PPB is the best weapon in the game. Discuss.

CW · #1 September 1st, 2001, 06:49 AM

quote:
Oh while I'm at it: why would anyone bother with dreadnoughts? Battleships give the same heavy mount and have one more speed. I find dreads just slow down my fleets.

Remember that for every ship you will need a set of bridge/CQs/LSs or MC. You will also need combat sensors, ECMs, long range jammer, self destruct device/anti-boarding parties etc. So if you have a larger hull you can fit in more firepower and spend less space (in the fleet) on "supporting" equipment. I personally don't find the slightly slower speed of a dreadnought to have much of a negative effect in my games, but I do find baseships to be too slow and yak! -40% to defense! So I only use them for non-combat and specialised roles.

[edit] Don't let me find any more typo please!

[This message has been edited by CW (edited 02 September 2001).]

geoschmo · #2 September 1st, 2001, 04:57 PM

I have never got bored with this game. So you have found a weapon that in a 1 on 1 ship battle would beat almost any other ship. How many times do you have 1 on 1 ship battles?

Wars in real life, and in Se4, aren't won by technology alone. Tactics, initiative, economics, logistics. All those are what keeps things interesting. And those change from player to player and game to game.

Personally I get more wrapped up in those things and often lose track of what weapons my ships have on them. Sometimes this hurts me and I end up losing a battle, or winning with heavier casualties than anticipated. But concentrating on building a strong economy, and aggresive tactics that keep your opponent reacting instead of acting, will make up for a lot of tech defecincies in the long run.

Geoschmo

Phoenix-D · #3 September 1st, 2001, 11:33 PM

..which still doesn't change the fact that any weapon other than PPB is really just wasting time and research in most cases.

BTW, what was up with Shrapnel earlier? I couldn't get through.

Phoenix-D

Dragonlord · #4 September 2nd, 2001, 03:52 AM

Exactly.
I agree with both geoschmo and Phoenix.

capnq · #5 September 2nd, 2001, 04:45 AM

There was a time when I had never researched anything bigger then a battlecruiser...

until the PBW game where I saw one of my neighbors fielding fleets of double digit numbers of baseships.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 02 September 2001).]

Rich04 · #6 September 2nd, 2001, 07:10 AM

I know what you mean Capnq. And those baseships (from one race) were armed with APB XII and Phased Shields V. went around munching PPB fleets.

Then there was that other race that had smaller ships without PPB that ate PPB fleets for breakfast.

[This message has been edited by Rich04 (edited 02 September 2001).]

Dragonlord · #7 September 2nd, 2001, 07:38 AM

Rich, could you be more specific about that fleet of smaller ships? If they won battles it was presumably due to combat bonuses (small=harder to hit) and numbers?
Because in my experience the only thing that kills my PPB fleets is an enemy with a fleet that is twice as large and has significant (30+) combat bonuses, either racial or through ship/fleet exp. With enough bonuses even a dozen LC's with DUC's can do serious damage, if they are impossible to hit...

FYI, my fleets are usually 35 to 50 ships, with 35% being PPB Battleships (for the heavy mount), 35% PPB Battlecruisers (shorter build time) and 30% support ships (sweepers, repair and fuel ships) with a fleet speed of 10 (11 if I have propulsion experts).