In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

In order to beat back the ever-encroaching night of ignorance, let us review the best fleet strategy so that our newbie players can skip much of the painful trail-and-error approach.

Start with berzerker stats, and pump up ship defense and inteligence to the max, taking from the other useless categories like strength where nescisary.

Build 15 escort hulls with x2 DUCs and ECM. Buold about five fleet supply ships to go with them. If you are smart about managing the construction by using extra space yards and researching in the correct order, you should have your fleet ready in a little over 20 turns.

With these stats, your escorts loaded with such tremendous defense bonouses will almost NEVER be hit, and will lay down CRUSHING fire against ANYTHING.

Then take your fleet and proceed to wipe out everything in your path.

Game over.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>With these stats, your escorts loaded with such tremendous defense bonouses will almost NEVER be hit, and will lay down CRUSHING fire against ANYTHING.

Then take your fleet and proceed to wipe out everything in your path.<hr></blockquote>&lt;fine print&gt;Path not guaranteed beyond the first missile-using race encountered.&lt;/fine print&gt;

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Geez. Can you maybe explain why any of the counters I thought up on the OTHER thread wouldn't work? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Defense bonuses don't protect against missiles. PD does, but gee, you *don't have any room*. Suppose you could build dedicated PD ships, but you still have to build and research. Meanwhile weapons platforms can bash your fleet as well- because WPs can be built faster and ton for ton carry more firepower.

Phoenix-D

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Geez. Can you maybe explain why any of the counters I thought up on the OTHER thread wouldn't work? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Defense bonuses don't protect against missiles. PD does, but gee, you *don't have any room*.<hr></blockquote>

Because of my massively overwhelming, shattering, crushing firepower coupled with your complete inability to hit my ships.

Whoops, I noticed I neglected to enter the point defense on my design, so it ends up being this:

Crew/Bridge/Life ... 30t
x2 DUCs IV ......... 60t
x1 ECM I ........... 10t
x1 PD III .......... 20t
x3 Ion Engines ..... 30t

Net Wieght ......... 150t

*** THANK-YOU FOR SHOPPING PLEASE COME AGAIN ***

Let's check out what the defensive stats:

Escort hull bonus .......... 40%
Bezerker racial bonus ...... 10%
Ship Defense race bonus .... 30%
ECM I bonus ................ 20%

Net defense bonus .......... 100%

*** UNLESS YOU HAVE A TALISMAN FORGET ABOUT HITTING ANY OF MY SHIPS WITH DIRECT FIRE, EVER! ***

Missiles? *** TRY MY 15 PDs UNLOADING ONCE A TURN AT LEAST TWO TIMES BEFORE YOUR MISSILES HIT = YOU LOSE ***

So, what can you do against me?

Phase cannons? No sheilds + can't hit me anyway = GO HOME.

Torpedos? Can't hit me = TRY AGAIN

Fighters? Try my army of PDs = BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.

Missiles? Try my army of PDs = YOU LOSE

Heavy sheilds / armor? Can't hit me + I can hit you = YOU LOSE AGAIN

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: GUTB ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Easy counter-

Same racial abilties. Canceled out. Add Combat Sensors I to the weapons platforms. 5% ADVANTAGE. Your actual - to hit, therefore, is 35%. Damaging but not inconqueable. And since your chance to hit the defenders will actually be even worse..

Actually it's irrelevent. Same ship. Replace the DUCs, ECM, and PD with Organic Armor I. Those ramming ships bash through your "uber fleet" like a hot knife through glue. They are also cheaper. Because of that and since they will be used on defense, more numorous. They don't even have to be more numerous to smash your DUC escorts flat.

EDIT: ran some simulator tests. 15 on each side, the WORST outcome for the Organic race was the lost of 50% of it's fleet. This for total destruction of the DUC ships, mind.

EDIT2: for that matter, Beserker *hurts your research and production*.

Phoenix-D

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Not to mention one small mine with 2 level 1 warheads will take out a whole one of your escorts. Anybody facing you would throw up a few mines at every planet, a few more on warp points.

And while you mass your escorts and launch massive suicide raids against the minefields, I'd be going around methodically capturing your planets since you took all your points out of that "useless" strength characteristic.

Your strategy might work well against an AI, but it's very easily countered by a human player.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

And don't forget that those 3 movement (with only 2 in combat) ships will be easily out-manuevered. If your opponent orders his ships to use the maximum range strategy, your ships won't get to fire during half of the rounds.

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

OMG he's talking about winning with speed 3 escorts? The uber strategy? Laugh...

PvK

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

GUTB:
Allow me to confirm,
Against AI, sure, any human with just about any strategy will win. Against a human?
Let me ask one quesiton, did you ever wonder why there are no bipedal robots in the real world today? The ansewer is that the proccessing power and algorythm required to do this exceeds any "practical" use.
The processing power of the human brain exceeds any AI anyone could write for less than several milllion? maybe billion dollars. MM is only charging $40 dollars.
EDIT: (Pulling the sting from my original post)
This example is ment as a way to explain why strategys that defeat an AI every time, will not win against a human.

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Gryphin ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Han Solo: "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy."

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

"nor is it like bulls-eyeing womprats in your T16 back home"

Challenge to all supposed Star Wars loonies out there. What are the first words spoken in Star Wars (the original movie)?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

No, it doesn't even work well against the AI--at least not past the very short term.

I decided to try this strategy. Small quadrant, 11 AI, 3 neutral, 5 good planet start. My DUC escorts, and later destroyers, were the scourge of the three neighboring systems. I even got myself down to 2 warp points--1 bordering on a black hole system.

And then, 3 AI attacked. I wasn't too bothered by their PPB's--I hadn't even been able to research shields yet. Most of my capital had been tied up in those three systems, and I hadn't been able to develop much research. What research I did have had to go into astrophysics/stellar harnessing. Speed 3 escorts run out of supplies awfully quickly under ordinary circumstances, let alone when used as main warships. By the time I could develop light cruisers, I had been driven back into my original two systems, and was loosing mines faster than I could put them out. Survival time: about 50 game turns.

Bottom line--This strategy only works for very short term--and not well even then if the Rage or another TDM race are nearby. Your ships will be out of supplies three systems away and you'll have to spend major resources to rescue them.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Topic: In Review: Worst Fleet Strategy Ever.

Gutb play test it against non-ai's

Everyone else...

GUTB failed to mention that these fleets are controlled by ninja's who will totally flip out and kill everything.

When these fleets show up,,,peoples heads roll and thats a fact.

I once heard that a GUTB UBER-Ninja fleet showed up in a system and the System wide diner was closed for renovation and just one Ninja killed the whole system.

Now thats power.

Taken from and modified

http://www.realultimatepower.net/


Were still waiting for your proof ... Please show us by posting some saved games here.... Perhaps a history of this Best Fleet Strategy in a turn by turn afair.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Actually in fairness to GUTB I think his original strat called for a one planet low-tech start.

Phoenix-D

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Growltigga:
[QB}Challenge to all supposed Star Wars loonies out there. What are the first words spoken in Star Wars (the original movie)?[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Was it "There's one." Spoken by the stormtroopers pointing to Leia on the captured rebel ship?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Did you hear that? They've shut down the main reactor. We'll
be destroyed for sure. This is madness!

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

I am disturbed to say the prize goes to Tesco Samoa

What is the secret Tesco, encylcopedic memory or just anally retentive?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Hate to be a damn noob, but whats UBER? *LOL* sounds like a term for someone who dont play right... like one of them cutthroat overkill abuse the system kinda people... Am I anywhere close to right?

---EDIT--- Nevermind, I see that GUTB is a user, not a general term. What about UBER? *l*
((No offence GUTB, if ya caught the non-edited Version of this post))

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Cynapse ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Uber is Ultra-mega-super-totallyabusingeveryruletothemaxadvantage.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Uber - From the German means "over"
I'm sure Mephisto can expand upon this "uber" simplification.
Mephisto?
EDIT:
Found this as well:
uber-whatever = Something that is highly superior, e.g. uberplanes, uberguns... uber is derived from the german word "uber" meaning "super-whatever".
Probably a "modern" evolution of the word / prefix.

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Gryphin ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

I knew it was c3p0 just not the exact words so I keyword searched star wars esp 4 script and found one with the words. Took 20 seconds... with a little help from google

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Surely not the only, but maybe the most famous, use of the prefix "uber" was by Hitler in his writings and the Nazi party in the word "ubermensch". It literally means over-men but is more correctly translated as supermen. It was used in refering to the supposed superiority of the Aryan race over all others and used to justify horrible acts by the same.

Fortunately "uber" here seems to have a more benign connotation meaning a super or ultimate strategy. It does come out of the tradition in Role-playing Games of "munchkinism", or the maxing of stats and skills to make the game as easy as possible and ignoring any role-playing in the process. Mind you I have given in to "munchkinism" myself from time to time, and found it a useful method of play when testing the limits of AI. Fortunately the games we play lend themselves to many styles of playing. There is no need to look down at those who play differently than us.

Please excuse me if I bored you, I started out explaining some German and ended up preaching. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Texfire

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Very interesting...
I had no known that about Hitler and 'uber', that one's new http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Thank you for clearing that up though...its funny, for the longest time the acronym PBW got to me, only coz Im used to seeing "PBEM" (play by email - I was a vga planets/stars man before I found SE) instead of play by web, and for the life of me I couldnt figure out what that W was for...*LMAO* Damn I can be such a dumbass when Im sober.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

texFire,
Thanks for the full background. I love word derivations.
I also loved the granet hills around Austin and a place called "Inks Lake State Park".

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Right, off-topic I know but an Englishman canno more resist a challenge with a colonial than Gryphin can avoid nasal hair!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Secundus - what type of vessel was Princess Leia's ship in Star Wars (ie the one being chased by the Star Destroyer in the first film), what was its name and who was its captain?

Tesco - cue google search http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Argghgh right on the tip of my tongue... Been a while since I watched that. All I can remember now is the dude choking...

"...we're on a...diplomatic...mission..."
"If this is a council (**what word does he use?) ship, where is the Ambassador?..."

*l* damn I love useless trivia for some reason... especially when it eludes me...

Arent those ships she was on called Blockade Runners or something? Maybe Im thinking of something else...

[ 21 March 2002: Message edited by: Cynapse ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Check this:

One starting planet
Low tech start

In 25 turns you can have ECM I, DUC IV, and PD III.

x15-20 escorts
x5 fleet supply oilers

When the Fleet Group Omega comes for you...all you can do is surrender.

*** ALL YOU CAN DO IS MINE YOUR WARP POINT AND DELAY THE END FOR A WHILE YOU HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS ***

I call this the Red Army fleet strategy. YOU CANNOT WIN.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Hehe. I'll give him points for effort. He is persistant. Maybe when he has played a few more games he'll start to realize...

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Umm... 25 turns?

It's more like at least 50 turns, Unless you set up extensive research colonies.

I did a quick start as terrans and kept on researching those techs:

To get ECM and Point Defense, you have to research Military Sciences that took me about 24 turns.

Projectile Weapons too me about 20-21 turns to get to level 4.

And to research ECM and Point Defense, it takes about another 33 turns.

24+33=57 turns.

Now this is only according to One planet, No racial advantages, and Low tech.

So are you sure it was 25 turns?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

*laughs outright* Maybe its the Aries flowing in my blood, or the fact that I love to defy the laws of nature... But I doubt your strategy is foolproof... I would love to test it.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

He didn't say no advantages, and he did say he dumped points into intelligence, I think. He probably has planetary exploitation advantage. I think he probably can do it in 25 turns. In a recent PBW game I have an opponent who did something very like this, but without the mistake of sticking to speed 3 escorts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif . The first thing I ran into were speed 6 frigates with two DUC IV's, ECM I, and two PDC's, and these were developed in under 30 turns. I parried this with mines and by outnumbering with CSM frigates. This improved Version is a good first strike technique, but the speed 3 escort idea is a mistake, except maybe for defense ships.

PvK

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Ahh.

But with Planet exploitation (I assume you mean Advanced storage technique) it's more like cheating to win, in my perspective really.

Unless those racial points go into racial techs or something that doesn't drastically upset the balance of power it's just set in your favor.

that just goes to show...

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

The main problem with the escort attack is they take too damn long to get to the target. That and even if you win, he can throw everything into a small transport and colony ship and OUTRUN you.

"When the Fleet Group Omega comes for you...all you can do is surrender."

Oh so wrong. Organic Armor I can be researched just as quickly as your ships, the defenders also have more time to build. Those ramming ships will tear your attack to shreads. BTW, ramming is NOT AFFECTED by ECM. I.e. you cannot dodge.

Phoenix-D

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gryphin:
texFire,
Thanks for the full background. I love word derivations.
I also loved the granet hills around Austin and a place called "Inks Lake State Park".<hr></blockquote>

I miss Inks Lake. Used to have a ball there dragging my kids on float behind the boat.


------------

So many ugly women, so much time. Got Beer?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Can someone please get GUTB in a PBW/PBEM so they can show him the error of his ways - speed 3 escorts? lordy!

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
The main problem with the escort attack is they take too damn long to get to the target. That and even if you win, he can throw everything into a small transport and colony ship and OUTRUN you.

"When the Fleet Group Omega comes for you...all you can do is surrender."

Oh so wrong. Organic Armor I can be researched just as quickly as your ships, the defenders also have more time to build. Those ramming ships will tear your attack to shreads. BTW, ramming is NOT AFFECTED by ECM. I.e. you cannot dodge.

Phoenix-D<hr></blockquote>

I like your dedication...TO LOSING!! Sure, you build an armada of ram-ships, but this is putting all your effort into NOT LOSING. So after you cheap-shot Fleet Group Omega, you can't do ANYTHING but wait for Fleet Group Orion to show up with -1 DUC and plus 3 engines so you will NOT be able to catch me.

*** I HAVE THE GUNS, I HAVE INNIATIVE SO I WIN!! ***

And looking at my strategy, I'm going to try something else out. Consider that you will NEVER EVER be able to hit me, do I really NEED more than one DUC? So let's check this out:

Crew/Life/Bridge ... 30t
x1 DUC ............. 30t
x1 PD .............. 20t
ECM ................ 10t
x6 engines ......... 60t

Total wieght ....... 150t

So my effective firepower is cut in half...but theoreticaly...SO WHAT! You STILL CANNOT HOPE TO HIT ME so what should it matter if I have to spend twice the number of turns crushing you? And then I get 6 movement (7 with propulsion expert) plus three movement in combat.

I will have to test this.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

GUTB, you are quite entertaining, but seriously, you do realize that getting your defensive adjustment to 100% does not give make yoru ships invulnerable to direct fire weapons don't you?

Any attack modifiers for your opponent will be factored in as well. Yes, your opponent will probably miss more than you do, but he wont miss EVERY shot. And it won't take as many shots to disable your escorts as it will for your escorts to disable his ships.

If you can manage an very high numerical advantage in every battle, you will do ok, but your opponent is not likely to allow you to do that.

Geo

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

"So after you cheap-shot Fleet Group Omega, you can't do ANYTHING but wait for Fleet Group Orion to show up"

Except research, build more ram ships, etc.

I should remind you that the ram ships typiclly took out your DUC escorts without loosing more than 50% of their own. So I have have my fleet leftover, you have..none. If you do speed 6 it gets nastier, but you don't really have much of a chance to kill organic armor ships with that little firepower.

Phoenix-D

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Actually, the concept of 'Ubermensch' was developed by late 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He believed that the Christian view of the world, and it's morals, were almost explicitly designed to hold back any man that would lay claim to something greater than the usual goals people aspire to. In Nietzsche's view, Christianity thus was a religion of the weak, praising 'unnatural' actions such as presenting the other cheek. Following, one of his goals was the creation of a new set of morals, that would embrace the concept of the Ubermensch and encourage him to step forward. A perfect example of an Ubermensch such as Nietzsche sees him is Napoleon Bonaparte, who strived to conquer all of Europe ( not really an everyday goal eh : ) ). It must be said that his legacy has been perverted by the Nazi's, since Nietzsche based his concept of the Ubermensch on a person's qualities and achievements, not race or skin colour. Sorry bout the rant : )

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by GUTB:
So my effective firepower is cut in half...but theoreticaly...SO WHAT! You STILL CANNOT HOPE TO HIT ME so what should it matter if I have to spend twice the number of turns crushing you? And then I get 6 movement (7 with propulsion expert) plus three movement in combat.

I will have to test this.<hr></blockquote>

LOL, yes you will have to test it, and notice that you are getting hit. Oh noooo... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

P.S. No one with speed 3 has the initiative. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ 22 March 2002: Message edited by: PvK ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

GUTB Please post the first 25 to 30 turns of your game playing so we can see this in action. Right now only you believe in what your saying.... Just prove it to us. Solipsis come on over to the ramble thread and join in there.... (Bar and grill one ) Nice to meet you.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

I think people have more or less covered the flaws in this. Glad its evolved from speed 3 dominate the sector though ... Scary to think how many mines a homeworld can be made in the time it takes that "uber-fleet" to travel from one system to the next.

Interesting I did try something somewhat simular although far more costly in the Last pbw game I played in. Was religious with obscene defence bonues and superior propulsion (racial pick)

Adding max ECM+race bonus+Stealh and Scattering+20 fleet experience did make my ships fairly unhittable at range 8 (I was using late tech anti protons) and of course the talisman made all of mine hit.

But ... I think some of their attacks did hit ... is there a 1% minimum chance?

Back to the Uber Fleet however ... surely its obvious that its easy to make more missile ships that 1 lousy pds a vessel will cope with (or even missile platforms come to that) ...

Ah well,

Btw ... anyone know whats up with PBW this morning ?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Ok, I have done some real game (not simulator) testing of the "Uber-Munchkin" strategy. As expected it does not quite live up to it's high expectations.

First of all, there is no way to get 30% defesive characteristic. It tops out at 25. I created an uber race with bezerkers, and +25% defense.

For my control race I used a straight default, no advantages or disadvatages.

I decided to handicap myself and not use seekers, fighters, mines or organic armor ramming ships.

I calculated the amount of research points required to get DUC IV, PDC III, and ECM I. With the same number of research points my control race could get Destroyers, Combat Sensors I, and DUC III. This is what I designed my munchkin killers with. My destroyers could hold 6 DUC III's.

In one on one comabt the destoyers decimated the escorts. 9 kills to 1. The one escort that survived is what I would call heavily damaged. (more than 50%) Of the 9 frigates that won their battles, only 2 were heavily damaged.

In fleet action, 10 vessels per side, once again the destoryers won convincingly. In several combats, the best the escorts could manage was 2 kills and 8 heavily damaged. And that I consider a statistical fluke, because most of the results were at the other extreme end, with most or all of the escorts killed, and mild damage to the destroyer fleet.

The only positive point to this strategy is that the escorts can be built fast. One per turn on the homeworld. The frigates take two turns. However the munchkins need this as because even with a 4 to 3 numerical disadvantage, the destoryers come out on top the large majority of combats. It's only when the escorts can acheive a 2-1 numerical advantage do they start winning consistantly.

I must point out that this test was done using the 6 engine, 1 DUC IV Version of the Uber-Munchkin. I don't consideer the 3 engine Version even a legitimate option. They would have more firepower, but it would take so long to get a decent fleet to the enemy's worlds, they would have battle cruisers waiting for you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

So even without all the creative counters proposed, this can be defeated by a low tech "brute force" defense.

Geoschmo

[ 22 March 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]</p>

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

DUC can be made obsolete by crystal armor.
Destroyer with 4 CA-I and shield (any level)
negates 40 damage points per shot.
That is DUC IV. One such destroyer can decimate
an infinite number of "uber-escorts". Granted, it has room for just one weapon, but who needs more when you are impregnable ?

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by oleg:
DUC can be made obsolete by crystal armor.
Destroyer with 4 CA-I and shield (any level)
negates 40 damage points per shot.
That is DUC IV. One such destroyer can decimate
an infinite number of "uber-escorts". Granted, it has room for just one weapon, but who needs more when you are impregnable ?<hr></blockquote>

Ships with only one weapon cannot do much to repel a Ramming attacker. A fleet of uber-escorts can ram the Destroyer into oblivion with about two or three rams.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Not that easy to do in multiplayer (strategic combat). Especially when I have speed advantage (3-engine escorts... how could one even think about such mutant !) and "max. distance" strategy.

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by LGM:
Ships with only one weapon cannot do much to repel a Ramming attacker. A fleet of uber-escorts can ram the Destroyer into oblivion with about two or three rams.<hr></blockquote>

Rock, paper, scissors.

The search for an "uber-weapon" is snipe hunt. Every weapon has it's advantages and disadvantages. A ship design that will kick butt against one type, will fail miserably against another.

No weapon or strategy is perfect for every possible situation. You must be able to adapt, and improvise to be succecsful all the time. And even then, you can't all the time. Because there is always someone out there that can adapt a little better, and improvise a little faster than you can.

If there was truly only one answer to the question, then people wouldn't still be playing this game a year and a half later.

Geoschmo

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Exactly.

Well said....

I just clobbered an enemy in a PBEM game because I changed my strategy of ship building every 40 turns or so and used combined fleets. So the strenghts and weakness balanced out.

I personally believe their is only on strategy in this game. Production. Out produce your enemies and you will win. How you get there is the fun part. Winning is not as enjoyable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Check this out:

On the first turn, dump your innitial research points into Military Science and projectile 2. The next turn, continue researching Combat Support and projectile at the same time. Once you have ECM, get your PD up to II or III. You should have DUC IV, ECM and PD III by 17-20 turns.

On the first turn, build two or three space stations with ship yards. Once you have ECM, start building prototype hulls. Set your orbital yards to emergency build. So if you have three yeards, you can get 10 prototype hulls in 4 turns. By this time, you should close to around 18 turns with all your tech up to where we want it, so upgrade to prototype to the full Version and then spend a few turns retrofitting. Spend this retrofitting time pumping out another 5-6 complete hulls.

Presto, in 20-25 turns you have your Navy Fleet Group ready to go! You could have it in 20 flat if you were willing to settling for lower tech equipment.


**** THIS IS FROM A SINGLE PLANET LOW-TECH START!!!!!!! *****

Re: In Review: Best Fleet Strategy
 

Face it GUTB, your strategy is one of the most easily countered strategies in existance. Most experienced players already build 3 space stations around their homeworld(s), so they could easily produce more ships (of a larger size) than you in the time that it takes for your fleet to be built and to reach them. And with only 1 point defense gun per ship, missile destroyers (or even frigates) would be able to overwhelm your escorts. And with such short ranged weapons, your ships will rarely get a chance to fire upon the missile ships (which would use the max range strategy). So much for that uber-defense level of your ships.