The Face of the Enemy (Destroy this Ship!)

[dogscoff]

QUOTE:
2) fighters are interesting but need to attack with vast numbers to penetrate those shields in a timeframe to effect the outcome of the cap ship engagement.
/QUOTE

The fighters don't need to damage the cap ships, just draw their fire. PPBs _can_ target fighters, so depending on your opponents' fleet strategy settings, you could force all those big scary weapons to be wasted on cannon fodder fighters, allowing your cap ships to get in closer and do damage. Just a thought.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

[Suicide Junkie]

If you make a black hole at one of your empire's chokepoints, you can then decide whether to fight with shields or without.
Just move from one side of the wormhole to the other, and you get to disable the enemy shields OR make full advantage of your own.

You can put shields on your ships and fight outside the BH, or use armor & long-range WMGs to fight inside the blackhole.

The enemy has a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly, and will either have useless shields(by BH) or few shield points(by design), if they guess wrong. In case they guess right, you can use the other strategies mentioned in this thread.

Armored boarding ships in a Blackhole system would rule against baseships, since his shields would be gone

Research stellar manipulation to destroy stars in his industrial systems. Go cloaked with two minesweeper DN sweep 100+. Of course by the time you pay for the stellar he will have researched sensors and put up sensor sats - but is worth a try ? It seems likely that his maintenance free option is going to kill you unless you get him FAST.

[Taqwus]

Hrrrrrrrm.

What's the range on your engine-killing beams? Given that he has NO missiles, and no range-7 or range-8 weapons of any kind, engine killers might be helpful.

Since you have all technology and a propulsion advantage, you may want to go for speed/range. Say --

BC chassis/propulsion:
6xQE III, Solar Sail III => 13/7 speed
All ships use maximum weapons range, tweaked so that second movement strategy may need to be 'Don't Get Hurt'. Try it in the simulator -- it's smarter than it used to be.

Weapons to favor:
Engine-killing beams if range is good. Don't bother with missiles unless you've got a LOT of them -- his PD will probably shoot them down. PD is probably more space-efficient than most of the missiles in terms of shots needed to kill a missile and shots available while it closes.
Shield depleters, if you WON'T be fighting in a nebula.
High-energy magnifiers (range 7) or possibly WMGs (range 8). His armor is insignificant, so it's not like you need to rely on low-damage shard cannons. Incidentally, his shields won't help at all in minefields.

As a Last-ditch scorched-galaxy defense, have a cloaked star destroyer ready IF your opponent prefers the Main Fleet approach.

Does your opponent have supply ships at all? I'd be tempted to (simulate first!) try to designate a few ships to kill only unarmed ships if it looks like they're vulnerable... probably wouldn't be, but maybe.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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It seems likely that his maintenance free option is going to kill you unless you get him FAST

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Time is definitely NOT on your side. You'll have to go on the offensive, which puts your ships at a slight disadvantage, but means that the destruction will occur on his industrial base.

[Nitram Draw]

One of the biggest problems I see is if you have 150 ships and he has 150 ships how can anyone maneuver? If you could disable the engines of the first rank of ships then all his other ships would be sitting ducks!

[Menschenfresser]

Since you are looking to knock out most of his fleet and counter attack, without, I assume, leaving your system completely devoid of ships, traditional ship to ship battle is not the way.

Granted, I've never actually fielded or fought such a fleet, but I'd go with an all out non-ship to ship offensive. Wear him down and scatter his fleet. First turn on the intel machine. Change it up all the time. Find out what works. I usually go for ship insurrection, because it seems that even in the face of large counter intel it works. I believe you said something about 200,000 points. That can field a counter intel project and three SIs.

Next I would send numerous cloaked, fast wolf packs, with enough solar collectors to stay in the field forever. Equip these with sun destoryers or plague bombs or standard weapons or mine layers. Cause havok wherever you can, no matter how small. Plague his planets. Attack small Groups of ships when you can (ie colony, transport, mine layers, etc.) More than likely he will take the time to replace these. This really isn't meant to knock out his capacity for building (that is for your main offensive) this is just to keep him moving and producing ships other than those for his main attack fleet.

Next you'll have to play George Washington and try to guess where his main fleet will strike. Set a star destroyer over the star of the system you think he will enter first. Preferably one with just asteroids or at worst a few of your own colonies. As soon as his death fleet enters "BOOM." He'll never know what happened, especially if he thinks he's entering a system with a few of your colonies. I know it's sick to vaporize one's own people, but don't the good of the many out weigh the good of the few.

Keep us updated as to how it comes out. And once it's over I'd really like to hear what strategies and tactics you employed.