newby's guide to ship and fleet strategy

[dumbluck]

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
I meant PDC are weapons for purposes of AI maneuver. I am confident that I have seen PDC-only ships retreat while valid PDC targets were absent, and then advance as soon as valid PDC targets were launched by the enemy. You're right about them not being eligible for main weapon mounts.

PvK

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You may be right about that. Without valid targets, the PD cruisers would default to "don't get hurt". I guess I never paid attention to whether they tried to come out of their corners for a turn whilst my front line ships got pounded by the missles that the PD cruisers were out of range of (because they ran for the corners).

And that is the crux of the problem. Unless your enemy has either fighters or some of the upper-upper-tier missle tech weapons, there aren't going to be any valid PDC targets on turn 1. Or turn 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6. And by that time, your PD cruiser is hiding in a corner where it will do your front line ships absolutely no good.

I will have to test that in a game sometime. If I set the strategy for weaponless ships to hold formation, and the PD cruisers break formation anyway, we will know that PDC are considered weapons. If they hold formation, then they aren't weapons. The concensus of the forums till now has been that PDC aren't weapons, but you have brought up an interesting point.

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[Gryphin]

As much as I like "specialty" ships like an "Aegis" PDC Crusier, I have taken to putting 3 or more PDC on most front line ships. If I am in a two front war and one race does not use suitable targets for a PDC, I create an apropriate Front Line Ship for that front. I don't like it, but to hard code a suitable behavior for this situation would probably cost too much.

[Gryphin]

GUTB, I'll try that. In general I find "Finesse, not Force" will carry the day, but that is more against humans. The AI in Stratiec mode may not appricate finess. An interesting almost disturbing thought.

[Growltigga]

GUTB, good design but are you missing the point on this? even my inexperience at this game shows that there is no right or wrong method of ship design.

Your design will work fine against the AI but apologies if I say it doesn't take rocket science to design a mean close assault vessel or something the AI finds hard to handle.

You will have problems against human players with this design. Sure, your ships will be unpleasant in a furball but I can already think of quite a few ways I would give any fleet of these ships a nasty surprise

I am playing a hot seat game against my friend Khanuk. He developed and built a very similar design of gunboat based on an escort hull. True, the first few battles were horrible from my point of view as 40 or 50 of these gunboats bLasted my fleets apart but then, massed fighter strikes, long range weapons fire, mines, swamping attacks, hit and run attacks, APB armed and heavily armoured battlecruisers etc blew him away and then some

the point of this game is that no design is perfect and nearly everything has a counter. Think of it as a game of scissors, paper, stone

[tesco samoa]

Hey GUTB what is your starting point for your system.

Are we talking 3 planets mid tech high resources etc...

[Phoenix-D]

"After twenty or so turns of a game, how are you supposed to defend againt an enemy that shows up to combat with 45 advanced guns?"

DUCs are hardly "advanced guns"

And I'd say a buffer zone of weapons platforms, fighters, and/or mines would do the trick. You'd taking a long time to build this force- which means that the begining units will be obselte by the time you attack. Plus they don't seem to have any combat sensors, ECM, or defenses.. which means any ship that DOES have those is going to cream them. I once had a ship that killed twenty AI ships with no damage to itself.. all because the AI ships had no combat sensors or ECM.

EDIT: Oh yeah, how are you paying for this again?

Phoenix-D

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Bman]

If you place a single "normal" weapon on your PDC ship then it will stay in the thick of battle instead of hiding in the corner waiting for missiles to be launched. It makes them *much* more effective. In the later techs, I found a nice combination for a PDC ship is: a whole bunch of PDC followed by 2 warp-weapons. You need 2 warp-weapons since they have a rate-of-fire of 2. The warp-weapons keep them with your main fleet since they will want to use them on the enemy ships. But where it is really cool is if there is a large fighter stack, the PDC will chop it down and when it runs out, then warp-weapon will zap the fighter stack across the screen again.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gryphin:
As much as I like "specialty" ships like an "Aegis" PDC Crusier, I have taken to putting 3 or more PDC on most front line ships. If I am in a two front war and one race does not use suitable targets for a PDC, I create an apropriate Front Line Ship for that front. I don't like it, but to hard code a suitable behavior for this situation would probably cost too much.

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[Gryphin]

Bman,
Slick idea. Great, now I have to study up on warp weapons. * sigh * another tech tree to learn.
Thanks for the idea.

[GUTB]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
DUCs are hardly "advanced guns"

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They certainly are only 20 turns from the start of a game starting at low tech.

If you want to wait hundreds of turns to fight my swarm, you are out of luck. The point is that you will be swarmed to oblivion long, long before you get fighters or advanced missiles, etc.

If they game happens to be at that level of tech. Add a PD and ECM. You are dead.

quote:

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And I'd say a buffer zone of weapons platforms, fighters, and/or mines would do the trick. You'd taking a long time to build this force- which means that the begining units will be obselte by the time you attack.

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And how many mines and weapons platforms (that can do jack all) can you get at the START of the game after twenty turns WITH LOW TECH AND ONE PLANET?

It's amusing listening to all the knee-jerk defending of this or that favorite pet strategy or tech combo. I don't care if you have this many cruisers with sheilds, that many missiles or how you strategically manuever your carriers. They are all DEAD before my massive armada.

OVERWHELMING FORCE. Brutal, direct, unsurmountable FORCE. Forget sheilds, armor, missiles, surface bombs, raming warheads and other nonsense that others play with. You have to have PD and ECM because fighters/missiles can be savage without them -- BUT WITH THEM YOU WILL UTTERLY BRUTALIZE FIGHTERS AND MISSILES. I give a big bonus to reasearch and lower maintenece because this gives me MORE force, EARLIER. I cannibilize other useless traits like strength and savvy.

I never use anything but the escort hull, so my entire fleet can be upgraded only after a few turns.

[ 26 February 2002: Message edited by: GUTB ]

[Quikngruvn]

quote:

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Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

In fact it doesn't work. My favorite Ram ship design (recently) is a ship full of organic armor 3 which is almost indestructable. It does not go over to ram strategy even when it is trapped in a corner.

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Mine own (limited) observation with kamikaze ships: in desperation, I designed and built several destroyers with a couple of warheads, and set primary and secondary strategies to Ram. Most of the time they just danced around... until my other ships finally knocked down the shields of an enemy ship. Then the kamikaze ships rammed like there was no tomorrow (which, as it turned out, there wasn't!).

So I think a ramming ship will not ram a ship with shields. I have not tested this, but it is food for thought....

One other thought about the 'killer escorts'... with three engines per ship, looks like you'll have speed and supply issues. More specifically, a lack of both. But it definitely would make for a nasty early defensive fleet....

Quikngruvn