In Review: Best Fleet Strategy

[tesco samoa]

GUTB Please post the first 25 to 30 turns of your game playing so we can see this in action. Right now only you believe in what your saying.... Just prove it to us. Solipsis come on over to the ramble thread and join in there.... (Bar and grill one ) Nice to meet you.

[Mordante]

I think people have more or less covered the flaws in this. Glad its evolved from speed 3 dominate the sector though ... Scary to think how many mines a homeworld can be made in the time it takes that "uber-fleet" to travel from one system to the next.

Interesting I did try something somewhat simular although far more costly in the Last pbw game I played in. Was religious with obscene defence bonues and superior propulsion (racial pick)

Adding max ECM+race bonus+Stealh and Scattering+20 fleet experience did make my ships fairly unhittable at range 8 (I was using late tech anti protons) and of course the talisman made all of mine hit.

But ... I think some of their attacks did hit ... is there a 1% minimum chance?

Back to the Uber Fleet however ... surely its obvious that its easy to make more missile ships that 1 lousy pds a vessel will cope with (or even missile platforms come to that) ...

Ah well,

Btw ... anyone know whats up with PBW this morning ?

[geoschmo]

Ok, I have done some real game (not simulator) testing of the "Uber-Munchkin" strategy. As expected it does not quite live up to it's high expectations.

First of all, there is no way to get 30% defesive characteristic. It tops out at 25. I created an uber race with bezerkers, and +25% defense.

For my control race I used a straight default, no advantages or disadvatages.

I decided to handicap myself and not use seekers, fighters, mines or organic armor ramming ships.

I calculated the amount of research points required to get DUC IV, PDC III, and ECM I. With the same number of research points my control race could get Destroyers, Combat Sensors I, and DUC III. This is what I designed my munchkin killers with. My destroyers could hold 6 DUC III's.

In one on one comabt the destoyers decimated the escorts. 9 kills to 1. The one escort that survived is what I would call heavily damaged. (more than 50%) Of the 9 frigates that won their battles, only 2 were heavily damaged.

In fleet action, 10 vessels per side, once again the destoryers won convincingly. In several combats, the best the escorts could manage was 2 kills and 8 heavily damaged. And that I consider a statistical fluke, because most of the results were at the other extreme end, with most or all of the escorts killed, and mild damage to the destroyer fleet.

The only positive point to this strategy is that the escorts can be built fast. One per turn on the homeworld. The frigates take two turns. However the munchkins need this as because even with a 4 to 3 numerical disadvantage, the destoryers come out on top the large majority of combats. It's only when the escorts can acheive a 2-1 numerical advantage do they start winning consistantly.

I must point out that this test was done using the 6 engine, 1 DUC IV Version of the Uber-Munchkin. I don't consideer the 3 engine Version even a legitimate option. They would have more firepower, but it would take so long to get a decent fleet to the enemy's worlds, they would have battle cruisers waiting for you.

So even without all the creative counters proposed, this can be defeated by a low tech "brute force" defense.

Geoschmo

[ 22 March 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[oleg]

DUC can be made obsolete by crystal armor.
Destroyer with 4 CA-I and shield (any level)
negates 40 damage points per shot.
That is DUC IV. One such destroyer can decimate
an infinite number of "uber-escorts". Granted, it has room for just one weapon, but who needs more when you are impregnable ?

[LGM]

quote:

---

Originally posted by oleg:
DUC can be made obsolete by crystal armor.
Destroyer with 4 CA-I and shield (any level)
negates 40 damage points per shot.
That is DUC IV. One such destroyer can decimate
an infinite number of "uber-escorts". Granted, it has room for just one weapon, but who needs more when you are impregnable ?

---

Ships with only one weapon cannot do much to repel a Ramming attacker. A fleet of uber-escorts can ram the Destroyer into oblivion with about two or three rams.

[oleg]

Not that easy to do in multiplayer (strategic combat). Especially when I have speed advantage (3-engine escorts... how could one even think about such mutant !) and "max. distance" strategy.

[geoschmo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by LGM:
Ships with only one weapon cannot do much to repel a Ramming attacker. A fleet of uber-escorts can ram the Destroyer into oblivion with about two or three rams.

---

Rock, paper, scissors.

The search for an "uber-weapon" is snipe hunt. Every weapon has it's advantages and disadvantages. A ship design that will kick butt against one type, will fail miserably against another.

No weapon or strategy is perfect for every possible situation. You must be able to adapt, and improvise to be succecsful all the time. And even then, you can't all the time. Because there is always someone out there that can adapt a little better, and improvise a little faster than you can.

If there was truly only one answer to the question, then people wouldn't still be playing this game a year and a half later.

Geoschmo

[tesco samoa]

Exactly.

Well said....

I just clobbered an enemy in a PBEM game because I changed my strategy of ship building every 40 turns or so and used combined fleets. So the strenghts and weakness balanced out.

I personally believe their is only on strategy in this game. Production. Out produce your enemies and you will win. How you get there is the fun part. Winning is not as enjoyable

[GUTB]

Check this out:

On the first turn, dump your innitial research points into Military Science and projectile 2. The next turn, continue researching Combat Support and projectile at the same time. Once you have ECM, get your PD up to II or III. You should have DUC IV, ECM and PD III by 17-20 turns.

On the first turn, build two or three space stations with ship yards. Once you have ECM, start building prototype hulls. Set your orbital yards to emergency build. So if you have three yeards, you can get 10 prototype hulls in 4 turns. By this time, you should close to around 18 turns with all your tech up to where we want it, so upgrade to prototype to the full Version and then spend a few turns retrofitting. Spend this retrofitting time pumping out another 5-6 complete hulls.

Presto, in 20-25 turns you have your Navy Fleet Group ready to go! You could have it in 20 flat if you were willing to settling for lower tech equipment.


**** THIS IS FROM A SINGLE PLANET LOW-TECH START!!!!!!! *****

[Fyron]

Face it GUTB, your strategy is one of the most easily countered strategies in existance. Most experienced players already build 3 space stations around their homeworld(s), so they could easily produce more ships (of a larger size) than you in the time that it takes for your fleet to be built and to reach them. And with only 1 point defense gun per ship, missile destroyers (or even frigates) would be able to overwhelm your escorts. And with such short ranged weapons, your ships will rarely get a chance to fire upon the missile ships (which would use the max range strategy). So much for that uber-defense level of your ships.