Rethinking Missiles in the Later Game

[TurinTurambar]

I've never used missiles in the later game for anything but glassing lightly defended colonies, and this topic has been thrashed to death many times and then had its carcass beaten posthumously. But...

/me drags equine carcass into view and starts whomping

If you use a carrier full of cheap fighters, about 20 Light Cruisers with 4 or 5 CSM5's each, and a handfull of shielded and armoured Dreads... you've got a hell of an attack fleet. Against a default firing strategy where fleets are trained to attack the most threatening targets first, the Dreads soak up initial beam weapon fire, and most importantly, the fighters soak up alot of PD-fire which ought to go to the missiles. BANG! A bunch of ships blow up.
Admittedly, this won't work against an opponent who is prepared for this strategy because of programable firing priorities and such, but against an amateur strategist (aka TurinTurambar) ... 100 CSM5's buzzing around every 3 combat turns is quite devastating.

My $0.02

Licking wounds,
Turin

[Parasite]

Your fleet was made for anti-missile work Turin. It was a very hard nut to crack. Fleets like the one that attacked you (without the fighters) are part of what saved me from the Religious folk. Also Organic missiles can fire every other turn.

Just look at my name

I can make a speed 9 CLs for less than 4000 minerals. Two turns for a normal space yard III. They have ECM and 5 organic missiles each. I would like to see any equal cost fleet handle several hundred of these ships. I am sure anyone can design one, but then they would be a pushover for any other fleet you may have to fight.

As Donal Graeme said, "That is one of those sayings that always struck me as false"

[Renegade 13]

I take it this strategy was used successfully against you Turin?

[Slick]

Some cheap missile tricks I have seen:

- Like you said, use missiles with fighters to overwhelm enemy PD. If missiles are the fodder, use the ones with the fastest reload time and try to make sure your missile ships keep up with fighters. Fighters should not be faster than missiles for this case. If fighters are the fodder, then reverse strategy.

- If you want to spread out missile fire, using different levels of the same missle, say CSM I, II, III, IV and V, can make your ship fire missiles more frequently; possibly every turn as targets move in and out of range of the various missles variants. This is because the different levels of CSM have different ranges. CSM I thru V have ranges 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 respectively. This gets away from the flood every 3rd turn which can waste missiles. Normally the flood is what you want, though.

- Designing carriers with missile fodder launchers. Carrier speed and fighter speed tweaked such that the missiles are always in front of the fighters to soak up PD. Need a beam weapon on the carrier to keep it from retreating in between launches.

- Making drones which launch missiles. That's right. A large drone can fit 3 missile launchers. Give it "max range" strategy and you can quickly fill space with seekers.

[TurinTurambar]

I love a good learning experience. And losing battles is the best way to learn.

T

[geoschmo]

Parasite said:
I can make a speed 9 CLs for less than 4000 minerals. Two turns for a normal space yard III. They have ECM and 5 organic missiles each. I would like to see any equal cost fleet handle several hundred of these ships. I am sure anyone can design one, but then they would be a pushover for any other fleet you may have to fight.

Not at all. All it would take would be 3 PDC's per ship to make them totally impervious to your seekers. That's only 60 Kt. I would never send a ship into battle without at least one PDC anyway, and sometimes more on cruisers and above. That leaves plenty of room for weapons against a non-seeker enemy. I might lose a handful of ships in an even fight, but you'd expect that anyway in large fleet action. Even with one PDC and a couple shields, my normal design, you'd lose your fleet, so there's no suprise advantage for you. The only advantage you'd have would be that you could crank them out a couple turns faster, but you'd need to because you'd be losing them at probably a 10 to 1 ratio in combat.

You'd actually do better as an organic race staying away from the seekers and building direct fire ships. Organics have some decent beam weapons that can't be wiped out by PDC, gain fomr sensors and training, and still give you the mineral build speed advantage. By going heavy on the seekers you are handicaping yourself.

Seekers are a waste of resources as a main-line weapon.

[Parasite]

I have one of those fleets too. I have always tried to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with which fleet someone would fight.

The bad thing about the missile fleet is once the enemy does reach the cutoff of having enough PD, the missile ships die fast doing no damage. Before that point they are really tough to fight. It is an all or nothing thing. You have to be in a position to pick your battles.

In a corruption of the Lennox Logo... "One more thing to worry about"

[geoschmo]

Yes, so many things in this game are all or nothing.

I don't disagree that missles have some uses, mainly early and when dealing with small numbers of ships. And if you are going to use missles, the organic ones are the best IMHO. But for large fleet action I just personally lean more towards designs and strategies that are more all-purpose.

I find it's hard enough just keeping up with economics, military production and training. Trying to maintain different specialized fleets and working out the timing of getting them into the positions where they can maximize their impact is beyond me. I try to come up with a good solid design with a good mix of weapons, shields and PDC, inculuding sensors and training, and then just worry about "hitting them where they ain't". I'm more interested in getting my fleets into position where they outnumber the enemy in any potential battles then I am in fine-tuning the designs to exactly what I think he's got on his ships. And I don't worry about losing ships. Even losing fleets is acceptable at times if you can attrit the enemy sufficently in the process. Make him adjust his plans and then get the initiative.

This all goes back to our discussions over the years of comparing the Art of War to the Science of it. I'm more of an art guy myself.

[Slick]

Certainly as has been stated numerous times before PD is very effective, some say too effective, at countering seekers, fighters, etc. However, this doesn't mean that they can't be used in late game. It's all about adjusting to exploit your opponent's weaknesses. Doggedly sticking to one plan will just allow your opponent to customize his offenses and defenses to wipe you out. Organic races can really pump out the fighters and seekers. Arguably Organic races have the best fighter weapon (small EDIII) and best seaker (seeking parasite) in the game. Organic races can typically be produced faster due to the shift in cost from minerals lowering and increasing organics. They can win a war of attrition and use swarm tactics to overwhelm other races. I'm playing a game right now at about turn 180 or so where another empire has rather large fleets (50-60) of large organic carriers and missile ships. The carriers are packing large numbers of large fighters. My fleets with 3 or so PD per ship lose with equal numbers of ships. I can win if I have superior numbers, though. Earlier in the game I was kinda blocked from expanding as fast as the organic guy so I'm somewhat behind him. I'm in the process of adjusting my designs and attacking his economic base. I expect that I can win by going defensive for a few turns and attacking his lightly defended areas while I adjust my designs with more PD and field some larger fleets. If the organic guy is smart, and he is, he will probably be cooking up some adjustments of his own. I say again, it is all about adjusting to the situation.

[Suicide Junkie]

You guys should consider trying Carrier Battles mod.
It fixes all those balance issues, and has less restrictions on ship and fighter design.