Blockade strategy?

Roanon · #1 November 20th, 2003, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Will:
Something else to keep in mind when you deselect planets in the types of targets to fire on, be sure that "Use Type Before Targeting Priorities" is enabled.

Where is that? I only can find "Do not use Type Priorities" and ships keep glassing planets regardless of what is checked or not.

Grandpa Kim · #2 November 20th, 2003, 05:39 PM

I have never had luck with blockading so these are just ideas.

Setting both the fleet strategy and the ship strategy to "Don't get hurt" should work. The problem is your ships strat is set by ship design, not by individual ship. Most likely you have your ship designs spread through several fleets and you certainly don't want to cripple your ships in more active fleets with a "Don't get hurt" order.

One thing that might work is to set your fleet orders to "Don't get hurt", "Do not break formation" and "Don't fire on planets", as others have suggested BUT select as your fleet leader a ship that has "Don't get hurt" as its primary strat. IE. a repair ship or minesweeper. This should cause the leader to drag the fleet off to a corner and your attack ships should only fire on targets that happen to come in range.

I've not yet tried this, but it should work.

Parasite · #3 November 20th, 2003, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SpaceBadger:
Are you sure they are doing no damage? I have noticed that sometimes my seekers hit the planet, and there is no explosion so it looks like no damage, but they still manage to destroy the defending weapon platforms. Not sure why this is, haven't really made note of when/why it seems to happen.

Missles (or at least Parasites

) will hit the planet if you enter the planet sector from the top or left. If you enter from the bottom or right there is IMHO a bug that fires your missiles at max range (say 8) when the planet hex is 8 away but the smaller "to hit" square is 9 away. The missiles then reach the planet but will not explode or hurt anything.

If you come in from the left the planet will be 8 hexes away and the "to hit" square will also be 8 hexes away so you will hit and kill things.

[ November 20, 2003, 19:46: Message edited by: Parasite ]

Will · #4 November 20th, 2003, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Roanon:

quote:
Originally posted by Will:
Something else to keep in mind when you deselect planets in the types of targets to fire on, be sure that "Use Type Before Targeting Priorities" is enabled.

Where is that? I only can find "Do not use Type Priorities" and ships keep glassing planets regardless of what is checked or not.

It's a bit of confusing design... If you toggle "Do not use Type Priorities", the text changes to "Use Type Before Targeting Priorities". And sometimes it doesn't work, I forget what the conditions were.

Fyron · #5 November 20th, 2003, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Parasite:

quote:
Originally posted by SpaceBadger:
Are you sure they are doing no damage? I have noticed that sometimes my seekers hit the planet, and there is no explosion so it looks like no damage, but they still manage to destroy the defending weapon platforms. Not sure why this is, haven't really made note of when/why it seems to happen.

Missles (or at least Parasites ) will hit the planet if you enter the planet sector from the top or left. If you enter from the bottom or right there is IMHO a bug that fires your missiles at max range (say 8) when the planet hex is 8 away but the smaller "to hit" square is 9 away. The missiles then reach the planet but will not explode or hurt anything. If you come in from the left the planet will be 8 hexes away and the "to hit" square will also be 8 hexes away so you will hit and kill things.

Wasn't that fixed in 1.84?

Parasite · #6 November 20th, 2003, 11:11 PM

I'll check it out, you could be right.

primitive · #7 November 21st, 2003, 01:21 AM

Don't waste your frontline ships on blockade duty. Make a specific blockade fleet instead, with only minesweepers, PDC-ships and some minelaying capabilities. They are cheap, and can be built while the main fleet is in training (or retrofitted from antiquated designs). When possible I will use such fleets to blockade enemy planets in frontline systems my main fleet bypass while it strikes for home.

Move the blockade fleet to the planet and let the PDC-ships take care of any defensive fighters. Drop a few mines, leave a PDC ship for blockade and move to the next planet. Repeat (use shift-click to hit several planets in the same turn). Be sure to have some extra ships in the system as you will loose some ships to weapon platforms as your lazy blockade captains sometimes let themselves drift into range

. Send in the marienes to clean up later.

Be sure to drop the mines though, as sometimes the planet manages to build a siege braker (ship or fighters) before rioting. With a few mines in place over all blockaded planets, the damage will be limited to the one planet.

Done this a couple of times in games, both against the AI's and against humans, and it works like a breeze.