Alliegance Subverters

spacefan · #1 September 9th, 2001, 04:47 PM

I've never really played a psychic race before(mostly played w/propulsion expert) and I've heard a lot of talk on the Boards about the merits of the alliegance subverter, so I decided to start a game with psychic.

I've been playing it for a day or two and Last night I finally got alliegance subverter 1, and I also ran into two enemies at the same time. So I retrofitted a few escorted and frigates with the subverter.

I also had regular ships fighting. So anyway, I tried several times, in 4 seperate battles, to subvert, and I didn't succeed in a single one. This was with several different ships. Is this just because Subverter 1 is not very good? Or was I stupid enough to fight against a empire with master computers.

Also, is the subverter more effective when shields are down? and what do those attack numbers for the subverter mean(40, 30, 20, etc)?

If I can't get this bLasted thing to work I'll probably lose this war because those shard cannons are blowing me away, and my accuracy is horrible.

spacefan · #2 September 9th, 2001, 05:32 PM

Ok, my complaining is over. It wasn't master computers I just didn't get lucky. I just finished a battle where i took over a light cruiser armed with shield 4(I don' have any shield tech), large mount shard cannon 3's and other techs. Now the tough part is whether to use that ship for defense or to analyze it.

CW · #3 September 9th, 2001, 05:48 PM

quote:
If I can't get this bLasted thing to work I'll probably lose this war because those shard cannons are blowing me away, and my accuracy is horrible.

THAT is your problem. You have only ONE shot with your subverters so you better make them count, or have lots of them in your fleets. Something that you might like to know, subverters get you experience for your ships/fleets VERY slowly, so you should somehow compensate for it. Have you made sure that you have psychic ship/fleet training facilities in all of your systems?

quote:
Also, is the subverter more effective when shields are down?

No. I myself is a very dedicated user of subverters and most of the time (at least in my current humans vs AI game) the only weapons that fires before the fight ends are my subverters. I've captured entire dozen-ship fleets of dreadnoughts from the AI like that.

quote:
and what do those attack numbers for the subverter mean(40, 30, 20, etc)?

I found that a large mount is much more effective than a normal mount, but a heavy/massive mount has no significant improvement over the large mount.

quote:
Or was I stupid enough to fight against a empire with master computers.

Why don't you know? Don't you check out your enemy's designs? If you are really fighting MC ships then try putting a computer virus package in front of every subverter. You can still "convert" MC ships if their MCs are down.

Perhaps I should give a disclaimer here, I've never played against a human with psychic tech before, but I've been using it with huge success against the AI. So don't blame me if you lose your game!

Suicide Junkie · #4 September 9th, 2001, 05:52 PM

The "damage" of the subverter is the chance in %, that a HIT will subvert the crew. Misses do nothing at all.

If you can get an LC, a largemount will give you a guaranteed capture from pointblank, (if you hit).

RE: light cruiser
Most situations an analyse would be called for.
If you have only frigate hulls, analyse it.
Build escorts with Subverters and Attack Destroyers to protect the escorts and finish off enemy fleets. You will get the occasional capture, analyse it ASAP.

If you have destroyer tech or are a few turns from researching destroyer tech:
Save that LC! Bring it home, and the instant you can build destroyers, analyse the ship for LC tech. Then see below

If/when you have LC hulls:
Retrofit that LC to a heavily Armored/Shielded assault craft with Large-mount subverters as its only weapons. If you analysed the LC to get here, then design and build one or two.

Send huge fleets of your normal-weapon defense frigates (or larger hulls) to protect the capture LC at all costs.
When the enemy numbers are low, move the LC in and capture the Last one or two ships with the subverter.
You will lose a few frigates, but will be capturing LCs and other technology as fast as you can analyse.

CW · #5 September 9th, 2001, 05:52 PM

quote:
Originally posted by spacefan:
Ok, my complaining is over. It wasn't master computers I just didn't get lucky. I just finished a battle where i took over a light cruiser armed with shield 4(I don' have any shield tech), large mount shard cannon 3's and other techs. Now the tough part is whether to use that ship for defense or to analyze it.

I'd analyse it for the shields, unless I'm REALLY short on ships for defense.

spacefan · #6 September 9th, 2001, 07:09 PM

The phong have been sending one ship through the warp point at a time, so I've been taking everything at point blank range with my normal mount converters.

and i have the light cruisers coming, I just got 4 levels of shield tech by analyzing some of those ships but now I've got pretty much everything they know(except the crystalline tech of course).

Slaughtermeyer · #7 September 10th, 2001, 02:27 AM

Has anyone been able to get subverter ships to fire at point blank range in simultaneous games? I've tried it a couple times by giving the ship point blank as primary orders and also putting it into a fleet with point blank orders but it still fired the subverters at long range.

Slaughtermeyer · #8 September 10th, 2001, 02:29 AM

Has anybody been able to get subverters to fire at point blank range in simultaneous games? I've tried a couple times with a ship that had point blank orders and then put the ship into a fleet with point blank orders but it still fired at long range.

Suicide Junkie · #9 September 10th, 2001, 03:39 AM

If your ships have enough speed to close to point blank in one turn from out-of-range, then they will fire at point blank.

AIs always fire everything that has any chance to hit as soon as possible, and never save up long reload weapons for the right moment.

If you made a range-reducing mount, then you could force the AI to close to point blank before firing the subverter.

Slaughtermeyer · #10 September 10th, 2001, 03:57 AM

[quote]Originally posted by suicide_junkie:

AIs always fire everything that has any chance to hit as soon as possible, and never save up long reload weapons for the right moment.
[/QUIf OTE]

It sounds like point blank, optimal range, and maximum range have no relevance or difference whatsoever in simultaneous games.