100 anything versus 100 Crystalline Ships

[Alneyan]

You seem to have forgotten the Stealth and Scattering armour for the Crystalline ship. Or does it fall under the essentials? Likewise, you could put some Armour III on the Crystalline vessel, to draw more shots to the non-Crystalline armour (or simply put more Crystalline Armour, and remove one or two shields).

Ah, you weren't asking for a better Crystalline design? I have to agree with you; the Crystalline armour is more powerful than virtually anything else, costs being equal. The Talisman is, of course, the exception. A swarm of fighters could also work well, if you launch them in big stacks; they are treated as a single weapon, and will wreak havoc on the Crystalline armour.

That aside, the most common design is Shield Depleter/APB/Shield Depleter/APB and so on. This works quite well, but requires you to score hits fairly often, to avoid breaking the sequence. And this design is only useful against the Crystalline armour special effect, still leaving a pretty good defence on the target ship. The other easy solution would be to go with heavier weapons, such as the Enveloping Acide Globul (very expensive to research, and Organic only, but with a higher damage ratio AND a faster reload rate than the WMG). Again, having good odds to hit is more or less required.

So I feel you will need to put more ships and/or more expensive designs to take care of a Crystalline fleet. That, or simply kill them early on, and/or use the Equalizers (happiness and Stellar Manipulation). I know I have failed to come up with a working design to nullify the Crystalline Armour, without being at a disadvantage.

[Alneyan]

The Shard Cannon is the only weapon skipping Armour, and happens to belong to the Crystalline Empires. Annoying that.

Shield Disruptors are very good, but fairly expensive, and with a low range (requiring either bases/weapon platofmrs or an enemy strategy of Short Range/Point Blank). If it does hit, that will hurt however; the problem being to make those shots.

[brianeyci]

Yes. It looks like Asmala knew exactly what he was doing picking Crystalline =D.

The shield depleter/APB/shield depleter/etc idea kind of works, but only if you have more ships than him. Or else it turns into a rout with the crystal ships killing all your ships and you killing about half of his.

Oh well, I just won't be able to defeat him myself then

Brian

[Alneyan]

Thanks for the warning. I didn't know Asmala belonged to the Secret Circle of the Crystalline Worshippers (Primitive is another such member, and he made me reflect on the virtues of this trait). Of course, you should be glad you aren't playing against a Crystalline AND Religious Empire.

The standard recommendations apply then: outmanoeuver him, try the riot run, cross your fingers, and start becoming Deeply Religious. But since your foe is Asmala... Well, he is likely more ready than most to repel a riot run, as evidenced by the legendary Pairs game (a game between Asmala and Primitive is magnificent. Unless you are caught in the middle of the slaughter)

[Asmala]

brianeyci said:
Yes. It looks like Asmala knew exactly what he was doing picking Crystalline =D.

What, you're planning to attack me!?

[Karibu]

brianeyci, be grateful that your opponent doesn't use more than 10 crystalline armor. According to my calculations, best effect is got with 11 crystalline armor and those over that are reserve when one gets broken. Best result I have gotten is with 11 crystal armor and 1 phased shield max level.

My weapon placement against such ships.

1 or 2 shield depleters + engine destroying weapon + 1 depleter (this one optional) +1 APB (or any other high damage ratio gun) + 1 depleter +1 APB... You see the pattern.

Idea: 2 Depleters at first consume shields of crystal ship before engine destroying weapon fires. Then every other weapon is depeter and every other normal damage gun. Notice that any normal damage gun must make more that 150 damage, othervise it is useless. There are plenty of those. Strategy: Point Blank or Short Weapons Range (depending on your hit ratio)

Idea2: Make a bigger ship model than your enemy (ie. baseship if he uses dreadnoughts). Equip it with Tractor beam(s) first, then 1 or 2 shield depleter(s), engine destroying weapon and fourth weapon is a weapon which make high damage on close range (ie. Graviton hellbore, though it is risky because it is useless on any other distance than point blank). Strategy: Point Blank, of course.

Idea3: Fight in a storm which makes shields useless (haven't tried that).

Feel free to shoot me down with these ideas.

[Alneyan]

I would definitively advise against using Baseships, since you would be just begging your opponent to switch to Maximum weapon range, and the range would likely still matter with only two hundred ships in the battle (how many ships are needed to come down to a contest of numbers is a matter of debate).

Interesting idea about fighting in a storm, or much better, in a nebulae (they eat 5,000 shield points if memory serves). I must admit I do not know if these will stop the actual regeneration of shield points however; I have a hunch it only removes the shield points at the start of the battle, and creating shield points should still work. *Hurries to the laboratory*

*Rushes back to this thread, and takes off his lab coat* I was quite wrong. A nebulae stops both shield generation and regeneration of shields in the course of a battle. Interesting to say the least. Now you merely need to lure the Fiend into one such system, and voilà!

[brianeyci]

Karibu said:1 or 2 shield depleters + engine destroying weapon + 1 depleter (this one optional) +1 APB (or any other high damage ratio gun) + 1 depleter +1 APB... You see the pattern.

Best idea so far. 2 to one death ratio when combined with a wormhole beam at the end to scatter the crystal ships. If there's no wormhole beam, death. 100 ships versus 100, with crystal ships having 13 crystal. Try urself.

<edit> That's two of my deaths for one crystal death. And in larger numbers, this design doesn't work as well and the crystals stomp them </edit>

Brian

[Karibu]

Alneyan, you have a good point. Baseships are not known of their agility. But they have 2 advantages over dreadnoughts which may weight more. First, Bigger mount. You need high one shot damage to break Crystal armor defence. Wave motion gun makes a good damage on smaller mounts either, yes, but its reload time is 3. APB makes a good deal of damage and fires every turn, though it needs a bigger mount (ie. baseship). Second point is, that Crystal player is propably using dreadnoughts, so using same size class ships you can't use tractor beam any useful way.

I was thinking of putting wormhole beam at the end of all weapons. It is useful, but the weapon placement I suggested requires a lot of space itself too (many more shield depleters than in normal ship design, therefore less space for normal weapons). So if you can fit wormhole beam Last, good for you.

Also drones with shield depleters might surprise your enemy. They soak enemy fire and with any luck they deplete eney shields too.

[Kamog]

Karibu said:
brianeyci, be grateful that your opponent doesn't use more than 10 crystalline armor. According to my calculations, best effect is got with 11 crystalline armor and those over that are reserve when one gets broken. Best result I have gotten is with 11 crystal armor and 1 phased shield max level.

I've tried putting lots of crystalline armor on my ships, and indeed it makes them a lot tougher. This ship design works well! It seems that crystalline armor is much better than organic armor, is that right?

Why is 11 crystalline armors better than 10?