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-f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 10:03 Go to next message
freakyboy is currently offline freakyboy

 
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So... I'm in a game of stars (shock) and the subject of a -f SS race came up.

Basically a particular player who is self proclaimed mathematically inept said the following about a -f SS...

"I don't think SS is a great choice for -f designs"

I think that's wrong myself. For SS races I've always though -f or HP, never HG.

What about you guys? In the Lesser traits game it was a -f SS race that came first (or second) and handled very well.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 11:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Crikey is currently offline Crikey

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 21
Registered: February 2003
Location: England
I think that this brings up an interesting point which I have often pondered about but never come up with anything solid.

Basically, making a race -f gives a tactical advantage to a race at the cost of reducing the economic advantage. I can sense there are many of you itching to tears holes in even this statement but in a basic form I think it is accurate.

The question is that for the choice of PRT for an -f race; should it attempt to gain ground lost on the economic side by being an economic race such as CA or JOAT, knowing that it will never gain all the economic power lost by the -f decision.

Or, do you choose a tactical race and so compound the characteristics gained from the -f choice in terms of tactical advantages and economic disadvantages.

I do not know a good answer to this and would be interested in hearing peoples views. Sorry if this has brought the thread off topic from what was intended but I think this is perhaps searching for the general answer to your more specific question.

Personally, I like SS. I also like playing -f as it is exciting and flexible. I have play tested SS -f races and found them good to play but have never played in a real game with them. Recently played with a JOAT -f who performed very well and won.

Anyway, your views.

The Crike.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 11:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
freakyboy is currently offline freakyboy

 
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Well I'm thinking of the advantages vs the disadvantages.

SS have big advantages at the start - mostly because of their 75% cloak and how weak scanners are at the start.

a -F race wants to win the game by 2450.

Therefore all your war fleets that you launch are not only up and about before everyone else's - but your ships are cloaked giving you the extra advantage in surprise and you can even go the whole thing un-announced until your ships hit their targets.

I can't think of anything worse for a HP or even HG race to suddenly find their freighters and their colonies under attack from something they can't see before their economy is going.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 11:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Crikey is currently offline Crikey

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 21
Registered: February 2003
Location: England
Yep. I agree with everything you have said.

Also, there are other tactical advantages which come later in the game should it reach that point. SS have trouble defending and what could be a better defence than the enemy trying to attack a world which you have evacuated with stealth freighters. Your population would be very flexible and also hidden from the enemy anti-population attacks.

I have found, however, that SS -f are a little slower to start and impose themselves on the galaxy. This comes from the points reauirements of SS and the fact that this leads to slightly lower hab.

Other than that, a pretty scary race to come against. You can't see them. You can't find their planets. They have millions of ships and they are destroying all you ships in your space and there is nothing you can do against it.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 15:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
zoid is currently offline zoid

 
Ensign

Messages: 348
Registered: December 2002
Location: Murray, KY - USA
freakyboy wrote on Sun, 19 October 2003 07:03

Basically a particular player who is self proclaimed mathematically inept said the following about a -f SS...

"I don't think SS is a great choice for -f designs"
That would be me, of course. Smile And as with most things I dare to say (with particular regard to the game of Stars), it may very well be proven false by my betters. But remember, I DID say "I THINK" and "not great" (in other words), expressing only my personal opinion that the SS prt is not the best choice for -f design, rather than stating that it's unworkable as a matter of fact.

I've made a few attempts at a -f SS race in duels against Micha. Micha is a very good player and could easily have played aggressively to destroy me in short order, but he didn't. Micha knew I was testing races and I believe he was playing more of a passive-defense role, just giving me a chance to try a new design against an intelligent player.

My personal experience with the race designs I tried led me to believe that the SS is a poor platform for -f economy in part because of the expensive PRT, but also because the advantages gained by the PRT are not particularly helpful in the earliest critical stage.

I'm not big on -f designs and maybe it's simply a matter of not designing and/or playing them competently. I acknowledge my skill limitations (especially with regard to -f design) render the worth of my own opinions dubious, at best. I do know that it's all about rapid expansion and early conquest to exploit the developmental stage and weakness of other races; the -f SS designs I tried all proved too slow out of the gate to inflict sufficient early harm to the enemy to seal his doom. There were just too few resources and too many places for those resources to go. I spent all my resources on freighters and terraforming to get the economical base I needed to produce the warships, then the research to get the crucial early technologies to make warships, and never really achieved the economical b
...




I'M NOT AN EXPERT AND I'M OFTEN PROVEN WRONG. TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU READ MY POSTS.
Math? Confused Ummm, sure! Nod I do FREESTYLE math.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 15:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
freakyboy is currently offline freakyboy

 
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just a quick point here but...

if you're SS and it's before 2435 why are you travelling in open space? planet hop.

Even if your enemy is JOAT, they'll still have problems spotting you.

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Re: -f SS Sun, 19 October 2003 23:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zathras is currently offline Zathras

 
Crewman 1st Class

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As with all designs, it is essential to match your play style to your race design. The SS -f gives you certain advantages, use them often for best effect.

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Re: -f SS Mon, 20 October 2003 02:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

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Hi!
I'd agree a SS would be good -f race, if race wizard wouldn't demand so many points for it and it's toys wouldn't be so expensive.

Because you have to strike early, you can hardly afford buying Robber Barron scanner (IMO the best toy to cripple your opponent).
In the mid-game, when you can afford it, an IS can also afford to buy Tachyon Detector. A few FFs/Galleons with TDs and Eagle Eye scanners on key planets would quite ruin your attack capability. It doesn't get any better in late game. Well, you need an IS for that, but I've met quite more ISs than SSs in games where I played, and 've seen those TDs traded among many races.

To conclude: SS is a fun race to play, but if I'd like to win I wouldn't take it.

BR, Iztok

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Re: -f SS Wed, 22 October 2003 08:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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zoid wrote on Sun, 19 October 2003 21:53


I've made a few attempts at a -f SS race in duels against Micha. Micha is a very good player and could easily have played aggressively to destroy me in short order, but he didn't. Micha knew I was testing races and I believe he was playing more of a passive-defense role, just giving me a chance to try a new design against an intelligent player.


True, in that game I played my HG SD very relaxed, not spreading out aggressively, just letting Zoid try out his design. Of course I did lay minefields (why else play SD Grin ).

Quote:

Micha, since you played the other side I welcome your input, whether it's support for my argument, a listing of failures on my part that may have made a difference, or other anomalies that could have played a role. I also welcome the input of others who have either tried a -f SS against another player, or one who has played against such a race.


Looking at the files I see our HWs were 545ly apart (small dense univ), guess that gave both of us enough room to expand and fill up our "own" space before going after the other his planets. The first time I discovered a planet close to my space was 2428 and in 2430 you tried to cross the 250ly border around my HW. My minefields stopped you and killed your med freighters IIRC and that's also the year started I building my own first armed ships, a few bazooka FFs (only 35 of them build by 2445 when the game ended, I never needed more or any other armed ship).
You send in a few shadow shield yak FFs that got easily killed by either my minefields or my FFs. You never sent them in larger numbers, no horde. By far not aggressive enough, later you said you didn't have the resources for more ships since you needed to spend all in terraforming.

The cloaking didn't help you much I think, I had my minefields and NAS, also since I knew I was fighting an SS I did more elec research than usual, getting better scanners.

Maybe it comes down to that we started too far apart, my 1 in 4 hab gave me a lot of
...

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Re: -f SS Fri, 13 February 2004 06:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
goober is currently offline goober

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 175
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Perfectectly viable.

And great fun!

A -f CA or -f JoaT should be at about 5k res + be able to build, if not already building, colloidal CC's with en6/7 shields by 2430. Gates should be on all reasonable+ mineral worlds with 200k+ pop worlds by this time too.

A -f SS can be in the same position with about 4k res by 2430.

This in a small, normal, distant, ACCBBs universe.

With heavy skirmishing you won't make quite those numbers, but you'll be having fun on the way.

But the cool thing ... you can see most of the known universe by 2410 at the latest. Go intercept those transports big boys Smile

Goober.

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Re: -f SS Fri, 13 February 2004 09:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
goober is currently offline goober

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

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Heck, I'm being conservative.

A -f SS can have 7/8/5/5/5/3 tech comfortably by 2420

That's with skirmishing and little help from the opposition with tech research and about 10 decent planets.

You gotta be able to play with that Pirate

Goober.

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Re: -f SS Fri, 13 February 2004 11:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
Commander

Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003
Against AI it is easy to get 10 above 80% planets early. With humans its doable if you got territories of 30-40 planets. Thats bit large game to use -f in.

The tech 7/8/5/5/5/3 you indicated is rather strange for -f. Any -f should take LF as first thing (cheap cargo & good fuel + well miniaturized docks) and that means construction 8.

I would take construction 8 by ~2411.


[Updated on: Fri, 13 February 2004 11:25]

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Re: -f SS Fri, 13 February 2004 11:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
goober is currently offline goober

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 175
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Those -f SS numbers are from a duel against a WM.

6 * approx 70% planets, 1 50%, 1 40% and 1 35% + HW ofc.

Played a similar -f SS in a duel against a CA. Similar numbers. Well better actually.

I may be missing a trick with the LF. I'll have to check it out. But I seem to be able to keep up with MF's. In fact if your using a 70% world as a breeder that has a max 800k pop then you get an MF's amount of pop each turn at 25% capacity ... perfect.

But weapons and shields are important if you intend kicking ass quickly.

Goober.

Addition: 25-30 planets only needed for my race to find 10 planets ...


[Updated on: Fri, 13 February 2004 11:56]

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Re: -f SS Fri, 13 February 2004 13:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
Commander

Messages: 1227
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Oh you were talking about duel. Duel mechanics are way different from normal PBM.

Major effect is that ... spying is effectively giving you over 50% of what you spend yourself into research. It is because there your opponents do not trade tech and there are no very weak or almost beaten players that bring the average down.

In usual PBM the spy bonus is giving you about 15% of what you spend yourself. Wink





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Re: -f SS Sun, 15 February 2004 13:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
joseph is currently offline joseph

 
Lt. Junior Grade

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Quote:

In usual PBM the spy bonus is giving you about 15% of what you spend yourself.

While in a normal? game (as opposed to a Duel) people will trade tech so your Spy return is less.
I would say that the type of race talked about is a -fSS.
While you are right that the % bounus you get from your research is less - so it may take you an extra year or 2 to get the tech levels listed above - you are then ready to attack.
You pour nearly all your resources into attacking. The other races are f races so they are behind in tech so they have to spend to catch up with you further boosting your research.
A -f race tend to have less resources than a f race so as the f races finish building factories they spend more resources than you do on research so % spy bonus to spent research goes up.
You also should have cheeper techs than them so same resources go further.
In an ideal situation you should be winning battles because you have Battle Super computer and they dont - so they research their "expensive" electronics, giving a boost to your "cheep" electronics to give you robber baron scanners just in time to steal all their minerals before they build more advanced ships.




Joseph
"Can burn the land and boil the sea. You cant take the Stars from me"

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Re: -f SS Sat, 21 February 2004 22:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mcvos is currently offline mcvos

 
Crewman 3rd Class

Messages: 7
Registered: September 2003
Location: Netherland
joseph wrote on Sun, 15 February 2004 19:33

Quote:

In usual PBM the spy bonus is giving you about 15% of what you spend yourself.

While in a normal? game (as opposed to a Duel) people will trade tech so your Spy return is less.



You also trade tech, so you spend less on research, and the ratio can remain 15%.

But to get back to the subject of -f SS, I'm currently playing one in a game, and I'm doing quite well. I'm not in the lead scorewise, but I'm not falling behind either. I'm 4th of 10 players, two of which are now dead (and I had a hand in both of those kills).

I think the main reason why I'm doing well, is diplomacy, though. I didn't attack early enough, and when a real war came, I wasn't ready for it, and even lost a couple of planets at first. By now it's 2477, and I've taken them back with interest. It's a surprisingly long haul for a -f race. I do own a vast territory, and although I don't even own that much more planets than one ally, my values are a lot higher. I grabbed this territory by blatant two-faced opportunism and hoping someone would make the mistake of provoking an early war with a -f, which didn't happen. And when it did, I wasn't ready for my enemy's vast economic power (as hinted at above).

I'm very lucky that there are no ISs in this game. I was very late in reaching Electronics 12 (but was quick with Weapons and Const because of trades), and I still don't have the Robber Baron (due to Slow Tech).

No spectacular results, as you can see, but it is playable. And I haven't even tapped into my biggest SS advantages yet. My economy is better than I dared to hope, and I haven't even begun to use my vast warfighting abilities and skills. It's been pretty straightforward planet bashing and not worrying about cloaking, so far. I'm sure that will change.

I think I can win, although I'll have to work really hard to get there. I will.


mcv.
...

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Re: -f SS Sun, 15 March 2020 22:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008
There are a couple of things about -f SS that bear noting.

1. Cheap tech amplifies the spy bonus.
2. Early popdrop attacks are best done by surprise - if an opponent knows you're coming, you need warships or they'll just throw up an unarmed Orbital Fort (this is still enough to give the "the planet's starbase would kill them all before they land. The bridge crew rescinds the order."/"All of your colonists assaulting [X] have been killed by forces from the orbiting starbase." messages). On the other hand, people often wait until the colony's gotten big enough to need a real starbase before throwing one up, so with a -f SS you could well catch them napping with a "naked" popdrop (Large Freighters with Transport Cloaking are almost invisible).

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Re: -f SS Tue, 12 October 2021 06:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Robert is currently offline Robert

 
Lt. Junior Grade

Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany
I am currently playing in a game with 2 very successfull -f SS races and would like to share some thoughts...

-f means you got more cheap tech-levels than usual, which is especially great under some circumstances, for example if no tech trade is allowed and everyone needs to research everything on his own, and even more if there are no MT giving tech away which also helps.

One more thing... as -f you usually have a lot more planets than the enemy. A common tactics of mine is, when being attacked, you dont defend but instead start killing the enemy planets. Being SS and -f means you can do much more harm to him than he is able to do to you. This does not make you win, but it makes the other guy not win Smile

And one last thing: if the game is a "no ally game" then the IS will not be able to trade their tachyons, which is good for SS in general... not only -f.

Oh and even one more thing:
-f SS use to have good el-tech early because they want that baron scanner. This means they will have battle-nexi very early. this means that there is a BB time where -f SS tend to have those "shoot first" BBs much earlier than enybody else, and the can afford to build those 7 nexi BBs because they have plenty of G which most factory builders dont. So... in games where there are not enough plantes that people can research nubians quickly, a -f SS has a long long time within the BB area with a nice advantage of those "shooting first and you cant counter it" BBs.



2b v !2b -> ?

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Re: -f SS Sun, 17 October 2021 02:50 Go to previous message
magic9mushroom is currently offline magic9mushroom

 
Commander

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Robert wrote on Tue, 12 October 2021 21:01
this means that there is a BB time where -f SS tend to have those "shoot first" BBs much earlier than enybody else, and the can afford to build those 7 nexi BBs because they have plenty of G which most factory builders dont.

6 Nexi is better IMO. Still out-inits 7 BSC, but gives you a free slot for something and doesn't risk out-initting your chaff-shredders (since chaff-shredders must have speed 2.25, so they can't use 7 Nexi, and one extra Nexus brings Upsilons or Armageddons to equal init with Mega Disruptors).

If your opponents are close to Nexi themselves, or are WM, there's obviously the risk of being out-initted which weighs against that, but otherwise the design seems more solid.

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