PPB is the best weapon in the game. Discuss.

[Dragonlord]

Exactly.
I agree with both geoschmo and Phoenix.

[capnq]

There was a time when I had never researched anything bigger then a battlecruiser...

until the PBW game where I saw one of my neighbors fielding fleets of double digit numbers of baseships.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 02 September 2001).]

[Rich04]

I know what you mean Capnq. And those baseships (from one race) were armed with APB XII and Phased Shields V. went around munching PPB fleets.

Then there was that other race that had smaller ships without PPB that ate PPB fleets for breakfast.


[This message has been edited by Rich04 (edited 02 September 2001).]

[Dragonlord]

Rich, could you be more specific about that fleet of smaller ships? If they won battles it was presumably due to combat bonuses (small=harder to hit) and numbers?
Because in my experience the only thing that kills my PPB fleets is an enemy with a fleet that is twice as large and has significant (30+) combat bonuses, either racial or through ship/fleet exp. With enough bonuses even a dozen LC's with DUC's can do serious damage, if they are impossible to hit...

FYI, my fleets are usually 35 to 50 ships, with 35% being PPB Battleships (for the heavy mount), 35% PPB Battlecruisers (shorter build time) and 30% support ships (sweepers, repair and fuel ships) with a fleet speed of 10 (11 if I have propulsion experts).

[Rollo]

quote:

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With enough bonuses even a dozen LC's with DUC's can do serious damage, if they are impossible to hit...

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Hmm, I wonder what you are referring to .

Anyway, IMHO the best weapon in the game is the DUC. I have seen empires crumble into dust (others as well as mine) before the PPB became a factor in the game. Of course the best weapon of choice largely depends on your enemy, but if everybody is using phased shields I think a combination of SD+DUC is superior to just PPB.
Otherwise I fully agree with Dragonlord the PPB is the best mid- to end-game weapon choice and if not unbalancing, it is at least redundant. IMHO the PPB needs some tweaking. It should not increase in power so fast. The biggest advantage is that you only need 5 levels to get it to full power. Maybe 8 or 10 would be more appropriate. If you extend the tech field to 12, you could get even better PPB than the current PPB V.

Just my 0.02

Rollo

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Of course the best weapon of choice largely depends on your enemy

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Bingo! Even PBB have weaknesses. If I knew you were relying on them exclusivley, I could beat you even in a one on one ship combat by making a ship designed to defeat it's weanesses. I would use phased shields, or no shields. I would use a weapon with more range than a PBB, like APB, or a Wave motion gun, and I would set my strategy to max range. You would be toast.

No one weapon is the best in the game. Some are better then others in specific areas. Some are better overall, but not as good as others in specific areas.

I've said it before. Space Empires is a great big complicated Version of "rock paper scissors" man.

Geoschmo

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 02 September 2001).]

[geoschmo]

In fact, Dragonlord, or Phoenix or anybody for that matter. He's a challenge for you. Post your best PBB ship design. Or if you have a different Uber weapon, post a design using that. I bet I can come up with a way to beat it at least 5 out of 9 combats. And I'll do it with either an single ship, or an equal total tonnage of smaller ships.

Now the point of this is too prove that there is no ultimate weapon, so don't submit a ship with some PBB's and a bunch of other weapons too, or then you're proving my point. Although I will accept a ship with PBB's and PDC, since PBB's can't target missles. (That would be too easy for me. )

If you are used to putting all your PDC into separate ships, go ahead and list your fleet makeup. I'll beat it again with an equal number of ships, or an equal tonnage of smaller ships.

For the purposes of the challange we will eliminate experience since that is not something you can build into the design, and if one side can do it, the other side can too, so it's a wash.

The point of this is not that I am a better ship designer than anybody else. The designs that I build will be just as beatable, maybe more so cause they will be specifically designed to defeat a particular enemy.

Geoschmo