Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.

[Nitram Draw]

Note that the rippers are the most efficient but not necessarily the most effective. It is easy to overlook the rippers though, due to the short range.

[Suicide Junkie]

True, but the tractor beam tactic was created to make them effective. Add in a large shield depleter just before the rippers, and you can eat dreadnaughts for breakfast

[Zarix]

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:

12: Phased shields stop everything, except things like engine damagers and Wave motion Guns which skip all shields.

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Wave motion guns do normal damage. Null-Space Weapons skip shields and armor.

[Stone Mill]

Dragonlord,

First and foremost I must say that you have excellent questions. Most of these things perplexed me as well at first (and some still do!) Perhaps the players putting together Strategy guides could use some of this info...

Dogscoff: (#5) I have to say that Intelligence & CI still is unreliable (and NOT explained) in PBEM or Strategic multiplayer games. I have heard no official clarification since we posted questions and sent a potential bug in to Malfador several months ago.

If you go to the thread(s), you will only find debates among members (some quite excellent), but certainly no final word.

[Stone Mill]

I guess I should bite my tongue:

Posted with the new patch (6):

8. Fixed - Successful intelligence defense would sometimes result in you having intel defense projects more accomplished then when they started.

I will have to check it out!!

[Dragonlord]

All,

First of all, thank you for all the replies. I see I am not alone wondering about some of these things !

OK, about my original 12 questions, I am left with these:

1: Don't know what's going on there, but Victory conditions do *NOT* carry over from one game to the next. Did you set the "conditions only apply after X turns" on?

Yes, I had conditions apply after 5 years. I met one condition in year 9, the game continued, then yesterday I met a second condition (300% score of player2) and then the game finally decided I had won. My original question is still unanswered though...

5: counterintel..maybe this will be better with patch 6.

6: maybe the global resupply minister would help here...hmm must try.

7: Why would you ever use torpedoes? How are they different from missiles?

10: Ripper Beams...am still not really convinced, maybe they get better at levels 3 or 4...but a level 1 or 2 is useless compared to other weapons I had at that stage. (I loved the level 5 phased weapons!)


Now, from many of your comments about tactics and weapons I gathered you use Tactical combat mostly, even in multi player. Bus I heard that only Strategic combat is available in PBEM and PBW ?! Thats a big bummer, because the AI sucks in strategic combat. Often it will kill my fleets when I attack a planet and let the AI handle combat, but if I then reload and manage the attack myself I can capture the planet without a single point of damage to my ships.

One thing I found out: AI cannot handle my PD ships. I have some "Fighterkillers" in my fleet that have 10 PD on them, and the AI will treat them as non-combat (support) ships and run them to the corner of the grid. I had to retrofit them all and put one beam weapon on to make sure the AI would send em to the front lines...

That's all for now...
Dragonlord

[Lucanos]

quote:

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Originally posted by Dragonlord:

7: Why would you ever use torpedoes? How are they different from missiles?

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Torpedoes are not seekers but direct fire weapons so there's a big difference. They have a long reload time and their damage isn't as devastating as I'd want it to be.

Try em.