Well, in the scenario, I am trying to take the lower-right starsystem of Zanthris, held by the Ukra-Tal, one of the superpowers of the galaxy.
I wiped out their two biggest planets with my initial strike force, but could go no further due to supply shotages. Another fleet arrived with a colony ship, and I set up camp on a northern planet, emergency building a resupply depot. I had a stack of five Dragon Class Dreadnaughts, and I split them up to attack nearby planets, while two went to a wormhole to destroy a pair of UkraTal ships.
Oops. A baseship decloaks as I attack, and I am overwhelmed. I manage to cripple one baseship, but one of my ships is destroyed, while the other loses its computer, and is subverted.
A second strike with my three remaining dreadnaughts retakes my dreadnaught, blows away the active baseship, and captures a new dreadnaught with troops. The crippled baseship is destroyed, and my ships limp back to base, slowly healing.
The few colony ships I have already are sent out to nearby planets, to start building monoliths & to get the Nature shrine bonuses started (resource values are atrocious, even worse since I've glassed the Ukra colonies [no troops])
The UkraTal are pissed off now, and are using their massive bulk to lean on me with intel ops. Most are informational ops, some steal resources (not a critical area, yet), and one of my Ubernaught picket ships in Aldan is subverted. (A dragon sets it straight the next turn)
My Second Wave fleet is en route. Two Large transports, one with population, the other with Heavy Fighters (Large (TB) = 31Kt), plus colony ships, a Dragon, an Ubernaught and three Light Cruiser Missile ships.
Just before they arrive, I spot an UkraTal task force entering the system. 10 ships, mostly BB, some LC, DN and a baseship. They will be quite a challenge to defeat, and I have only 4 operational Dragons.
With the colonies at stake, and a cocky attitude, I send in all five of my Dreadnaughts. Four operational, and the fifth missing all its weapons, but useful for absorbing fire or ramming with organic armor.
Oops again. I've fallen for the same thing twice in a row. The enemy fleet blossoms to 17 ships (CA, LCx3, BCx4, BB, DN, BSx7)
I used my ship's superior speed to avoid the baseships, and ran around the edge of the map. I disabled or destroyed all three LCs, and blew up the carrier, after taking minimal damage from its fighters.
On the Last two turns, I picked out a Baseship, and nailed it, disabling it, but leaving it mobile.
Next turn, the fleet moves towards my military base planet, where the reinforcements of my second wave have arrived.
With twelve known ships coming, half of them baseships, I must attack before they reach the planet.
Six fully operational Dragons, and an Ubernaught move in and stomp the edges of the enemy fleet, whittling them down, and leaving every ship disabled, all but one immobile, but all alive to burn maintenance.
Three Dragons were trashed, and two others sustained minor damage.
They should all be restored to battle-ready stauts within the next five months.
Intel is still trashing my planets, and a good fraction of 'em are now deadly. Food contaminations have shut down a few planets temporarily, and a random attack where my Dragon missed THREE 50% chance kill-shots in a row, resulted in the destruction of the Dragon and the resource colony it protected.
Distribution of the stored fighters is proceeding slowly, but when complete, each of my current Zanthris colonies will have enough Fighter-power to destroy 2 UkraTal baseships per combat turn
.
Only one of my three colonies had any defense (not counting the military base, which has 3 LCs, fighters and assorted civilian craft). Three UkraTal baseships decloaked and wiped out one of my monolith colonies. The fighter group from my military base moved in and struck down the baseships, taking 10% casualties, then proceeded to my undefended colony.
The value of that world is down to single digits now, from its original 60/50/100 or so
.
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[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 07 September 2001).]