Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

So the question finaly formed in my brain:
What is the practical use of mines in large-scale games against human players?
Very well. in the earlier game it gives the advantage to the defender.
A little later, even with LCs loaded with Mine Sweepers II can take out minefields relatively easy, given the 100 mines-per-sector limitatioin.
Are the mines any effective?

Sats.
Same situation as with mines - early on some advantage but then it ends.
In my Last game (against the AI, the first realy serious) i've noticed that large sats with appropiate weaponry are rather expensive and it does take the same time to build 6 sats and to outfit a BattleStation of the latest tech.

So, someone please explain me why should one bother to build 20 sats when he can build 3 battlestations of much greater stopping power?

Now the Last question: experience.
Is it me, or experience gives ships a big advantage over the untrained fleets?
OK, this is realistic. But still.
In my game i was battling Sergetti - a race with enchanced speed(+1) and engines one level ahead of me, and defensiveness(+20), plus their berzerkers culture (+10) for a grand total of +2 over my speed and +30 to all defensive rolls.
Early on their ships had their edge - my ships were missing to the most even with better sensors (sensors II against ECM I). So i massed my forces over a planet with fleet & ship training facilities (i thought it'd be a good time spending untill all the fleet is built and arrives etc). Later when the fleet was massed (LCs armed to teeth with Mesons) i encountered their early mines and spent time building my own mine sweepers.
Then there was the retrofitting to the new engines and weapons (my technology-rich race made it realy quick to reach PPB 5 and higher enginess).

The result was 17 ships, each ship having +20 to their skill and +20 to fleet skill.
Then there were the battles.
My fleet have _never_ _been_ _hit_.
Never. No hit. I exterminated the whole many of their ships - four massive (20+) fleets with the smallest ships being cruisers and biggest battleships (a few, the High Tech of the race).
So my fleet was unscathed.

Now it is approximally 30 turns later.
The fleet is elite +29 and each ship is either elite of +28 or legendary closing to +40 (the flagship).

I've encountered several other races. The fleet exterminated a grand total of 30 dreadnoughts from the Drushocka, and again - no losses. The sergetti are literally dead. And all above was the result of early training.

Is the training is realy so effective? If yes it realy but realy justifies the early research of military lvl2.

OK, long post with a lot of personal info. But hey, this is my first sucessful game!

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

Yes, mines are a crock. All or nothing for both mine attacks and mine sweeper attacks is completely out of character with the rest of the game. We've been pummeling on MM to fix them since before the game was officially released. No progress so far. I guess you'd have to get hundreds of people to email their rants in to convince him it's important.

Sats in the default game do become less useful as combat sensors and ECM evolve. I've modded my own game to give sats natural defensive and offensive bonuses due to their small size. They can also use the same combat sensors and ECM as ships, remember. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Recommendation: make a special emissive armor for sats, or increase the power of standard emissive armor, to match the damage rating of PDC. Then sats fitted with this armor have to be attacked with normal weapons.

Training: Yes, it's that effective. I rather enjoy it but since the AI is not smart enough to use training it amounts to cheating in single-player games. The problem is (again) the all or nothing nature of so many parts of the game. If damage was slightly randomized instead of exactly what you set for the weapon, or if there was a 'near miss' feature in combat and not just clean hit or miss, you could have a wider range of variable effects due to training and not just the flat percentage increase or decrease in chances to hit or miss (absolutlely).

I'd like to see training affect how the crew handles damage to the ship, for example. A 'green' crew ought to be disoriented and the ship disabled for a combat round or two by a major hit, but a veteran crew could just keep right on fighting.

[ June 04, 2002, 21:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

"So, someone please explain me why should one bother to build 20 sats when he can build 3 battlestations of much greater stopping power?"

Sats are free after construction, and can be built off-site. Additionally, they can't be hit by some of the large ship-killing weapons (null-space, WMG, missiles, torps). OTOH they *can* be hit by PDC.

Phoenix-D

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

The other advantage of sats:
They can be moved.
They make great Sentenals.
They are great Drone killers when playing against the AI. In the game I am playing now the AI repeatedly throws 2 drones at my sats. cheap sats, expensive ship killing drones.

Edit: many many of the sats were over 30 turns old.

[ June 03, 2002, 21:16: Message edited by: The High Gryphin ]

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

Well yeah, i've realised the pluses of sats after i've posted, thanks.

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

I've found sats to be extremely effective, provided you use them in combination with something else.
ex: Missle sats are useless in late game right? Wrong! 100 sats with csm's over a planet that has large weapon platforms using massive mount tachyon projection cannons is something to fear. PDC's are great, but only if they can fire! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
That's just one example I'm sure some of the more experienced players can come up with more.

Nodachi

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

I am designing a Psychic race now that uses sat's with allegiance subverters at warp points. Imagine coming through a warp point and staring 30 allegiance subverters in the face at point blank range!

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">For the most part, this is true. You can, however, be sneaky about where you put mines. Your opponent isn't always going to have a mine sweeper everywhere he is sending ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Azorani AI uses that technique as well. It can be rather... disturbing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

One of the strengths of SEIV is its balance. To me it is so artfully balanced that no part of the tech tree can be ignored. With that in mind, I can't agree that mines are near to useless late in the game-- else why am dragging two or three minesweepers along with my fleet of dreadnaughts? If nothing else, it forces caution. That mines can defeated only serves to indicate the balance in the game.
One could argue that ecm and combat sensors are useless late in the game because everyone has them. Maybe we should agree to redesign our ships on turn 100 to not include these components and add another gun instead.
The balance is there to be used as you wish. It is those differences of opinion on what is best that makes the game interesting-- and eminently replayable.

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't just count the combat losses you inflict with a weapon. By having mines over some planets and warp points you force your enemy to have sufficient minesweepers in every of his fleets costing him resources while your mines are free. The same holds true for carriers/fighters and missiles. It forces your enemy to have PDC on his ships (or build some Aegis ships). This reduces the combat value of his ships against other ships and is expensive. Remember, large empires win or lose a war by their economy.

[ June 04, 2002, 12:03: Message edited by: [K126]Mephisto ]

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

Hmm. Good points. Agree.

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

Mines and sats are both still worth using even in the later parts of a game. Besides what has already been said on their use, if you use the combined arms technique they can still be deadly expecially on wormhole defense. Imagine, Starbases, with 100 sats and 100 mines on a wormhole, you come thru, the sats are going to gave at least several good shots at you, depending what you use, before they are wasted, but those shots might mean the difference in winning or losing the battle.
Mines and sats can be put anywhere, this does force one to build sweepers, which like Mephisto and the others said uses resources. If you don't then the mines take out your ships. Plus Sats can be cloaked, put several of these in each system with scanners and you can see what's going on. In closing, if your enemy builds them, you must defend against them, if you use them your enemy must defend against them, therefore there is an action and a reaction. If he builds mines and you don't use sweepers......or vica versa, so you might not actually see any big use later in the game but they still cause players to react.

training facilities, I don't use them in Sp play only in hot seat when other human players are in game. Until Ai uses them it seem unfair in sp play. (in my opinion)

just some ideas mac

[ June 04, 2002, 20:43: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

One thing that I've always thought would make satellites a lot more useful would be to increase their size slightly, or decrease the size of the robo-miner components. That way remote mining could be started at the beginning (or close to the beginning) of the game, and profitably.

Having to wait to research large satellites (something I generally don't get a chance to do until later on) to me greatly lessens the effectiveness of remote mining. RM has always seemed underused to me; I expect that if humanity ever makes it to the stars then that form of mining will be a significant portion of all mining done.

Actually, this makes me think of something interesting; I'm going to start a new post to discuss it. (See Mining makes me sad)

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

I know its been discussed before, but it would be nice if you could place your sats in Groups in any of the 4 cornors of your planet instead of always lumped together in l location that you don't have a choice over.. same with bases, in my opinion only..

just some ideas mac

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would be scarry! unless they use MC's then WM-3 will kick butt too! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, there's a "Combat Satellite Group Amount" control in settings.txt and it does nothing. Why? If sats were grouped into smaller bunches and scattered around they'd be far more effective than all being bunched in one place.

Re: Varied questions: mines, sats, experience
 

"So, someone please explain me why should one bother to build 20 sats when he can build 3 battlestations of much greater stopping power?"

Well, if you are playing against a psychic race, it only takes one shot (maybe two if you include a virus) by the subverter, and your base has just become your enemy.