| How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Wed, 22 July 2009 17:30  |
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I have a number of cloaked sweepers running around behind my front lines. (At least I think so)
I am getting messages saying that minefields in my interior are getting swept. I can see the fields shrinking.
How do I catch those sweepers?
It would seem I need to do 2 things:
1. Have enuf minelayers in the vicinity to pinpoint sweeper location using the intersection point of 2 swept fields. (preferably 3 swept fields..)
2. Set up a sensor net around that location to catch the sweeper the next turn.
What is the general consensus on fighting this problem. This is the 1st game I have been in, where it is more than just a minor annoyance. Should I:
1. Just build more minelayers to maintain my fields.
2. Spend the micromanagement time to accomplish the above?
The only reason to really be worried if fields are maintained, is that you can't tell the difference between an strike fleet and a lone sweeper, but then a strike fleet would approach with sweeping off anyways.
My best scanner is only the eagle eye at 335 ly, so with NAS that is only a 6 ly radius (or is it rounded up to 7ly?), for a 12 ly diameter of scans. Say an 8 ly spacing of ships, to set up a 128x128 ly grid would take 16x16 = 256 ships. (I know, it is a circle, not a square...) (so really only 3.14/4 x 256) Seems too much work and too many fleets with only this scanner. (Any advice on exactly how to calculate and set up the scanning net?)
It would seem worthwhile to set up a sensor grid to protect an AR HW mining site. Does anyone do it for cloaked sweepers?
naz
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Thu, 23 July 2009 06:32  |
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 iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| Quote: |
I have a number of cloaked sweepers running around behind my front lines.
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Fighting highly-cloaked sweepers is an expensive task. You need to invest in counter-measures significantly more resources, minerals, MM and free fleet slots, than your opponent has invested in cloaked sweepers.  BTW I use it whenever I can.  "Unfortunately" there are only SS and HE that can do it effectively before nubs are out.
There are some things you can do against cloaked sweepers (ordered by increasing costs):- make peace with your opponent.
- ignore him. That's dangerous, because you allow him free movement in your territory, and you never know what's behind those cloaked sweepers.
- trade for Tachion detectors from the IS. A galleon with 8 TDs, 2 Cheetahs and NAS should see an 98% clokaed ship 91 LY far. That's the cheapest way to stop his sweeping operations. Actually TD totally ruins MOST cloaked operations.
After this there are just high-costs possibilities and combos:- ask SD friend to cover that area with lots of detonating minefilds. With time opponent will need to withdraw, or lose his sweepers to accumulated damage.
- if his sweeping power is low, lay big minefields around your planets in the area and in biggest gaps among planets.
- cover your area with many overlapping small minefields, laid by cheap minelayers. This will reveal approximate position of his sweepers and decrease his ability to move around.
- cover "infected" area with lots of cheap scanner ships (like FF with 2 or 5 RNA or Gazelle), and move them randomly around. However for this task to be effective, you need either NAS or a JoaT friend to cover that area with lots of his chaff.
- have fleets of interceptors ready to hit any revealed sweeper from many directions, so it doesn't cloak again.
- have there small fleet of heavy warships to attack his (probable) reinforcements or cloaked planet raiders, and finally
- attack him, so his main force is tied to your attack, instead your main force to his harrasing.
BR, Iztok
[Updated on: Fri, 24 July 2009 15:09] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Thu, 23 July 2009 17:14 |
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| Eagle of Fire | 
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 809
Registered: December 2008
Location: GMT -5 | |
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Until Nubs are out, only SS can efficiently send cloaked sweepers. If your opponent is not SS then it is likely that the max they can cloak their ship is around 80%, which greatly increase their chance of being spotted with random scanning.
Also, if you have NAS then you don't calculate 98% (which is the max cloaking which can be achieved) out of the 335, but out of the 670ly. This mean that you will be able to spot cloaked fleet at a range of 13ly instead of 12. A normal player before Nubs can usually max cloak at 97%, increasing your detection range.
I would not recommend building that much ships simply to have a "sensor net" unless you absolutely need it. The best way to prevent sweepers from entering your territory is to lay small fields which cover the entirety of the entry of your territory, and preferably more than one row. This way you can see better where they sweep, and can send scout ships to try to catch them off guard. Once you see one then you can send an interception ship to catch them.
Most cloaked sweeper are extremely weak, usually either not carrying much weapons at all or using cheap gattling to sweep a big radius with reduced cost. This mean that a weak ship can usually take care of them easily.
Consider fielding specialised cloaked interceptors which sports mine layers. Being cloaked will prevent them to see you, which increase your chances to catch them as they might simply fly right next to your detection range without noticing or expecting a cloaked counter measure. The reason of the mine layers would be that space mining occurs at WP0 while movement occur later: a cloaked ship not expecting the creation of a new mine field might just crash into one. A cloaked ship not exploding on the first hit would be greatly damaged, increasing the paranoia of the opponent. This could lead him to retreat some or all of his sweepers, or to be more carefull which can also lead to having him delaying his sweeping efforts.
As always, don't forget that the psychological war can always work both ways.
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Thu, 23 July 2009 17:27 |
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| PaulCr |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Thu, 23 July 2009 22:14 |
The reason of the mine layers would be that space mining occurs at WP0 while movement occur later: a cloaked ship not expecting the creation of a new mine field might just crash into one.
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Event though mineylaying is technically a WP0 order for non SD it still happens after movement, you can't throw up or expand a field to take someone by surprise. Minelaying is almost the last thing to happen and happens at the same time for everyone, even SD, the difference between SD and other races is that they can lay as a WP1 order so don't need to spend a year standing still for the minefield to be layed.
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Thu, 23 July 2009 22:57 |
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Thank you everyone for all the input.
A bit more information:
I am IT and have an SS ally.
The SD and IS along with 2 ITs are on the *other* side.
I am -f (Now *how* did you guess that, Micha??), so I am not too worried about planet strikes.
We are well into the Nubian era. I am NAS.
So...
I will... let you all know how I proceeded after the game is over...
Any additional ideas, in light of the additional info is appreciated.
naz
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Fri, 24 July 2009 13:03 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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Looks like you are in a difficult position since they have tachyons which rule out cloaked ship options. I can think of a few options, the first is to go cheap, ie lots of RNA frigates with cheap engine which can see 98% cloaked ships out to 9 lys and cover 254 ly2, 2 RNAs=10 lys or 314 ly2, 3=12 lys or 452 lys2, 4=13lys or 530lys2 which is about twice the area of the single RNA version.
You could also put minelayers on the 1 & 2 RNA FFs though, it increases the cost of them quite a bit but generates lots of tiny minefields which are harder to clear. Rather than lots of tiny fields you could place them in an existing bigger field so that they add to it but if your opponent does sweep the field then they put up a 12ly radius (24ly) diameter field instead since they lay after sweeping.
Another option is to go expensive, ie a galleon with 8 elephant (22 lys, 1520 lys2) which covers nearly 6 times the area of the single RNA frigate so you won't need as many, a nubian would be better but I don't have a game available to try out a design at the moment.
The last option I can think of at the moment is to decide it is too expensive to try and stop him sweeping and put the resources into trying to do more damage to him than he can do to you in return.
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Fri, 21 August 2009 13:56 |
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| iztok wrote on Thu, 23 July 2009 06:32 |
... "Unfortunately" there are only SS and HE that can do it effectively before nubs are out.
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Only SS and HE can get 98%, but WM can still get 93%:
BC, 7 SSC, up to 6 GNC
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| Re: How to catch cloaked sweepers? |
Fri, 21 August 2009 20:32 |
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| Eagle of Fire |
| Lt. Commander |
Messages: 809
Registered: December 2008
Location: GMT -5 | |
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That is true... They are however extremely costly and can't be specialised in anything else than scouting.
93% is easily spotable at the time other players consider using the cloaked galleon. Not to mention that it is extremely unlikely that the galleon sports good engines, so by the time it gets to the ennemy location then good interceptors and improved scanners are readily available.
This is why I said only SS can actually afford to have good cloaked ships early on. Not only they can cloak them easily, but they can also built them for more than one purpose. Which improve their usefulness time by a lot.
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