The Plague (Subverters, Boarders, and IDs, Oh My)

[Fyron]

There certainly is. See:

http://www.spaceempires.net/home/content-1.html

[inigma]

my newbness shows.

well that's cool. religious talismans, flailers, subvertors, boarders, and IDs ... oh this is really my my.

[Alneyan]

By the way, you might wish to consider taking up the Crystalline trait, for two reasons:
- Crystalline armour is a tough nut to crack, especially for the IA. If you play your cards right, you will be immune to anything dealing 149 normal damage or less, though Shield Depleters/Disruptors will still be a problem. Even then, your ships should last a lot longer against enemy fire... and if they use up all their supplies firing at you, they won't be moving around so much (and will lose their shields).
- More importantly, the Crystal Dampener is NOT broken by Master Computers. That little device allows you to shut down all the weapons of the target for X rounds, where X is equal to the amount of damage dealt. The Psychic trait has a similar weapon, but that one *is* negated by Master Computers.

And some more fun things with this trait:
- The Shard Cannon bypasses armour, thus allowing you to fire at the components "inside" the ship, and leaving armour intact. It could allow you to destroy the SDD while leaving armour intact, increasing the odds of disabling the SDD without destroying the ship in the process.
- The Crystalline trait gives a very nice facility to reduce maintenance costs in the system: might come in handy if you have a big captured fleet.

[douglas]

Alneyan said:
- Crystalline armour is a tough nut to crack, especially for the IA. If you play your cards right, you will be immune to anything dealing 149 normal damage or less,

If you add some Emissive Armor to your 10+ Crystalline Armors, that immunity goes up to 179 damage. Not even a Heavy Mount APB XII can scratch that at range greater than 3 without getting a lucky hit on the emissive first, and APB XI needs point blank. Of course, massive mounts, armor-skipping weapons, and high damage slow firing weapons can deal with it, but it's still pretty tough and a major cost saver.

[Alneyan]

Not quite: the Emissive Armour is very likely to get hit, because of its small size, and it is *not* protected by the Crystalline ability. So, only shots actually hitting the CA components will be "negated": shots on non-CA armour will work as usual.

Of course, it will work as you say so long as the Emissive Armour doesn't get destroyed. I think a few Shield Regenerators might also help with increasing the CA's protection: if the enemy has to get through 40 more points of shielding every turn, more damage has to be dealt to start breaking down the CA, even if more than 150 damage is dealt at once.

[inigma]

Hmmm... psychic+cyrstal eh? Makes for an intersting Plague fleet:

Subverter: wall, capture ship
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
tractor beam - 20kt
allegience subverter - 50kt
Total - 150kt (escort)

Decoy: spider, max range
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
stealth armor - 30kt
scattering armor - 50kt
crystal armor - 30kt
shield generator - 40kt
allegience subverter - 50kt
shield depleter - 20kt
Total - 300kt (destroyer)

Neutralizer: spider, max range
MC - 20kt
6x engine - 60kt
combat sensor - 10kt
energy dampner - 50kt
computer virus - 50kt (30kt for computer virus III)
titanium armor - 10kt (replaced with stealth armor for 30kt after computer virus III)
Total - 150kt (escort)

Depleter: wall, max range
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
4x shield depleter - 80kt
Total - 150kt (escort)

Plauger: wall, capture ship
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
tractor beam - 20kt
shield depleter - 20kt
3xboarding party - 60kt
shard canon - 30kt
Total - 200kt (frigate)

Repairer: wall, dont get hurt
MC - 20kt
5x engine - 50kt
repair bay - 150kt
4x point defense canon - 80kt
Total - 300kt (destroyer)


The whole fleet is suceptible to computer viruses though, but then again, some designs could sport multiple MCs for greater adaptability. To counter this fleet you would have to design ships with both MCs, crew, and security stations - all space wasters if you are engaged in war with another race besides the Plague. That's what makes them annoying. It's easy to take on the Plague one on one, but when you are fighting other AI and/or other players in mid game besides the Plague, well, their annoyance is greatly magnified as you have to convert valuable space on ships just to counter them, as well as research specific Plague strategy counter-techs.

What do you all think so far?

[inigma]

Btw, I got this idea from a ST:TNG episode "The Game" - about a highly addictive game that took over the crew of the Enterprise and which had hyponotized them into a war for an alien race. Addictees were so affected by it that they would force the game upon those who had never played - which resulted in the quick takeover of entire ships. Of course they never realized they were being controlled by an alien race until someone discovered a method to dehypnotize the players. Does anyone remember that episode?

It's kinda what I imagine The Plague to be: psychicly hypnotized people forced to psychicly hyponotize more people in a chain reaction that takes over entire empires in service to an alien empire, except this experiment went awry and now no one controls these people, but these hypnotized people are all determined to share The Plague with everyone else.

Maybe I should rename The Plague to "The Mentality" since this would probably be closer to what they are doing.

Intersting to fight a bunch of poor hypnotized saps who don't know any better, as they quickly turn your friends into hypnotized saps that are now out to get YOU hypnotized as well, or force you to face permanent "neutralization," eh? Whatever you do, don't trust your citizens to these missionaries or they may no longer be your citizens.

[Wolfman77]

I think the ywere actually 2 episodes "The Game" is whe nWasly finds everyone else addicted to the game. "Conundrum" is where they lose their memory and almose attack a technologicaly inferior race.

I like the race idea, sounds like fun to play against.

[inigma]

I'll keep workin' on it. Suggestions are greatly appreciated for this newb.

*crosses fingers and hopes Deluxe doesn't wreck his plans*