| Re: Capacitors & Sappers |
Thu, 16 June 2005 12:49   |
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Yes, but it is a seperate design, and opens you up to easy counters. I have never been sold on it's use as a planned design. Not saying that it doesn't work, just saying that it is usually a secondary choice IMO.
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For some background that may help newer players here, in CFLKIAB I had huge older tech BB hord as HE w BET. Raindancer/Eric (Animals) threw up combo defence of high init range 3 BB (2.25 speed chaff killers), high cap dedicated sappers, chaff and jug BMs. The dedicated sappers were a small portion of force but crucially important to his plan... his combo was a germ pig in a universe short on germ but still best combo I faced that game, enough to make much bigger fleets stop and wait for reinforcements. (Where it was easier marching over regular combo fielded by Doothinker)
Every plan has its weaknesses, his main beamer fleet wouldn't close in to kill chaff first round if he had combined beamers and sappers.
...
I've taken over a warmonger in TWW, and my race seems to be edging towards war with Micha, Raindancer/Eric seems to be Micha's closest friend in game so may be seeing more of dedicated sapper and perhaps counterdesigns.
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers |
Tue, 21 June 2005 00:26 |
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(I felt like) my fleets killed more than they costed me in that era
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One on one they would. But I had old tech well known horde design, you had newer counterdesign. My ships were extremely cheap to build, expecially on minerals, BET helped as well. Same design for many years allows monster horde to accumulate.
And your ships tended to back up which meant my missiles and chaff trumped yours.
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers _Wrong |
Mon, 28 January 2008 14:45 |
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| crr65536 wrote on Sun, 12 June 2005 13:35 |
<nitpick>
The maximum useful number of HE capacitors is 6 - not 5 - 1.2^5 = 2.48832
</nitpick>
Still, the difference of .01168 power will likely be a small number of ships, even in a large battle.
For the other question, if the ship is just for killing shields, then logically it should have just shield sappers, but (in my limited-experience view) that seems like a waste of a design slot.
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That may be the way it is supposed to work, but that Stars uses slightly different numbers. 5 Flux capacitors actually increases the damage of beam weapons by only about 2.48 (approximate depending on rounding) not 2.48832. A sixth flux capacitor increases the damage of beam weapons to 2.55! (no typo). This increase can be verified in battle simulations. So the sixth flux capacitor actually provides an increase of 2.8%. That doesn't sound like alot but since they are dirt cheap (maybe 0.5% of the mineral and resource cost of a good Nubian), it is actually worth it.
The Universe is usually not fair.
That would be too easy.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers |
Mon, 28 January 2008 18:51 |
|
 Braindead |
 | Officer Cadet 2nd Year |
Messages: 238
Registered: April 2005
Location: Ohio | |
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Since we are resurrecting old threads...
In the end, there is no "best ship design". If I know my opponents' designs, I can build ships that are better (assuming we have similar tech). If you don't know what your enemies have, then you need to make some choices. For sappers, there are three options:
1. Dedicated sapper ships. The main benefit of this design is that you can make it extremely specialized. It can be as fast or have as high an initiative or as many jammers as you want it to have. There are two drawbacks. One, it's an extra design slot. Two, because you don't have large numbers of these ships they usually die in the battle (however, if they did their job, it's well worth it).
2. Sappers on beamer ships. This design capitalizes on synergies between sappers and beamers - both need the same range (assuming range 3 beamers), both need to be fast, etc. It also improves usage of the small stack slots on BBs. Finally, you save a design slot. The drawbacks are inability to fully customize and the fact that you'll probably end up with more sappers than you need to.
3. Sappers on missile ships. The drawback of this design is that it can try to get to range 3 of the enemies when you want it to stay at range 5 or 6; and in most cases it's a waste. I don't really see any benefits here other than compensating for the drawbacks of dedicated sapper design. Some people mentioned that this design can deal with pure beam fleets by taking down their shields, but I don't buy this - as long as you have sappers in your fleet, this is a non-issue.
In my games, the majority of ships I've seen were from #2 above. The more experienced players have done both #1 and #2 depending on the situation. And I've very rarely seen #3.
BD
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers |
Mon, 28 January 2008 21:53 |
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Very interesting to hear that you can take fluxes to 2.55x multiplier. Is the same true of regular capacitors? Does a 10th normal cap take it to 2.55 rather than the expected 2.5?
Might as well throw something into the revived discussion (yay, zombie thread) : I would sometimes go with dedicated sapper ships for the design flexibility - often want to put some *comps* on a sapper ship (firing your sappers before you fire your missiles can be veeeeery nice in the right situation... And a sapper BB without comps will fire after a 7xBSC jugg or better BB (it's 50:50 which fires first with jihads.) This is also relevant if you don't expect your beamers to survive the first missile salvo of your opponent, so need those sappers to fire first (rare case, I know.) Also, for NRSE races, I find sapper BBs more gatable than beamers BBs (sappers weigh less than beams, and you can often get away with a lighter engine too.)
[Updated on: Mon, 28 January 2008 21:56] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers |
Tue, 29 January 2008 23:55 |
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| Dogthinkers wrote on Tue, 29 January 2008 00:25 |
I don't think it would be a waste in every circumstance. It's not quite always best to fill every slot on a nubian. Plus I'd like to know whether the cap limit is 2.5, or 2.55, out of sheer curiosity.
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It's definately 2.55
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| Re: Capacitors & Sappers _Wrong |
Sat, 20 October 2012 00:38 |
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| magic9mushroom |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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DenHam wrote on Tue, 29 January 2008 06:45That may be the way it is supposed to work, but that Stars uses slightly different numbers. 5 Flux capacitors actually increases the damage of beam weapons by only about 2.48 (approximate depending on rounding) not 2.48832. A sixth flux capacitor increases the damage of beam weapons to 2.55! (no typo). This increase can be verified in battle simulations. So the sixth flux capacitor actually provides an increase of 2.8%. That doesn't sound like alot but since they are dirt cheap (maybe 0.5% of the mineral and resource cost of a good Nubian), it is actually worth it.
I suspect, given these numbers, that the effect of beam deflectors and energy capacitors is calculated and then stored, truncated, as 1 byte somewhere. Without either, that number would be 100, and it maxes out at 255. Has anyone checked whether >2.55 worth of capacitors has any effect against deflected ships?
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| Missile BBs & Sappers |
Sat, 20 October 2012 09:57 |
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PricklyPea wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 13:15Continuing 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.
Micha wrote on Mon, 13 June 2005 13:40More 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.
I doubt 6+6 missiles and further all sappers is that cost effective ... never used them and never seen them used IIRC
Some threads might be old but still useful...
Concerning missile battleships and sappers:
In my earlier games quite often I used a BB-design with 2x6 jihads and 8 sappers. Sometimes it was even quite a successful combination and turned around a battle in which I had sent a fleet of only jihad/sapper-BBs. It's a small window where it can be (at least a bit) justified to do this: chaff isn't really cost effective in the jihad era, so sometimes it is possible to send missile-ships without laser/sapper escort and having only one stacked design is a merit of its own. But in retroperspection the sappers weren't needed and used often enough to justify the extra cost.
Nowadays I wouldn't use sappers anylonger in combination with sappers in the same design. It is much better to have 2 dedicated designs: one for missiles and one for fast lasers/sappers. Usually I put 1 or 2 gatlings on a missile-BB, though, just in case they are forced to operate alone and find themselves in a minefield (either intentionally or because after a battle all laser-ships were shot down).
Dedicated sapper designs:
Completly dependent on your situation and wether ship slots are available. I have built them in the past and probably will do so in the future. Mostly they were used in very special situation and too often the true reason was desperation: too weak to beat the enemy fleet, or the enemy fleet is in too good a fork position that I was unable to defend all endangered planets... a few sapper ships plus starbase-based missiles might inflict at least some damage or stops the enemy from making many small attacking sidefleets.
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And I thought I did pretty well against your BBs in that game... (I felt like) my fleets killed more than they costed me in that era, but it certainly didn't prove to be enough. Ah well, it was my first real game after all... I've certainly learned quite a lot since, but fleet design is still a definate weakness in my play. 
