Waging war in SE5
 

Is it just me, or does waging a war in a foreign system now require a good amount of planning? (Thats a good thing to me). I have been fighting with a neutral and finding I really do need to bring a hefty fleet with support ships.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I'm thinking the same thing... It also appears that even a decisive, but quick war doesn't bring them to their knees. There seems to be a default amount of resource storage, so the enemy can sustain a war long after their core worlds have been conquered.

But I like having to plan this level of detail myself...

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I don't know about that. I'm thinking this is related to the ordinance bug.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

SE4 had a default amount of resource storage too; 50k of each.

There are still some supply usage bugs for fleets. One was fixed, another not (IIRC), so that might play a role.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Good point, I can't see why Aaron would have removed this for SE5. More likely what is going on than the ord bug.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Gone are the days of sending in a few ships for an extended campaign.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I don't know. I have been quite successful against nuetrals with small attack fleets. I send in a couple of missile frigates a colony ship loaded with a cargo of missile based WPs, ordnance and supplies. I glass their weakest colonizable world, colonize it and then emergency build a resupply depot, a space yard and then troops while sending a troop transport from home. The rest is history. This strategy also worked to take out the Xiata's home system.

I believe that this works mainly because it exploits the stock game's point defense weakness. Have not tried with the Balance Mod yet.

I believe that this works mainly because it exploits the stock game's point defense weakness. Have not tried with the Balance Mod yet.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Kwok is working on giving the AI PD capabilities in the balanced mod.

Rushing and building a resupply depot is a good idea. I have been fighting them without one in the system.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

It is even easier if you use a small troop transport and conquer their colonies instead of glassing them. In the demo version I conquered both the entire Xiati and Abbidon empire like that.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

What weakness is that?

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Point defense is close to useless in the stock game unless present in overwhelming numbers. Right now the AI does not build enough point defense on WPs or Bases and I have not seen any on ships. I also have not seen an AI ship armed with anything other than a DUC. This makes missile based ships with sufficient ordnance storage very overpowered. As an example one FG with 3 CSMs and 650 points of ordnance attacked a planet and destroyed the 6 defending Destroyers and 2 Starbases

I think that the Balance Mod addresses the PD issue, but maybe too far the other way. In V1.08 of the stock game PD is still very weak.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I haven't seen the AI use PDC at all on ships in stock. At least it does put them on WPs for planets.

PD weapons with a reasonable level of attack sensors are quite effective in stock from my experience.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I disagree on the effectiveness of PD in stock. I ran several tests in the simulator. Assuming all components at lvl 5 a ship with 4 PDCs and Combat Sensors never hits more than 1 of 3 incoming missiles. PDCs on vehicles not targeted by seekers almost always miss seekers aimed at other vehicles.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Yea, same.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I have ran into more complexed AI ships in 1.08.

Anyway this thread is very interesting. I've learned a lot from this. In SE IV Capital Ship Missles where overpowered too. That was due to retarded AI mostly, but also the game design. You could move into range fire missles and move out of the range of the weapon platforms. I have toppled entire empires with few crummy Missle DDs or FFs. That was hardly fun.

I'm still new to SE V and have yet to fnish a game. Then again I hardly ever finished a game of SE IV past my first few.

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

I suppose it depends on your definition of finished.

Playing it to the bitter end, glassing every last colony, or playing it down until it is obvious who will win and the other player(s) concede defeat...

Re: Waging war in SE5
 

Yes, but playing a game for 30 turns and then having to restart and do it all over again does get boring.
Mind so does glassing an enemy that's still playing with toy frigates.


Personally I found that a dreadnaught can easily carry enough ordanance (cargo lvl 20 - about 6000 units) to wipe out an entire race single handedly. And cargo-lvl 20 is pretty cheap from an RP front.