The Plague (Subverters, Boarders, and IDs, Oh My)

[douglas]

Actually, its small size makes emissive armor less likely to be hit. It's just that when it does get hit, it's not tough enough to survive the hit.

A component's probability of being hit is directly proportional to its structure. Emissive armor has 50 structure, Crystalline has 150, so any individual piece of emissive armor is 1/3 as likely to be hit on any given shot as any given piece of crystalline armor. If there are 10 crystalline armors (minimum to get maximum immunity) and 1 emissive, each hit has a 1/31 chance of hitting the emissive armor.

Going with my usual combination of having 2 backup emissives, hitting an emissive armor when everything is still intact has a probability of 1/11. Once one emissive is destroyed, hitting another is 1/16. On average, it will take 11+16+31 = 58 hits with weapons that do less than 180 damage to destroy all 3 emissive armor components and bring the damage immunity down to 149. Meanwhile, the presence of emissive armor is taking 30 damage off of every hit the ship takes.

[Suicide Junkie]

douglas said:
Actually, its small size makes emissive armor less likely to be hit. It's just that when it does get hit, it's not tough enough to survive the hit.

Unfortunately, that only applies to internals.

Components with the Armor ability are killed weakest-first.
There is a very slim chance of stronger armors being taken out early, but in the vast majority of cases, the tiny armor dies first.

Leaky-armor does not have the armor ability, and so it counts as internals. That's why large leaky armors get hit more often.

[inigma]

Hmmm... psychic+cyrstal eh? Makes for an intersting Plague fleet:

Subverter: wall, capture ship
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
tractor beam - 20kt
allegience subverter - 50kt
Total - 150kt (escort)

Decoy: spider, max range
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
stealth armor - 30kt
scattering armor - 50kt
crystal armor - 30kt
shield generator - 40kt
allegience subverter - 50kt
shield depleter - 20kt
Total - 300kt (destroyer)

Neutralizer: spider, max range
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
combat sensor - 10kt
energy dampner - 50kt
computer virus - 50kt (30kt for computer virus III)
titanium armor - 10kt (replaced with stealth armor for 30kt after computer virus III)
Total - 150kt (escort)

Depleter: wall, max range
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
4x shield depleter - 80kt
Total - 150kt (escort)

Plauger: wall, capture ship
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
tractor beam - 20kt
shield depleter - 20kt
3xboarding party - 60kt
shard canon - 30kt
Total - 200kt (frigate)

Repairer: wall, dont get hurt
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
repair bay - 150kt
4x point defense canon - 80kt
Total - 300kt (destroyer)


The whole fleet is suceptible to computer viruses though, but then again, some designs could sport multiple MCs for greater adaptability. To counter this fleet you would have to design ships with both MCs, crew, and security stations - all space wasters if you are engaged in war with another race besides the Plague. That's what makes them annoying. It's easy to take on the Plague one on one, but when you are fighting other AI and/or other players in mid game besides the Plague, well, their annoyance is greatly magnified as you have to convert valuable space on ships just to counter them, as well as research specific Plague strategy counter-techs.

What do you all think so far?

[inigma]

Btw, I got this idea from a ST:TNG episode "The Game" - about a highly addictive game that took over the crew of the Enterprise and which had hyponotized them into a war for an alien race. Addictees were so affected by it that they would force the game upon those who had never played - which resulted in the quick takeover of entire ships. Of course they never realized they were being controlled by an alien race until someone discovered a method to dehypnotize the players. Does anyone remember that episode?

It's kinda what I imagine The Plague to be: psychicly hypnotized people forced to psychicly hyponotize more people in a chain reaction that takes over entire empires in service to an alien empire, except this experiment went awry and now no one controls these people, but these hypnotized people are all determined to share The Plague with everyone else.

Maybe I should rename The Plague to "The Mentality" since this would probably be closer to what they are doing.

Intersting to fight a bunch of poor hypnotized saps who don't know any better, as they quickly turn your friends into hypnotized saps that are now out to get YOU hypnotized as well, or force you to face permanent "neutralization," eh? Whatever you do, don't trust your citizens to these missionaries or they may no longer be your citizens.

[Wolfman77]

I think the ywere actually 2 episodes "The Game" is whe nWasly finds everyone else addicted to the game. "Conundrum" is where they lose their memory and almose attack a technologicaly inferior race.

I like the race idea, sounds like fun to play against.

[inigma]

I'll keep workin' on it. Suggestions are greatly appreciated for this newb.

*crosses fingers and hopes Deluxe doesn't wreck his plans*

[Parasite]

I like boarding parties, but have found them to be less useful in large battles. While great for cleanup work, in larger battles the capture ships die very fast and mostly before they can strike. Don't forget that the shields must be taken down for them to work. When a ship is captured, it is usually targeted by the enemy and destroyed.

For the ships you have listed, I would bump the small ones up to DDs at least. There is very little cost difference between a ES and a DD. especially once you get the heavier engines. Put some more Al. Subverters on it, and away you go. They will then fire at one ship, if they miss, they will fire again. If they hit, they fire next turn at a new ship with the others A. Sbvtrs.

Plus if multiple types are DDs, you can convert them from one type to another if you find large numbers of one are destroyed, or one type does not work against someone on one front.