Some miscellaneous game mechanics questions.

[dogscoff]

1: Just put yor minesweepers onto a ship and send that ship into the minefield. Fleet that ship with warships and they will be protected from mines. (Or at least, will be protected from as many mines as the combined per-turn sweeping capcatiy of all the minesweeper components in the fleet).

2: No, you can launch all or launch none., those are you only options. If you want to launch only some, put some of your sats aboard a cargo ship, then select "launch" and then transfer the sats back again afterwards.

3: Say you have one battleship with 5 guns, against 5 enemy escorts. Each of your guns could take out one escort in one shot. So in theory, you have the firepower to destroy all five ships in one combat turn. However, without multiplex tracking you are only allowed to only target one ship per turn: You will destroy one ship with your first gun, and then the remaining 4 guns won't be used on that turn. Second turn it destroys the second ship, and so on. With Multiplex, it can shoot 5 guns at 5 ships all in the first turn.

4: You are correct.

5: In the early game, missiles are superior. Once you get point-defence though, they become far less effective. It takes far less tonnage and resources to put 2 point defence cannons on a ship far than the 3 missile launchers needed to beat them, so the PD tends to win out. Eventually your enemy might get lazy and forget to build ships with PD, in which case you can start using missiles again=-)

6: I never use it, but it can be effective. Just fit it to the ship and then when you need it, select the ship and click the "use component" button. I think the ship needs to be de-fleeted first, even if every ship in the fleet has EP. You will get extra movement the next turn, and then the component will be destroyed. In later versions it can only be repaired at a shipyard. (Note, if you want to get really technical, ie tracking movement within the 30-day turn, EP movement is a little odd, but you probably don't need to worry about that.)

[scJazz]

1) Generally speaking you/enemy can only put 100 mines in a single hex so don't bother over equipping your sweeper(s). A type I sweeper clears a single mine so 5 ships with 20 Mine Sweeper Is will cover the highest number of mines possible. 1 ship with 20 Mine Sweeper Vs will also do the trick. I like to assign enough Mine Sweeping ships to my "assault" fleets to cover the fleet from the mine threat.

2) What dogscoff said

3) Generally speaking there is a point of diminishing returns with Multiplex tracking and only 1 component per ship is effective.

4) Exactly

5) Missiles are awesome except they suck. If you/enemy have Point defense cannons then every single turn while the cannons are in range they get to fire on incoming missiles/fighters/drones/satellites. Point Defense Cannons have a bonus to hit their target and for the most part fire automatically. In defense 1 or 2 PDCs per ship is enough to eliminate the missile threat. However some of the AI Races love missiles and fighters (Terrans for one). Beef up PDCs on your ships against those races. Other races never use missiles at all like the Eee Consortium. Offensively same scenario some races never put PDCs on their ships so using missiles against them rocks. Others have so many PDCs that it is bloody suicidal to try the missile/fighter attack against them.

6) I never use it and I hear it can be effective but I don't beleive it. Use the tonnage for additional supply space or another gun or some other thing. Caveat OK once in a great while I use them on wickedly fast recon ships but even this is done RARELY. I never use it on my combatants or support vessels.

[Nomis]

scJazz said:
1) Generally speaking you/enemy can only put 100 mines in a single hex so don't bother over equipping your sweeper(s). A type I sweeper clears a single mine so 5 ships with 20 Mine Sweeper Is will cover the highest number of mines possible. 1 ship with 20 Mine Sweeper Vs will also do the trick. I like to assign enough Mine Sweeping ships to my "assault" fleets to cover the fleet from the mine threat.

That's true... but you should bother over equipping your sweeper(s) when you have more than one enemy.

In PBW games sometimes I make traps with 200-300 or even more mines per sector (giving mine layers to my allies). That's really surprising when you are sure that you can sweep 100 mines and you... lose main fleet.

[scJazz]

Nomis said:
That's true... but you should bother over equipping your sweeper(s) when you have more than one enemy.

In PBW games sometimes I make traps with 200-300 or even more mines per sector (giving mine layers to my allies). That's really surprising when you are sure that you can sweep 100 mines and you... lose main fleet.

This was the "Generally speaking" part of what I was saying. But no no... go ahead tell the new guy one of the really sneaky dirty tricks without having to learn it the hard way