Couple of strategies I think I invented

[Neo]

I've only been playing this game a couple of weeks so other people have probably already thought of these, but I am proud of them anyway:

1. Really fast troop transports: if you have really fast engines on your troop transports, you can use them to invade planets in tactical combat that are festooned with numerous missile and point defense guns armed weapons platforms, just by zooming past the missiles when they are launched, and capturing the planet, and then the captured weapons platforms will shoot down the missiles they themselves launched with their own point defense guns.

2. Covert mine laying: create some long range ships with adequate cloaking and scanner jamming components and mine layers, and unassuming names (so human player opponents can't tell what you are doing). Then deploy mines above all the planets and warp points of your current allies. Then if they later decide they don't like you or vise versa, and break the treaty, they won't be able to get to any of their planets without sweeping the mines first, and they'll probably lose lots of ships before they figure this out (I wonder if newly constructed ships will hit mines above the planet where it was just constructed? Haven't tested that yet). I don't think there is anything they can do to stop you while you are treatied with them and they can't tell what you are doing until it is too late.

[Baron Munchausen]

Bah! Covert mine laying dates back to SE III. I've done it many, many times to all sorts of enemies and rivals. It's the perfect ambush strategy. Lay mines deep inside your victim's space, then declare war. Most of the enemy fleet is trashed by the mines before it can even reach your borders and cause you trouble.

[Phoenix-D]

I dunno about you, but when someone decides to fly his ships through my systems, and oh, just happens to fly past or stop on a bunch of my planets, I get a little testy..

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

quote:

---

I wonder if newly constructed ships will hit mines above the planet where it was just constructed?

---

Nope. A ship has to move into the sector to trigger the mines. A newly constructed ship will sit there quite happily, until it leaves that sector and tries to come back. It's been reported that fighters don't trigger mines, either, but I don't recall if that's been verified.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Neo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Bah! Covert mine laying dates back to SE III. I've done it many, many times to all sorts of enemies and rivals. It's the perfect ambush strategy. Lay mines deep inside your victim's space, then declare war. Most of the enemy fleet is trashed by the mines before it can even reach your borders and cause you trouble.

---

Yeah, I thought this one might be kind of obvious. Probably doesn't work too well against human opponents either because they can recognize you are acting suspiciously, but the AI never figures out what the heck you are doing.

[Neo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
I dunno about you, but when someone decides to fly his ships through my systems, and oh, just happens to fly past or stop on a bunch of my planets, I get a little testy..

---

Well AI players I have partnerships or MA with always are leaving ships parked in orbit around my planets for no apparent reason. I agree a human player would probably get suspicious unless you had a good reason for being there though.