Ship roles (division of labor)

[Taqwus]

Out of curiousity, how are people normally building fleets?

I've been experimenting with fleets including the following roles (in a max-tech, max-planet, large mid-life start)

* Utility CA (at least 1-2 per fleet)
Jobs:
Resupply (quantum reactor)
Repair (1 repair bay)
Satellite/mine launching
Cargo carrying
Missile defense (3 Point-Defense Cannons; others in fleet usually have 1 or 2)

Stays a short distance behind others in battle.

* Picador CA (at least 2-3)
Jobs:
Immobilizing enemies (4 large Ionic Dispersers, 2 Ionic Pulse Missiles)
Plinking (one Shard Cannon)

Typically does run-and-gun until all enemies lack engines. Needs a bit of armor and shielding when getting close enough for the Dispersers. 1 Point-Def cannon, IIRC.

For space reasons and range (ionic dispersers are only range 6 -- and allegiance shifters are either 5 or 6, IIRC), it's got an expensive Master Computer. Can't recall whether I did the same for any of the other ships, but I don't think so.

Getting hit by all Dispersers, or both missiles, will result in all engines being destroyed (120 and 130 pts respectively, and no engine in the demo has more than 20 IIRC).

* Missile CA (pref. 2 or so)
Jobs:
Launching missiles (3 CSMs, 3 Plasma).
Missile def (2 P-DCs).
Lightly armored/shielded, meant for staying out of range.

* Shredder CA (1-2)
Job:
Finishing off the weak, or pursuers
(7 large shard cannons).
Lightly armored, but very very dangerous to an opponent who can't counter as the Shredder dances in and out of range. This ship class gets, by far, the bulk of the credit/experience for kills.

* Troop transport/killer (utterly optional)
Job:
Bombing planets (neutron bombs)
Transporting troops (cargo bays)
Not that critical a ship. Bomb, then invade.

Carriers/Fighters are currently being ignored in this particular game (low speed/range), although I'm considering trying them as bait for slow-recharging weapons.

The combo ain't too bad -- a 10-ship fleet (2 utility ships, 1 troop transport, 2 missile ships, 3 picadors, and 2 shredders) destroyed a 15-ship fleet (all identical CAs with nasty organic beam-type weapons IIRC), losing 1 missile ship in the process. It took two consecutive attacks, but at the end of the first one, all surviving enemy ships had already been immobilized, making the second one mere experience-building target practice...


------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[This message has been edited by Taqwus (edited 26 August 2000).]

[Noble713]

Attack Ship:
Mixture of Meson BLasters and Capital Missiles (until good Plasma Missiles are available), moderate to heavy shields, no armor, and 1 point defense. Maximum speed usually 6, and combat sensors. ECM only used on cruisers.

Planet Bomber:
Replaces my combat ship's meson bLasters and missiles with Planetary Napalm. Napalm replaced with neutron bombs when available.

Fleet Train: (just started using it today)
Cruiser size, light shields, 3 solar collectors, 2 repair bays, 1 mine sweeper, 6 engines. The rest is filled with supply storage. At max tech, that's 6000 supply points, or about twice that of any other ship.

Transport:
Nothing special here, just a transport with lots of cargo for troops and some extra supply.

Builder:
A cruiser with a space yard. Space yards are so big you can't put much else on the ship. I only use these for building asteroid mining space stations, and on rare occasions, warp point defense stations.

I've also gotten into the habit of putting colony modules on medium transports. They are far larger than Colony Ships, and can drop far more people on a new colony.

I've tried using a carrier-dominated fleet, but as you said fighters are too slow and it doesn't take the AI long to put PD on its ships and run away from your fighters, shooting them down as they try to close the range.

[jars_u]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Taqwus:
Out of curiousity, how are people normally building fleets?

I've been experimenting with fleets including the following roles (in a max-tech, max-planet, large mid-life start)

* <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think the ship building possibilties in SE4 is one of its greatest strengths, so many different components so many different strategies to come up with. However, other then for "reserach" purposes I think it is a mistake to design ships assuming that all the tech levels are available. True you can start the game out like that but I don't think that would be much fun. Being forced which areas to develop is a large part of the game. Also, as in real life you won't always have the funds available to create your ideal fleets and there are always outdated ships that you will have to deal with in combat that have not yet been retrofitted.

One question though about this ship design:

* Utility CA (at least 1-2 per fleet)
Jobs:
Resupply (quantum reactor)
Repair (1 repair bay)
Satellite/mine launching
Cargo carrying
Missile defense (3 Point-Defense Cannons; others in fleet usually have 1 or 2)

Does having 1 ship in a fleet with a quantum reactor allow all ships in that fleet to basically share the ulimited supplies?

Jim

[Noble713]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jars_u:


Does having 1 ship in a fleet with a quantum reactor allow all ships in that fleet to basically share the ulimited supplies?

Jim

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Pretty much. It will refill the ship that has it, one turn later the fleet will automatically redistribute the supplies so they all have approximately the same amount, and then the quantum reactor will refill its ship's supplies again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.

[Taqwus]

jars_u &gt;&gt;

Aye. It probably makes sense for testing purposes, 'tho -- as in making sure that my ships defeating the AI's fleets didn't happen just because better tech balanced out a nonsensical design, or having greater pop because I stumbled on ruins giving me another colony type early on, or whatnot.

On the quantum reactor, it works as Noble says. The fleet will still run out of supplies when you engage in multiple battles a turn (say, 3 anti-planet battles perhaps), so it's not quite as flexible as QR's for everybody, but QR's are a tad pricey and it saves 20kt space per ship, IIRC. The AI appears oblivious to the possibility of destroying the utility ships and thus making supplies matter...

One additional type that I'm considering is a dedicated 'big gun' ship -- meant to be the only one that uses not-every-round large beam weapons like Wave-Motion Guns, with strategy set to something like --

max range / don't get hurt
attack only ships, stations, planets and platforms
pri: has weapons, largest, most damaged,
nearest (needs testing and tweaking, fer sure)


------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Taqwus]

Hrm. An evil idea (for multiplayer only, methinks -- versus folks who don't carefully examine every opposing ship) --

'Trojan Horse' / deceptive ships, such as...

Colony ships, loaded with troops instead of colonists; perhaps have a few in systems belonging to a mark^H^H^H^Hally.

Cruiser colony ships, so that folks see a small stack of cruisers labelled "Annihilator Mk. V" and "Juggernaut", and look elsewhere. Mix with fully armed cruisers labelled "Utility ship" and "Fleet Tender".

Bait labelled "Barney", "Pikachu" or "N'Sync". Who could resist the chance to waste 'em... ;-)

A medium transport, with fighter or satellite bay(s) for a nasty surprise if somebody thinks it's easy prey.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Paladin]

I absolutely LOVE those ideas, Taqwus... To ensure it will work more than once, you can just create a new ship class by copying a previous bait, wich costs 0 and allows you to confuse even more... ;-)

It really is evil, though...
But I like it...
"Not MY fault, they just had to learn to avoid my "colony" ships and transports. ;-))

[Baron Munchausen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Taqwus:
Hrm. An evil idea (for multiplayer only, methinks -- versus folks who don't carefully examine every opposing ship) --

'Trojan Horse' / deceptive ships, such as...

Colony ships, loaded with troops instead of colonists; perhaps have a few in systems belonging to a mark^H^H^H^Hally.

Cruiser colony ships, so that folks see a small stack of cruisers labelled "Annihilator Mk. V" and "Juggernaut", and look elsewhere. Mix with fully armed cruisers labelled "Utility ship" and "Fleet Tender".

Bait labelled "Barney", "Pikachu" or "N'Sync". Who could resist the chance to waste 'em... ;-)

A medium transport, with fighter or satellite bay(s) for a nasty surprise if somebody thinks it's easy prey.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

These are pretty amusing, but I gotta wonder why a medium transport with fighter or sat bays would be a "surprise"... isn't this the best class for using units with? ALL my mine layers, sat layers, and even fighter transport (when I use fighters which isn't often) is done with the medium transport. The large transport is probably as good a carrier as the specific carrier class if you don't mind the reduced speed.

Now, labeling your sat layer "Population Transport" and setting it in harms way, stuffed with your best satellites or fighters, might be a cool trick but the class alone is not any reason to believe it's harmless to my mind. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I really like the idea to use colony ships as troop transports, though. Will definitely remember that one. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Say, do you suppose their ought to be "troop bays" required to drop troops on a planet? As it is now, any old transport can act as an assault ship...

[Paladin]

I prefer to have a single cargo compartment... Even if transporting population in them is a bit pushy, it is so much simpler taht way... Besides, a container is a container, wether it holds people&LifeSupport, or guns, or Fighters, or etc.
It is logical that any ship capable of landing on a planet can act as a troop-dropping hauler, but not as efficiently... The same goes for Transports who launch fighters, they should not be as (more?) efficient that dedicated carriers...

(What is even stranger is that a single troop-loaded ship could capture a planet by itself...;-)

[Instar]

Those are the basic types of ships, yeah. I have some specialized ones I like to use though.
Recon For recon and intel, I make a small ship with the best sensors and stuff and put a really good cloak on it. It usually has a QR.
Missile I design a ship that has max engines plus a solar sail and give it a good source of supplies (maybe a reactor). The rest of the space is for armor and warheads. Then you have to give it the Kamikaze strategy. It works really well for surgical strikes (It is usually very powerful, three warheads is about 900 damage)

[jars_u]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Instar:
I make a small ship with the best sensors and stuff and put a really good cloak on it. It usually has a QR.
Missile I design a ship that has max engines plus a solar sail and give it a good source of supplies )<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought cloaking devices were only in the full Version of the game? Even with all the tech levels turned on I have not seen them in the demo, nor have I seen "solar sails" what are those? Am I overlooking something or are you playing a beta game?

Jim

[Master Belisarius]

Yea... Instar is a lucky beta tester.

[Paladin]

I beleive the solar sails are the "solar Collectors", you get those in the demo by researching Solar Harnesting...

It's great fun to scout around with my Solar-powered, LongRange scanning, EngineBoosted little Escort. I really love the utility of long range scanners, to get info prior to attack or to study ennemy ships... ;-)

[Jeb]

Actually, I think solar sails are different from solar collectors. I'm pretty sure I read a post from a beta tester about how solar sails give a bonus to strategic movement, but not movement on the tactical map. Maybe Instar or somebody could confirm this.

I noticed a component pictured in the screenshots included with the preview over at Gibworld that I haven't seen before. Is this the fabled solar sail? If not, what is it?

[jars_u]

Yes I thought the solar collectors were just for re-stocking your ships supplies. But, it that vein does anyone think that the ? "supply-reactor" device doohkie thing is a bit too strong at least in the demo. You would research cargo storage ? to the 4th level to get it and that gives you unlimited supplies but even the best solar collectors in a system with a bunch of stars can not re-stock a ship quickly. That and the fact that the collectors take up so much more room in ship design. Just some idle thoughts.

[Taqwus]

Quantum reactors? ISTR that it actually takes a fair bit of research in Resupply (7? 8?) to get there, and each QR has a fairly considerable cost. The solar collectors might still be useful for a cheap low-tech long-range probe...

Given that maintenance seems to be something like 20% ship cost/turn (vague recollection), those radioactives from the QR (and master computers, if you use 'em. Those are EXPENSIVE.) can add up.

But it seems reasonable to me for the QR to obsolete older tech in the same branch. I wouldn't use Crysarmor I if Crysarmor III were available, and usually there's not that much call for standard ion engines if you've got jacketed...

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Instar]

Well, I guess I let the cat out of the bag already.
Solar sails are little components that give you bonus movement (man the ships can really fly if you have the best stuff, I can get around 13 moves!)
Solar collectors are okay. They generate supplies, like 100/turn per star. When I have solar collectors, I usually run out of supplies anyway, because battles and moving around eats a lot of supplies rapidly. Plus nebulae and blackholes are real trouble to cross.
(Captain's log, 2405.5)
"We're crossing the blackhole in system BlahBlah and oh no! We're running out of supplies! We're being sucked in! aaaaaaaah! Mommy!"


(You train your captains and all they do is yell for mom when anything wrong happens ahhahahahaah)

[Jeb]

Aha! I knew it! Thanks for the confirmation, Instar.

[Instar]

NP, I am just a font of info when I want to be.
Also I forgot!
Another type of ship I use is the fighter interdiction ship, loaded with PDCs. I use them for fighter heavy players, or playes that use lots of missiles.
Also I make a large transport with each of the unit type launching facilities (mine satel fighter mine)
I use it for special ops. Its pretty flexible. (Add cloaking and other goodies, well, hehe all kinds of fun)

[wingte]

Well, the only real "specialized" ship I use is an Explorer.

If I am starting a low tech game I resaerch to light cruiser, missle and repair bay as quick as possible.

Make LC with a repair bay and one missle pod. Max out the engines and finish out with supply pods and a couple armor pods. Later in the game I can use it as a resuppy/repair ship.

In a High Tech game I use the Cruiser and Quantum Reactor with the repair bay with a heavy wave motion gun.


------------------
Wingte