Advice on protecting unarmed ships

[Baron Grazic]

I personally just load them up with Armor, Sheilds and defenses and keep it joined with a large fleet.

[Joe Cool]

I'll definately defend it (and spend heavily on Intel -- thanks, Slick!). What is unclear to me is:

(1) How can I ensure that the enemy won't go past my warships and kill it?

(2) How can I ensure that it will fire it's wormhole weapons should enemies come near?

The tactics has primary orders and secondary orders. It would seem logical to use "don't get hurt" as primary orders (to cause it to move away from enemy fleets) and "max range" as secondary ordrs (to get it to fire on ships that do wind up near it (e.g., those that get beamed away after being pummeled). But, will this work?

By the way, wormhole beams don't require that you be in a heavier ship than your opponent do they? I know repulsor beams do. How about tractor beams?
Thanks!
Joe

[Slick]

(1) How can I ensure that the enemy won't go past my warships and kill it?

This is not a real answer but there have been numerous discussions on setting up proper ship & fleet strategies. Read those, and experiment a little. Use the simulator. I am no expert, but here are a few tips that I would use in creating a SM protection fleet:

- Keep your SM fleet behind your front lines for defensive SM like planet building, etc.

- If the SM ship is offensive (planet destroyer, sun destroyer, etc.) put it in a large fleet. Note that sun destoryers will destroy all planets and ships in the system, even yours, so set up your plans accordingly and remove the ship from the fleet when appropriate.

- I personally like using a Battleship hull for SM ships because I can use all the extra room for weapons or defensive systems. Usually the extra cost for the larger hull and components is small compared to the SM component, so build cost and time is not much longer.

- If you are worried that your SM ship will break for the corner while the escorts will engage the enemy and possibly some enemy ships will get through, you need to do some risk analysis. If you give your SM ship an offensive weapon and set it's strategy properly, it will attack, but probably stay with the rest of your ships. This will allow mutual protection. If all your ships have the same speed, that's good too because you can break formation and they stay together. Alternatevly, you can stay in formation with your SM ship as the leader and use a formation that protects the leader. There is no canned answer here because if I was after your SM ship and faced any of the options above, I would work on a counter tactic. You would then have to change your defense or lose that ship on the next combat. That's what is great about this game.

Slick.

[Atrocities]

"Advice on protecting unarmed ships?"

Simple, arm them.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
"Advice on protecting unarmed ships?"

Simple, arm them.

Shoot the enemy before they shoot you.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Joe Cool:

(1) How can I ensure that the enemy won't go past my warships and kill it?

If you set the strategy to Do Not Get Hurt, this will thwart strategies that target Nearest first. Unless they blow up all your warships, in which case you were doomed anyway.

(2) How can I ensure that it will fire it's wormhole weapons should enemies come near?

If you set the strategy to Max Range, and Target Priority to Nearest, you will shoot at anyone who comes near. However, you now put your ship at risk by telling it to engage in combat. If you have a significant defensive fleet with your ship, I'd set it to Do Not Get Hurt. Otherwise, I'd use Max Range.

The tactics has primary orders and secondary orders. It would seem logical to use "don't get hurt" as primary orders (to cause it to move away from enemy fleets) and "max range" as secondary ordrs (to get it to fire on ships that do wind up near it (e.g., those that get beamed away after being pummeled). But, will this work?

You would think that would work, but, I think what would happen is your ship would always choose "Don't Get Hurt" since that is always a valid choice.

Also, make sure you set all your strategies to Break Formation so you don't have to follow what is set for your Fleet Strategies.

Finally, be sure to keep it cloaked. Sometimes wandering deathfleets don't have cloak detection.

[PvK]

You can combine "don't get hurt" with "target nearest".

Unfortunately, I think "don't get hurt" always means "break formation," and is always done by all unarmed ships anyway. If they have at least one weapon then you can put them in a fleet with escorts, and asign them a leader position in a formation that puts escorts in good position to stop assailants. The problem is then this formation will try to fight, rather than hiding out. However you can design escort ships with weapons and "don't get hurt" movement strategy, and hope they go to the same corners as the ships you want to protect.

Wormhole beams don't care what the target size is.

PvK