Computer combat Q

[jim]

So, back to my original Q, are there more resistant ship designs in the NON-Gold game to the virus+subverter combo?

I may try a slow base ship with APB-12s at max range in a fleet of Cap Missile V BBs with some fighters thrown in to attrite PD. Sure as heck, nothing else seems to have worked so far.

Maybe put some wormhole beams or repulsers on the base ship(s).

[Fyron]

No. Once the MC is down, the ship is vulnerable to AS in pre-Gold SE4.

[jim]

I did not say that I could ever make them not vulnerable.

I asked if there were any ideas as to making them more RESISTANT.

The H mounts for the computer virus give damge of something like 160, so multiple MCs would not appear to offer any chance unless I put more than 160 mass units into MCs. That would be 4 MC I's and a fifth MC.

The repulsers have a range of 4, it seems. Thus, the virus and subverter outrange it.

The wormhole random mover has a longer range than the Virus and subverter, so that might work sometimes.

Fighters are not much help, unless used with lots of missiles. In fact, given that the fighters dance around before they shoot because they like PD or something, I am tempted just to put kamikaze warheads on them.

[PvK]

Building multiple MC's would be extremely wasteful in unmodded SE4 - it just takes another shot, or a larger virus gun, and MC's are expensive.

If you have a long-range weapon, you might be able to use Max Range/Don't Get Hurt strategy to keep them out of range.

Is SE4 1.49 before the fix that added a reload time when a ship gets subverted? If so, then if you can take one subverter ship with boarding (e.g. at a warp point defense), and/or intel, sometimes there can be a wacky subVersion chain-reaction.

You might want to look into large shielded fighters.

Ambush fleets at warp points.

Go capture their planets, avoiding their fleets.

Stellar manip them.

It's pretty tough to deal with virus + subverter in pre-Gold though - that of course is why the change was made.

PvK

[PvK]

Oh, another weak idea: Single-weapon Escorts with an MC and an ECM, using a weapon with shorter range than your main ships (all ships using long-range Max/Don'tGetHurt) - so the Escorts deploy closer, and if they are using Target Nearest, the escorts will absorb some fire, giving your full warships more time to do damage.

If the AI uses only Target Strongest, you might be able to have "strongest" ships hanging out at long range (where hopefully they won't get hit too often), while "weaker" ships charge to point blank and hopefully do lots of damage.

Another weak idea: cheap ram ships.

PvK

[jim]

Some thoughtful ideas - thanx!

I do see a problem with the escort idea, though. Specifically, I'd expect them to get "turned to the dark side" pretty quickly, and then sent back at me.

(For fans of Donaldson's "White Gold Wielder" series, there is a similar situation in there ;-) )

The escort strategy would work better if null space weapons could be used by the bigger ships and out to a useful range. However, the null space ones are outranged, and even Massive APB XIIs do not degrade the shield fast enough.

However, I might be able to put the base ship on max range do not get hurt, and launch many fighters and missiles. Those units cannot be turned against me, and I might be able to overpower their PD.

Worth a try!

[PvK]

Escorts would only have a token weapon on them, to get them to engage and trick the enemy into using their weapons on the escorts. When they get turned, your ships should have target priorities that result in ignoring them, and they probably won't even hit (no combat sensors) and even if they did, it wouldn't do much harm.

But, the economy and reload and to-hit factors of the unmodded game may make the technique impractical.

PvK