Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » sorry to bother: how viable are privateers
| sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 00:10  |
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 knightpraetor |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 154
Registered: October 2006 | |
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for transporting colonists or for use as military/transport ships
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 01:39  |
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| wizard |
 | Officer Cadet 3rd Year |
Messages: 279
Registered: January 2004
Location: Aachen, Germany | |
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| knightpraetor wrote on Sun, 15 October 2006 06:10 |
for transporting colonists or for use as military/transport ships
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Hi,
for military use: just don't use privateers. There are always better (cheaper!) ships for the same purpose.
for transport: yes, they have some use. Compared to Medium Freighters, they are cheaper in Germanium (that's the limiting factor in the first years!) and they can have much more fuel if you equip them with some fuel pods.
They also make on of my favorite colonizers.
They are used a lot for races that build factories, because they are germanium limited. Others (-f and AR) use the Medium Freighter instead. Of course, once Large Freighters are available, I don't build those any more (except as lightly cloaked colonizers, with two Super Stealth Cloaks and a colonizer pod).
HTH,
Andreas / wizard
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 01:48 |
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| knightpraetor |
| Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 154
Registered: October 2006 | |
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so is it not worthwhile to use the colony ship hull type to colonize since it transports so few?
[Updated on: Sun, 15 October 2006 01:48] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 01:49 |
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The privateer is the mainstay of growth early on. The most attractive feature of the hull is the very low germanium cost. You need to keep in mind that moving growth off the HW is the most important aspect of the early growth stage (i.e. the first 20 years). Nothing surpasses the privateer hull for this. The medium freighter is the only other hull usefull for moving population and, it has a much higher germanium cost (17kt vs. 2kt). All that germanium needs to be used for factory construction. Until con 4 is researched, a race may need to build some medium freighters for population movement but, the amount of those ships will be small and then they will simply be scrapped (or, as I do, I simply allow them to be used with a colonizer to colonize a planet - this scraps the freighters and provides a small amount of extra startup minerals).
The most common configuration for the privateer is your best engine and 3 fuel pods - fuel mizers are especially attractive. An alternate to this is 2 fuel pods and a cargo pod for 5000 more colonists. You need to get population to new colonies so they can grow.
Only after about year 35 or 40 will you begin to replace privateers with large freighters. An SS race may be using various rogue configurations and an HE may be using the meta morph hull instead of large freighters at this stage due to the additional versatility of the hulls.
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: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 01:59 |
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| knightpraetor |
| Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 154
Registered: October 2006 | |
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wow..so much useful info..i wish you had a site ptolemy..i'm trying to rewrite my understanding of teh game so i can play it better..also i have 7 friends playing..though i'm considering doing 12 next game..and i think a lot of them would like to play better and design better races next game..and while i've found a lot of useful info on race design..i wonder how many other basic expansion things i've missed. I did however realize to move excess pop off and to max out factories early on..though i have to admit i never considered a factoryless race before i came to these forums...anyways, any tips or links would be fine..i only have like 2 links to walkthrough so far..and i want to be able to send out stuff to teach the other players
PS- would still like to know whether it's worht using as a colonizer
[Updated on: Sun, 15 October 2006 01:59] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 02:01 |
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| Quote: |
so is it not worthwhile to use the colony ship hull type to colonize since it transports so few?
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Incorrect.
The simple colonizer is your main ship for setting down an initial poulation. Only in mid to later stages of the game would you consider stopping production of them.
Since you are limited to 16 ship designs, a combination freighter/colonizer later in the game may be preferable to using the colonizer hull. This does involve additional costs though.
Ideally, plan your ship usage strategy. You can figure on some of your 16 slots being used for the entire game:
1 slot for your minelayers - usually frigates (unless you are SD of IS - then you would be planning an additional slot for speed traps or, in the case of SD you may be using 3 or 4 of your slots for minelayers)
1 slot for remote miners (if you expect to be remote mining)
1 slot for freighters
1 slot for colonizers (at some point you may very well merge these 2 slots into a combination ship design)
2 slots used for trading scrappers if you have an ally.
1 slot for bombers
1 slot for chaff
This leaves you with 8 slots to work with for warships and you better make sure you have the necessary slots for warships or you can't fight. When your neighbor hits you with weapons 10 cruisers and you've just hit weapons 12 - it isn't going to help if you don't have a free slot to build ships with jihad missiles.
Ptolemy
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Sun, 15 October 2006 06:02 |
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and one slot for a scout...especially JoaT...the scout+fuel tank+mizer design lasts the whole game
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Tue, 17 October 2006 13:35 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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Scrapping during colonization returns 75% of the minerals, however, if you colonize, build a fort, and then scrap, you will get 80% back, so you may be better off waiting a few turns to scrap those freighters, the difference is minor however.
I tend to use the colonizer hull for colonizers till I get to my warp 10 LF, which normally has 2 wolverine shilds (assuming RS) and a colonizer.
Although I've never done it, Orca has recommend putting a shield on PVTs, so it can take a mine hit in groups.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Tue, 17 October 2006 18:07 |
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| Marduk |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| LEit wrote on Tue, 17 October 2006 13:35 |
Although I've never done it, Orca has recommend putting a shield on PVTs, so it can take a mine hit in groups.
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This would only be useful if you use privateers in groups - my normal method is to scatter them widely until I build large freighters. Most often I build them with a colonizer and two fuel pods, and start using them as my colony ships once I've got enough LFs. Prior to LFs I mostly stick with actual colony ships, only using the privateers when it makes a difference in the time to establish the colony (because of fuel, usually).
In the first couple of games I played I did arm my privateers, and it was useful. However, given the cost of arming all of them compared to the number of battles in which their armament saved them or at least let them inflict worthwhile damage on the enemy, it turned out to be a lot more efficient to build warships to escort them. And having fuel pods instead of weapons made them a lot better at their primary function.
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Wed, 18 October 2006 05:16 |
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| Quote: |
or military use: just don't use privateers. There are always better (cheaper!) ships for the same purpose
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For duel use, privateers can work early on. Armed privateer is more expensive warship and more expensive transport, but cheaper than warship+transport, and you can give an opponent a nice suprise.
Once you switch to large freighter, you can gate all the privateers into one horde to absorb damage as part of a larger attack fleet.
Easiet races to make this work are IS (early suprise horde attack+early range 2) and WM (battle speed bonus help compensate for slow privateer)
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Fri, 20 October 2006 00:30 |
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| JasonC |
 | Petty Officer 2nd Class
Stars! V.I.P |
Messages: 58
Registered: July 2006
Location: Arlington, MA | |
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I always make "Fathers" and "Mothers". Father is privateer, fuel mizer, 3 fuel pods, 2 tech 3 shields optional. Mother is the same without shield and with a colony pod in place of one of the fuel pods.
Range is comparable. The Mother is heavier and has one less fuel pod, but also doesn't need to come back.
These go warp 9 to 243 LY and warp 8 to more like 400 LY from the HW. They are the mainstay of the colonization drive.
Races without a way to get to con 4 rapidly will use two early types until they have them, but in very limited numbers. Those are medium freighter with mizer and one fuel pod, no shield - "Liner" - and the same with colony pod "Pod". Pods have limited range, but can extend it by pairing up with 1-2 Liners and sometimes other boosters (scout with fuel pod, or DD with 1 fuel and 1 maneuver jet e.g.).
Liners are looped to the nearest good world in order to be reused rapidly. On some turn when there are Liners returning, tech investment is dialed high enough to get con 4. The point is to face the research expense in a turn you don't need to build shipping.
Then the Fathers and Mothers take over. Liners handle repeat mineral shipments once privateers take their main job. Pods scrap themselves. Liners I'll scrap later or send on onbe-way colonizing missions.
Because they are Iron hungry, I sometimes have the Liners bring back the Iron from the surface of colonies - since they won't be making ships themselves for quite some time.
The homeworld "holds" at 25-33% of capacity, firing off colonizing freighters or privateers etc, until the autobuild lines turn green. Then I let it go up to 50% of capacity. Returning freighters generally have time to pile up as that happens, and if I haven't bought the con 4 yet I always will at that point.
Once at 50% of capacity with all factories and mines that can be operated at that level completed, the HW queue is completely cleared, "building nothing". All pop growth and mined Germanium is exported to the colonies as rapidly as possible. Any other "breeder" quality world - meaning 80% habitat or better - does the same.
Breeders are for growing pop. Leaving space on them while filling the lower value worlds, keeps pop growth high well into the midgame. The pop can operate just as many factories on a 33% world as on one of the good ones, but it doesn't crowd out any appreciably pop growth there.
The homeworld on its "half hold" produces shipping for the whole empire, researches essential tech (terraforming levels, large freighters, weapons when enemy are encountered, etc), modest numbers of early escort warships. And occasionally remote miners, up to 30 of them, to effectively "buy more mines" for the rest of the empire, especially to gather more Germanium. (A technique called "remote ramping" - the point being to build factories as fast as possible on good colonies by importing all the G, doing the mines only afterward).
Fuel is speed and speed is extra resources from more time on the ground building stuff, instead of wasted in space. The PVTs pay for themselves many times over this way.
As for small colonizers, I don't use them. They have decent range but save little in the way of resources or minerals compared to sending a full sized ship with a real load of pop. With HE races I use spore clouds, those are a special case. As are ARs who have no option in the matter. Everyone else can do better with larger ships.
The PVT in particular yields a huge G savings as a colonizer, compared to using small colonizers and medium freighters. Easier to use too. Only real cost in more iron, but by the time the HW is half-held and its mines are done to that level, that is no problem.
When I first get large freighters I will make a "Barge" design based on large freighter, mizers, shields, and fuel pods. Those are the workhorses until I get the engines for warp 10 large freighters. They fly half full o
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Mon, 23 October 2006 18:26 |
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| knightpraetor |
| Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 154
Registered: October 2006 | |
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so is it stil worth filling all small planets entirely first with AR races? I assumed it was, but since resources are based off planet value i wasn't sure
and second question: galleons: what should i use them for?
[Updated on: Mon, 23 October 2006 18:28] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Mon, 23 October 2006 20:56 |
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| knightpraetor wrote on Tue, 24 October 2006 08:26 |
and second question: galleons: what should i use them for?
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Here's a few things I've seen them used for:
Minelayers
Overcloakers
Cloaked minelayers
Late game gateable missile ships
Cloaked sweepers
Toughened freighters (jammed and shielded for carrying pop in assault fleets, often with freighter chaff for added protection)
EDIT: oh yeah, and as Marduk says below, scanner ships. You can mount more scanners (+ tachyon detectors for IS) on this hull than any other (non-PRT specific) hull, short of Nubians. Not to be ignored lightly, if you are fighting cloacked opponents.
[Updated on: Tue, 24 October 2006 01:40] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Tue, 24 October 2006 01:23 |
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| Marduk |
| Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| knightpraetor wrote on Mon, 23 October 2006 18:26 |
and second question: galleons: what should i use them for?
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Nothing, or everything. The thing I've used them for most often is a multi-role ship - minelaying and sweeping, highly cloaked scouts, and transports. Instead of seperate designs for each of these roles, I can manage with only one. It's expensive, so I only do this when I really really need the extra design slots or if I have enough of an economy that the expense is trivial (and feel I might have a need for the extra slots).
One caveat, they never seem to perform as well in combat as the numbers would indicate. I've used them as the main battle design (in consultation with my ally NeoGrendal, who was overly fond of them), and they flopped spectacularly. Pen and paper calculations were followed by extensive battleboard testing, all of which showed that we should have crushed our opponents. Evidently when it came to actual construction, some idiot worker forgot to install missile guidance systems or something of the sort. It's been a long time, but I think the galleons were 2xNexi Arm ships against 1xJ30 BBs, and I clearly remember that we didn't get above 10% accuracy in the two largest battles and seldom did better in the smaller skirmishes. We're talking hundreds of ships, so this was not a trivial statistical blip.
It was so completely ridiculous that Micha may even remember it after all this time. Though as he was on the other side and ended up winning that one, he might not - victory erases a lot of trivial memories.
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Fri, 10 November 2006 21:05 |
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| Marduk |
| Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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Greetings;
I forget what the name of the game was. My race name was probably the Archons and I was definitely an IT race - unfortunately my records were lost in a hard drive crash a couple of years ago. It was a beginner game, I think it would have been sometime in 2001 or 2002.
To refresh your memory, you were an SD race. I moved to an early lead, and allied to Grendel, who I believe was playing an SS race. VonKreedon was allied to Grendel and so was also on our side - though he kept his aid discreet to allow him to deny associating with us. You formed or joined a coalition against me, and were pretty much all the way on the west side of the map. We were coming from the east side of the map, and your only notable contribution to the fight for a long time was your minelayers. You were being fed technology from your partners while you built your empire (apparently you were an HP-style race) and ended up becoming a superpower while your allies were being slowly crushed by us.
When you reached Nubian tech, we had to decide between three to four years of massive research to match you, or building ships that calculations and battleboard testing said should beat you. Rather than give up space for five or six years (the extra time to allow for building Nubians once we got the tech), we chose to build the ships and research at a slower rate. When the actual battle came you annihilated us. Because continued battleboard testing made your victory look like a fluke, we built more galleons and tried again. Had we won either battle our odds of taking the game were at least decent. Once again, though, our missiles couldn't hit and we were crushed. We fought on for several more years, finally conceding the game to you when it became absolutely hopeless.
I wonder if we'd have had better luck with battleships... but doing the math made it clear that our best counter for the resource and mineral costs was galleons. And of course Grendel was very fond of them. We weren't expecting such lousy targeting.
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| Re: sorry to bother: how viable are privateers |
Mon, 13 November 2006 17:34 |
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| vonKreedon |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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I've had excellent use from Jihad Galleons early in the game, particularly in Slow Tech games, but once significant numbers of BBs have been produced the Galleons become either recycled or perhaps used in the skirmishing/mineral raiding role until they are all destroyed.
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I do remember the Archons. And that game would be the second "knife fight" game hosted by Justin Ho : Wild Knife Fight II - The Legend Continues. 