[Taqwus]

I'd be curious about what Organic Dreadnoughts you've been going against, considering that Organic isn't exactly lacking in nasty range-8 weapons. FWIW, EAGs are the *only* Range 8 weapon with a base damage of 100+ normal that can hit satellites and fighters, IIRC; WMGs, Magnifiers, Mental Singularity weapons, Graviton Hellbores, and Tachyon Cannons are all anti-Ship/Planet-only.

Also since you're fighting Organic, be warned that Organic races can make superb fighters -- the Small Electric Discharge vies for the nastiest fighter weapon available, doing up to 20 at range 3 per turn per fighter.

On that ship, I'd gladly sacrifice a bLaster for a Solar Sail; since you're using weapons with a max range of 6, speed will help you go in and out of your opponent's range and keep you alive. *Maybe* a repulsor beam, but I don't like 'em because their range is lousy.


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A few specialist designs I've put to service (configurations from memory, so may be dodgy/sketchy) --


[ Standard kit on all the following. All the ships described below are designed to operate *solo*, dispersed, to reduce the defensive value of the Main Fleet strategy. Consequently, they must be FAST and stealthy. The need for speed is why none of the following are DNs; to get 11/6 in a DN, you need to spend 1000 pts for Advanced Prop.

In fact, I often ignore Main Fleets and go instead for the planets that support them; a fleet w/o supply, or falling to pieces due to maintenance problems, is a liability, not an asset. ]

- Max engines
- Solar sail
- Cloaking device
- Quantum reactor
- ECM and Combat Sensors
- Master Computer (Late game... and losses are extremely rare, so I don't exactly need to build hordes of them anyway)
- [ Tachyon | Hyper Optics | etc ] Sensors III

Weapon mounts are always the largest possible for the ship size.

=== Biowarfare Ship ===
* Battle Cruiser hull, normally
* Standard kit, plus
* 4x Plague Bomb (in case the damage # is a probability)
* 1x Medical Bay (if the poor sap surrenders, or alternately to help out in my own space. You can't prevent or cure a Level 4 or 5 Plague w/o a Medical Bay ship, anyway).
* 4-5 PDCs (because many planets may have missile-carrying WPs)
* The rest divided between shields and armor, pref. at least 1500 Shield pts (to absorb a salvo of missiles if need be)

Role -- Cause plagues all over the place. Incidentally, these tend to gain large amounts of XP by shooting down missiles from planets they've just plagued. Plagues kill quickly, and until they finish cause rioting which is almost as good from my perspective, since it neutralizes their production.


=== BC Aegis ===
* Same as above, except substitute PDCs for medical/plague foo.

Role -- The exception to the rule of working solo. But, it's usually only needed (in my LARGE games with late-game, high-tech wars) defending other ships from carriers, since w/ QE+Solar Sail means you are as fast as the fastest missiles.


=== BB Stalker ===

* Standard kit, plus
* 1x Shield Depleter
* 2x EAGs
* 1x Hyper Plasma
* 4x PDCs (maybe 5, but I don't think so)
* 4x Shield, pref. Phased
* 3x Armor (hey, it's Organic, so it's tough -- and Crystalline is *very* common, anyway, so more armor isn't THAT useful)
* Long Range Scanner

Role -- Recon, for finding out where bombers and plague ships should go; also, for killing the spy satellites that'd alert the defenders to the bombers/plague ships. Standard kit means it's fast enough to take on most AI-designed DN fleets solo, as well, but the real emphasis is still on finding useful enemy worlds and obliterating their colonists.

The scanner's a nice perk; for instance, I don't need to bother expending MPs on killing an empty transport or colony ship when I'd rather glass a planet. And I can kill the spy satellite stacks first, rather than combat sats. Also, it lets you see whether an enemy fleet has supply problems, and therefore whether you should let them take unlikely shots at range 8 to make them be out of supply for the next pass (and thus shield-less).

In my current game (ca. turn 285 or so) I've lost only 1 warship that I built, and it was of this class -- it went through a warp point, and got ambushed by a fleet of 13+ ships, including 8 DNs, having been spotted by a satellite elsewhere in the system. It still managed to destroy a BC, a BB, and damage a DN before going down, despite starting at point-blank range where it's not supposed to be... Outside of PB range, one demolished a fleet of 11 BCs/BBs/DNs quite handily.


=== BB Carthago! ===
* Standard kit, plus
* 4x Planetary Napalm
* 5x or so PDC
* 1 EAG, if memory serves
* LOTS of shielding and armor

Role --
Planetary bomber, of course. The Stalkers find the enemy systems, the Carthago! class bombers handle any planets too tough for the Stalker to destroy in one fight (e.g. if there are a lot of weapon platforms, etc).


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[This message has been edited by Taqwus (edited 13 January 2001).]