The ultimate Base

[Suicide Junkie]

How about a base inside a black hole? Enemy ships would be destroyed by the hole if they attacked.


All you have to do is construct a base, and retrofit it before it falls into the hole.

To survive the hole, you just need 5000 hitpoints worth of armor. Then add some repair facilities to fix that much every turn. Now you have a base that nobody can touch!

If you can manage 5000 armor on a baseship, even better! You can lurk in a black hole system, and then jump out and disable engines on an enemy fleet, then drift back in to be repaired by the base

[Taqwus]

You could fit 34 Organic Armor III (150 ea, IIRC) on a Baseship, but it'd be a tight fit -- if it's 30kt per piece, that's 1020kt, plus you need two repair components, if memory serves, so that's an additional... 300kt. So you wouldn't have much room for other foo, and would be quite vulnerable to anybody with armor-piercing weapons. Crystalline armor has the same damage resistance / space ratio, I believe. Armor III tops out at... 30kt/10kt? Which is too many to fit in a base ship (you need 167 pieces... which also means you'd need 21 repair bays, since 166 would be destroyed per turn. 21 repair bays just won't fit, even in a Starbase.)... so only Organic or Crystalline can even attempt this.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Triumvir Emphy]

How do you propose to build it,... your construction ship will either build or move not both. At best you could get 2 turns before your ship gets crushed, most mobile shpyards can't even spit out a destoyer in a turn or two, let alone a starbase

[Taqwus]

Turn 1 -- enter system at border (6 squares from center). Commence building empty SB on emergency build; SYIII = 2000kt/turn x 1.25 (e-build) => 2500 kt/turn, which is just enough. Turn 2 -- you have an empty SB shell. Refit it (using a refit chain). Turn 3 -- Your base should be repaired and operational (if you brought enough repair yards). Three turns is also how long it takes the black hole to drag you six squares (edge -> center distance), so it depends on the turn ordering as to whether you can pull it off. You'll lose the repair ships, I suspect, but maybe not the base.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Windborne]

It MIGHT work, but why bother? This ultimate base couldn't build any ships without them getting destroyed instantly at the center of the black hole, it couldn't launch any fighters or satelites for the same reason, theres nothing for it to mine for resources, what you've designed is the ultimate waste of resources, an expensive base that does nothing but watch a black hole system for enemy movement!

[geoschmo]

But it would be a cool place for your mad scientist to hide out.

[Suicide Junkie]

You will be able to do it.

I have seen AI LCs at the center of a black hole, so they clearly only take damage at the BEGINNING of their own turn. Since the repairs happen at the end of your turn, you'll have the 5000 hitpoints for when your turn begins again.

Oh, yeah.

You can also go for a 150% repair rate, if you feel like using this strategy.

Your base(s) would be supporting repairs on a equally armored baseship, which could attack with engine disabling weapons.
An alternative strategy would be to just let them shoot at your baseship and use up all their supplies, and then falling into the hole

As for fighters, they won't take damage unless they're sitting out unprotected at the beginning of your turn. You could still use them to attack (with engine disabling weapons ) The only difficulty would be in storing them in the limited space you are left with after armor & repair bays.


Having +120% to maintenance reduction would help make this a viable strategy.
I'm gonna try this in my Pirates game where I have zero maintenance A most exellent secret base would be in a black hole.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 06 March 2001).]

[geoschmo]

I think you missed Windbourne's point. Even if you could launch your fighters during combat, you would never get into combat because enemy ships would be destroyed once they entered the center sector. Unless you are talking about moving out of the center to attack them? In the center though you could not launch your fighters in non-combat because they would be instantly destroyed.

[Suicide Junkie]

I think black hole damage happens at the beginning of your turn.

If that is the case, you'd be able to launch, attack, then return to the base and land without getting crushed, as long as the fighters aren't within 2 squares of center when you end turn (and are not in storage).

Has anybody actually flown a ship into a black hole to see if it does damage during your turn?

[DirectorTsaarx]

Launching fighters would only work during combat - they have 0 movement on the turn of launch (ignoring the recent bug).

Since I've never fought a battle in the center square of a black hole, how WOULD that work? Is the center of the battle map taken up by black hole squares that do damage to your ship? And where would the base be located at the beginning - in the center, or offset like around planets?

Edit - Hey! I made First Lieutenant! It only took 250 postings... man, I need a life...

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 06 March 2001).]