Boarding and Ramming Targets

[oleg]

Originally posted by Taera:
you do realize this thread is a month old do you

So ?

[DavidG]

Teal - Did you ever try this with the targeting priority set at "nearest, nearest, nearest, nearest" I have notice in the past the my ships would ignore the first targeting priority and skip to the second for unknown reasons.

[teal]

I just tried this in the simulator with targeting set to nearest, nearest, nearest, nearetst. The results are the same.

Situation: Enemy fleet has one BB armed only with minesweepers and 7 Light cruisers armed with PPB5. I have 15 Light cruisers armed only with armor and engines, set to ram with targeting priority nearest, nearest, nearest, nearest. In the simulation the BB runs for the corner, the ramming ships run after the BB and the PPB ships slaughter the ramming ships without taking any casualties. Take out the BB and its a whole different story.

This is really annoying actually. The all armor and set to ram strategy works decently well against an enemy who is well trained and/or maxed on defense when you are not. But it is so easily counteracted just by putting one of your support ships on a bigger hull that it's not even worth trying to do! Strike one for strategic diversity...

[Taera]

"nearest, most damaged, fastest, strongest" (or weakest) works pretty well for ramming ships.

[atari_eric]

I wonder if anything forces ships to re-evaluate "nearest" or "most damaged"... would having a fired-upon ship re-trigger this?

Also, I wonder about the economic ramifications (no pun intended) of building megatons of one-shot (usually) ramming ships.

[Thantis]

I guess it depends on how long your ships survive...the initial build up could be extremely costly (just in terms of the massive numbers of ships you would need to build to make this an effective strategy), but once you enter combat - lots of those ships aren't going to make it back.

After a certain point, I believe you'd see a negative ship balance, as it would be hard to replace what was lost - when stardard & more survivable designs would Last longer in a protracted war. As a Last ditch defense or as a diVersionary tactic (to get your opponent to change his designs & then hit him with a conventional attack) it might work.

In my current game, with lots of excess production potential, I am think of building a suicide fleet, just to go after my opponent's carrier fleets (with more than a few fighter traps - all PD & direct fire vessels). I plan to burn my way through the fighters & catch the carriers against the side of the tactical combat screen.

I'm still running the simulations to see if it will be worth the time and effort necessary - although the crash-doubling of my fleet might render the point moot.

[Phoenix-D]

In most cases where you want rammers, normal ships won't do you any good because the enemy is so advanced and has so much point defense you can't even -hit- him.