Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons?
| Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Wed, 15 December 2004 09:17  |
|
 Carn |
 | Officer Cadet 4th Year |
Messages: 284
Registered: May 2003 | |
|
As long as there are no nubs:
-WM is very powerful with DN, also some cloaking with DN overcloaker, speed advantage is more important
-SS alone can afford mass high cloaking
-IS 50% jammer would be a big advantage on BBs compared to those without, but cost problems to use all BB weapon slots
-same with HE flux for beamer BBs, Meta Morph allows flexibility
-IT has big gating advantage
-SD hinders BBs slightly more than nubs, but not much
-AR's death star has unbeatable initiative, but little use in that, as long as chaff there. WM can make unstoppable station killers.
-PP, JOAT, CA are not affected, except as others get more or less powerful
-RS would no longer be a must have, IT would certainly go without.
Overall the defensive would be weakened, BB hull gets far less armor per cost, therefore in such a game i would also think about all we21+ beamers, except maybe sapper, which would weaken RS further and we23+ torps/missles. On the upside i have the impression that several specific PRT abilities get more important.
Any ideas how game would be affected?
Would WM(after trading enough mine layers) be feared as much as CA is now?
Carn
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| | |
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Thu, 16 December 2004 00:58  |
|
| Carn |
| Officer Cadet 4th Year |
Messages: 284
Registered: May 2003 | |
|
| Kotk wrote on Wed, 15 December 2004 17:29 |
RS is probably still quite useful. I think IT and HE are the only races that might want to put armor below superlatanium on beamer? As for missile boats... there is iron deficite so dropping RS for getting Organic armors?
|
Further effect i see now, is that HE does suffer less from no gates as most others can only gate a part of their war ships.
I think usefullness of RS would depend on we21 sapper being allowed, with we21 sapper doing damage to shields would be far cheaper than doing damag to armor, therefore RS could be countered by employing lot of sappers.
The correction about IS is right, disallowing expensive weapons helps IS.
BET, i forgot, of course would be more interesting.
MT parts of course could also be far more important(depending on which are allowed), MPS on BBs is a somewhat better choice than superlatanium, at least if jamming or cloaking is needed, the MCM is better than we20 beamer, since range 3, so maybe both would have to be disallowed.
Now as this rule would give more importance to race specific skills and thereby lessening the power of the 2 strongest PRT(CA and JOAT), which nearly only have economical advantage, would it give a interesting balance change?
Would the fun of greater special ability importance outweigh the limitation of design options in BB wars compared to nub wars?
Carn
[Updated on: Thu, 16 December 2004 00:59] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| |
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Fri, 17 December 2004 00:30 |
|
|
|
Yeah, I think you'd need to ban the "any/any" and "any/800ly" gates. This would leave IT with the "any/300ly" gate, and with longer range gates for lighter ships. They'd still have a significant maneuvering advantage (as they should,) but not quite so awesome.
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sat, 18 December 2004 05:52 |
|
|
|
Could beam cruisers also become a major player for both races?
Since Iron will be quite low BB missile boats will be limited and chaff negates these effects anyway. A large enough stack of beamer cruisers is not only gateable, but VERY powerful in this kind of situation. Yes they'll take a beating from the big BB's, but not if there's chaff.
Hell let's push the boat out a little further: Frigates.
Assuming clever design & chaff. Two or 3 massive stacks of frigates could be VERY effective:
One loaded with range 0 weapons, one stack with sappers and a last one with range 2 beamers.
Frigates move last so will always be in range of any beamer ship. Since nubs are gone the days of nubs smothered in BD's are gone. The sappers will hammer the crap out of any ship with sheilds and the range 0's will tear apart BB's (although you may skip range 0's and stick to just range 2 beams).
Frigates are cheap as hell but give up the first shot and armour. With enough chaff armour wont be too much of an issue as sheilds can save the day. As a defensive ship I would bank on resource for resource frigates being better (minefields would stop the frigate being a solid offensive ship). A reasonable engine (or hell even a QJ5 and stick to gating these things around - but you do give up battle speed) could be very damaging to an offensive ship.
I'm honestly not convinced BB's would be the best option. For the cost of BB think about how much chaff/frigates you could build and then stick them in a battle - see what happens.
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sat, 18 December 2004 13:27 |
|
|
|
| freakyboy wrote on Sat, 18 December 2004 10:52 |
Could beam cruisers also become a major player for both races?
Since Iron will be quite low BB missile boats will be limited and chaff negates these effects anyway. A large enough stack of beamer cruisers is not only gateable, but VERY powerful in this kind of situation. Yes they'll take a beating from the big BB's, but not if there's chaff.
Hell let's push the boat out a little further: Frigates.
Assuming clever design & chaff. Two or 3 massive stacks of frigates could be VERY effective:
One loaded with range 0 weapons, one stack with sappers and a last one with range 2 beamers.
Frigates move last so will always be in range of any beamer ship. Since nubs are gone the days of nubs smothered in BD's are gone. The sappers will hammer the crap out of any ship with sheilds and the range 0's will tear apart BB's (although you may skip range 0's and stick to just range 2 beams).
Frigates are cheap as hell but give up the first shot and armour. With enough chaff armour wont be too much of an issue as sheilds can save the day. As a defensive ship I would bank on resource for resource frigates being better (minefields would stop the frigate being a solid offensive ship). A reasonable engine (or hell even a QJ5 and stick to gating these things around - but you do give up battle speed) could be very damaging to an offensive ship.
I'm honestly not convinced BB's would be the best option. For the cost of BB think about how much chaff/frigates you could build and then stick them in a battle - see what happens.
|
Unless you use expensive engines, your FFs won't move last if facing speed 2+ enemies. Lets say you have FMs, giving speed of 1. Any speed 2+ enemy will move after you every turn, so you don't get to set the range.
CCs have a higher base init than FFs (5 vs 4) so will fire first, all else being equal.
Just playing with costs in the battle sim (full miniturization)...
FF with Fuel Mizer, CP shields and AMPs costs 121 resources.
CC with Mizer Scoop, 4xCP shields and streaming pulvs costs 209 resources.
2xFF have the same beam power as 1xCC. CC costs 15% less than 2 FFs. Same shields but the CC has 8 times the armour, moves last and fires first.
Or am I missing something ?
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| |
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 13:49 |
|
|
|
Though it still seems the FFs are doomed.
Using the Mizer Scoop, AMP and CPS design, I can build 77 for 10k resources at full minaturization. Putting the same stuff on CCs (4 shields, 6 weapons) I can build 36 for 10k resources.
They have the same range, so it doesn't matter who moves when. The CCs fire first and wipe out the FFs: 36 * 6 * 433 > 77 * (1000+45).
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 14:14 |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
Though it still seems the FFs are doomed
|
FF has a place, just as DD in such a game depending on what opponents do. Each ship has a specialty, just like rock/paper/scissors.
FF is vulnerable to missiles, but that is also a plus. LIGHTLY armed FF with enough shields can be useful as low attractive secondary counter to level 16+ missiles.
The fast cruisers are vulnerable to battleships and sapper/missile combo. Fast missile ships will back up and thus not be able to reach the flak, only the cruisers and the cruisers will be dead before they can kill the frigates.
In end game without nubs, the destroyer hull is often the cheapest form of armour, though horrible initiative. BET means destroyer with collodials and poor engines can be nice final line of defence for your missile ships against fast beamers. (In addition to minesweeper role).
[Updated on: Sun, 19 December 2004 14:16] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 14:48 |
|
|
|
| multilis wrote on Sun, 19 December 2004 19:14 |
| Quote: |
Though it still seems the FFs are doomed
|
FF has a place, just as DD in such a game depending on what opponents do. Each ship has a specialty, just like rock/paper/scissors.
|
Of course they still have a use. But using frigate stacks as your main attack force seems doomed to failure once real warships are available.
| Quote: |
FF is vulnerable to missiles, but that is also a plus. LIGHTLY armed FF with enough shields can be useful as low attractive secondary counter to level 16+ missiles.
The fast cruisers are vulnerable to battleships and sapper/missile combo. Fast missile ships will back up and thus not be able to reach the flak, only the cruisers and the cruisers will be dead before they can kill the frigates.
|
If you keep your FFs slow then you lose the ability to set range as I mentioned above, which means you have to use range 3 weapons. I don't think colloidal FFs will cope well against proper warships with AMPs, resource-for-resource.
| Quote: |
In end game without nubs, the destroyer hull is often the cheapest form of armour, though horrible initiative. BET means destroyer with collodials and poor engines can be nice final line of defence for your missile ships against fast beamers. (In addition to minesweeper role).
|
But you still wouldn't use these as the backbone of your fleet, would you ?
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 15:56 |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
But you still wouldn't use these as the backbone of your fleet, would you ?
|
What is backbone?
Much depends on what you are up against, and what you have to work with.
For example, collodial destroyers with long hump engines and shield can be large component of some fleets in a spread out mao style war. Nice minesweepers. Nice last line of defence for valuable missile boats. Nice counter to certain tricks. Dirt cheap on iron and germ.
If the enemy keeps his missile ships out of range of your flak, as part of a nasty sapper/missile first strike beamer killer combo, your slow destroyers also surive the missile attack. His beamers and sappers waste time with your destroyers which also become secondary flak and your missile boats may win the war.
Against other enemy combos, the destroyer isn't as effective. It won't save your flak. For that role in Trans game (which was limited to tech 20 and no battleships), I was using cheapo galleons with gattling/range2 beamer combo and long hump engines and 4 man-jets as my poor man's battlecruiser. (Battle speed 2, 200kt buildable in spacedock, cheap)
[Updated on: Sun, 19 December 2004 16:01] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 16:26 |
|
|
|
| multilis wrote on Sun, 19 December 2004 20:56 |
| Quote: |
But you still wouldn't use these as the backbone of your fleet, would you ?
|
What is backbone?
|
The main strike component of your fleet, ie. what you spend most of your resources on. In most games, the backbone of a late game battle fleet is the AMP Nub.
| Quote: |
Much depends on what you are up against, and what you have to work with.
For example, collodial destroyers with long hump engines and shield can be large component of some fleets in a spread out mao style war. Nice minesweepers. Nice last line of defence for valuable missile boats. Nice counter to certain tricks. Dirt cheap on iron and germ.
|
Like I said, I'm not saying the FF & DD hulls don't have their uses. But in a main fleet battle, you'd better have some heavies too or you'll be toast.
| Quote: |
If the enemy keeps his missile ships out of range of your flak, as part of a nasty sapper/missile first strike beamer killer combo, your slow destroyers also surive the missile attack. His beamers and sappers waste time with your destroyers which also become secondary flak and your missile boats may win the war.
|
The word you are looking for is "chaff", not "flak". 
| Quote: |
Against other enemy combos, the destroyer isn't as effective. It won't save your flak. For that role in Trans game (which was limited to tech 20 and no battleships), I was using cheapo galleons with gattling/range2 beamer combo and long hump engines and 4 man-jets as my poor man's battlecruiser. (Battle speed 2, 200kt buildable in spacedock, cheap)
|
We were discussing a no Nub game. No BBs changes things again - the galleon has same number of weapons but twice the shields and twice the elec/mech slots as a CC, and slightly more armour. I would have thought that in such a game everyone would be using it (except maybe Warmongers who have real BCs).
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Sun, 19 December 2004 17:16 |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
The main strike component of your fleet, ie. what you spend most
of your resources on.
|
AMP nub has weaknesses, for example the right sapper/missile combo (which doesn't have range to hit your chaff)
I take it resources also mean minerals.
When I have 5+ warship slots it is possible that none are the majority as far as expenses.
In a spread out war, you can choose to sort such, sending different types to different locations when you want large uniform stacks.
| Quote: |
No BBs changes things again
|
And you were talking about frigates against cruisers.
Battleships can eat both. Huge init jump plus more cost effective booster slots.
In CFLKIAB (didn't last to nubs) my first low tech horde battleship made in large numbers as HE BET was cheapo multirange (r3-w10,r2-w14,r1-w12) with flux caps designed to be harder to counter. There was usually large amounts of flak and some missile ships in my fleets.
I built same design for many years, used power of larger stacks, to overcome counterdesigns. Gateless HE on attack verses gated defenders means expect counter designs. Best counterdesign seen was Raindancer's combo of 3 different battleships: high init beamer/dedicated sapper/missile. He had advantage of Doothinker's ecconomic monster JOAT getting more of my focus and being on defence (with gates).
We had advantage of taking planets factory intact to the point where they were talking about bombing their planets before we arrived.
Destroyers in large numbers still have a roll. Cheapest hull armour in end (nice against opponent with high init battleships). As well being able to turn them instantly into 100 minesweeping fleets means your opponent starts looking like a WM as far as minefields goes.
Trans game:
Weakness of galleon is needing 4 engine slots, it gets real expensive if you stick fancy engines in (such as warp 10). Cruisers are also lighter, so last move advantage, and have 1 better base init.
I was the biggest galleon and destroyer user (others liked cruisers more) but I also had other beamer designs like dedicated sapper cruisers, first strike metamorphs, etc. I think I was only one with BET and UR.
[Updated on: Sun, 19 December 2004 17:40] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| | |
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Tue, 21 December 2004 02:50 |
|
| Carn |
| Officer Cadet 4th Year |
Messages: 284
Registered: May 2003 | |
|
| LEit wrote on Mon, 20 December 2004 17:40 |
| freakyboy wrote on Sat, 18 December 2004 05:52 |
Could beam cruisers also become a major player for both races?
|
Unarmored beamer battleships are easily gatable with 300/500 gates (gating a 321kT BB causes 3% damage and 1% chance of void), so there is no need to use cruisers.
Of course that means not taking NRSE and getting to p16, using the p12 ram means the mass will be 349kT, 8% damage and 3% chance of loss, it also means speed 2 vs 2.25 for the p16 version. Giving up speed and using the FM gives a mass of 301, gatable with only 1% damage and no chance of loss, you could also replace the OT with an elec part and get the mass below 300, giving up the speed would be a major problem however.
|
Are unarmoured beamer BBs realy better than CCs?
AFAIK CC hull cost roughly 1/3 of BB hull, so per armor CC could be cheaper and you are not restricted on engines.
AFAIK 2 beamer BCs are better than unarmored beamer BB.
Also cruiser allow a gateable missle force, which is not possible with BBs.
Carn
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
| |
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Tue, 21 December 2004 12:02 |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
Are unarmoured beamer BBs realy better than CCs?
|
First strike: BB have way higher base init.
booster slots: cap boosts firepower of more weapons and you can stack more. Similar if instead battle computer/jammer/other.
Engines: 3x the cruisers means cruisers would need 6 engines to match BB.
For semi-gatable missile boats, it is sometimes worth looking at sticking 6-12 on a Battleship than use cruiser. Another alternative is 3 missiles on a galleon. Having lots of armour, shields, and higher init with battleship can keep the missiles alive. More electrical slots can mean using cheaper battlecomputer which reduces ship cost without sacrificing targetting.
[added note]
especially for BB, when talking gating lots, having last move and higher speed advantages for picking range the light and fast later engines can be quite useful. Big difference between engine that weighs 20kt and engine that weighs 10kt, and warp 10 safe is nice.
[Updated on: Tue, 21 December 2004 12:17] Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
| Re: Consequences of banning nubs and high level weapons? |
Wed, 22 December 2004 05:12 |
|
| iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
|
Hi!
| Carn wrote on Tue, 21 December 2004 08:50 |
Are unarmoured beamer BBs realy better than CCs?
AFAIK CC hull cost roughly 1/3 of BB hull, so per armor CC could be cheaper and you are not restricted on engines.
|
3 CCs versus 1 BB:
- 2 more engines for CCs;
- 100 more armor on CCs, but still empty slots for it on BB;
- 4 more shields on CCs, but no other componenets or
- 2 less shields on CCs and 1 more general slot;
- 2 more weapons on BB;
- 6 more elec slots on BB, that increase its firepower by 77%;
- more fuel per ship mass on BB;
- better init on BB.
| Quote: |
AFAIK 2 beamer BCs are better than unarmored beamer BB.
|
3 CCs vs. 2BCs:
You save 2 engines on BC, and get 2 more shields and general slots. Much better than CC, but IMO still not enough to cope with a BB. As LEit proposed, do testbeds, to get better feeling. And do them with various numbers of ships, to get better feeling for critical breakpoints (e.g. you need at least 3 BBs to get whole CC kills when shileds drop).
BR, Iztok
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
Current Time: Thu May 02 03:15:52 EDT 2024
|
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
