How do you beat the Talisman?

[Trajan]

I had a talisman race attack my warp point defenses the other day.

One of the most useful defenses I had was a stack of satellites loaded with singularity torps. I picked a few torps to fire each time, targeted a different ship in the enemy fleet.

A stack of 35 sattellites really took the teeth out of the enemy fleet of 30 odd dreads & battleships. Afterwhich my bases, which all had external missle packs fired and cleaned up the mess. My orbiting fleet 20 ships, ranging from ligt cruisers to dreads, only had to deal with a few stragglers.

Keep in mind though, that this was a close range warp point smack down, against the idiot AI, in a non-simulatneous game, and I ran it tactically. In a strategic level fight, the Sat's would have all shot their wad at only a few ships (going for the kill instead of the disable) and I would have gotten very bloodied, though I think I still would have won.

Cheers!
Trajan

[Pax]

Originally posted by Trajan:
I had a talisman race attack my warp point defenses the other day.

One of the most useful defenses I had was a stack of satellites loaded with singularity torps. I picked a few torps to fire each time, targeted a different ship in the enemy fleet.

The problem is, that relies on Tactical Combat, so,it's net entirely an option in a PBW game.

Also -- I tend to PLAY religious races (fits my RP style rather well, actually 8), and the ships tend to be PDC-heavy (a dreadnaught might have as many as 10 PDC's on it). Since the Religious player knows their direct-fire weapons -will- hit, they can afford to scrimp a bit on offensive firepower, in favor of defensive systems ... there's no need to mount, oh, 5 heavy-mount guns to ensure one will hit. Mount two, and both will hit, and that's still statistically more damage per round than a non-religious ship of the same technology would get.

And frees up hundreds of kT of space for defensive systems, maybe even a repair bay in -every- ship in th fleet, and so on.

A stack of 35 sattellites really took the teeth out of the enemy fleet of 30 odd dreads & battleships. Afterwhich my bases, which all had external missle packs fired and cleaned up the mess. My orbiting fleet 20 ships, ranging from ligt cruisers to dreads, only had to deal with a few stragglers.

Keep in mind though, that this was a close range warp point smack down, against the idiot AI, in a non-simulatneous game, and I ran it tactically. In a strategic level fight, the Sat's would have all shot their wad at only a few ships (going for the kill instead of the disable) and I would have gotten very bloodied, though I think I still would have won.

Cheers!
Trajan

Yeah; sounds like the AI designed fleets VERY light on the PDC. Let's see, large satellites, 2 missiles per satellite normally; the religious race should have mounted AT LEAST 5PDCs (my minimum, once I have the talisman, is 40% gross tonnage to defense -- shields, armor, PDC, and so on. At least 10%, possibly 10%, of gross tonnage to PDC.

REALLY cuts down on one's fear of fighters andmissiles, if you have dreads flying about with 5 to 10 PDC that will -always- hit, period. The PDC fire a group of 5 or so such dreads can put up is positively withering.

[edit] UBB error [/edit]

[ August 06, 2002, 19:00: Message edited by: Pax ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Why not ram with warheads?

The Armor parts have superior hp-per-kT compared to the warhead. So while damage will be lower per ramming ship, more of those ships will survive to actually RAM.

Organic armor is useul here especially, as it regenerates damage done to it, further preserving the ships to reach their target(s).

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Trajan:
I had a talisman race attack my warp point defenses the other day.

One of the most useful defenses I had was a stack of satellites loaded with singularity torps. I picked a few torps to fire each time, targeted a different ship in the enemy fleet.

A stack of 35 sattellites really took the teeth out of the enemy fleet of 30 odd dreads & battleships. Afterwhich my bases, which all had external missle packs fired and cleaned up the mess. My orbiting fleet 20 ships, ranging from ligt cruisers to dreads, only had to deal with a few stragglers.

Keep in mind though, that this was a close range warp point smack down, against the idiot AI, in a non-simulatneous game, and I ran it tactically. In a strategic level fight, the Sat's would have all shot their wad at only a few ships (going for the kill instead of the disable) and I would have gotten very bloodied, though I think I still would have won.

Cheers!
Trajan

The reason they would go for the kill is that the strategy they are using tells them to go for the kill. We really need more experimentation with strategies to see what can be done with the options we already have. I bet that creating a special satellite strategy to only damage ships 50 percent would increase the number of targets that a satellite stack would allocate. The question is, would it then stupidly NOT use a large part of its weapons when only one or two ships appeared?

[Lord_Shleepy]

*peeks head out from underneath blankies

...lots of small expendable ships. overwhelm targeting but not point defense vulnerable... tho thinking of building all the reinforcements makes me shleepy...

*ducks back under covers

[Baron Munchausen]

I've been thinking of modding a small, one-shot-per-turn seeker. Something like the Ur-Quan 'flying mine' from Star Control. They would be individually lower damage to reflect the higher rate of fire, of course. But the sheer mass of flying metal could be a real problem for even PDC-heavy ships. I bet ships armed with a huge number of these would pose a problem even for a talisman equipped fleet.

[ August 06, 2002, 20:16: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

Since tailsman races will tend to go heavily defensive on their ship designs to get full use of their never miss advantage, that is where you have to attack them. As LGM says you can go as large as you want on ship size, and take out the stealth/scattering armor and ECM. They are useless and it fress up more space for weapons. Tailsman is rather large, and he will have all those defensive techs likely so that makes the weapon differential even larger. Then dedicate a large portion of your fleet to shield depleting and weapon only weapons. The key is to get rid of his weapons as quickly as possible during the fight. A ship with a tailsman and no weapons can't hurt you.

Other than that you beat them the same way you beat anybody else. Hit his planets where he isn't, take them if possible, glass them if not. Interfere with his relations. Get the other races allied agastin him, or at least not trading with him. Explain to them how hard tailsmans are to beat and they may see it's in their advantage to attack before they get too big. Tailsman ships are expensive. The Tailsman and all the shields add up quick. Beat him economically.

If players that use Tailsman start getting teamed up on regularly and put out early they will have less of an incentive to use them.

Geoschmo