Using packet scanners / giving away PRT |
Mon, 22 November 2004 10:16 |
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mazda | | Lieutenant | Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003 Location: Reading, UK | |
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I've not seen much on this matter.
One person has said to try and keep your PRT hidden by using normal scouting early on.
So I thought I'd ask for opinions.
Because PP packet scanning is a massive early benefit in terms of finding breeders / close neighbours etc. (and early movement is often not the best for a PP since they can't afford IFE and start at prop 0) then :-
Do people recommend using the packet scouting at the start of a game ?
Does it depend on the number of players or universe size ?
Would you do it just from the secondary, or maybe just from the HW as some kind of double bluff ?
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Re: Using packet scanners / giving away PRT |
Tue, 23 November 2004 09:49 |
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Micha | | | Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002 Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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I have met very few PPs ... I can think of only two ... one in a teamgame (4 teams of 3) and one in a med size game, solo victory only. That last one was played by vonKreedon, and he masked his PRT until later in the game. I think he didn't use packets for early scanning, or I missed them which seems unlikely since I started close to his HW ...
So suddenly he started throwing small packets around at high speeds, can't remember the exact year ... later than 2460 i think ... Anyway we had an NAP (friendly, but not _that_ friendly since only one could win, he always kept me at a distance, if you read some posts from him about solo victory games and large alliances you'll understand) and my reaction was to build defenses and massdrivers at the border planets and LF fleets to lift up pop.
Showing his PPness made me spend/waste some resources and minerals into maybe "unnecessary" stuff, but nothing more than that. 1-2 turns after I saw he was PP I was prepared for a packet attack, and his PRT was "useless". He would have needed the regular warfare like any other regular race to get to me ...
Just to say that I don't see why in that case the player masked his PRT ... maybe for not looking like a target early in game? It was of no use for him later in the game, unless he had attacked me or somebody else with a full spread packet attack (before showing his PRT), with of course fleets and pop to back it up and take the dead planets ...
mch
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Re: Using packet scanners / giving away PRT |
Thu, 25 November 2004 13:00 |
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Sure, throwing packets really fast is not a huge advantage on its own. What all of you are neglecting is that the most common defense against a packet attack is lots of large freighters. Thats what suicide missle ships with "kill freighter" orders are for. You never only attack with packets. You must follow up with a standard fleet, and the fact that most people will simply offload all their pop into a horribly undefended position is a prime opportunity for you to create lots of little space coffins.
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Re: Using packet scanners / giving away PRT |
Mon, 06 December 2004 16:52 |
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vonKreedon | | Lieutenant | Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003 Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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My reason for masking my PRT in the game Micha talks about is that I thought that my neighbors would tend to target me early if they knew I was PP. My race was designed for the long term and so would have been vulnerable early and I did not want to take the chance that neighbors would attack me when they found out I was PP.
I also think that I had a better chance than Micha does at taking out Micha in the end game. I had LOTS of minerals, I had a fleet specifically counter-designed for Micha, I had a good target . But, I did not have the allies that I needed because Micha's allies would not turn on him So I never got to test my plan.
[on edit]
Oh, and one of the players in that game spotted me for a PP almost immediately because he saw that I had two worlds and noted that the icon for the default scout is different for IT and PP.
[Updated on: Mon, 06 December 2004 16:54] Report message to a moderator
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