New Strategy: Drones with Subverters !

[Puke]

fighters are faster. drones are faster. longer range weapons, or missiles. AS has less of a chance of working at longer ranges. in the new patch, MCs will prevent subVersions, even when destroyed...

[Despotic Fiend]

Well the EASIEST way to do this(combat simming this combo and different counters for it on max tech start for the Last hour) that I can find is Talisman+Heavy Mount(insert weapon with range of 7 or more) set to max range while using solar sail.

[Cirvol]

lol, puke, you know that fighters in the late game are just eaten up... totally useless against a max tech game...

and enigma, the talisman is the other unbalanced component i think that exists in se4... try not to use it? how good are long range weapons at max range with only combat sensor 3 + experience against a destroyer with ecm3 + stealth armor3 + experience? will you ever even hit at max range?

anyway, my idea is make both virus and subverter work ONLY after phased shields are down ... whats wrong with that?

heck, i'd make them even not work on regular shields and armor too maybe... whynot? at least then the psychic race will need to research shield depleting weapons etc like the rest of the galaxy

[ January 03, 2003, 20:45: Message edited by: Cirvol ]

[Puke]

how many battles are just one on one? who really has the range advantage if one person spent the game researching subverters and viruses, and the other spent it building up an industrial base and reasearching weapons? these areguements are silly.

you can only retreat so far, if you keep backing up to max range, you will eventually hit the wall. and if you dont hit the first time with those subverters, you are **** outa luck. come on guys, subverters are neat, but not overpowerwed. this has all been addressed in other threads.

putting them on drones is a good idea, but its not all that effective. like most drone strategies, it depends entirely on your ability to stockpile the drones in peacetime. and with all the ways to abuse drone launch (triggering them to launch with feigned attacks) its hard to make work. just like all drone attacks. but they do have their time and place.

but please, keep on thinking that there is only one way to win.

[Wardad]

Subverters have a very long recharge time. It might as well be considered a 1 shot per battle weapon. The large size of the weapon can leave the ship basically useless for the rest of the battle. It only has a 100% chance to subvert up close, if it hits. So it is tricky to deploy.

If you make shields a defense against subverters, they really will become useless due to the recharge time.

Using subverters in drones sounds awesome. They are fast enough to get close, and can ram as a secondary strategy.

[Cirvol]

it is ridiculously easy to win with psychic and religious

as someone mentioned, its a big sign in a pbw game to "kill this guy early or else"...

and what happens if its a huge galaxy and no one get to him in time?

if you got room to grow... it would be super hard to stop this combo... but only for 2 reasons...

1 = that talismans are STILL unbalanced
2 = that subverters going thru phased-shields makes them unbalanced... (making master computers stop them isn't enough imho)

does anyone disagree with those 2 points?

[Wardad]

Well, I'm playing Religious and Psychic in a huge galaxy with lots of warp points.
The Shrines and the Psychic Ship training are most helpfull ;-)
I wish I had more points for maintenance reduction. There are too many warp points in this huge galaxy for SATs stacks to be effective. I have about 5000 units now and only inhabit 1/7 the galaxy. There is a 20,000 unit limit.
I do not consider Subverter and Talisman uber weapons. They both take a lot of room in a ship. I consider them to be the icing on the cake in the late game.
The cake is playing a good game of rock, paper, scissors with your opponants, and doing some solid economy management.