max / DGH strategy will optimize their fireing time against you, and they can always screen with engine destroyers or smaller ships.

Engine destroyers would really eat your lunch, especially since you probably wouldnt have but the most minimal shields on your rammer. once you're crippled, they could fry your shields and board. Be sure to put a Self-Destruct on there.

Or they can put a little bit of research into null space. if 90% of your mass is armor, that last 10% of critical stuff will be fried right quick with a N-S gun. Depending on fireing strategy, this might leave you with a bunch of empty hulks floating around and costing you maintenance.

Re: Ramming speed
 

No, that's the worst thing about it. The ship being rammed gets full benefit of its shields. The ship doing the ramming takes shield skipping damage.