size of fleets midgame

[Slick]

Originally posted by minipol:

Now for the questions:

1. Is there a way to replay the combat in simultaneous?

2. What's a decent size of a fleet for midgame attacks? My fleet included about 4 missile ships
( missile IV ) and 12 beam ships (APB VI mostly).
As it seems, this was not enough.

3. What's the best way to test if a fleet is going to do the correct thing? I now use the combat simulator to achieve this.

1. Click on the Log (F10), select the battle, then on the right hand side of the log a button will light up for combat replay. There are some problems with this as it shows positions and firings and movement. It does NOT show updates when components are damaged.

2. Size is determined by mission. Ship & fleet configuration are arguably more important than fleet size. A finely tuned small fleet can take out a much larger fleet - I have seen it happen many times. Although, any fleet can be overcome by sheer numbers. Build your fleets to suit your intended targets. If you want to capture planets, I suggest not using missile ships since they will most likely glass the planet due to the way they work. Use 20-50 beam ships with 10 or so various support (supply, repair, minesweeping, etc.) and 1 heavily shielded/armored troop transport. It need not have weapons because when you use the fleet strategy of capture planet (and the troop transport has a strategy of capture planet), the troop transport will hang back while your fleet will moves in to destroy defenses. Once defenses are cleared, the fleet will stop attacking and the TT will move in to drop troops. If you are attacking a homeworld or heavily defended planets, you will need a beefier fleet. If you are attacking smaller or lightly defended planets, you can get away with less. For your capture planet fleet, use "attack" instead of "move" orders in simultaneous games when directing the fleet to the planet(s).

3. Yea, the simulator is ok, but it doesn't model everything exactly like a battle. i.e. it doesn't use experience, and there are other quirks, like you can only simulate planets/storms/etc from your home system. My opinion is the best way is determined with trial & error unfortunately. Or you can just get your butt whipped by a human and learn that way - I have learned most of my good tactics and strategies by playing humans.

Slick.

[ February 25, 2003, 19:06: Message edited by: Slick ]

[JLS]

Originally posted by minipol:
. What's a decent size of a fleet for midgame attacks? My fleet included about 4 missile ships
( missile IV ) and 12 beam ships (APB VI mostly).
As it seems, this was not enough.

Many Fighter-Bombers with Planetary Cluster Bombs is great for piercing planetary defenses but you may need fighter escort to get past any of there fighters and you will need a comparable fleet to get past any ships or bases they may have... Best to SEND ONE SCOUT IN FIRST and see what the planet has for Weapons Platforms, Troops and Fighters. A good rule of thumb may be to have better then 2 to 1 in regards to troops for Capture planet, that should give you a foothold. Also note: To many Cluster bombers may purge the planet�. Good luck�

[ February 25, 2003, 16:50: Message edited by: JLS ]

[minipol]

thanks for the advice guys. i learnt some good tricks so i'm off to test them.
Geronimo !!!!!!!!!!

[minipol]

I'm in my first simultaneous game agains the AI and i like it more than turnbased. Especially the repeat orders is very neat for satellite and mine placement.
Anyway, i blocked an AI (forgot the name, they are orange beings) in a corner of the galaxy. They only have 3 systems. I invaded with a fleet of 29 ships but it had some support ships like AA, supply, minesweepers, repair ship, troop transport.
My fleet was destroyed by what i thought was a harmless planet to start my attack with. It only had about 140m inhabitants so i thought it was going to be a piece of cake

Of course, it might have something to do with the orders i gave: capture planet.
I have 2 assault troop transports ( normal transports with shields, armor and a beam weapon )
in the fleet that where supposed to drop their troops.

Now for the questions:

1. Is there a way to replay the combat in simultaneous?

2. What's a decent size of a fleet for midgame attacks? My fleet included about 4 missile ships
( missile IV ) and 12 beam ships (APB VI mostly).
As it seems, this was not enough.

3. What's the best way to test if a fleet is going to do the correct thing? I now use the combat simulator to achieve this.

[Karibu]

Next turn you receive a log what happened during turn execution. It includes all the battles you participated.

The best fleet size is as big as you can get. What matters is: the level of your ship and fleet training, the strategy of the fleet (point blank or maximum weapons range), the defence of your ships (shields, armor and ECM), racial attributes you have chosen (high/low attack/defence).

The best way to test is to save&load tactics, but if you don't want to use it, combat simulator is the only chance.

Also, many players use homogenous fleets (ie. all attack ships in the fleets are same type, which work usually best in the simultaneous game).

For example: make 20 dreadnoughts and put 15 missiles on each of them. Strategy is maximum weapons range -> Propably enemy does not have enough point defence to block all 300 missiles coming in.

or

put all of your ships full of shield depleter guns and ripper beams and heavy defence (lots of shields and armor) and fleet strategy to point blank -> all your ships drive next to the enemy, first they fire their shields down and then they rip the apart with those powerful, though short ranged beam weapons.

[Fyron]

3. What's the best way to test if a fleet is going to do the correct thing? I now use the combat simulator to achieve this.

Create a test game on max tech. Use 2 human players, no AIs. Build everything you need to test.

For example: make 20 dreadnoughts and put 15 missiles on each of them. Strategy is maximum weapons range -> Propably enemy does not have enough point defence to block all 300 missiles coming in.

A few PDCs on each warship and then a decent amount of Aegis ships (with tons of PDCs) will counter that quite easily.

[ February 26, 2003, 00:39: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Karibu]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

---

For example: make 20 dreadnoughts and put 15 missiles on each of them. Strategy is maximum weapons range -> Propably enemy does not have enough point defence to block all 300 missiles coming in.

A few PDCs on each warship and then a decent amount of Aegis ships (with tons of PDCs) will counter that quite easily.

---

True enough. My point was, that if enemy does not suspect you to use tacktics like that, you may surprise him and succeed. For example my fleet follows basically next composition:

2* Minesweepers (enough to sweep 100 mines)
1* Repair/supplyship (before quantum reactors)
1* PD-ship (for those pesky missiles&fighters)
1* Troop transport
N* Beam attack ships (depends of the purpose)

And often I have 2 or 3 different kind of Beam attak ships also. Those with computer viruses, with boarding parties, etc. All depending of the enemy and mission.

[Fyron]

People that don't put PDCs on their ships are just asking for a whooping.

[Karibu]

I the game I am currently playing, one of my allies attacked to a enemy sector with 150 ship fleet filled with missiles. In that sector was 4 planets build with defences and a 60+ ship enemy fleet (beam weapon ships + talisman).

Unfortunate things was, that he went into that sector through warp point, so he was in the middle of the enemyfleet and in the range of the planets at the beginning. Also he moved after the enemy had moved his fleet.

Enemy lost 3 planets and over half of its fleet. The enemy uses 2 or 3 PD weapons in his ships, so there was moderate PD defence. Even considering all this, enemy lost 3 planets and half of its fleet.

However, had he arrived into that location normally and battle would have started opposite ends of the battle field (not fleets mixed up in the warp point), he would have beaten planets and other ships easily.

150 ships and say, 10 missiles each of them. Does anyone have PD to counter that? I recon the weaknesses in the tactic when you use missile based attack ships, but it in the large amounts and normal battles, it will destroy enemy before it gets near you. Missiles has their uses, though it is quite limited and only in specific occasions they are effective enough. I have also always thought, that PD is too effective. It never misses (reduces the value of figs and missiles).

In real life, try to shoot down something that comes toward you 10 000 miles (or kilometer)/hour. For a computer (at least nowadays) it is impossible task to calculate the missile position and lauch counter measures to shoot it down. Though, I admit that computers will be far more effective that we now can imagine in the time when humankind travels into stars.

Though, I prefer beam weapons myself. At the end, they are more effective and you can use them to shoot almost anything (it should be possible to make missiles shoot at satellites also. They are static target).

[Fyron]

60 ships is not much to use to be defeating 150 ships of any reasonable sort, really. You have to use roughly equal numbers, or your examples become flawed.

If you are going to be using lots of missiles, you can easily be defeated by using extra PDCs. PDCs destroy many missiles in much less space. Remember that they can fire every round and missiles can only fire every 3 rounds. So, 2 PDC, which take less space than 1 missile, can effectively counter 6 missile launcher components (as there are almost always missiles flying about each round). The fact that hte PDC fire before the missiles ever have a chance to hit the targets makes PDC even more overwhelming against missiles.

Retrofitting a few dozen ships to have extra PDCs when I find out that you are using missiles is not very expensive, and can be done by the SYS and repair ships that go with every fleet our in the field.

It never misses (reduces the value of figs and missiles).

Yes it does miss. Not very often, but it does happen. 1% to miss means about 1 out of every 100 shots miss. It hits nearly all the time, yes. But to say that it never misses is wrong.

[ February 26, 2003, 11:26: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]