The Plague (Subverters, Boarders, and IDs, Oh My)

[douglas]

The one per ship restriction on bridges is actually ignored if a master computer is present. Not that this really matters in stock, as there is hardly ever any benefit to having multiple bridges over having more armor or weaponry.

[NullAshton]

Really? I thought you could have only one computer, like sats.

[inigma]

Well, I wonder if an overall fleet doctrine of capturing enemy ships would work in SEIV.

I was thinking that The Plague would depend on large numbers of cheap specialized ships that would work together for the good of the boarding and subverting ships.

Has anyone ever tried boarding and subversion as an overall fleet doctrine before? Did it work well?

I ran some designs in the simulator last night, and I must say that the coordination paid off. Resource for resource, boarding/subverting was either on par or far ahead of other doctrines I tested.

Research-wise, it has its drawbacks, so a good early defense is necessary, but when boarding and subverters become available, the resource curve for boarding/subverting plateaus off versus following other doctrines around mid tech.

One thing is for sure. If I ever get The Plague perfected, they will be one annoying AI. Due to their fleet doctrine, they would practically force you to make peace with everyone else while you refit your ships valuable space with MCs and anti-boarding stations just to defend against their attack, not to mention finding a way to make best use of the remaining space for offensive operations. On top of it all, forcing you to carry lots of repair ships to fix all the engine damage when you do survive their attacks.

[Suicide Junkie]

If only you could get the AI to deconstruct and analyse those ships it captures... then the research advances would be deadly

[Zereth]

inigma said:
Has anyone ever tried boarding and subversion as an overall fleet doctrine before? Did it work well?

Thanks to the ease of getting self-destruct devices: No. I haven't played with psychic much, but it seems the only way the Plauge would work long-term is to hope that it shoots out the self-destruct devices before the boarders arrive. There's also the fact that all boarding parties on a ship are expended in an attempt to board, regardless of how many are actually needed.

[inigma]

There's also the fact that all boarding parties on a ship are expended in an attempt to board, regardless of how many are actually needed.

Are you sure? I was running the simulator multiple times and I believe my boarders were able to board several times, even after failed attempts.

Forcing self destructs on enemy ships sounds like a nice idea for The Plague. It fits right into their theme.

[Zereth]

That's how it's always worked for me. Form what I understand, the simulator isn't a 100% reliable indicator of what will happen in actual combat for some reason.

[Fyron]

It is a confirmed feature that all boarding parties are lost in any boarding attempt, successful or not.

[douglas]

Actually, its small size makes emissive armor less likely to be hit. It's just that when it does get hit, it's not tough enough to survive the hit.

A component's probability of being hit is directly proportional to its structure. Emissive armor has 50 structure, Crystalline has 150, so any individual piece of emissive armor is 1/3 as likely to be hit on any given shot as any given piece of crystalline armor. If there are 10 crystalline armors (minimum to get maximum immunity) and 1 emissive, each hit has a 1/31 chance of hitting the emissive armor.

Going with my usual combination of having 2 backup emissives, hitting an emissive armor when everything is still intact has a probability of 1/11. Once one emissive is destroyed, hitting another is 1/16. On average, it will take 11+16+31 = 58 hits with weapons that do less than 180 damage to destroy all 3 emissive armor components and bring the damage immunity down to 149. Meanwhile, the presence of emissive armor is taking 30 damage off of every hit the ship takes.