| mine sweepers |
Fri, 09 June 2006 18:42  |
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 TheShadow7478 |
 | Crewman 1st Class |
Messages: 33
Registered: March 2006
Location: Long Island/NYC | |
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gatling or BMC? cloaked or not? Destroyers or something else? Non SS race, non WM.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Fri, 09 June 2006 18:52  |
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Basically, DD's or cruisers in stacks so that the fleet damage when hitting a mine doesn't wipe them out.
When sweeping SD mines, you need to expect to be hit since the field will probably be detonating. For DD's, stacks of 5, for CA's, stacks of 3 or 4 will be fine.
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Fri, 09 June 2006 19:32 |
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To minimise damage stacks of at least 5 since with 5 ships the minimum_fleet_damage/5 = minimum ship damage. less than 5 each ship gets more damaged, more than 5 the fleet gets more damaged.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sat, 10 June 2006 07:45 |
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Or you just make your sweepers so cheap that you don't mind them getting killed.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sat, 10 June 2006 13:33 |
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| iztok |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| TheShadow7478 wrote on Sat, 10 June 2006 00:42 |
gatling or BMC? cloaked or not? Destroyers or something else? Non SS race, non WM.
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Depends who you're fighting, what time of the game is, and what would you also like to achieve with the sweeper.
For fighting SD or a MM-heavy opponent I'd propose cheapness, as you'll be facing many small minefields, so having big number of sweepers is more important. When facing heavy fields, those cheap sweepers could be also sacrificed to sweep those heavies at unsafe speed.
Regarding time-frame: in early game I'd propose DD hull with 2 bazookas or single gattling, cheap engine and shield, and a fuel tank, if you don't have ISB. A CC is more damage-resistant, but also significantly more expensive, and so a tempting target for mainline warships.
In mid game an improved DD sweepere with single HeavyBlaster, bear shield and AD-8 engine can serve also as a cheap throw-away skirmisher to harras opponent's shipping or catch his layers, but to be produced in hundreds it's IMO a bit too expensive.
In late game there's usualy a problem with free slots, so having dedicated sweepers is problematic, and any beam nubian can sweep.
Quite often I use as a sweeper my heavy skirmisher CC (2.5 speed, beams and sappers), as it's hard to catch, and also survives some beating.
Here's also a speciall case of cloaked sweeper (BC, rougue or metamorph), but it's not a mainline sweeper, and you've also excluded WM and SS.
The main issue with using sweeperes is IMO their "recycling" (field repair). I always organize a repair station for them in front's second line. It has usually some SFXes there for repair and refuell, and some heavier ships to kill opponent's interceptors. If I can, I set it on a planet (even red one) with at least a Fort in orbit to speed-up the repair rate. Since ship repair is for free, it's quite a good tactics to keep costs of sweeping & skirmishing low.
BR, Iztok
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sat, 10 June 2006 16:25 |
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| iztok wrote on Sat, 10 June 2006 18:33 |
Regarding time-frame: in early game I'd propose DD hull with 2 bazookas or single gattling, cheap engine and shield, and a fuel tank, if you don't have ISB. A CC is more damage-resistant, but also significantly more expensive, and so a tempting target for mainline warships.
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I was thinking even cheaper - FF with FM and 1 gattling. Crash sweep and disregard losses.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sat, 10 June 2006 20:45 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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When facing a SD, your sweepers have to be able to survive at least one std hit, preferably two. Otherwise they'll just die if the SD detonates the field, without doing any sweeping at all. Often that will take a few DDs in one fleet.
For a WM, a really nice sweeper is a BC with as many cloaks as you can stick on it, and then beams and shields, it's able to take quite a bit of damage, sweep a lot, and is 94% cloaked I think. Usually good enough for most cloaking, which makes sweeping fields a bit safer.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sun, 11 June 2006 00:36 |
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If foe has lots of shielded frigates, then larger numbers of destroyers with collodial phaser and sapper may be useful. Once in a while you can throw in a light missile boat for a good trap.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sun, 11 June 2006 05:23 |
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| LEit wrote on Sun, 11 June 2006 01:45 |
When facing a SD, your sweepers have to be able to survive at least one std hit, preferably two. Otherwise they'll just die if the SD detonates the field, without doing any sweeping at all.
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If I understand the order of events right, it would go something like this...
6. Sweepers move, hit mines, reduce MF size
10. MF detonates, but some sweepers are now outside the reduced field
24. Minelaying - field expands to include some sweepers
29. Minesweeping by surviving sweepers - field reduced again
Next turn...
6. Surviving sweepers run for cover
The point is to use crash sweeping initially, and then the gattlings on surviving sweepers keep the field size down.
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Sun, 11 June 2006 17:49 |
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I'm not sure the original post was about SD minefields, or just minefields in general. The super-cheap sweeper definately works against non-SD mines.
I've just been looking to find out how many mines crash sweeping takes out, and I can't find it anywhere. Can anyone give me a pointer?
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| Re: mine sweepers |
Mon, 12 June 2006 06:37 |
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A word of caution; there's a link in that thread to a version of the Posey spreadsheet at starsuniverse - don't follow it. You get a load of spyware stuff happening in your browser that you don't get a lot of control over.
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