I need advice....

[Starhawk]

Well as to you Wardad I'd prefer an escort or just waiting the two months for frigates, then to arming a transport ship for combat. I prefer loading out my transport ships for maximum cargo storage because of the fact that eventually I'll get troops and want these ships to be able to deploy them.

Frigates don't take that long to research so I usually get them rather quickly but when I am trying to research something else I make due with escorts.

But I have managed to take out frigates with Escorts so it all depends on the way you arm them .

[ December 04, 2003, 05:52: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[Nocturnal]

I use small ships only as PD interceptors - early in the game I make even my missile boats use larger hulls because of space efficiency (but of course I don't give them combat scanners or much other defenses.) Think about it, between an escort and a frigate you can get 50% more space for another pair of missiles pushed around by the same engines. The only thing to worry about is that if an enemy takes down one of your ships, you're out that much more firepower. But you still can field more firepower with the same resource investment if you play your cards right, so bigger is very often better. Late in the game I don't use missiles because large "tank-like" ships with huge guns and strong defenses can overpower anything using missiles (so can fighters if the enemy uses missiles with no point-defense cover.)

Many players specialize their ships, so you won't see a repair or supply ship with weapons very often, for example. Some will specialize their warships to work at a certain range for example. I prefer most of my warships to be effective at any range the enemy chooses to fight, so I tend to give them both long and short range weapons. Some will use troop transports with heavy defenses. With cargo III technology, devoting 80-100 kT on a large warship to cargo bays can allow you to carry ground troops into battle without worrying about defending transports. Better yet, I have an "armored dropship" design (large transport hull) that can survive running through most weapons platform defenses to unload its troops without damaging the planet. I also specialized a "meatshield" ship which is pretty much a giant floating gob of organic armor with engines to run ahead and absorb enemy fire. That was pretty much just for fun.

You should be aware that in strategic combat, PD ships will run away if they don't have at least one main gun (I'm pretty sure that's why it happens) and you need to play with their strategy a bit to make them hunt down the fighters and missiles before anything else and cover your other ships. This is a good example of specialization that will save you room on your larger ships for more guns.

[ December 04, 2003, 13:23: Message edited by: Nocturnal ]

[Starhawk]

Yeah I specialize my ships too obviously :-).

But I am starting to understand what you guys are saying about the older ships needing to be replaced quickly.

But should battleships be kept around when dreadnoughts and base ships are flying about or should they all be scrapped too?

[Phoenix-D]

When in doubt, use a suicde mission.

Actually, DON'T scrap, at least not immedatly. Mothball instead. That way you can scrap later when you're low on resources.

[Cyrien]

I think there was a discussion around here somewhere awhile ago that concluded kt for kt and speed for speed battleships where the most cost effective class of ship around. Something like that.

I don't think anyone really pays attention to that. Most of the MP games I have played with either the AI or humans tends to end up in massive fleets of baseships/dreadnoughts.

[Slick]

Will that work in strategic combat? I thought transports always waited until the weapon platforms were dead...

Semi-true. There are cases where an armed Troop Transport will attack a planet. A Troop Transport will rush the planet when any of the following are true:

- It is the only attacking ship (as was probably intended by the statement that prompted this question)

- Planet WP's are destroyed.

- (not exactly sure about the exact coding on this one...) Other attacking ships are either weaponless (PDC do not count as weapons), killed, or *possibly* disabled. Bottom line on this one is that the TT will rush the planet if the remainder of the attacking ships are unable to attack the planet. Maybe someone else can nail down this one exactly.

- maybe other situations (?)

Slick.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Slick:

quote:

---

Will that work in strategic combat? I thought transports always waited until the weapon platforms were dead...

Semi-true. There are cases where an armed Troop Transport will attack a planet. A Troop Transport will rush the planet when any of the following are true:

- It is the only attacking ship (as was probably intended by the statement that prompted this question)

- Planet WP's are destroyed.

- (not exactly sure about the exact coding on this one...) Other attacking ships are either weaponless (PDC do not count as weapons), killed, or *possibly* disabled. Bottom line on this one is that the TT will rush the planet if the remainder of the attacking ships are unable to attack the planet. Maybe someone else can nail down this one exactly.

- maybe other situations (?)

Slick.

---

You can make you transports charge planet, fire on planet and drop troops even before all WP gone.
For this, ALL ships with weapons in your fleet must have troops on board and have "capture planet" strategy. If you have just one armed ship without troops, only that ship will fire on planet while all armed transports will wait till all WP are gone or that ship is killed. Only then they will assault planet.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
I think there was a discussion around here somewhere awhile ago that concluded kt for kt and speed for speed battleships where the most cost effective class of ship around. Something like that.

I don't think anyone really pays attention to that. Most of the MP games I have played with either the AI or humans tends to end up in massive fleets of baseships/dreadnoughts.

I pay attention to it. Well, sort of. That was the conclusion I had arrived at long before that discussion occured.

[Starhawk]

So battelships CAN still be useful till the end of the game?

OR are dreadnoughts and baseships the only usefull ships in the end of the game?

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Nocturnal:
Some will use troop transports with heavy defenses. With cargo III technology, devoting 80-100 kT on a large warship to cargo bays can allow you to carry ground troops into battle without worrying about defending transports.

Ooh, clever... I'll have to try that!

Better yet, I have an "armored dropship" design (large transport hull) that can survive running through most weapons platform defenses to unload its troops without damaging the planet.

Will that work in strategic combat? I thought transports always waited until the weapon platforms were dead...

You should be aware that in strategic combat, PD ships will run away if they don't have at least one main gun (I'm pretty sure that's why it happens) and you need to play with their strategy a bit to make them hunt down the fighters and missiles before anything else and cover your other ships. This is a good example of specialization that will save you room on your larger ships for more guns.

Especially in Proportions... your big ships carry the heavy guns to do lots of damage, and the smaller ships, with their built-in offense bonuses, mop up the pesky fighters and missiles with their pesky defense bonuses!