100 anything versus 100 Crystalline Ships

[brianeyci]

100 ships versus 100 ships

Dreadnaught Hull

All the necessities (Control components, sensors, self-destruct, supply, engines)
10 Crystalline Armor
3 Phased Shield V
3 APBXII Heavy
3 Shield Depleter Heavy

I can only get a 50% kill ratio, at best, and inconsistently in the simulator. I usually lose. I've tried many variations of build. Shield depletion, shield killing, null-space weapons, etc. The 10 Crystalline Armors always seems to win it out.

Some help please. Suggest ship designs and I'll plug it into the sim. Chances are, your idea won't work cause I've tried it already.

Brian

[Captain Kwok]

Try an armor skipping weapon - they don't trigger the crystalline armor ability.

[brianeyci]

Unfortunately, is not Shard Cannon the only armor skipping weapon? I don't have the luxury of a shard cannon.

Brian

[brianeyci]

Oh, and I've tried a ship built like this,

Necessities
4x Phased Shield V
6x Heavy Null-Space weapons

This class can hold its own against the crystalline ships, but only inconsistently. Most of the time it loses.

Brian

[Fyron]

Shield Disruptors can ruin their defenses, converting them to merely slightly improved normal armor.

[Alneyan]

You seem to have forgotten the Stealth and Scattering armour for the Crystalline ship. Or does it fall under the essentials? Likewise, you could put some Armour III on the Crystalline vessel, to draw more shots to the non-Crystalline armour (or simply put more Crystalline Armour, and remove one or two shields).

Ah, you weren't asking for a better Crystalline design? I have to agree with you; the Crystalline armour is more powerful than virtually anything else, costs being equal. The Talisman is, of course, the exception. A swarm of fighters could also work well, if you launch them in big stacks; they are treated as a single weapon, and will wreak havoc on the Crystalline armour.

That aside, the most common design is Shield Depleter/APB/Shield Depleter/APB and so on. This works quite well, but requires you to score hits fairly often, to avoid breaking the sequence. And this design is only useful against the Crystalline armour special effect, still leaving a pretty good defence on the target ship. The other easy solution would be to go with heavier weapons, such as the Enveloping Acide Globul (very expensive to research, and Organic only, but with a higher damage ratio AND a faster reload rate than the WMG). Again, having good odds to hit is more or less required.

So I feel you will need to put more ships and/or more expensive designs to take care of a Crystalline fleet. That, or simply kill them early on, and/or use the Equalizers (happiness and Stellar Manipulation). I know I have failed to come up with a working design to nullify the Crystalline Armour, without being at a disadvantage.

[Alneyan]

The Shard Cannon is the only weapon skipping Armour, and happens to belong to the Crystalline Empires. Annoying that.

Shield Disruptors are very good, but fairly expensive, and with a low range (requiring either bases/weapon platofmrs or an enemy strategy of Short Range/Point Blank). If it does hit, that will hurt however; the problem being to make those shots.

[brianeyci]

Yes. It looks like Asmala knew exactly what he was doing picking Crystalline =D.

The shield depleter/APB/shield depleter/etc idea kind of works, but only if you have more ships than him. Or else it turns into a rout with the crystal ships killing all your ships and you killing about half of his.

Oh well, I just won't be able to defeat him myself then

Brian

[Alneyan]

Thanks for the warning. I didn't know Asmala belonged to the Secret Circle of the Crystalline Worshippers (Primitive is another such member, and he made me reflect on the virtues of this trait). Of course, you should be glad you aren't playing against a Crystalline AND Religious Empire.

The standard recommendations apply then: outmanoeuver him, try the riot run, cross your fingers, and start becoming Deeply Religious. But since your foe is Asmala... Well, he is likely more ready than most to repel a riot run, as evidenced by the legendary Pairs game (a game between Asmala and Primitive is magnificent. Unless you are caught in the middle of the slaughter)

[Cheeze]

What about a combination of shield depleters, engine destroyers, apb's and repulser beams? Your ships can move in, break down shields, hit his engines and do a little extra damage. With heavy and up mount repulsers, even if he has supplies you'll limit the number of ships you're fighting. Wormhole weapons too, even though they could throw ships behind your front lines it would allow your approaching ships to attack someone, and the wormhole beams have a better range than repulsers

Also for short range (but they have a slow fire rate, those shield component destroyers)
If you have a basic game layout to run simulations on the empires, I'd give that a shot.