Star Destroying Tips

[Enigma]

Ok I am forced to do it. I am in a battle for my life and this may be the only thing that allows us to survive. Waves of enemy ships are advancing on my homeworlds. I want to sacrifice a system and take out his main fleet, so that I have a chance to rebuild.

There are various things you can do to a star, blow it up, create a nebula, produce a black hole. What is most effective? How do you do this without destroying the ship that starts the effect? I want to retrofit an existing ship, and I think the nebula creator is the only one that I could do a retrofit, based on the costs.

Any help would be appreciated.

[capnq]

Enigma said:
How do you do this without destroying the ship that starts the effect?

I don't think you can avoid that.

[Suicide Junkie]

There is no way to save to detonator ship.

If you time it right, though, you could kill many hundreds of enemy warships.

I would say a black hole would be most effective if you want to just defend. That way the enemy's next wave will have to slog through the hole to get you (unless they can and do open up new warppoints)

A simple sunbuster is good if you plan to mount an immediate counter attack.

[douglas]

For just destroying all ships and units in a system, star destroyers, nebula creators, and black hole creators are all equally effective. A star destroyer gets rid of all stars in the system, converts all planets in the system to asteroids, and destroys all ships and units in the system. A nebula creator does the same and adds a nebula to the system. A black hole creator completely removes everything in the system except the warp points and adds a black hole - not even asteroid fields are left of the planets. In all cases the ship that causes the event is destroyed no matter what.

Tips on using these weapons of mass destruction: all of them require that the ship be at a star when you issue the destruction order. Star destroyers require that you be at the target star when you issue the order. Nebula creators can be told to move to another star and then explode. Black hole creators can be told to move elsewhere and then do their thing, and require only that the star they started at still exist when they finish; said star will be removed regardless of where it is in relation to the ship with no direct effect on other objects in that system.

Edit: Nebula creators are the cheapest to build, but don't forget that once it goes off you'll need some kind of cloak detection to see anything in the system.

Edit2: Nebula creators also require an extra step in rebuilding the system. You have to get rid of the nebula before you can create a star and start converting the asteroids back to planets.

[Enigma]

This is good advice. Sounds like the Nebula or the Black Hole would be best, because I could enter a system and destroy the star before the enemy has a chance to react. I will have to put some thought to this. Thanks

[Zereth]

douglas said:
Black hole creators can be told to move elsewhere and then do their thing, and require only that the star they started at still exist when they finish; said star will be removed regardless of where it is in relation to the ship with no direct effect on other objects in that system.

Note that you only need to be in the system you want to destroy, not actually on the star. However, actually using this will probably be considered exploiting a bug if you try it against other human players. (Unless they don't notice.)

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Star destroyers are good if you want to use a temporary scorched earth tactic, you'll lose any colonies/ships/units in that system and so wiill they, but the planets are still present as asteroids, and when the war is going better you could make them back into planets again.

A Nebula can be handy in all three types it can appear;
-Sensor interference nebulae can provide you with a spot to calmly construct your assault forces without them noticing, and if you use sensors and they don't, you'll be able to ambush them if they try another attack through that system.
-Combat Sensor interference nebulae can be handy if they use Combat Sensors, however your own to-hit chances will be less as well, so I'd advise mainly seeker-based and kamikaze-based (ship/fighter/drone, or mine) defenses, provided they don't deploy too many PD ships.
-Shield interference nebulae are excellent if they use lots of shields and you don't. If you use only armor on your ships, and they use mainly shields, you'll quickly gain a quite substantial tactical advantage, as you'll be able to devote more kT per ship to weapons or armor, while they would have at least several shield generators that don't work.

Black holes are also pretty good, they provide you with an excellent line of defence against the enemy, and it slows them down. What you could also do, is lay the maximum allowed number of mines on ALL warp points in the system, so that when they enter they'll be severely damaged if not destroyed, and if they're damaged there's a good chance the black hole will crush them, though I don't know if mines are subject to black holes too?

I didn't know nebulae creators were more expensive than sun nukes?

[Renegade 13]

Strategia, I believe only the sight obscuration nebulae appear when it's a system-wide nebula. The other types occur in sector-sized nebulae, if I'm not mistaken.

[Slick]

From the FAQ:
Sorry about the formatting. It got screwed up when the forum ubb software was changed. I'm fixing it for the next FAQ update.


9.6.7 Here's a chart of nebula and other sytems with their effects:

Note that these are all full system types and the effects apply to all sectors in that system. Pic names included so you can check out actual graphics.

Code:

---

System Cloak Lvl Other Pic (pictures\systems) 

- 

Purple Nebula 3 storm1.bmp 

- 

Bluish Nebula 3 -5000 to all shields. storm2.bmp 

- 

Orange Nebula 3 storm3.bmp 

- 

Green Nebula 4 storm4.bmp 

- 

Red Nebula 5 storm5.bmp 

- 

Purple & Blue 3 -5000 to all shields nebulae1.bmp 

Nebula 

- 

Blue & Green 3 -5000 to all shields. nebulae2.bmp 

Nebula 

- 

Red & Purple 3 -5000 to all shields. nebulae3.bmp 

Nebula 

- 

Red & Green 3 -5000 to all shields. nebulae4.bmp 

Nebula 

- 

Red Blob 3 -5000 to all shields. nebulae5.bmp 

Nebula 

- 

Comet Eye Candy. Comet1.bmp, comet2.bmp 

- 

Core Fragment Eye Candy. corefragment1.bmp 

- 

Green Giant Eye Candy. greengiant1.bmp 

- 

Nova -5000 to all shields. nova.bmp 

- 

Organic Infestation Eye Candy plant1.bmp, plant2.bmp 

- 

-Red Giant Eye Candy. redgiant1.bmp, 

- redgiant2.bmp 

- 

Spatial Rupture Ships move 2 sectors randomly, rupture1.bmp, 

- -5000 to all shields. rupture2.bmp 

- 

Burnt Out Star Eye Candy. BurntOut1.bmp 

- 

Black Hole Ships move 2 sectors to center Blackhole.bmp, 

- each turn, ships at center get blackhole2.bmp 

- 5000 damage, -5000 to all 

- shields, damaging warp points. 

- 

Star Forming Eye Candy. StarForming1.bmp, 

- StarForming2.bmp, 

- StarForming3.bmp, 

- StarForming4.bmp 

---

9.6.8 Here's a chart of the sector storms and their effects:

There are 4 kinds of sector storms. All are equally likely. It appears that color is random and effects can be determined by the description.

Code:

---

Storm Description Effect 



Turbulence causes damage to space vehicles. 200 Damage to ships entering sector. 

- 

This storm is opaque to most scanners. Cloak Level 3. 

- 

There is heavy radiation causing combat -50% to attack. 

sensor interference. 

- 

Ion radiation renders all shields useless. -5000 to all shields. 

---