Ship roles (division of labor)

[Paladin]

I absolutely LOVE those ideas, Taqwus... To ensure it will work more than once, you can just create a new ship class by copying a previous bait, wich costs 0 and allows you to confuse even more... ;-)

It really is evil, though...
But I like it...
"Not MY fault, they just had to learn to avoid my "colony" ships and transports. ;-))

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Taqwus:
Hrm. An evil idea (for multiplayer only, methinks -- versus folks who don't carefully examine every opposing ship) --

'Trojan Horse' / deceptive ships, such as...

Colony ships, loaded with troops instead of colonists; perhaps have a few in systems belonging to a mark^H^H^H^Hally.

Cruiser colony ships, so that folks see a small stack of cruisers labelled "Annihilator Mk. V" and "Juggernaut", and look elsewhere. Mix with fully armed cruisers labelled "Utility ship" and "Fleet Tender".

Bait labelled "Barney", "Pikachu" or "N'Sync". Who could resist the chance to waste 'em... ;-)

A medium transport, with fighter or satellite bay(s) for a nasty surprise if somebody thinks it's easy prey.

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These are pretty amusing, but I gotta wonder why a medium transport with fighter or sat bays would be a "surprise"... isn't this the best class for using units with? ALL my mine layers, sat layers, and even fighter transport (when I use fighters which isn't often) is done with the medium transport. The large transport is probably as good a carrier as the specific carrier class if you don't mind the reduced speed.

Now, labeling your sat layer "Population Transport" and setting it in harms way, stuffed with your best satellites or fighters, might be a cool trick but the class alone is not any reason to believe it's harmless to my mind.

I really like the idea to use colony ships as troop transports, though. Will definitely remember that one.

Say, do you suppose their ought to be "troop bays" required to drop troops on a planet? As it is now, any old transport can act as an assault ship...

[Paladin]

I prefer to have a single cargo compartment... Even if transporting population in them is a bit pushy, it is so much simpler taht way... Besides, a container is a container, wether it holds people&LifeSupport, or guns, or Fighters, or etc.
It is logical that any ship capable of landing on a planet can act as a troop-dropping hauler, but not as efficiently... The same goes for Transports who launch fighters, they should not be as (more?) efficient that dedicated carriers...

(What is even stranger is that a single troop-loaded ship could capture a planet by itself...;-)

[Instar]

Those are the basic types of ships, yeah. I have some specialized ones I like to use though.
Recon For recon and intel, I make a small ship with the best sensors and stuff and put a really good cloak on it. It usually has a QR.
Missile I design a ship that has max engines plus a solar sail and give it a good source of supplies (maybe a reactor). The rest of the space is for armor and warheads. Then you have to give it the Kamikaze strategy. It works really well for surgical strikes (It is usually very powerful, three warheads is about 900 damage)

[jars_u]

quote:

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Originally posted by Instar:
I make a small ship with the best sensors and stuff and put a really good cloak on it. It usually has a QR.
Missile I design a ship that has max engines plus a solar sail and give it a good source of supplies )

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I thought cloaking devices were only in the full Version of the game? Even with all the tech levels turned on I have not seen them in the demo, nor have I seen "solar sails" what are those? Am I overlooking something or are you playing a beta game?

Jim

[Master Belisarius]

Yea... Instar is a lucky beta tester.

[Paladin]

I beleive the solar sails are the "solar Collectors", you get those in the demo by researching Solar Harnesting...

It's great fun to scout around with my Solar-powered, LongRange scanning, EngineBoosted little Escort. I really love the utility of long range scanners, to get info prior to attack or to study ennemy ships... ;-)