newby's guide to ship and fleet strategy

[Bman]

If you place a single "normal" weapon on your PDC ship then it will stay in the thick of battle instead of hiding in the corner waiting for missiles to be launched. It makes them *much* more effective. In the later techs, I found a nice combination for a PDC ship is: a whole bunch of PDC followed by 2 warp-weapons. You need 2 warp-weapons since they have a rate-of-fire of 2. The warp-weapons keep them with your main fleet since they will want to use them on the enemy ships. But where it is really cool is if there is a large fighter stack, the PDC will chop it down and when it runs out, then warp-weapon will zap the fighter stack across the screen again.

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Originally posted by Gryphin:
As much as I like "specialty" ships like an "Aegis" PDC Crusier, I have taken to putting 3 or more PDC on most front line ships. If I am in a two front war and one race does not use suitable targets for a PDC, I create an apropriate Front Line Ship for that front. I don't like it, but to hard code a suitable behavior for this situation would probably cost too much.

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[Gryphin]

Bman,
Slick idea. Great, now I have to study up on warp weapons. * sigh * another tech tree to learn.
Thanks for the idea.

[GUTB]

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
DUCs are hardly "advanced guns"

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They certainly are only 20 turns from the start of a game starting at low tech.

If you want to wait hundreds of turns to fight my swarm, you are out of luck. The point is that you will be swarmed to oblivion long, long before you get fighters or advanced missiles, etc.

If they game happens to be at that level of tech. Add a PD and ECM. You are dead.

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And I'd say a buffer zone of weapons platforms, fighters, and/or mines would do the trick. You'd taking a long time to build this force- which means that the begining units will be obselte by the time you attack.

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And how many mines and weapons platforms (that can do jack all) can you get at the START of the game after twenty turns WITH LOW TECH AND ONE PLANET?

It's amusing listening to all the knee-jerk defending of this or that favorite pet strategy or tech combo. I don't care if you have this many cruisers with sheilds, that many missiles or how you strategically manuever your carriers. They are all DEAD before my massive armada.

OVERWHELMING FORCE. Brutal, direct, unsurmountable FORCE. Forget sheilds, armor, missiles, surface bombs, raming warheads and other nonsense that others play with. You have to have PD and ECM because fighters/missiles can be savage without them -- BUT WITH THEM YOU WILL UTTERLY BRUTALIZE FIGHTERS AND MISSILES. I give a big bonus to reasearch and lower maintenece because this gives me MORE force, EARLIER. I cannibilize other useless traits like strength and savvy.

I never use anything but the escort hull, so my entire fleet can be upgraded only after a few turns.

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: GUTB ]

[Quikngruvn]

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Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

In fact it doesn't work. My favorite Ram ship design (recently) is a ship full of organic armor 3 which is almost indestructable. It does not go over to ram strategy even when it is trapped in a corner.

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Mine own (limited) observation with kamikaze ships: in desperation, I designed and built several destroyers with a couple of warheads, and set primary and secondary strategies to Ram. Most of the time they just danced around... until my other ships finally knocked down the shields of an enemy ship. Then the kamikaze ships rammed like there was no tomorrow (which, as it turned out, there wasn't!).

So I think a ramming ship will not ram a ship with shields. I have not tested this, but it is food for thought....

One other thought about the 'killer escorts'... with three engines per ship, looks like you'll have speed and supply issues. More specifically, a lack of both. But it definitely would make for a nasty early defensive fleet....

Quikngruvn

[PsychoTechFreak]

Hear, hear, another awe-inspiring strategy comes up.

We iz gonna stomp da 'ooniverse flat an' kill anyfing that fights back. We iz gonna do this coz' we're Orks an' we was made ta fight an' win.
Orkses is never beaten in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die so it don't count as beat. if we runs fer it we don't die neither, so we can always come back for anuvver go, see!

(Ork speech files)

EDIT: Sorry, Quik. I meant the post before yours.

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

[PsychoTechFreak]

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Originally posted by Quikngruvn:
[QB]

So I think a ramming ship will not ram a ship with shields. I have not tested this, but it is food for thought....

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Ships full with organic armor don't care about shields from my observations. I have not tried the warheads so far, maybe the behaviour of the ram ships depends on the prospect of survival ? I think the calculation could be something about a comparison of the damage resistances. The only problem in strategic combat is, they do not ram colony ships, planets and maybe some more.

[ 27 February 2002: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

[Phoenix-D]

"OVERWHELMING FORCE. Brutal, direct, unsurmountable FORCE."

I really do hate to break it to you, but it's not overwhelming. One planet. 15 weapons platforms armed with 2 CSM1, 3 DUC I. More often than not, those WPs smash the attacking fleet- 15 of your assult escorts armed with DUC IVs- flat. Oh, and they build FASTER than your ships, which means there will be more of them (except on small, outlying colony worlds).

I did a test scenerio.
Settings: 2000 racial points, no advanced trait. Maxed maintance reduction, high research bonus, enchanced minerals and construction. Low tech start, one planet.

Built two bases, then started cranking out ships.
Turn 1.1: DUC II attack ships finished, supply ships finished. Retrofit begings to DUCIII.
1.5: retrofit complete

Now, at this point finances are OK, so it looks like paying for the ships is not a problem. However, you have no idea where the nearest empire is. I assumed the nearest empire would be in the second habitable system I found. Time of arrival: 2.5.

OK. So let's assume there's another empire out there in a more defensive posture, and you find him. He uses the same racial stats as you. Assuming he built two construction bases, used those to expand, and turned his homeworld to building WPs, he has twenty-one WPs before you even launch your fleet. Then his homeworld slows down (emergancy build expires).

He continues to expand.

On the turn you launch your fleet, he has:
4 colonies, 3 with 4 WPs each
21 WPs on his homeworld
And a scout ship already out.

By the time your slow attack fleet arrives, it's already dead.. it just doesn't know it yet.

Oh, and speed 6 CSMI armed ships will tear apart your assult ships quite easily, if he went for ships instead of weapon platforms.

EDIT: heh. I just did a test- took your assult ship design armed with DUCVs against a CSMI armed speed 6 ship. Both escorts. One side had 15 ships (DUC) the other 13 (CSM).

I've been running it through SE4's simulator, and the DUC ships have yet to win. Best they've managed to do is kill 3 of the other ships for a loss of 6 of their own. Often they are wiped out without killing a single CSM ship. That's with tech AND numbers on the side of the DUC ships!

EDIT2: Shield 1, Combat Sensor 1 ECM 1 DUC I speed three light cruisers fare much worse- about the same as the DUC escorts vs the CSM escorts. But replace those DUCs with CSM1, and again the balance shifts. Four light cruisers can kill 15 assult escorts. The light cruisers take a little more research, but much much less cash.

But hey, let's not talk theory too much . Up for a game?

EDIT2: I'd propose the PBW server's Universe Cup map for this. Two players, no AI, 2000 points, one starting planet, low tech.

Phoenix-D

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]