racial trait +20% and evasive armors

[Ragnarok-X]

Hey everyone,

i figured this has been asked before but i wasnt able to find the thread. In an ongoing Devnull mod game, actually the first pbw game i ever played the game is hitting a critical stage. Because of my dumbness i wanted to play rpg-ish and gave myself huge reproduction bonuses and stuff, instead of racial offense and defensive modifers. Now i have an enemy, which has both at superior, +20%. He just recently aquired battleships, now using scattering armor, cloaking armor and ecm 3. While i am both more advanced and a lot bigger, in simulations i need at least a 2:1 ratio of ships to beat him, simply because my vessels cant hit him. Im even forced to use Pulsed mount because of its small to-hit-bonus, still, even at range 1 my vessels have a hitchance of about 40%, give or take 5, im not sure. Of course simulator doesnt include training, but since my vessels and fleets are at 20% each, his ships could be as well.
Im using combat sensor III, and without the pulse mount i barely get one hit out of five shots. Instead of using standart anti-proton beams and large mount / battleships i optimized my vessels with 3 tractorbeams, shield depleters and incinerator beams. Still i need to heavily outmass the enemy.
Any suggestions oh what to do ? I could of course EASILY outproduce him, still it is pissing me off.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Get cloaking tech and stellar manipulation ASAP. Also, use Intel to make sure he can't detect your ships. Then, simply park a cloaked starkiller over his homeworld star and watch the fireworks over your victory celebration..... no, but really, this is almost ALWAYS a good idea. If you've got at least one - several is better - starkiller(s) parked over his homeworld star, preferably accompanied by a cave troll of a defensive fleet, you've got something to bargain with - his life.

Also, use Fighters. Lots and lots of fighters. Use their to-hit bonuses and your race's ability to outproduce him to face him with swarms of nasty little buggers which have a fairly good chance of hitting his ships and a reasonably good chance of evading his shots.

Note: I myself have no experience with Devnull, so my advice could very well be an empty piece of text.

[geoschmo]

You've already hit on the only real course open to you at this point. Massively outproduce him, and be prepared to lose a lot of ship. And make absolutly sure all your ships are trained before commiting them to battle. Otherwise you are going to see some utterly horrendous battle results, like losing entire fleets and only slightly damaging a handful of his ships even when you have him outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1.

Some people more helpful then me may come up with some things to try, but honestly they aren't likely to be very effective.

My only suggestion is to take combat modifiers next time.

[Suicide Junkie]

Or a mod in which those modifiers are either not as important, or are priced appropriately to their benefit.

[Alneyan]

Yup, Stellar Manipulation. It is dirty cheap in Devnull, as you actually gain money by retrofitting, instead of having to pay extra. A Star Destroyer or two at the border, more if possible, and blast'em as they come within sight. Warp Openers and a riot run are always fun too, or simply Warp Closers: if they cannot reach you, they are dead. Or all of the above. And let's not forget about the Sentry Star Destroyer, with a handful of vessels protecting the wormholes, to take down enemy scouts. Risky, but *fun* if it works.

Of course, they are likely either protected against Stellar Manipulation, or already using the same things themselves. If not... I would go for it. You may be the worst tactician ever (I am), and Stellar Manipulation can still save the day.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Or, like I said, fighters.

Again, I have no experience with Devnull, but if fighters still have their intrinsic to-hit bonuses (both offence and defence) they're very handy, especially because they're so cheap. Depending on the kind of guns he's slinging, this might also give you the advantage of rendering a certain amount of the weapons on his ships useless.

Or, if there are more players in the game, seek contact with other empires and request that they attack your enemy in return for trade goods (resources, outdated ships/units, defense bases which have become useless, listening post bases which have become useless due to your exploration, planets with low value and no population as a result of, say a plague, etc.).

Or, building on the above paragraph, build up a powerful static defense line of bases, sats and especially mines, then find another (preferably weaker) empire and simply outproduce them, then bully them into attacking your enemy. If he doesn't listen take/glass a few unimportant planets and post traffic regulators on the warp points to avoid his ships colliding with each other on their way to your enemy

[Ragnarok-X]

I think i will take the stellar manipulation then. I already have about a douzen of planet creators in use, right now im researching dreadnoughts, because they have a to-hit-mount as well and will immediatly go for star creation and destruction. Any more advises are welcome as well.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Alneyan said:
Yup, Stellar Manipulation. It is dirty cheap in Devnull, as you actually gain money by retrofitting, instead of having to pay extra. A Star Destroyer or two at the border, more if possible, and blast'em as they come within sight. Warp Openers and a riot run are always fun too, or simply Warp Closers: if they cannot reach you, they are dead. Or all of the above. And let's not forget about the Sentry Star Destroyer, with a handful of vessels protecting the wormholes, to take down enemy scouts. Risky, but *fun* if it works.

Even more fun is gained by sending cloaked sunkillers into his very systems, with the main target being his home system. Then, if he isn't begging for his life after one turn, push the Big Red Button and all that'll be left of him are several rapidly expanding clouds of monatomic gas and several stray ships which can be hunted down and destroyed with ease.

[Alneyan]

Standard fighters are very poor actually: they may have a good bonus to offence, but they will not get Ship training (-20% to offence), their Combat Sensors are much harder to research and weaker (-35% to offence), and they will have a hard time breaking through all the defences on an enemy ship. In defence, fighters lack Stealth and Scattering Armour (-30% to defence), ship training (-20% to defence), and their ECM is weaker (-30% to defence), so even regular weapons are going to eat them for breakfast at point blank range. In this particular case, add -20% to both offence and defence.

Fighters can still do a good job, but you will need to lure the enemy into attacking a particular wormhole, and put all the fighters there. If you do not care much about losing the bulk of your fighters, a force of ten thousands or twenty thousands should do some real damage, combined with a nice fleet. I would not bother with low numbers of fighters: if you want to him them with fighters, hit them hard.

Devnull improves fighters somewhat if memory serves, mostly by giving bigger fighters, but those will lose part of their offence bonuses, if memory serves. There might be other things of interest in Devnull too; the weakened PDC will not be much of a deal though. If you can get big weapons and big shields for your fighters, plus fleet training and the best fighter CS/ECM, it could work. It is probably too late for all of that, however.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I say Stellar Manipulation. If that's not possible (say, he has large defensive fleets in his systems which will destroy your sunkillers on sight) go for the bullying option.