Early weaonry?

[Krsqk]

PPBs cost the same amount to research, total, as Meson BLasters.

Oops. I stand corrected. I was thinking PPB was 10000/lvl.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Lord_Shleepy:
I have found that missiles often have a devastating effect on the AI very early in the game. A common AI ship design is the DUC I escort/frigate...which is completely ineffective when faced with missile fire in tactical combat...and can be very deadly in strategic as well if you have been careful of your combat strategy. Even against other missile races they hold their own - especially if you research Point defense early, which many AI races do not.

Bhaa, several TDM AI with medium/high bonus, Colonials for example, are missile-impregnable after turn 20.

[Fyron]

Don't scoff at the disruptor out of hand, if the opponent has shield regenerators or crystaline armor, you may want to take out shield generators as well as drain the shields, or theyll be back up again the next combat round

Shield regenerators are not very useful in the normal game. 1 LM Shield Depelter V (300 dmg, 30 KT) will drop the shields regenerated by 12 Shield Regenerator Vs (300 shield points, 240 KT). That is no reason to use Shield Disruptors. As for Crystalline Armor, the Shield Depleter knocks out the shields that the previous APB hit raised up. By the time you have APB XIIs, CA isn't much of a threat, esp. with large and heavy -mounted APBs.

[oleg]

I disagree wholeheartly. You praise LM depletor that can drain 300 shield points but dismiss out of hand a weapon that for twice size can kill once and for all 3 generators - up to 1100 shield points ! And when you fight CA ships, how do you design ships for startegic combat ? Every APB is preceded by shield depletor ? That's very ineffective use of weaponry in all the most important earlier rounds of battle when shields are still high and you will waste several APB.

[Growltigga]

Originally posted by oleg:

Bhaa, several TDM AI with medium/high bonus, Colonials for example, are missile-impregnable after turn 20.[/QB][/quote]

Too right and this means you need to revert to using DUCs/APBs and armoured ships against them. It means you are going to take casualities going toe to toe with them.

It is a pity that more of the TDM AI are more adaptable. The Pyrochette are buggers to a missile using race as they also use missiles and pack in PDCs. DUCS and PDCs work nicely against them and I wish they would react to being whomped this way by going the same route, ie replacing CSM's with APBs/DUCs whatever

[oleg]

Originally posted by Growltigga:
The Pyrochette are buggers to a missile using race as they also use missiles and pack in PDCs. DUCS and PDCs work nicely against them and I wish they would react to being whomped this way by going the same route, ie replacing CSM's with APBs/DUCs whatever[/QB]

When Master Belizarius made Pyrochette AI, he wanted them to be different from other races, to make game more interesting. Thus Pyrochette' thematic weapononry are Temporal weapons. Unfortunately, low level TDB are very weak and Pyrochette has to use CSM for rather long time. But eventually they will have some dangerous ships with TDB, shield accelerators and tachion cannons.

[ August 21, 2002, 11:33: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Growltigga]

Oh joy, thanks for telling me that Oleg. It does cheer me up massivley to realise that the Pyrochette, who are buggers enough anyhow, are going to get even more nasty later on in the game.

Thankfully, I havn't yet survived very long enough in a TDM game to worry about that

Can somebody explain to me precisely what emissive armour does now (in 1.78). The note in the patch Version history was incredibly vague.

Mark

[Fyron]

Originally posted by oleg:
I disagree wholeheartly. You praise LM depletor that can drain 300 shield points but dismiss out of hand a weapon that for twice size can kill once and for all 3 generators - up to 1100 shield points !

And fires every 3 rounds. Depleters fire every round, and have longer range. A LM Disrupter V only does that at point-blank range. It is also much more expensive than Delpeters. 2 LM Depleter Vs can knock out 1800 shields (300 each, for 3 rounds) at up to range 6 in the same time that a LM Disrupter V can knock out 1125 shield points (3 Phased Shield Generator Vs, 40 hit points each) at only point blank range. At range 4, it does nothing at all. It can only do 30 damage to shield generators at that point, and, unless it has been changed, partial "special" damage is ignored. This is over the course of a battle, not just the first round.

And when you fight CA ships, how do you design ships for startegic combat ? Every APB is preceded by shield depletor ? That's very ineffective use of weaponry in all the most important earlier rounds of battle when shields are still high and you will waste several APB.

To be honest, I have never fought a competent opponent that used Crystalline Tech. If I did, I would probably just put 2 or 3 Depleters on my ship in the front, knocking out all shields. Then, the APBs would be more than enough to destroy the CA, unless you used 14 CAs. Since this is purely theoretical, it might be better to go ahead and use those Disrupters against Crystalline opponents. At this point, I really don't know.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by oleg:
I disagree wholeheartly. You praise LM depletor that can drain 300 shield points but dismiss out of hand a weapon that for twice size can kill once and for all 3 generators - up to 1100 shield points !

And fires every 3 rounds. Depleters fire every round, and have longer range. A LM Disrupter V only does that at point-blank range. It is also much more expensive than Delpeters. 2 LM Depleter Vs can knock out 1800 shields (300 each, for 3 rounds) at up to range 6 in the same time that a LM Disrupter V can knock out 1125 shield points (3 Phased Shield Generator Vs, 40 hit points each) at only point blank range. At range 4, it does nothing at all. It can only do 30 damage to shield generators at that point, and, unless it has been changed, partial "special" damage is ignored. This is over the course of a battle, not just the first round.

---

But, once the shots fire ... the disruptor wins, because it does ALL 1125 shield-loss, AND some internal-hull damage, in one fell swoop. It would take two turns for the Depleters to match that.

The range is an issue, however, if you're closing to point-blank anyway (for whatever reason) ...

quote:

---

And when you fight CA ships, how do you design ships for strategic combat ? Every APB is preceded by shield depletor ? That's very ineffective use of weaponry in all the most important earlier rounds of battle when shields are still high and you will waste several APB.

To be honest, I have never fought a competent opponent that used Crystalline Tech. If I did, I would probably just put 2 or 3 Depleters on my ship in the front, knocking out all shields. Then, the APBs would be more than enough to destroy the CA, unless you used 14 CAs. Since this is purely theoretical, it might be better to go ahead and use those Disrupters against Crystalline opponents. At this point, I really don't know.

---

Not all shields on a crystalline-armored target. All shields the target ship starts the round with. IF the generators are still live, however, then every shot has some of it's energy siphoned back into shields, to resist the next shot. Disruptors, however, remove the shields entirely -- and thus, also remove the Crystalline Armor's special ability entirely.

If they need to fire more than once in a combat, you're either outnumbered, or otherwise doomed already. The Disruptors could have a 30-round recycle rate; the idea is, only their first shot matters. After that, there shouldn't be shield generators LEFT on the enemy ship.

Note, in games like P&N, wiht the HEavy Shield components (200kT, generates 3000 shields, regenerates 100 per round), one depleter would need 15 turns to drop that shield, and there'd still be 100 shields regenerated each round after that.

One disruptor doing 40 damage would need 5 shots, and there'd be -no- regenerating shields. Same time in total, yes (15 rounds), but: 5 disruptors would then do in one round, what would take TEN depletors a single round to do. So which costs more, 10 depletors, or 5 disruptors?

Range issues aside, ofc.