p.o.\'d..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Ok, so while im playing for quite some weeks now i had my first major combat today. Im talking pbw btw. Firstly, my warppoint was only lightly defended, with satellites. Now, here comes: When playing against the AI i always noticed that satellites start adjacent to wormholes. Because of this i always design satellites with ripper beams. The mod we were playing had an extended range mount, adding +2 to range of sat weapons. So in fact my sats had a range of 4, which is that bad if they are supposed for a first-round-defender-kill. Now the 60 ships jump in and guess what ? my sat group starts 10 fields away from the wormhole, while the hostile fleet starts massed in a clump to the left adjacent to the wormhole. OC my sats didnt shot, so my defenses were broken without losses at all.
Now im wondering, WTF ?!? WTF designed the game in a way, that satellites start 10 spaces away from the thing they are supposed to protect ? Im pissed, really pissed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

(Edited language in title) - Atrocities

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Short answer, sattelites suck.

Were there any other ships in the sector, like from a third party both of you were allies with? That will screw up you warp point defense and move your ships and units to the edge.

But even if your sats had been close to the warp point, sats suck so it wouldn't have mattered.

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Yeah such a useful tool is nullified due to a bad stacking or lack of stacking option in the game...I wonder if this will be any better or different in SEV

Kana

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

In the early game, satellites with missiles will keep the AI raiders at bay. But as soon as PDC’s arrive on the board, they are just a waste of resources. Against humans, they are almost worthless. They do make good cheap recon devices once you have the sensors to put on them.

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

A stack of sats on a WP can work if armed as he armed them, with Ripper Beams (or WMG) Then they provide a no-maintance punch to back up any other defenses you may have. They probably won't get more than a single salvo off, though..

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Satellite are indeed worthless. However, if you send a request to Aaron to address this issue in SE V, he might just do that. You never know.

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Perhaps you could use sats to back up a base? Its possible that they'll attack the base, and not the sats...

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

PDC will still shoot at the sat, ignoring the base. So sat will still be worthless.

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

PDC needs to be nerfed...

Re: pissed..combat-at wormhole questions-
 

Well, see, the deal was that each of those sats had 3 ripper beams doing 30 damage at range 4. I had like 35 sats, so that are about 35 * 30 * 3 = 3150 damage, and hits guranted at such a short range. 3100 are about 7-8 ships which would have been nice anyway.