tprescott wrote on Tue, 01 April 2003 21:17

Another advantage of the FF design over the DD is the arrangement of the weapons. The FF fires a stack of three weapons at once, and will start destroying stacked ships sooner as it will require less distributed armor damage to reach the point that 3 times the advertised weapon damage exceeds armor remaining per ship in the stack DDs in effect fire three individual weapon shots per turn. Excluding the capacitor effects, the total damage inflicted is the same but distributed armor damage to a stack must continue until the armor remaining per ship is less than the advertised damage of one weapon before you begin to destroy the ships.

Huh? If you're saying a single slot with 3 weapons in it is more effective than 3 slots with 1 weapon in each, that's the first I've ever heard it mentioned. I've never heard anything about separate slots holding the same type of weapon firing individually, and it always appeared to me that all weapons of the same type on a ship stack fired at once for combined damage. Can anyone else verify or refute those statements? Or did I misinterpret what I read?

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Quote:

Huh? If you're saying a single slot with 3 weapons in it is more effective than 3 slots with 1 weapon in each, that's the first I've ever heard it mentioned. I've never heard anything about separate slots holding the same type of weapon firing individually, and it always appeared to me that all weapons of the same type on a ship stack fired at once for combined damage. Can anyone else verify or refute those statements? Or did I misinterpret what I read?

You've got it right!

All weap slots are not fired at the same time, there is a specific order (don't have it at hand right now). And indeed only the weapons in the same slot do combined damage to the ships in the enemies stack.
That's why the WM DNs make such powerfull missile ships, they have huge slots, 8 and 6 (yes BB also has 6 but only 2 of them), those slots loaded with armas do can kill ships within a stack very nicely

This is the reason why BBs and DNs make "better" missile ships than nubs, the nub slots are so small, only 3. I say "better" because nubs have other advantages, most important being higher init (talking about main line warships, not specific designs).

Another effect of this is that you will see several players using BBs with no missiles in the rear slots, those are small slots of only 2 weapons and will not kill a single ship (bigger than DDs of course), only do damage to the entire stack.
So players save the iron for those missiles and use that to build another BB. Those slots are left empty or you'll see sappers in them or gatlings (to help the BB sweep should it get stuck in a minefield). Don't use maximize damage orders with these ships or they will try to use their shorter range weapons instead of staying back.

Regards,
mch

( A bit OT here, shall we move? ) [edit](Yes, moved )

[Updated on: Sun, 06 April 2003 13:03] by Moderator

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Quote:

All weap slots are not fired at the same time, there is a specific order (don't have it at hand right now).

Looked it up, found it on the www.starsfaq.com of course

http://www.starsfaq.com/advfaq/guts2.htm#4.14.1

Here it is:

4.14.1) -Order in which Battleship weapons slots fire

William Butler posted this gem - the firing order of the weapons slots on a BB! Great stuff. The order is: Top 6 Bottom 6 Top 2 Bottom 2 4

regards,
mch

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tprescott wrote on Fri, 04 April 2003 01:59

You understood correctly. Not sure where it is documented - might be in the 'guts of battle damage.'

Also most of discussions about "warships design" mention it. Jason Cawley on the Newsgroup did very good analyzes on that stuff, even determining that in most cases, the best missile BB is the one using only the two "6" slots, allowing for building more of them. It's also the reason Nubians are good only in big stacks, those 3-slots are not so good. And for hordes, that's why you should prefer the FF hull, etc.

Oh man, that seems so old stuff now and it was only some years ago...

YucaF

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Quote:

All weap slots are not fired at the same time, there is a specific order

Wow, I never knew that, but I'm sure nobody is surprised. Thanks, I'm sure that's going to prove useful.

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UAF commander wrote on Tue, 08 April 2003 22:32

So I should build all my Missile Battleships with only the 6 slots full of missiles?

Yes and no ... depends ... The slot that can hold 4 weap is also reasonable. And like Coyote mentoined when you reach armas than even in the 2-weap slot they can do some good damage, but that of course also depends on what you are shooting, ...
Personally I would put missiles in the 4-weap slot, not beams.

Quote:

And what about Beam Battleships, won't it apply to them as well?

Yes, so my beam BBs usually have sappers in the 2 small wing slots and normal beams in the rest,

regards,
mch

[Updated on: Tue, 08 April 2003 16:58]

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Micha wrote on Tue, 08 April 2003 15:57

UAF commander wrote on Tue, 08 April 2003 22:32 So I should build all my Missile Battleships with only the 6 slots full of missiles? Yes and no ... depends ... The slot that can hold 4 weap is also reasonable. And like Coyote mentoined when you reach armas than even in the 2-weap slot they can do some good damage, but that of course also depends on what you are shooting, ... Personally I would put missiles in the 4-weap slot, not beams.

Since the 4-sweap slot fires last, it should get at an enemy fleet that is already damaged (because those 6-weap slots have done their job), therefore increasing their chance to get kills. Arming them is for me a matter of cost of the ship. If I have to use expensive engines (like the IS-10) and decided to put armor, I would probably put missiles/torps in that slot. If I go for a cheap design intended to be built in great numbers, I will only use the 6-weap slots. I did that once when I urgently needed a defense design with maximum firepower (I used the FM and no armor, only computers): I needed to kill his fleet at first shot or disappear from the map. It worked

I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

I generally put the sappers on the beamer design, not on the missile one, since they seldom fire at all in the later case.

YucaF

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I think this not so black and white. The cost of a BB hull w/ 4*engines, 6*jammers/computers and 8*shields makes it worth including 4 more missiles since they do damage the token and often in this era, you're killing Starbases and frigate hordes anyway. The addition of 4 more jihaads adds so little addtional resources and minerals compared to the total cost of the BB with 16 missiles, I think it's still worthwhile and the BB will do 25% more damage. I think it's a style thing.

Paladin

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What about Starbases??

Sorry if this has been posted before.. I need that "read again after 6 weeks feature"

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Ashlyn wrote on Wed, 07 May 2003 20:03

What about Starbases?? Sorry if this has been posted before.. I need that "read again after 6 weeks feature"

What about them? Missing a reference here. Do you mean the firing order? Haven't seen that before ... don't know if anyone ever tested that.
But of course the slots with 16 weapons in them could make some good ship kills ... if they weren't aiming at chaff all the time (untill the base dies) ...

regards,
mch

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freakyboy wrote on Wed, 07 May 2003 22:13

since you can only build one starbase i'd suggest to either arm it fully or don't bother.

I have to disagree here. Since starbases later in the game are nothing more than expensive chaff shooters I hardly ever arm them fully.
Exception is at the start of the game when a starbase can take on a large fleet of FFs or DDs. Other exceptions are of course when expecting a chaff-less attack, or I would arm it fully with beams if I knew there were enough players on the board to make sure the enemy starts close enough to get in a shot before the base dies.
If the enemy is using suicide ships to take out my bases the year before an attack (so that I lose the gate and can't send in reinforcements) than I would put as much defense on them as I could, to make the agressor pay with as much suicide ships as possible.

And I would suggest to not let it completely empty, put some minimal defense/weapons on them, just enough to make a stand against the enemies skirmishers.

IOW take the middle road,

regards,
mch

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Marduk wrote on Thu, 08 May 2003 02:36

I hate to say this after claiming that Antimatter Torpedoes were completely worthless, but if you have them filling an orbital with them might be a good idea. Given that you generally expect your orbital to die without killing anything more than chaff, a really cheap missile becomes worthwhile even if it doesn't do much damage.

True, if you know your base will be shooting nothing but chaff you can put a cheap missile in the weap slots, just enough to kill one chaff, no need to use armas for that, ... unless you can't evacuate the minerals and you want to use them up as much as you can, starbases don't leave salvage on the surface.
The AMT might be good for this indeed, with a side effect that if your enemy has lower tech levels he won't gain weap tech from the battle but bio tech instead.

Regards,
mch

[Updated on: Thu, 08 May 2003 06:21]

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Micha wrote on Thu, 08 May 2003 06:20

The AMT might be good for this indeed, with a side effect that if your enemy has lower tech levels he won't gain weap tech from the battle but bio tech instead.

You cannot gain tech from killing bases.

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Paladin wrote on Thu, 08 May 2003 14:41

I think there one other huge advantage that the AMT has that has been overlooked, and that is minerals. I've played in games where research is maxed and resources are in over abundance but the minerals are so scarce that large battles take place fighting for control of the after battle scrap. In a case like this, the AMT would be very valuable since the only mineral it uses in any quantity at sll is bor and really not much of that (1 iron, 6 bor, 1 germ at max tech which is likely if you're building these at all). Paladin

Well, I was not pointing out all (dis)advantages of the AMT.
Maybe you read this topic in the Academy:
Anti Matter Torp 
and post your remark here, it has been quiet about MT toys for a while, maybe this fires up the discussion again.

regards,
mch

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LEit wrote on Thu, 08 May 2003 15:09

Micha wrote on Thu, 08 May 2003 06:20 The AMT might be good for this indeed, with a side effect that if your enemy has lower tech levels he won't gain weap tech from the battle but bio tech instead. You cannot gain tech from killing bases.

TWO surprises in one day! And there I thought I already knew everything about this game!! So my next game won't be an 'only expert' game afteral!
So no salvage AND no tech from killing a base, why would anybody kill one than?

regards,
mch

[Edit: the other surprise is that ships when possible switch to safe speeds when ordered to go too fast trough a minefield.]

[Updated on: Thu, 08 May 2003 11:53]

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