The Face of the Enemy (Destroy this Ship!)

[PvK]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
One of the biggest problems I see is if you have 150 ships and he has 150 ships how can anyone maneuver? If you could disable the engines of the first rank of ships then all his other ships would be sitting ducks!

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If your opponent has 150 ships, and puts them all in one sector... he can attack one of your planets and win, while you attack 150 of his planets...

I don't think he meant all in one single engagement, although that would be a sight.

PvK

[PvK]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mordante:
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4)“fighter combination attacks” – fighters to draw the big guns, yes, I could see that working – until he orders standard base ship designs to ignore them and lets the custom pdc’s engage the skirmishers! But a battle could be won that way I think.
....

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After using this tactic with cheap-o fighters, you can switch to sending in fighters that can hurt ships (e.g. rocket pods). If he's told his PPB's to ignore them, they might be able to get through the PDC's. You can also send in cannon-fodder fighters and other seekers to absorb PDC fire from the bombers.

PvK

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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1)choice of battlefields/choke points – not an option I fear, I already have 3 maximum range (500ly) renewable (ie. Onboard repair) warp point constructors myself (each tied to a fleet) and I expect a similar capacity from my enemy. From my front line I can target his rear territory and I expect a similar advance from him when the time comes. Thus choke point defence (mines/satellites etc) will be irrelevant since the warp points will be newly placed. I can see able practical way to force the battle in nebulas either

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Uhmm. Don't you know about the 10 WP limit?
Just like the "can't create stars if more than zero" thing, you can't add new WPs if theres already 10 in a system.

So activate those WP openers, and shield your systems by interconnecting them till no more WPs can be added.

Then, WPs cannot be opened into your territory, and you can force the enemy to travel through chokepoints.

[Mordante]

After all my refit woes, a more amusing puzzle; in the endgame of a pbem (turn 100+) my big rival has expanded massively and built a fleet of giant base ships to oppress the galaxy. His race is no maintenance and can simply keep building.

Mine is crystal-tech, attack advantage, movement advantage (+1)

The bulk of my enemies fleet is likely to be equipped with base-ships like this one;

"Tyrant mk 3"

1xBridge
5xCrew
5XLifeSupport
2x Quantom Engines (+3 move)
1x Solar Sail3 (+3 move)
1x Combat sensors 3 (+65 attack)
1x ECM 3 (+60 defense)
1x Multiplex Tracking 5
1x Stealth armour (cloak and defense bonus)
1x Emergency Propulsion 5
1x Self destruct device
6x Phased Shield Generator 5
5x Point defense Cannon 5
10x Massive Phased Polaron Beams

So, the above monster moves 8(4 in combat) - can take 2250 points of shield damage in combat and deals 2500 points of phased damage at range 6 per combat turn.

The question is, how to defeat a fleet of these vessels with finesse? (inferior odds/improved efficiency) There are likely to be around 150 of them in the main offensive when he comes over the border.

My empire can support a defensive fleet of around 150 similar vessels - but would struggle to put more of the them in the field at any one time.

I have access to all technology and can build at around 6000/6000/6000 resources a turn at my best planets.

So the challenge is to design a defender design that can deal with this ship in detail ... not just winning 1 on 1, but also engagements with inferior numbers ... ideally i'd like to be able to halt the advance of the main 150 strong fleet with half the defending ships to free up my remaining strength to counterattack....

All thoughts appreciated

AndyC

[Mordante]

re warp point limit - no, i didn't know that - very interesting and useful piece of knowledge - thanks ...

[Phoenix-D]

Note on missiles and WMGs:

When I've been fighting the AI recently, I noticed them doing the infamous "missile dance" to my planet- i.e. they were FLEEING from the enemy while waiting for a recharge, then coming back to fire again.

Something to think on.

Oh, and bomb his main contstruction worlds, steal resources via intel.. etc. Remember that with plague bombs and smart bombs you don't have to hit more than once- and knocking out a spaceport in a system HURTS, if only until it can be rebuilt.

EDIT: BTW, if at all possible use Black Hole or Nebula bLasts on his stars. While the standard SD can't be blocked, it leaves behind remenats of planets that can be rebuilt. The black hole, when disappated.. leaves a blank space. They have to reignite the star, and no planets at all!

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 06 June 2001).]

[Q]

Your enemy has ships with PPB each giving a damage of 250kT, isn't it? You have crystalline technology with crystalline armor III each reflecting 15kT damage to your shields. So if you build ships with at least 17 crytalline armors, which certainly is possible with baseships you can't be hurt by his weapons. Use yourself either shield depleting weapons plus any potent normal weapon or nullspace weapon. Of course he soon will change his ship design and use other weapons, which will penetrate your crystalline armor, but you will get time, which you can use to destroy his colonies.

[Cyrus]

One thing you can do to make the Engine Destroying weapons useful is put them on a smaller hull, like a destroyer. That gets a +25 to defense, put on stealth and scattering armor +30 to defense, put on ECM 3 +60 to defense, train the ship and fleet to max before using them +40 to defense. I haven't used engine destroying weapons with this strategy, but I've used PPB's at max range succesfully against battleship and dreadnought sized ships. They ended up having something like a 1% chance to hit even with a combat sensor.

[Mordante]

"engine destroyers/small hulls" - I can see the advantages - but i do wonder about their ability to avoid all hits in a target rich environment. Unfortunately my racial traits produce an additional -20% defence bonus so my vessels will not be very good at dodging. That said, I am beginning to see the advantages of sticking 1 engine-killing cannon on everything ... even if i lose the engagement it will stop the fleet moving on.

PS. to anyone interested in the political situation of this game have a look at the "face of the enemy" - narrative thread elsewhere ...

[Taqwus]

Of course, whether or not engine-killers are a good idea also depends on his degree of support (namely, repair ships -- and possibly resupply? I don't recall what happens to supply with a destroyed engine), and how much damage you can inflict before the fleet is repaired. If you can't take advantage of the (quite possibly temporary) immobilization / slowing down, engine-killers won't be a good idea.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night