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Hi!

Braindead wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 01:03

I often build hi-init, hi-movement sapper ships to guarantee they close in and take down enemy shields before anything else fires. This can be very effective, especially if your enemy doesn't have chaff and you have a few missile ships.

It even doesn't matter much if he has chaff. If his missile ships doesn't have jammers, after sapping they may be more attractive than chaff . But after chaff dies anything that survives is likely without shields.
IMO it is good idea (in missile BB era) to have BB sappers, if you have invested at least moderate amount of iron in missiles.
BR, Iztok

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[Updated on: Mon, 13 June 2005 07:45]

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Micha wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 06:40

PricklyPea wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 13:15 Continuing on Sappers, for BB designs only having 12 missiles, would you consider putting sappers for the remainder? The idea being that the BBs hold back but if beamers close in, the sappers can drain shields before the missiles hit. More often you see 6+6+4 missile BBs with sappers of gatlings in the 2*2 wing slots (or empty), reason behind that is to have iron saved to build more ships, those are called pocket BBs.

Actually, it is probably for slot damage. Since weapons are fired on a per slot basis, and damage applied per slot can overwelm individual ship armor (and destroy single ships), it *can* be more efficient to use only the slots that can kill a single ship. Otherwise damage is applied to the whole stack, which may be a waste of iron...

This is why missle/Torp BB's and DN's are still very effective in the endgame. Where as a ARM Nub can only have a 3 stack max of missiles and can't kill a single enemy Nub, even without shields, until the stack armor gets very low, the BB's and DN's can peel them off in large numbers much earlier. Many evenly matched, highly deflected, Nub battles can go several rounds before the beams can get through the shields. Meanwhile, missile ships that can blow up even a tiny % of enemy ships, vs just creating stack damage, can cause a catastrophic onesided victory.

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I doubt 6+6 missiles and further all sappers is that cost effective ... never used them and never seen them used IIRC,

Not having Beam weapons on your Missile boats makes the hit and run tactics (Fed Kaufman(sp?) retrograde, for you SFB fans) more workable. Plus, it adds expense that gains you next to nothing. If your Missle boats get that close to the enemy beamers, it usually means you lost.

-Matt

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mlaub wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 21:22

This is why missle/Torp BB's and DN's are still very effective in the endgame. Where as a ARM Nub can only have a 3 stack max of missiles and can't kill a single enemy Nub, even without shields, until the stack armor gets very low, the BB's and DN's can peel them off in large numbers much earlier.

I do not think it matters so lot ... one can buid almost 2 nubians for minerals of one BB and 2 nubians merged together have 6 missiles in one slot like sole BB.
There are other 2 reasons for using Auxilary BB-s and especially Dreads in endgame...
First - you got them already so why to scrap? Their firepower is as good. You got other stuff to build and your early beam nubian lines are more limited by germ than iron.
Second - Missile BBs and Dreads often outinit opponent missile nub designs so you got additional freedom to snipe out bombers or take that gate down (to tie down opponents large defense fleet).

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pratap wrote on Tue, 14 June 2005 04:42

What about Sappers in the Nuban era? I would think it is more useful than in the BB era because of the strong shield stack the enemy will be able to get by stacking Nubians.

Sappers main reason (the firepower) is gone nub era. AMP got firepower 433 while syncro sapper has 541 so its only 25% better. Sapper has some advantages like range and init but it can only damage shields. It may be still considered for some counter/support ideas there but test these carefully.

Braindead wrote on Tue, 14 June 2005 08:00

You want your sapper ships to have very high initiative and to be very fast - that means 6 computers and an OT.

Sappers on missile ship are meant to make mostly missile fleets more hard to kill with mostly beamer fleets. The idea there is that you do not need OT to get to opponent, beamers themself are interested to get into close range. Actually sapper got itself quite good init ... 14. More than 4 computers put on a sapper design seems overkill in most situations.

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presume sheildless so that the sapper does not back off. But what speed do you have these suicide gatlings to get into range and shoot without getting killed first?

Yes shieldless makes dedicated sapper go forward to find a shielded target.

Speed of sapper killers depends on rest of your fleet, is not always possible. If your main beamer fleet moves 2 squares forward first round (1.25-2.00 combat speed) then the sapper killer needs to move 3 (2.25+ combad speed) and be range 2.

If your main beamer fleet moves only 1 forward first round and enemy is using 2.25+ sappers fleet, then the suicide ships need to move 1.25+ (or 2.25+ if range 1). This super slow main beamer fleet has its uses as defensive method (protecting missile boats and/or starbase).

The without getting killed first part, you need to shoot before the sappers do which means really fast/high init. If you have higher init shot than any enemy in range of you, you get your shot off.

[Updated on: Wed, 15 June 2005 17:00]

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multilis wrote on Wed, 15 June 2005 18:55

Issues such as gattlings heavier, range 2, speed of main fleet, init of main fleet may make it better to counterdesign enemy specialty dedicated sapper.

Of couse all factors should be considered. However, using Gats *is* a counter to the dedicated sapper. Certainly not the only one. Not sure what you are trying to say here.

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In certain battles, the dedicated sapper may only be 10% of his force but make 50% difference whether it does its job or not.

In other battles, 10% of his forces might make -50% difference. Actually, 60% of people polled, say they they like pretzels better than made up percentages...

-Matt

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[Updated on: Thu, 16 June 2005 00:40]

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