Ship roles (division of labor)

[Taqwus]

Out of curiousity, how are people normally building fleets?

I've been experimenting with fleets including the following roles (in a max-tech, max-planet, large mid-life start)

* Utility CA (at least 1-2 per fleet)
Jobs:
Resupply (quantum reactor)
Repair (1 repair bay)
Satellite/mine launching
Cargo carrying
Missile defense (3 Point-Defense Cannons; others in fleet usually have 1 or 2)

Stays a short distance behind others in battle.

* Picador CA (at least 2-3)
Jobs:
Immobilizing enemies (4 large Ionic Dispersers, 2 Ionic Pulse Missiles)
Plinking (one Shard Cannon)

Typically does run-and-gun until all enemies lack engines. Needs a bit of armor and shielding when getting close enough for the Dispersers. 1 Point-Def cannon, IIRC.

For space reasons and range (ionic dispersers are only range 6 -- and allegiance shifters are either 5 or 6, IIRC), it's got an expensive Master Computer. Can't recall whether I did the same for any of the other ships, but I don't think so.

Getting hit by all Dispersers, or both missiles, will result in all engines being destroyed (120 and 130 pts respectively, and no engine in the demo has more than 20 IIRC).

* Missile CA (pref. 2 or so)
Jobs:
Launching missiles (3 CSMs, 3 Plasma).
Missile def (2 P-DCs).
Lightly armored/shielded, meant for staying out of range.

* Shredder CA (1-2)
Job:
Finishing off the weak, or pursuers
(7 large shard cannons).
Lightly armored, but very very dangerous to an opponent who can't counter as the Shredder dances in and out of range. This ship class gets, by far, the bulk of the credit/experience for kills.

* Troop transport/killer (utterly optional)
Job:
Bombing planets (neutron bombs)
Transporting troops (cargo bays)
Not that critical a ship. Bomb, then invade.

Carriers/Fighters are currently being ignored in this particular game (low speed/range), although I'm considering trying them as bait for slow-recharging weapons.

The combo ain't too bad -- a 10-ship fleet (2 utility ships, 1 troop transport, 2 missile ships, 3 picadors, and 2 shredders) destroyed a 15-ship fleet (all identical CAs with nasty organic beam-type weapons IIRC), losing 1 missile ship in the process. It took two consecutive attacks, but at the end of the first one, all surviving enemy ships had already been immobilized, making the second one mere experience-building target practice...


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[This message has been edited by Taqwus (edited 26 August 2000).]

[Noble713]

Attack Ship:
Mixture of Meson BLasters and Capital Missiles (until good Plasma Missiles are available), moderate to heavy shields, no armor, and 1 point defense. Maximum speed usually 6, and combat sensors. ECM only used on cruisers.

Planet Bomber:
Replaces my combat ship's meson bLasters and missiles with Planetary Napalm. Napalm replaced with neutron bombs when available.

Fleet Train: (just started using it today)
Cruiser size, light shields, 3 solar collectors, 2 repair bays, 1 mine sweeper, 6 engines. The rest is filled with supply storage. At max tech, that's 6000 supply points, or about twice that of any other ship.

Transport:
Nothing special here, just a transport with lots of cargo for troops and some extra supply.

Builder:
A cruiser with a space yard. Space yards are so big you can't put much else on the ship. I only use these for building asteroid mining space stations, and on rare occasions, warp point defense stations.

I've also gotten into the habit of putting colony modules on medium transports. They are far larger than Colony Ships, and can drop far more people on a new colony.

I've tried using a carrier-dominated fleet, but as you said fighters are too slow and it doesn't take the AI long to put PD on its ships and run away from your fighters, shooting them down as they try to close the range.

[jars_u]

quote:

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Originally posted by Taqwus:
Out of curiousity, how are people normally building fleets?

I've been experimenting with fleets including the following roles (in a max-tech, max-planet, large mid-life start)

*

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I think the ship building possibilties in SE4 is one of its greatest strengths, so many different components so many different strategies to come up with. However, other then for "reserach" purposes I think it is a mistake to design ships assuming that all the tech levels are available. True you can start the game out like that but I don't think that would be much fun. Being forced which areas to develop is a large part of the game. Also, as in real life you won't always have the funds available to create your ideal fleets and there are always outdated ships that you will have to deal with in combat that have not yet been retrofitted.

One question though about this ship design:

* Utility CA (at least 1-2 per fleet)
Jobs:
Resupply (quantum reactor)
Repair (1 repair bay)
Satellite/mine launching
Cargo carrying
Missile defense (3 Point-Defense Cannons; others in fleet usually have 1 or 2)

Does having 1 ship in a fleet with a quantum reactor allow all ships in that fleet to basically share the ulimited supplies?

Jim

[Noble713]

quote:

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Originally posted by jars_u:


Does having 1 ship in a fleet with a quantum reactor allow all ships in that fleet to basically share the ulimited supplies?

Jim

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Pretty much. It will refill the ship that has it, one turn later the fleet will automatically redistribute the supplies so they all have approximately the same amount, and then the quantum reactor will refill its ship's supplies again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.

[Taqwus]

jars_u >>

Aye. It probably makes sense for testing purposes, 'tho -- as in making sure that my ships defeating the AI's fleets didn't happen just because better tech balanced out a nonsensical design, or having greater pop because I stumbled on ruins giving me another colony type early on, or whatnot.

On the quantum reactor, it works as Noble says. The fleet will still run out of supplies when you engage in multiple battles a turn (say, 3 anti-planet battles perhaps), so it's not quite as flexible as QR's for everybody, but QR's are a tad pricey and it saves 20kt space per ship, IIRC. The AI appears oblivious to the possibility of destroying the utility ships and thus making supplies matter...

One additional type that I'm considering is a dedicated 'big gun' ship -- meant to be the only one that uses not-every-round large beam weapons like Wave-Motion Guns, with strategy set to something like --

max range / don't get hurt
attack only ships, stations, planets and platforms
pri: has weapons, largest, most damaged,
nearest (needs testing and tweaking, fer sure)


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Taqwus]

Hrm. An evil idea (for multiplayer only, methinks -- versus folks who don't carefully examine every opposing ship) --

'Trojan Horse' / deceptive ships, such as...

Colony ships, loaded with troops instead of colonists; perhaps have a few in systems belonging to a mark^H^H^H^Hally.

Cruiser colony ships, so that folks see a small stack of cruisers labelled "Annihilator Mk. V" and "Juggernaut", and look elsewhere. Mix with fully armed cruisers labelled "Utility ship" and "Fleet Tender".

Bait labelled "Barney", "Pikachu" or "N'Sync". Who could resist the chance to waste 'em... ;-)

A medium transport, with fighter or satellite bay(s) for a nasty surprise if somebody thinks it's easy prey.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night