Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost web forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
 
Home » Primary Racial Traits » WM » The Barbarian Hoard
icon10.gif  The Barbarian Hoard Thu, 27 February 2003 13:23 Go to next message
BackBlast is currently offline BackBlast

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Duel club Champion 2004
Duel Club Champion 2006

Messages: 215
Registered: February 2003
Location: A Rock
I can remember seeing many posts about barbarian hoards in some of the older posts on the newsgroup and such. But there doesn't seem to be much talk about the tactic these days. WM seems to be the best race to pull this off with. So anyone who has experimented with this type of strategy, feel free to comment. Even those who don't think it's viable (I'm sure you're out there Rolling Eyes ). I want to try this in a PBEM at some point, so I guess I'll see how it goes.

The Mongols
PRT - WM Twisted Evil
LRT - IFE, RS, CE, ISB, NAS
about one in four hab with temp immune 19% growth
5/25/5 factories no G box (-F econ)
10/3/8 mines
Weapons, Prop, Construction cheap, rest expensive.

The idea being pretty much centered around the BC hull for probably most of the game. With 25% cheaper weapons, 50% cheaper engines and the cheaper scoops available. The idea being a very large quantity of fast, cheap range 2 beamers. The vast majority of your army (if not all) will be gate-able reducing the pain of CE. I've tried this with BET (in testbeds), but it seems to slow me down in getting what I need, especially with the gates and BCs. Though BET makes for a nice end game advantage. It only seems to be really nice after some significant research. Early attacks/kills are probably a good idea, I am a -F after all. Seems fairly effective against SD since you have lots of ships you can send into minefields at warp 9 Very Happy The DD makes a nice early warship, though I tend to shy away from yaks in favor of range 2 beams. They don't become obsolete as fast and aren't as easily countered. FFs just have too weak of an armor to be considered by me as a serious warship. The possibility of losing hundreds of ships due to a single mine hit is just too much. I seem to pretty much be able to go through mine fields like paper, almost as if they don't exist. Except for speed bumps.

Against missile stacks I simply need a large enough stack to keep my shields up long enough to close the distance. Though this is where I might need some careful p
...

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 00:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marduk is currently offline Marduk

 
Ensign

Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH
One way around CE would be to split your fleet into ten parts, then you'd typically get 90% of your fleet where you wanted it. Given the cost reductions for weapons and engines, that's still more than an equivalent economy would produce. Of course you lose the benefits of a large shield stack so perhaps you're better off taking the occasional 10% chance that your fleet won't arrive.

A more practical comment: consider radiation immunity instead of temp immunity since you are using scoops. That lets you use the Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop for most everything early on. Not as good from a terraforming perspective, but your hab is wide enough to put up with it.

I like the ISB, since a Space Dock will be able to produce most or perhaps all of your beamer BC designs.

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mosser is currently offline Mosser

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2003
Location: Canada
I agree with the space docks. Nothing scares off intruders than lots of planets with space docks. However, I'm not sure of the use of Immunity to radiation. It's nice for HRSR, but it's so expensive.
Mosser Cool

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 11:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
BackBlast is currently offline BackBlast

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Duel club Champion 2004
Duel Club Champion 2006

Messages: 215
Registered: February 2003
Location: A Rock
Marduk wrote on Fri, 28 February 2003 00:59

One way around CE would be to split your fleet into ten parts, then you'd typically get 90% of your fleet where you wanted it. Given the cost reductions for weapons and engines, that's still more than an equivalent economy would produce. Of course you lose the benefits of a large shield stack so perhaps you're better off taking the occasional 10% chance that your fleet won't arrive.

A more practical comment: consider radiation immunity instead of temp immunity since you are using scoops. That lets you use the Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop for most everything early on. Not as good from a terraforming perspective, but your hab is wide enough to put up with it.

I like the ISB, since a Space Dock will be able to produce most or perhaps all of your beamer BC designs.


A better reason to choose Rad immune is for a better planet draw. I heard somewhere that rad levels are totally random where as temp levels operate on a bell curve with the middle generally getting more. But, lack of terriforming turns me off that. The warp 6 scoup is totally useless in my opinion. I'll be skipping it entirely more likely than not. Fuel mizers are just plain better until decent scoups are available.

BackBlast

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 14:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
yucaf is currently offline yucaf

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 100
Registered: December 2002
Location: India
BackBlast wrote on Thu, 27 February 2003 13:23


The Mongols
PRT - WM Twisted Evil
LRT - IFE, RS, CE, ISB, NAS
about one in four hab with temp immune 19% growth
5/25/5 factories no G box (-F econ)
10/3/8 mines
Weapons, Prop, Construction cheap, rest expensive.



As always in race design, you should link your choices to the type of universe and number of players. You need to have close neighbours to do anything useful with this race.

There are always personal preferences, however you should remember that the 5th LRT is always more expensive (and the 6th even more and so forth), so always try to limit yourself to 4. I would dump ISB and CE personnally and pay IFE with NRSE, but that's my choice. ISB is way too expensive. I disagree that space docks are scary. Even the US is not tremendously hard to shot down.

As someone commented, if you take IFE, then use the FM all the way until you really get good engines. The w6 scoop is too slow and fuel hungry to go on long campains.

You should also find some points to improve those mines. With 10/3/8 you will not be able to get enough minerals to build a horde, we are talking of hundreds of ships here. Maybe this Prop Cheap is costing you too much?

The Energy Immune is expensive and I'm not sure to understand why you want this immunity, but with Weapon cheap I would not go Rad immune, since you will get all that terraforming technology quite fast. My point about Energy immune is that since you want to use the BC and the shielding (improved by RS, a good choice), you still need to invest in Energy at least to 10, therefore you will get quite good Temp terraforming technology. If you really want to go 1-immune, drop the Prop -50% and go Grav-immune. The FM is almost all you'll need for a long time.

Only very personal considerations you might want to think about, maybe you are looking for a different race or playstyle which is perfectly fine Smile

FWIW,

YucaF
...

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 16:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
BackBlast is currently offline BackBlast

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Duel club Champion 2004
Duel Club Champion 2006

Messages: 215
Registered: February 2003
Location: A Rock
yucaf wrote on Fri, 28 February 2003 14:06



As always in race design, you should link your choices to the type of universe and number of players. You need to have close neighbours to do anything useful with this race.

There are always personal preferences, however you should remember that the 5th LRT is always more expensive (and the 6th even more and so forth), so always try to limit yourself to 4. I would dump ISB and CE personnally and pay IFE with NRSE, but that's my choice. ISB is way too expensive. I disagree that space docks are scary. Even the US is not tremendously hard to shot down.

As someone commented, if you take IFE, then use the FM all the way until you really get good engines. The w6 scoop is too slow and fuel hungry to go on long campains.

You should also find some points to improve those mines. With 10/3/8 you will not be able to get enough minerals to build a horde, we are talking of hundreds of ships here. Maybe this Prop Cheap is costing you too much?

The Energy Immune is expensive and I'm not sure to understand why you want this immunity, but with Weapon cheap I would not go Rad immune, since you will get all that terraforming technology quite fast. My point about Energy immune is that since you want to use the BC and the shielding (improved by RS, a good choice), you still need to invest in Energy at least to 10, therefore you will get quite good Temp terraforming technology. If you really want to go 1-immune, drop the Prop -50% and go Grav-immune. The FM is almost all you'll need for a long time.

Only very personal considerations you might want to think about, maybe you are looking for a different race or playstyle which is perfectly fine Smile

FWIW,

YucaF


You just made my race look like every other race out there! Mad heh. Remember I am talking numbers. If I take NRSE I don't get the cheaper and lighter scoop engines. And without CE I'm double the cost of engines of the more expensive engines! The advantage of this combo is how cheap good engines for my BCs become
...

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 28 February 2003 18:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marduk is currently offline Marduk

 
Ensign

Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH
The point of the space dock is that they can build the kinds of ships BackBlast is talking about, and they obviate the need for a full space station. That saves building time and cuts costs. You can also put up a space dock as a forward base with a lot fewer colonists, and the refueling is a nice bonus. Orbital forts could be used as a quick base, but they are more expensive than space docks - and since they can't build anything, it takes a lot longer for a world to become productive in a meaningful way.

Radiation immunity is demonstrably superior to the other two varieties - I started a thread on the newsgroup about it a year or so ago, and some fine fellow did extensive testing. Rad immunity gives you around 10% more initial greens than the other two. It is true that your terraforming generally suffers a delay since weapon tech is more urgent, but even given that rad immune ends up about the same in the midgame and gives you more benefit once you do get to max terraforming.

The best argument for grav immunity is that it allows you to end your prop research sooner with no ill effects. Since this race is already going to go for higher levels of prop tech, that's not a valid argument here.

One more thing - the Rad-Ram is close to comparable to the Fuel Mizer, and CE makes it a better match. Less fuel at warps five, six and seven than the Mizer, and it is half the mass of the next scoop up. It costs about the same as the Mizer, with less iron and more germ. Free travel at your maximum reliable speed is convenient. Not an engine for every ship, but it does have a use.


[Updated on: Fri, 28 February 2003 19:05]

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Sat, 01 March 2003 17:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
BackBlast is currently offline BackBlast

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year
Duel club Champion 2004
Duel Club Champion 2006

Messages: 215
Registered: February 2003
Location: A Rock
Marduk wrote on Fri, 28 February 2003 18:46


Radiation immunity is demonstrably superior to the other two varieties - I started a thread on the newsgroup about it a year or so ago, and some fine fellow did extensive testing. Rad immunity gives you around 10% more initial greens than the other two. It is true that your terraforming generally suffers a delay since weapon tech is more urgent, but even given that rad immune ends up about the same in the midgame and gives you more benefit once you do get to max terraforming.

The best argument for grav immunity is that it allows you to end your prop research sooner with no ill effects. Since this race is already going to go for higher levels of prop tech, that's not a valid argument here.

One more thing - the Rad-Ram is close to comparable to the Fuel Mizer, and CE makes it a better match. Less fuel at warps five, six and seven than the Mizer, and it is half the mass of the next scoop up. It costs about the same as the Mizer, with less iron and more germ. Free travel at your maximum reliable speed is convenient. Not an engine for every ship, but it does have a use.


I would make a big case against the Rad-Ram for freighters. It uses around double the fuel a fuel mizer does at warp 8 and 9. Double the fuel is unacceptable... I need to be able to maintain warps 8-9 when colonizing planets. It's still _much_ faster than going warp 6 if you get a stall or 2 on a long journey. On bombers I'd consider it, free travel at warp 6 with bombers is probably acceptable. Those early bombers won't need any fuel exports. But then it doesn't matter what my habs are. Cool

I'm not sure about rad immunity... it seems like a good idea, yet that terriforming will bite me fairly quickly. I could move prop to normal and change energy to norm as well, that would allow me to more easily get the temp terriform tech and better shields to serve along with RS. That is something I will definatly consider..

I looked through the newsgroup and found some discussions but nothi
...

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard (rad immune?) Sat, 01 March 2003 17:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
Quote:

I looked through the newsgroup and found some discussions but nothing that seemed very satisfactory, do you have a link to your thread?


One of these one mabye?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z605146A3
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V415216A3

regards,
mch


[Updated on: Sat, 01 March 2003 17:43]

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Mon, 03 March 2003 18:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
yucaf is currently offline yucaf

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 100
Registered: December 2002
Location: India
BackBlast wrote on Fri, 28 February 2003 16:03


You just made my race look like every other race out there! Mad heh.


Sure. As I said, if you are trying a special concept or a non "classical" race it is perfectly your right to do. I just thought that your excess in LRTs is not optimal.

As per your estimate of universe size, I think this race would not survive against competent players in a universe bigger than medium. You can kill your neighbour very early, but you cannot negate the progress of faraway races with lots of space (and luck) and WM sucks in the late game... Not to mention that the horde strategy only works for some time. Once capital missiles and ships are in play, they are fried, especially being that attractive to them, with all that boranium. And CE in a large/huge... major pain in the *** when you have all those fleets scattered around.

Of course I'm no mega-expert, so if your race does well "as is" in a real game, I would be pleased to read your comments on how you managed the development of economy, technology and military to achieve that. What is sure, is that you should have a lot of fun with that race, even if don't eventually win Razz

Just my my 2 cents

YucaF

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Tue, 04 March 2003 10:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mosser is currently offline Mosser

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2003
Location: Canada
Why would you dumb ISB? I realize that it is somewhat expensive, however, it works out for the best in mid to end game play.
Mosser Cool

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Tue, 04 March 2003 11:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
yucaf is currently offline yucaf

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 100
Registered: December 2002
Location: India
Mosser wrote on Tue, 04 March 2003 10:44

Why would you dumb ISB? I realize that it is somewhat expensive, however, it works out for the best in mid to end game play.
Mosser Cool


ISB gives you 20% cost reduction and 20% cloaking in all your starbases, plus the space dock and the ultra station. It cost about 60-70 race points (if you don't have already 4 LRT's, if it's the 6th it cost you about 90 points). The only real goodie here is the space dock, IMHO. If the space dock is essential to your strategy or really boost your economy, then it can be worth it. I have used it myself and even found it essential to AR races. It's very good in the early game for your expansion (unless you are IT). In this thread, it also seems essential to be able to build light warships to be used in a horde, which is a valid point, since I have never tried this strategy. I have used hordes but not as the core weapon for the full game, so I'm quite non-competent to discuss this, but I cannot restrain myself Laughing

However I disagree with you that it makes a difference in the mid to end game. The apparently stronger Ultra Station (compared to Space Station) only kills more chaff (96 instead of 64) before being shot down. And generally you don't want to immobilize so much mineral in your starbases (building fully armored and armed stations), you want to put them in mobile warships that can kill your enemy.

As always, in the end it's a matter of playstyle. If you like it, just take it. But we are discussing race optimization here. Getting most "bang for the bucks" Smile

FWIW,

YucaF

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Thu, 06 March 2003 11:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mosser is currently offline Mosser

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2003
Location: Canada
True, to fully outfit a Deathstar, is not very economical, yet, The spacedocks are what you really need. Although, I have been known for using deathstars Very Happy quite frequently, they may not do enough damage to enemy fleets for their costs, But they do look menacing, and with a fleet of Dreadnoughts they work much better than space stations.
Mosser Cool

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 07 March 2003 15:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
Mosser wrote on Thu, 06 March 2003 17:50

True, to fully outfit a Deathstar, is not very economical, yet, The spacedocks are what you really need.


Nitpick: ultra station, not death star Wink

Quote:

Although, I have been known for using deathstars Very Happy quite frequently, they may not do enough damage to enemy fleets for their costs, But they do look menacing, and with a fleet of Dreadnoughts they work much better than space stations.
Mosser Cool


Euh, "work much better"? Like Yuca Frita said, they will simply kill a bit more chaff (96 instead of 64).
But they indeed _look_ like if they mean something Grin

regards,
mch

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 07 March 2003 18:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marduk is currently offline Marduk

 
Ensign

Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH
I believe ISB can be a considerable bonus in the mid-game and beyond, simply by the boost it can provide early on. Your later development is greatly influenced by your early growth. When using an IT race, I pick ISB so that I can have refuelers on my border - the fuel ships are far too espensive and too limited for that.

I send scouts ahead, and follow one year behind with colonizers that change their destination as necessary to get to good worlds. When a dock goes up, nearby colonizers and scouts can swing over to the system to refuel and then continue on. A couple of years later there will be a gate (I've never done a 1/1000 IT, so no insta-gates), but my expansion doesn't have to wait for it.

With an orbital fort, not only does my expansion have to wait on a gate, I have to build enough fuel ships to be useful - several of them for each system I expect to provide fuel in any worthwhile quantity. That can add up to a hundred or more fuel ships... that's a lot of resources for a growing empire to come up with. Especially one with an HP economy.

In Ashes of Empire, I have more of a -f economy (and a non-IT race) - so I thought I could get away without ISB. Instead it has kept me so slow that now I think I won't have any chance at all. My expansion has been limited to the range my colonizers could reach without refueling. Now I have gates, but 80% of the galaxy has been colonized. With docks on my borders as I started expanding, I'd have had nearly half the galaxy by this time. Instead, I have a paltry 43 systems out of 360. I'm not likely to top 60 worlds at this rate - and considering I'm likely to be up against an alliance of everyone else in the game by the time fighting breaks out, that's just not enough.

I had fuel ships, but they had to travel to the outer edge of my space just like the rest, and to maximize my earliest growth spurt I built all colonizers so no fuel ships were available for several years after the colonizing began. Having fuel ships accompany my earliest colony missions would ha
...

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Sun, 04 May 2003 06:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Robert is currently offline Robert

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany
some idea...

once you get the langston shell, you can build frigates that
have 175 armor, 350 shield (RS!) and move pretty fast.

with cheap weapons, reg. shields, maybe cheap engines and
the wm speed bonus, this is the cheapes horde design i can
imagine.

as wm, the blunderbuss may be very powerful, (it is soooo
cheap)
you have move 2++ and are lighter than any other ship,
you have brilliant
shield stacking, and as a bonus to other horde design...later

actually costs are below 50 resources and the ship makes
nearly 1800 points of damage... impressing

with that speed it also might catch all ships in round 2 of
any combat, and more important:
it is jammed by 10% by the langston shell...

thats not much, you will say, and you are right, but imagine
your enemy uses LOTS of sappers, then your fleet is targeted
by enemy missles and one jugger kills one frigate...

with 10% jamming your ships are still less attractive than
chaff, without jamming they migh not be...

i am not sure if this is smart, but i have the feeling that
if a WM catches the langston shell early in a game, he might
have a deadly weapon at hand...

never tried it, maybe its stupid, but its a nice idea Twisted Evil

i think i will try around a bit in a testbed...

robert



2b v !2b -> ?

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Sun, 04 May 2003 06:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Robert is currently offline Robert

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany
ok, i did some tests...

i let the langston horde fight some nubian with
4 stacks of BD
3 stacks of AMP
3 stacks of caps
1 stack of jammers
1 stack of shields
and warp10 engine

one normal nubian design

10 of these fought 100 of my langston shell frigates with
3 blunders.

in the end it was a question of who got the first shot.

when the stupid frigs move into range of the nub but not
close enough to come to range0, they die.

when both fleets moved at speed 2, (frigs WITH wm bonus),
the 100 frigs killed the nubians, and lost 10 of their 100
ships.

both fleets cost about 5000 resources, but the nubian requires
much more tech
weap 26 instead of 19
const 26 instead of 6
prop 12 against something around 10 i think

makes the frig a bit more attractive, but also this is not
a real game battle, and the comparison is on a ship vs ship
bases... but with beamers i think it makes sense...

i am not sure if my frig would try to catch the lighter chaff,
and end up one step apart each turn, who knows...

but the movement should not be the problem, as i like to fight
with lots of allies on both sides and then through battle board
starting positions you end up close to your enemy anyway...

and moving last and having higher init than nubians... well...
when the frig does 1800 points of damage, also the 12 beam
deflectors dont help much...

ah.... i dont know.... when i ever catch the MT with the langston
and am WM, i will try that...

just a thought...

cu

robert



2b v !2b -> ?

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Tue, 06 May 2003 02:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
freakyboy is currently offline freakyboy

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 583
Registered: November 2002
Location: Where the clowns can't re...

175 armour isn't enough to take a sheilded hit from an Armaggedon missile.

Nubians can take many sheilded hits before they start to fall.

I suppose it's a personal preferance thing... it also depends on what your enemy is fielding.

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 17 October 2003 16:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dark_Traveller is currently offline Dark_Traveller

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 33
Registered: October 2003
Location: Tigard, OR. USA
I have run a few WM races in mid to long games and finally found the best chaff is the destroyer. It is a bit more expensive across the board but the armor you recieve with a destroyer(200)is a large bonus compared to a frigate's (45). It will take a lot more Arm Missle hits than any stack of Frigates. They also provide an excellent sweeper ship for enemy mine fields when equiped with the Gatling gun or later game Gatling Neutrino. On a fast Chaff ship this will also allow you to strike multiple fleet stacks within range. Not a large punch but usually enough to soften the shields for a Capital Missle strike.

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Fri, 17 October 2003 21:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Dark_Traveller wrote on Fri, 17 October 2003 16:43

I have run a few WM races in mid to long games and finally found the best chaff is the destroyer. It is a bit more expensive across the board but the armor you recieve with a destroyer(200)is a large bonus compared to a frigate's (45). It will take a lot more Arm Missle hits than any stack of Frigates.


Uh, a stack of frigates will stop just as many ARM missiles as an equally sized stack of destroyers when designed as chaff. One missile, one kill, and all that.

Once you're designing the DDs to multi-purpose beyond that, or at least to the point they require multiple ARMs to kill, then they're no longer chaff and also quite a bit more expensive to build.

Welcome to the forum.

- Kurt


[Updated on: Fri, 17 October 2003 21:21]




Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho Marx

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Sat, 18 October 2003 18:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dark_Traveller is currently offline Dark_Traveller

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 33
Registered: October 2003
Location: Tigard, OR. USA
Thanks for the welcome. True the expense of multitask DD is step but a capital ship missile puts half its damage into Shields and Half into Armor only doubles when the shields are down. With a base of 200 armor,a light cheap armor(organic), and a Jammer this keeps the one ship one missile damage down, when stacked. Now the cheap build of a Frigate will allow a larger fleet which can cause the same effect when split. I have been experimenting on a chaff fleet with a Alpha missile(something cheap) since it appears Capital ship fleets sometimes will target larger ships first over the chaff until the chaff moves within close range.
I do have a question though, do you use the frigate style ship for anything other than chaff?

Report message to a moderator

Re: The Barbarian Hoard Sat, 18 October 2003 21:02 Go to previous message
overworked is currently offline overworked

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 403
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Dark_Traveller wrote on Sat, 18 October 2003 18:17

Thanks for the welcome. True the expense of multitask DD is step but a capital ship missile puts half its damage into Shields and Half into Armor only doubles when the shields are down. With a base of 200 armor,a light cheap armor(organic), and a Jammer this keeps the one ship one missile damage down, when stacked.



Given the expense at this point I think that this is still an inefficient design for 'chaff' usage. (And I'll take this up elsewhere.)

Quote:


Now the cheap build of a Frigate will allow a larger fleet which can cause the same effect when split. I have been experimenting on a chaff fleet with a Alpha missile(something cheap) since it appears Capital ship fleets sometimes will target larger ships first over the chaff until the chaff moves within close range.



Targeting is based on a known formula. Bora cost + res cost of target divided by defense points (dp adjusted for such things as jamming, computers, shielding, etc.) If the chaff isn't in range yet, then the other ships will be shot at. And putting Alpha torps on a chaff fleet strikes me as being rather expensive in Iron - which is probably better spent on more combat hulls.

Quote:


I do have a question though, do you use the frigate style ship for anything other than chaff?


The answer to this varies greatly on period of the game and the race that I have. For WM designs I'd have to say the frigate hull is fairly under-utilized after the mid-game except as an expendable scout or for chaff. For non-WM and non-SD it's probably in use for most of the game as a minelayer hull. (And I'll carry this part of the discussion to another forum - probably the Academy since it's become a generic hull discussion and not WM-specific.

- Kurt
...




Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho Marx

Report message to a moderator

Next Topic: The War Monger
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Thu Mar 28 13:35:21 EDT 2024