Waging war in SE5

[tmcc]

Point defense is close to useless in the stock game unless present in overwhelming numbers. Right now the AI does not build enough point defense on WPs or Bases and I have not seen any on ships. I also have not seen an AI ship armed with anything other than a DUC. This makes missile based ships with sufficient ordnance storage very overpowered. As an example one FG with 3 CSMs and 650 points of ordnance attacked a planet and destroyed the 6 defending Destroyers and 2 Starbases

I think that the Balance Mod addresses the PD issue, but maybe too far the other way. In V1.08 of the stock game PD is still very weak.

[Baron Munchausen]

I haven't seen the AI use PDC at all on ships in stock. At least it does put them on WPs for planets.

PD weapons with a reasonable level of attack sensors are quite effective in stock from my experience.

[tmcc]

I disagree on the effectiveness of PD in stock. I ran several tests in the simulator. Assuming all components at lvl 5 a ship with 4 PDCs and Combat Sensors never hits more than 1 of 3 incoming missiles. PDCs on vehicles not targeted by seekers almost always miss seekers aimed at other vehicles.

[pujal]

I also have not seen an AI ship armed with anything other than a DUC

Yea, same.

[Astax]

I have ran into more complexed AI ships in 1.08.

Anyway this thread is very interesting. I've learned a lot from this. In SE IV Capital Ship Missles where overpowered too. That was due to retarded AI mostly, but also the game design. You could move into range fire missles and move out of the range of the weapon platforms. I have toppled entire empires with few crummy Missle DDs or FFs. That was hardly fun.

I'm still new to SE V and have yet to fnish a game. Then again I hardly ever finished a game of SE IV past my first few.

[Suicide Junkie]

I suppose it depends on your definition of finished.

Playing it to the bitter end, glassing every last colony, or playing it down until it is obvious who will win and the other player(s) concede defeat...

[Moriarty]

or playing it down until it is obvious who will win and the other player(s) concede defeat...

Yes, but playing a game for 30 turns and then having to restart and do it all over again does get boring.
Mind so does glassing an enemy that's still playing with toy frigates.


Personally I found that a dreadnaught can easily carry enough ordanance (cargo lvl 20 - about 6000 units) to wipe out an entire race single handedly. And cargo-lvl 20 is pretty cheap from an RP front.