gameplay: How to stop drones ?

Ragnarok-X · #1 August 29th, 2004, 02:20 PM

Hey everone,

i have some problems in one of my pbw games. My enemy is using drones with immense speed (sector 11, combat 12) to explore my territory and to bombard my planets. The drones he uses can take about 200 kT of damage and move with speed 12. To make it even worse they use 3 warheads, having a ramdamage value of 1200. Unfortunally i dont have point-defense research yet, im 3 turns away from finishing military theory. Until now im using fighters, but the in the Last battlereports the drones were able to hit my planets within 3 combatturns, while my stack of fighters only got one hit which wasnt enough to destroy the drone.

I guess i wasnt able to destroy the drones so i decided to create weapon platforms with shields and armor only, but still, a drone doing 1200 damage is pretty much enough to destroy 2 of my armor-platforms. Just recently i got a battle report where ONE drone was able to deliver 18% damage to one of my planets...

Any ideas on how to defeat drones without PD tech ?!

Kana · #2 August 29th, 2004, 03:51 PM

How about ramming them with something just as big...Like a suicide fighter or even a sucide escort or something along those lines? Speed would be a problem...but that is the only thing I can think of right now...

Kana

PvK · #3 August 29th, 2004, 04:14 PM

Is this a modded game? If so, which mod?

Seems atypical for someone to have high-tech drones when you have no PD.

What size weapon platforms do you have? Large-mount long-range weapons might bag at least a few on their way in.

Mines block drones in most mods.

Drones move predictably on the strategic map. You might be able to intercept them there before they reach your planet, and take care of them with ships. Anti-planet warheads won't damage ships, except via impact damage.

PvK

Slick · #4 August 29th, 2004, 05:29 PM

There is somewhat of a bug with drones in that if the drone is rammed, the warhead does not "go off" to contribute to the damage. The warhead only "goes off" if the drone does the ramming, not the other way around. This is true even if the target is the correct type (i.e. an anti-ship drone being rammed by a ship). The mass of the warhead is used in the ramming damage calculation, though. Drones definitely have problems in SE4. Hope they are more useful in SE5.

Slick.

Fyron · #5 August 29th, 2004, 05:42 PM

Isn't that how ship warheads have always worked? I don't think it is a bug...

Aiken · #6 August 29th, 2004, 05:49 PM

R-X, how much hitpoints each drone has (average)?

Btw, it's the Star Trek Mod, and PD power is significantly reduced there.

Slick · #7 August 29th, 2004, 06:10 PM

Well in the real world, when a fighter/ship/tank "rams" an anti-fighter/anti-ship/anti-tank missile, the warhead goes off. I think it is a bug.

Slick.

Spoo · #8 August 29th, 2004, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Slick said:
Well in the real world, when a fighter/ship/tank "rams" an anti-fighter/anti-ship/anti-tank missile, the warhead goes off. I think it is a bug.

Slick.

Not necessarily. Haven't you seen The Hunt for Red October?

Deth B0y · #9 August 29th, 2004, 08:27 PM

That depends entirely on the situation; the only one i can think of that would be a "hit" even if it went off nearby is a anti-aircraft missile (because of things being sucked into the intake, perforating the wings, etc).

Most anti-armor type missiles arne't just a big ball of boom: thier a bit more finesse then that. If they go off without contacting the armor (or even the *right* armor, in some cases), they won't do as much damage, with much of thier energy being wasted.

That's why aircraft carriers have those phalnax guns - they don't have much range, but it's enough to safely explode the missile without endangering the ship. By the same token, if you could turn the ship so that a heavily armored peice would be the contact point, you'd probably at least reduce it's effectiveness.

Not to mention, if the warhead is of a complex enough type it might need armed before it even *could* detonate (like with a binary agent, or some kind of physics thing)

just a thought,
deth

Ragnarok-X · #10 August 30th, 2004, 01:47 PM

Quote:

aiken said:
R-X, how much hitpoints each drone has (average)?

Btw, it's the Star Trek Mod, and PD power is significantly reduced there.

Right, it is the Star Trek Mod.
And PvK, its not that his drones are so hi-teched, there are size 140 drones, but due to the warp engines each ship/vessel moves friggin fast in the Mod. So in fact a speed 11 drones is not really THAT advanced (though not ourdated, too).
As mentioned the drones can take approx 200 damage, while ONE of my weapon platforms (with 4 shields which give 100 shield point) can take approx 400 shield damage and maybe another 200 normal damage.
So in fact they can take 600 damage each, still a drones INCOMING with speed 11 or 12 which will do 1200 damage and cannot be stopped since i dont get a chance to fire at them is pretty impressive...