suck em in, chew em up, and spit em out!

Arc.Smiloid · #1 June 7th, 2001, 07:04 PM

I just completed designing the most interesting ship using DevNullMod.

Super Dreadnought hull. 28 Hardened Shield Generators, 12 PDCs.

Main armament (in order)
1 ER tractor beam (+2 range), 1 Spinal Mount Graviton Hellbore (x15 damage), 1 DN mount Repulser.

Once this puppy get close enough, it snags the closest ship with the tractor beam and smashes the ship with ~2000 points of damage. Then the repulser throws the ship (or whatever is left of it) about 20 spaces away.

Its hilarious to watch these things in action. Suck, smash, throw. With a combat movement of 5 and range of 6 on the tractor beam the ship has an optimal effective range of 11 (close, tractor, fire big gun at range 1-2). The enemy ship gets smashed and hurled 20 spaces away where it is of little threat.

Tractor/Repulser weapons are some of my favorite toys to play with.

Granted, I have had some trouble with accuracy in the simulator but I pay special attention to training my ships/fleets and play a race adept at space combat.

I'm curious. Would High-Energy Mount Wave-Motion guns be a better choice for the smash?

gotta check that out.

BTW, the main muscle of my fleet originates from my trio of Skaal Fa combat cruisers, Skaal Tel missile cruisers, and Carriers. The SDNs are for chewing up tough targets.

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[This message has been edited by Arc.Smiloid (edited 07 June 2001).]

Suicide Junkie · #2 June 7th, 2001, 07:18 PM

quote:
I'm curious. Would High-Energy Mount Wave-Motion guns be a better choice for the smash?

Try Ripper beams. Even though they are low tech, they are the most efficient non-racial tech weapon in the game.
You should be able to do at least as much damage as with the hellbore, while still having enough room on board to add a backup tractor and/or repulsor beam in case you miss with the first one

#3 June 8th, 2001, 12:44 PM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Try Ripper beams. Even though they are low tech, they are the most efficient non-racial tech weapon in the game.

Thanks for the advice, I needed it too. By the time I get my defense bases built everybody will have phased shields anyway, and I was wondering what to use. I checked the damage per point of maintenance cost. Rippers are the cheapest regular weapon by far. I will mix in a few null space projectors though, in case somebody with lots of armor comes along. What I will do is convert my small yard bases to defense bases with repair bays after they have built the big bases. Rippers fit into the small bases just fine.

Suicide Junkie · #4 June 8th, 2001, 03:14 PM

quote:
How does this strategy work with Space Stations? Do the Tractor / Repulsor weapons take advantage of the extended range of base mounts? This could make for an interesting defensive strategy.
Also, out of curiosity, in which direction does the repulsor send the ship? Is it in a random direction, directly on the same vector in proportion to you, or what? Also, can you take one enemy ship and slam it into another (assuming it's in that vector path)?? IOW, what happens if there's a ship behind it??

Tractors/Repulsors are weapons, and so get full use of the base mounts. (Although you will waste power with tractor beams, since their power exceeds their range)
The enemy ship is pushed directly away from you, although only along a diagonal, horizontal or vertical line (no two spaces over, one space up, kind of things)

If there are two enemy ships in a line and you repel the closest one, it will move away on its repulsor path until it hits either the edge of the map or another object.

Unfortunately, if you push/pull one ship into another, they do not do ramming damage as you would expect, but get stuck together, and share the same square until they move on the next turn.

I really want these beams to cause the enemy ships to ram each other... it would be great against fleets, but useless against small Groups. Thus it would give a bit of an advantage to the underdog in a fight, so they don't lose too badly.

rdouglass · #5 June 9th, 2001, 01:42 AM

How does this strategy work with Space Stations? Do the Tractor / Repulsor weapons take advantage of the extended range of base mounts? This could make for an interesting defensive strategy.

Also, out of curiosity, in which direction does the repulsor send the ship? Is it in a random direction, directly on the same vector in proportion to you, or what? Also, can you take one enemy ship and slam it into another (assuming it's in that vector path)?? IOW, what happens if there's a ship behind it??