I need advice....

[Starhawk]

Okay sorry for making a second topic and I hope it's not against the rules but this is different then the first.

As many of you know I sadly still only have the demo as I am hoping to get the full Version on Christmas....

Okay the thing I need your help with is a two part deal.

I usually manage to build only about 20 ships before the demo ends because I like using full technology a lot of times. Anyway I usually use a battlegroup style of arrangement and it usually goes like this:

1 or 2 Light cruiser designed only with supply bays
1 Cruiser with 2 repair bays
5 Combat Cruisers
4 Destroyers with point defence guns only (imcase I run into enemy fighter wings or more missiles then the cruiser PDTs can handle)

Is this a good composition for a battlegroup when I am first starting..because I often find that this battlegroup can overcome much larger fleets of pure warships but I've also seen them suffer other problems.
And if this is a good comp for the demo would it be for the early parts of the full game or what are it's failings?

Okay now the second part of the question.

I sent a battlefleet (about 2/3 of my full warfleet) and it was defeated in a battle against superior numbers (fortunately most of the enemy ships were crippled or destroyed so they weren't able to complete their invasion of my space). But I had drastic problems with populations getting all ticked off and I lost a great deal of resources when the fleet was destroyed.
Okay since most of my navy was destroyed I had nothing to do for the Last eight turns but i want to know:

1. Is it just a coincidence (sp?) that my people got so upset after the defeat or is it because of that battle?

2. What could I do to get the confidence of my people back up after such a dramatic loss and such heavy losses of ships and men.

3. How could I still defend my space properly with only 1/3 of my navy left, and how would you recommend rebuilding my fleet? For example what kinds of ships should I replace first and what should I do to protect my space in the meantime?

4. Since the bulk of their warfleet was crippled or destroyed was it really a defeat or more of a draw?

5. Would the computer follow through with the attack even with that damage in the full Version or would it do what the one in the demo do and fall back for a while to rebuild?

[Phoenix-D]

"1. Is it just a coincidence (sp?) that my people got so upset after the defeat or is it because of that battle?"

Not coincidence. Loosing battles makes your people unhappy, gennerally. Stalemates are worse, and battles closer are worse than battles farther away.

"2. What could I do to get the confidence of my people back up after such a dramatic loss and such heavy losses of ships and men."

Built troops, build Urban Pacification Centers, build more ships. Make a good treaty (with anyone).

"3. How could I still defend my space properly with only 1/3 of my navy left, and how would you recommend rebuilding my fleet? For example what kinds of ships should I replace first and what should I do to protect my space in the meantime?"

Mines at sats can make cheap fall back positions, but you really need to position them ahead of time. I'd just emergency build the biggest warships and hope, moving anything I had to the most likely route of attack (note: always try to defend on your side of a warp point. you can start at close range with the first shot, which can be devastating)

"4. Since the bulk of their warfleet was crippled or destroyed was it really a defeat or more of a draw?"

Depends..can they still attack you?

"5. Would the computer follow through with the attack even with that damage in the full Version or would it do what the one in the demo do and fall back for a while to rebuild?"

Also depends. The enemy AI is..erratic.

[Cyrien]

Okay sorry for making a second topic and I hope it's not against the rules but this is different then the first.


I certainly hope it isn't against the rules. If it is I think a great deal of us here are in trouble... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

1 or 2 Light cruiser designed only with supply bays
1 Cruiser with 2 repair bays
5 Combat Cruisers
4 Destroyers with point defence guns only (imcase I run into enemy fighter wings or more missiles then the cruiser PDTs can handle)

Is this a good composition for a battlegroup when I am first starting..because I often find that this battlegroup can overcome much larger fleets of pure warships but I've also seen them suffer other problems.
And if this is a good comp for the demo would it be for the early parts of the full game or what are it's failings?


For the early part of the game? No. Not unless you were playing with High Tech start. At the start of the average game you have to research just about anything you want and start with really small ships. For later in the game it looks ok. I think most would suggest replacing the cruisers with battleships and for large games the numbers would need adjustment. Many games involve numbers in excess of hundreds of ships per fleet.

Many people specialize their ships into damage control, supply, combat, support PD, etc...
It tend to work well enough that they keep doing it.

1. Is it just a coincidence (sp?) that my people got so upset after the defeat or is it because of that battle?

No it isn't. People get ticked off when you lose battles and happy when you win them. They also get unhappy just by having lots of enemy ships nearby and happy by having lots of friendlies nearby.


2. What could I do to get the confidence of my people back up after such a dramatic loss and such heavy losses of ships and men.

Win some battles. Put some ships in the system and get the enemy ships outa the system. Put troops on the planets. Build a happiness facility such as Temporal Vacation Center or Urban Pacification, etc.

Troops work great for keeping a happy populace. 100 per planet and you shouldn't have any troubles.


3. How could I still defend my space properly with only 1/3 of my navy left, and how would you recommend rebuilding my fleet? For example what kinds of ships should I replace first and what should I do to protect my space in the meantime?


That all depends on the circumstances. You have to look at the situation and decide what needs to be done based on that. Mines might be a good quickie defense if the enemy doesn't have minesweepers. Or you could fortify warp points. Generally you are better off getting a new offensive fleet out fast. The best defense is to not need one but make the other guy need one.


4. Since the bulk of their warfleet was crippled or destroyed was it really a defeat or more of a draw?


That depends on what they have and what you have. How close are they to major repair centers? Do they have repair centers with them? Can you replace your lost ships before they can build new ones and repair the damaged ones?


5. Would the computer follow through with the attack even with that damage in the full Version or would it do what the one in the demo do and fall back for a while to rebuild?


I think that depends on the AI setting files. Not sure, the AI files aren't something I know alot about. But I would feel relatively confident in stating different AI's would react differently to the situation.

[Starhawk]

Hmmm thanks. I got a lot of good advice there and will take a good long look at it when I do get the full game.

"That depends on what they have and what you have. How close are they to major repair centers? Do they have repair centers with them? Can you replace your lost ships before they can build new ones and repair the damaged ones?"

They had mainly light cruisers and damaged cruisers left. Their survivng assault fleet was smaller then my survivng remnents of my navy BUT my navy was more spread out then theirs.

As for rebuilding, they had no repair ships in their fleet and they were at least two jumps away from their own space and only capable of moving 1 space per turn so I don't think they would have really been able to launch a good attack but
I'm not sure. Their cruisers were inferior in design to mine on a one on one basis but they had enough firepower to kill a colony.


"that all depends on the circumstances. You have to look at the situation and decide what needs to be done based on that. Mines might be a good quickie defense if the enemy doesn't have minesweepers. Or you could fortify warp points. Generally you are better off getting a new offensive fleet out fast. The best defense is to not need one but make the other guy need one."


See problem here is I had no surviving minelayers, the enemy managed to destroy both my ships only two turns before our fleets engaged each other :-(. SO mines are out of the question.

I had 10 planets to defend, most of which had spaceyards. But the enemy had at least 15 planets in his empire and a great many of them had spaceyards too I beleive. That is how i think he was able to so easily out produce me. But he never did follow through with his attack, in fact right after our battle his fleet left my space.

[ December 01, 2003, 19:05: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[Cyrien]

Quickie mine defenses don't need mine layers. Just build the mines at the planets that are in danger and then launch them from the planet. Planets can launch any launchable unit from them as long as they have them in the planets storage. Most planets can build anywhere from 4 to 10 mines per turn with each mine easily being able to have 600 pnts of damage and upto 1200. More than enough to deal with most light cruisers on a one on one basis. So every mine in orbit of the planet if the enemy doesn't have mine sweepers is capable of taking out one ship in any attacking fleet. With a few turns of mine laying at threatened planets you can easily have a dozen or two mines in orbit of the planet. This provides considerable threat to the enemy. Even human players tend to back off when they run into mines until they have a fleet that can sweep 100 at a time (the limit of mines per sector). So mines make a very effective quickie defense.

[Starhawk]

Hmmm I didn't know about the minefield thing thanks for telling me, that'll help me a great deal when I get the full Version of the game.

Now since i am asking questions of all you grizzled veterans I was wondering.

I have heard that escorts become useless the second you get destroyers and that frigates become useless when cruisers come about.

The question I have is, just how long is the usable lifespan of escorts frigates and destroyers. And for that matter will you even have light cruisers or cruisers in the end of the game or will they all be useless too?

And is that even true about escorts frigates and destroyers becoming useless that quickly?

Really thinking about it I thought frigates could at least be usefull as "missile boats" during the later stages of the game.

[ December 04, 2003, 02:10: Message edited by: Starhawk ]

[Fyron]

Take a look at weapon mounts. Light Cruisers have weapons that are 33% more powerful right off the bat (assuming you use the mount http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ). This is what allows them to so easily overpower anything smaller. Battleships have weapon mounts that make their weapons 50% more powerful than those of a Destroyer, or 28% more powerful than those of any Cruiser. This makes bigger ships much more powerful by default. That, and ships do not start getting slower in combat until Dreadnoughts, and just 1 speed slower on the game map with Battleships. Why ever use small ships when much more powerful ones are available? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Also, the Escort is a horrible hull for a warship. 60% of its space is used up just for C&C and engines! Add CS and ECM, that uses up 73% of the space! On a LC, those comps take up only 27.5% of the hull. Bigger ship hulls are in general much more efficient than small hulls (save Cruisers vs. Light Crusier, which is just slightly more efficient; and possibly the Baseship if speed is important, though that is not an issue of effeciency).

[Starhawk]

Well what I meant was the destroyer has that 20% harder to hit thing going for it, as well as it's far cheaper and easier to produce then a cruiser.

I figured in a massed fleet action a good squadron of destroyers could be usefull for torpedo runs while the big ships pour on the heavy guns.

[Wardad]

I do not build Escorts. A transport with weapons is more effective and can be usefull for a long time.

[Fyron]

In massed fleet combats, you are better off doing significantly more damage via mounts rather than having that small ECM bonus of the small ship hulls.

[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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .

[ 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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"> Will that work in strategic combat? I thought transports always waited until the weapon platforms were dead... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I pay attention to it. Well, sort of. That was the conclusion I had arrived at long before that discussion occured. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[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.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ooh, clever... I'll have to try that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

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. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif