Another newb in need of help

[shoopi]

Hello everyone!

I just started playing Master of Orion 2 recently and I have to say this game is fantastic. However, being a noob and all, there are so may things in this game I still do not really know about. I was looking for an active forum on the internet and this seems to be the most relevant one... am I correct?


Anyway, I'm still grasping most of the basics, the merits of creative races, the advantages of production races etc... However, I'm having a few problems understanding fully the combat system, and more specifically the ship design tool. For example, while I've searched and found a few references, I still couldn't find a "simple explanation for idiots" regarding this:

Let's take missiles as an example. You have an option to change to Shots x2, Shots x5, Shots x10 etc... Now I'm not sure exactly what is the difference. Is it simply ammunition? However, there are more complications to consider. Basically what I'm trying to understand, is what's the difference between these three scenarios:

1. 2 Nuclear Missiles (5)

2. 5 Nuclear Missiles (2)

3. 1 Nuclear Missiles (2)
1 Nuclear Missiles (2)
1 Nuclear Missiles (2)
1 Nuclear Missiles (2)
1 Nuclear Missiles (2)


Also, Can I control how many missiles I may shoot at once? like unleashing all 10 missiles, or just a single missile every turn. This is basic stuff and I seem to not understand how it works. Another thing - If I just click on an enemy ship it seems to unleash everything on that ship. Can I somehow shoot a single missile on ship A, a second missile on ship B, and a beam on ship C? Sometimes when I try to fight my own battles instead of the AI, I'm not sure what to do, how to shoot specific weapons at specific ships, and how to know if I've already used everything this round that I could.

Here's another question that shows I have no idea how this game works.

Beam Weapons:
Mass Driver - Damage: 6 Cost: 5 Space: 8 Damage not reduced by range
Fusion Beam - Damage: 2-6 Cost: 4 Space 8 2x range damage penalties

So Mass Driver does more damage which is not reduced by range, while Fusion Beam does 66% damage which has a double damage penalty for range. What am I missing here?

As if the weapons themselves are not enough, next we have the weapon modifications... Here I just feel like I seriously have so much to learn yet. The effects for most modifications are understandable enough. For instance, a MIRVed missile seems to do 4x damage upon impact for double cost, which is pretty crazy. But I have no idea why an EMG missile which costs 4x is so good... Is there a full, comprehensive guide for all of this? including best modification to use with which weapons?

Finally, at what point to beam weapons become better than missiles? please, give me a specific set of research and build so that I can at least try to understand and crunch some numbers for comparison...

There may be more questions in the future but in the meantime, I highly appreciate any help I could possibly get! Thanks

 

[vmxa]

shoopi,

It is not common to be able to fire off more than 2 rounds of missiles, so 2 shot racks is what I use. Yes there are some cases to be made for a 5 shots, but mostly your missile boat will die before they fire 5 times.

You can use slots for missiles or beams. So you could go:

rack1- 2 shot nuke
rack2- 2 shot nuke
rack3- 2 shot nuke

or

any mix. Beams can be in slots with any number you can fit.

rack1 4 md
rack2 3 md
rack3 8 md

or rack1 15 md (mass driver)

You can select or deselect any slot during your round of combat. So you could fire a rack at individual targets or unload on one target. Sometime I do not fire all weapons in a round. Just select the weapon and it turn yellow or red. It can only fire at green iirc. Not really used that in years.

Mods are used by me, sparingly. I use Hv on my beams to stay at range to reduce the chance of getting hit by missiles.

Missile mods can be tricky, but I seldom use them. If I do it will probably be mirv and fast.

Beams over missiles the age old question. Just depends on when you go to action. Missiles is the best early, since you do not have a decent computer. Once you get one, then switch to beams.

You would have to be making battleships imo, to use beams.

 

[shoopi]

Alright, thanks for the answers.

When I click on a weapon it turns yellow (one click) or red (two clicks). What's the difference?

Also, one question was still not answered. Mass Driver seems much better than Fusion Beam, but they cost pretty much the same. What's the catch?

What is so good about Point Defense modification? Is it efficient against missiles/fighters? because you can shoot them with normal beams as well.

What's the deal with anti missile? because it's rather expensive. Does it destroy all the missiles in a single volley?

Believe it or not, I just realized that when you increase the quantity of a weapon in a certain slot, it will shoot all of it in a single round. That explains a lot of things... I used to think that a couple of missiles are in fact one because that's the way it looks like in the screen, until you hover your mouse on it and see there are a couple of missiles in a single volley.

 

[vmxa]

shoopi

"When I click on a weapon it turns yellow (one click) or red (two clicks). What's the difference?"

I can't recall, except that red will not shoot. Yellow may allow auto attack, never really noticed.

"Also, one question was still not answered. Mass Driver seems much better than Fusion Beam, but they cost pretty much the same. What's the catch?"

I never use Fusion, so not sure. Not saying they are bad, just never use them.

"What is so good about Point Defense modification? Is it efficient against missiles/fighters? because you can shoot them with normal beams as well."

PD is like you say, shoot down missiles or fighters. I use to fit them in early beam ships as the AI does like missiles. MD or Fusion are fine for. I tend to not use them now. I prefer to go for killing ships/planets and not defending.

"What's the deal with anti missile? because it's rather expensive. Does it destroy all the missiles in a single volley?"

I do not use them either. Rather have more weapons.


"Believe it or not, I just realized that when you increase the quantity of a weapon in a certain slot, it will shoot all of it in a single round. That explains a lot of things... I used to think that a couple of missiles are in fact one because that's the way it looks like in the screen, until you hover your mouse on it and see there are a couple of missiles in a single volley."

Very early and in tight fights the use of slots is so you can fire off dither missiles and then the damage missiles.

Works like this, nukes no mods go out first (shoot them first), AI tries its anti missile stuff. Then fire off the better missile, same round. The concept is that the junk missile are bait and the others get through.

Fire nuke slot, nuke slot, then fire modded missile. Could be nukes with mirv or mercs.

 

[shoopi]

Hmm. Wouldn't it be better to use a single armored missile instead of two normal missiles as a bait? It costs less.

If I understand it correctly, two missiles = 2 hits, one armored missile = 2 hits. Unless it's more complicated than that.

 

[vmxa]

I did not mean to imply you should use two, it was just a for instance. No real suggestion. You may in fact use 4 slots of the cheapest missiles and then pack in as many of your best missiles as you can fit.

You will probably choose the number based on the number of missile ships in the fleet. Remember their purpose is to absorb anti missile fire. So how much of that will you face in the battle?

If you face 10 ships, you need all of their anti missile fire to aim at your dither missiles. At least most of it, so the good stuff can get through.

I don't care about the cost as the difference is not going to make or break me. I care about the outcome. If the dithers did not do their job, it means I may lose the battle.

Anyway this is only an attempt to give you some feedback, not meant to be SoP for missile warfare. I leave that to players that use them more than I do.

I checked my old links, but did not find any stat guides still around. Just some overview stuff. There use to be some real detail.

Att Mooniacs guide or what I still have of it FWIIW.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Shoopi, welcome to the forum

Clicking on a weapon line and changing it from green to yellow will keep that weapon from firing the next time the ship fires on another. Once you do fire weapons with that ship, the yellow weapons will change to green automatically and you can fire them. Clicking on the line twice and changing it to red means those weapons will be prevented from firing until you click on them again to change them to green. The purpose of this is so you can fire some weapons before other weapons on a ship, and so you can stop weapons from firing altogether if you find you don't need those particular weapons for a battle. I'll give you an example of a tactic I use around midgame, which should help with some of your other questions about using weapons and their mods.

My ship is armed with heavy fusion with the enveloping and continuous mods. It has heavy mass drivers with autofire and armor piercing mods. Finally, it has 1 or 2 regular fusion with continuous and enveloping mods. 3 different kinds of beam weapons, to do 3 different jobs. Let's say it is a battleship, and the weapons are arranged like this:

slot1=1ea hvy fusion
slot2=1ea hvy fusion
slot3=1ea hvy mass driver
slot4=1ea hvy mass driver
slot5=1ea hvy mass driver
slot6=1ea hvy mass driver
slot7=1ea reg fusion
slot8=1ea reg fusion

For ship basics and specials for this kind of weapon suite, I would at least want about +100% hitting bonuses. That means at least the 2nd ship computer (+50%) and battle scanner (also +50%) or the 4th ship computer (+100) by itself. If you only have +75% (3rd computer), it's OK against the earliest ships, but if you come up against better ones, which is likely with some races, you may find you still miss too often.

Defensive and other specials would definitely be (shields and computers are in the upper left of the screen, and you click on them to change them):

1. Battle pods (for the 50% more space they add).
2. Any other hitting specials applicable to beams (at midgame, this would probably only be rangemaster unit, which improves hitting chances, and maybe structural analyzer, which adds 50% to the damage the beam does).
3. Class 3 shield.
4. Augmented engines or inertial stabilizer (these make the ship harder for the AI to hit and add to your defense).
5. Heavy armor or reinforced hull, or both (these are useful if you don't have aug. eng. or iner. stab. or the AI has good hitting tech, and you need all you can use for defense).
6. if you still lack range, you may need to add extended fuel tanks if you are planning on attacking AI systems, instead of just using the ship to defend your own.

Now that the ship data is laid out, let's go to the scenario itself. Facing this ship is an AI battleship which has already launched missiles. Let's say 4 of them. Moving my ship forward brings those AI missiles closer. I'll go as far as I can till I get the warning flag. I want to get close to that AI battleship. But before I attack the AI ship, I want to get rid of those missiles. That is what the regular fusion beams are for.

I click on the mass drivers twice, making those lines red, and then click on the heavy fusion beams twice, making them red. This leaves the the 2 regular fusion beams still green and ready to fire and I click on 1 fusion beam, making it yellow. The 2 fusion beams should take care of 4 missiles, easy, maybe even 1 fusion can do it. So making one yellow allows only the 1 fusion beam to fire. I click on the incoming AI missiles and the fusion gets 3 of them. Now the yellowed fusion beam has changed to green, and I click the AI missiles again. This fires the 2nd fusion beam and it destroys the last missile.

Next, I'll want to use the 2 hvy fusion. These have the enveloping mod, which hits all 4 shields on a ship, and once through, does 4 times the damage. It's main purpose is to remove the AI ship's shields so the hvy mass drivers wont be wasted doing that. Getting my ship close to the AI ship reduces the effect of the double range penalty fusion beams have. So I click on the hvy fusion beans once to turn them green, then click on the AI ship to fire them. This may not remove all the shields, depending on what kind the AI ship has, but it will greatly reduce the amount of mass driver damage they absorb.

Now we get to the last stage, firing the hvy mass drivers. I fit these with autofire because it triples the damage they do, and with armor piercing so they bypass the armor. With armor piercing, they don't have to destroy the armor to destroy the rest of the ship, so in effect, you only need to do half as much damage to the ship to destroy it. But also, you destroy things like weapons, ship specials and computers directly. The more damage that gets through the armor, the more of these that get destroyed. This means that if you are not able to destroy the ship that round, you will still destroy many of its weapons and/or its ability to hit. A ship without its computer will not hit much, even if it still has most its beam weapons. With both autofire and armor piercing, you have effectively made your mass drivers 6 times more deadly. You do 3 times the damage and only have to destroy half as many ship "hit points" to knock out the ship (essentially doing 2 times the damage), 3x2=6.

That is an example of one type of beam ship and its use around midgame. In the early part of the game, beams are not very useful for attacking ships or defending against missiles and fighters because the hitting percentage is still too low. That is when I use missiles and fighters, since they don't need those better computers and hitting specials to work well. With those early ships, I build lots of destroyer size (because they don't take long to build, and you don't need star bases), packed with as many missiles as I can fit, and no space used for defensive things.

You asked about the missile emg mod, this destroys the ships engines and causes the ship to explode. They are very powerful, as 2 direct hits from mirved Merculite missiles with emg can see off most any titan.

 

[shoopi]

Scratchthepitch, thanks a lot for all of that information and welcoming

Do you mind if I'll ask some more questions?

I would at least want about +100% hitting bonuses

Oh yes, the only problem for non-creatives is that the 50% computer comes at the expense of research lab (not going to happen), and the 75% one comes at the expense of supercomputer (fat chance, unless I'm about to launch a quick attack). Even the 100% computer comes at the expense of autolab and another useful thing if I recall, however at this point I might have enough of an advantage to go all aggressive.

I want to get rid of those missiles. That is what the regular fusion beams are for

Wouldn't PD fusion beams be better in that case? or perhaps not, because you already have 100% beam attack...?

So making one yellow allows only the 1 fusion beam to fire...

Unless I'm mistaken, I thought that beams automatically stop firing when their target has been destroyed. I seem to recall shooting 10 fusion beams or something like that on a pack of 6 missiles or so, destroying all missiles and still having 7 fusion beams left.

Next, I'll want to use the 2 hvy fusion. These have the enveloping mod, which hits all 4 shields on a ship, and once through, does 4 times the damage. It's main purpose is to remove the AI ship's shields

This is where I really think I'm missing out on something... Firstly, since enveloping does 4 times the damage once the shields are out, wouldn't it be the best time to use it then?

Secondly (if that is even a word), shields have 4 sides, and I thought all you really need is to take down one side - then anything you shoot from that side will get through. So what is so great about draining all 4 sides completely? is it just to reduce the shield regeneration effect?

With armor piercing, they don't have to destroy the armor to destroy the rest of the ship, so in effect, you only need to do half as much damage to the ship to destroy it

I remember reading somewhere that using armor piercing is generally a bad idea. This is because if the opponent has heavy armor, it will completely negate the effect. If the opponent does not, he will usually have reinforced hull - in this case, the armor consists of only 25% of the ship's hit points, and the structure consists of 75% of the ship's hit points. A simple mathematical calculation shows that paying 50% extra to skip the armor means you're doing less damage overall (or paying more). So the only scenario where AP is more effective than not having it, is when the opponent has neither heavy armor nor reinforced hull. This is a rather rare case, although it does happen against non-creative AIs. So I suppose it's a little bit of a gamble, and you do have the shields to take out as well, even if that is not a difficult task.

2 direct hits from mirved Merculite missiles with emg can see off most any titan

I understand these hit the engine directly. The game shows how much hit points the armor / structure have, but is there anyway to tell how much hit points the engine has? so that I can tell exactly how much damage I need to do using EMG to destroy a ship.

Perhaps you can also answer these questions...

Just to make sure I understand correctly - Assuming I hit a volley of 18 normal nuclear missiles with a single gauss cannon, they all get destroyed right? It does seem like later on missiles become obsolete when beams that actually hit can absolutely shred them apart.

Second question - Normal nuclear missiles have 1 hit point, do more advanced missiles have more hit points?

Finally - Do beams with enveloping mod do more damage to missiles / fighters?

That's it. Again, I appreciate you guys helping me so much. Thanks a lot!
I would also like to note that I've found an abundance of useful information here: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares

Hopefully I'm starting to get the hang of this game

 

[Tristan_C]

I understand these hit the engine directly. The game shows how much hit points the armor / structure have, but is there anyway to tell how much hit points the engine has? so that I can tell exactly how much damage I need to do using EMG to destroy a ship.

The systems' integrities can be viewed when scanning a ship. You will see the hitpoints, it will be in small writing, looking something like (16/16) for example. Systems don't have many hitpoints, but obviously, you are unlikely to hit them without bulky stuff like emg or ion cannons. I did a test to see if attacking a ship from behind increased the likelihood of standard weapons doing damage to the drives, but I couldn't find anything conclusive.

 

[Serutan]

Unless I'm mistaken, I thought that beams automatically stop firing when their target has been destroyed. I seem to recall shooting 10 fusion beams or something like that on a pack of 6 missiles or so, destroying all missiles and still having 7 fusion beams left.

For ships, yes. Not so much for planets. When blasting planet installations, it seems
to fire everything even if only a fraction of the firepower is needed to eliminate the
last installation. The remaning shots go towards depopulating the planet, which
may or may not be desireable depending on your playstyle.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Oh yes, the only problem for non-creatives is that the 50% computer comes at the expense of research lab (not going to happen), and the 75% one comes at the expense of supercomputer (fat chance, unless I'm about to launch a quick attack). Even the 100% computer comes at the expense of autolab and another useful thing if I recall, however at this point I might have enough of an advantage to go all aggressive.

Since you were writing about using creative, I was tailoring the advice to that situation. You'll find the tech tree to require a lot of sacrifices if you don't have creative. Once using a non-creative or an uncreative race, you get those problems. There is two ways I know to solve such a dilemma: be very aggressive and gain tech through conquest or try and spy to get the tech. The former requires building warships early and keeping on the offensive throughout the game. With the latter, it's a good idea to research techs that give spy bonuses (if you can, uncreative doesn't give you a choice and is essentially defaults to a very aggressive play style). If using a custom race, the repulsive trait will allow you to spy on other races. Without the repulsive trait, spying will usually get you attacked in response. So, if you want to rely upon spying, with a custom race, it's a good idea to to select repulsive, avoid uncreative (so you can select the spy techs when they become available for research), and use your spying as part of your research.

Wouldn't PD fusion beams be better in that case? or perhaps not, because you already have 100% beam attack...?

I used to use PD beams a lot to defend against missiles and fighters, but found out regular beams were more effective. PD weapons don't knock out as many missiles or fighters as regular beam weapons do. They also are very limited in range in comparison, you need to get much closer to the target to have any effect. The regular sized beams also have the advantage that they can attack ships and orbitals much more effectively. About the only time I use PD beams is when I design a ship that has only enough space left over for a PD beam after I've outfitted it with all the other goodies I wanted it to have.

Unless I'm mistaken, I thought that beams automatically stop firing when their target has been destroyed. I seem to recall shooting 10 fusion beams or something like that on a pack of 6 missiles or so, destroying all missiles and still having 7 fusion beams left.

That's true, but if you only have 2 or 3 beams firing, the game will usually not leave any able to fire, even if one had done the work. Firing them one at a time is more of a tactic to use when you only have a couple beams able to attack, or you are outclassed and need every damage point you can get.

This is where I really think I'm missing out on something... Firstly, since enveloping does 4 times the damage once the shields are out, wouldn't it be the best time to use it then?

Secondly (if that is even a word), shields have 4 sides, and I thought all you really need is to take down one side - then anything you shoot from that side will get through. So what is so great about draining all 4 sides completely? is it just to reduce the shield regeneration effect?

Enveloping weapons only get the damage times 4 advantage once all 4 shields are down. If one is down, normal damage is applied, while the 3 remaining shields absorb the rest. Likewise, if 2 shields are down, the damage is twice (I think), the 2 remaining shields absorbing the rest, and so on. Any weapon can remove 1 side of a shield if it does enough damage to over come it. The problem is that often it may take more than 1 ship to destroy another, and those may not be facing the side with the down shield. I run into that problem pretty often. As non-enveloping weapons can not take down more than 1 side, enveloping, with it's saturation ability to whittle away at all sides has a clear advantage in that respect. Enveloping beams don't have the armor piercing mod, so they do need to punch through a ship's armor. With fusion, and their low damage potential, this makes them a better shield remover than ship destroyer. Later, with plasma cannons, they do enough damage, especially with the ship specials that multiply damage, that plasma with the enveloping mod, is really all you need to finish the game.

I remember reading somewhere that using armor piercing is generally a bad idea. This is because if the opponent has heavy armor, it will completely negate the effect. If the opponent does not, he will usually have reinforced hull - in this case, the armor consists of only 25% of the ship's hit points, and the structure consists of 75% of the ship's hit points. A simple mathematical calculation shows that paying 50% extra to skip the armor means you're doing less damage overall (or paying more). So the only scenario where AP is more effective than not having it, is when the opponent has neither heavy armor nor reinforced hull. This is a rather rare case, although it does happen against non-creative AIs. So I suppose it's a little bit of a gamble, and you do have the shields to take out as well, even if that is not a difficult task.

Heavy armor does negate AP, likewise hard shields will negate a shield piercing weapon. This is one of the plusses of this game, that you can pick tactics to get around the AI, and if you don't pay attention to these, you can experience consequences. Often the AI don't have heavy armor, there are only 2 creative races who get all the techs, and you can check whether your next likely opponent has it and plan accordingly. With AP vs reinforced hull, not having to deal with the armor as you whittle away at the rest is still a great advantage, for the cost and space requirements of the AP. The AP mod also works against armored missiles, allowing more of these to be knocked out per weapon used.

I understand these hit the engine directly. The game shows how much hit points the armor / structure have, but is there anyway to tell how much hit points the engine has? so that I can tell exactly how much damage I need to do using EMG to destroy a ship.

The structure of a ship seems to be equally divided between inert ship structure (basic construction) and the items the ship has aboard, like weapons, engines, computers, etc. I don't know any exact figures to quote, but 2 mirved merculite missiles with EMG that hit the guardian full on (shield down quadrant) will destroy it. Knock out the shields first, then hit the ship with 1 or 2 EMG missiles, I think will destroy most AI ships. Ion pulse cannons work on the same principle, and can be considered as the beam weapon version of missile EMG.

Just to make sure I understand correctly - Assuming I hit a volley of 18 normal nuclear missiles with a single gauss cannon, they all get destroyed right? It does seem like later on missiles become obsolete when beams that actually hit can absolutely shred them apart.

No. The most I've ever seen a single beam weapon do to missiles or fighters is to destroy 4 of them. This is why I use fusion or mass drivers (with all their mods), they use less space and are cheaper, but do the same as the later weapons.

Second question - Normal nuclear missiles have 1 hit point, do more advanced missiles have more hit points?

I have read that armored missiles have 10 HPs, but I cant remember what the HPs of unarmored missiles are, if it was ever listed. 1 hp seems too low, though. I don't think more advanced missiles get extra HPs, but that is only a guess.

Finally - Do beams with enveloping mod do more damage to missiles / fighters?

Yes. My experience is fusion with continuous and enveloping work a little better on fighters, while mass drivers with armor piercing and autofire are a little better against missiles. This might be because the AI commonly armor their missiles.

I would also like to note that I've found an abundance of useful information here: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares

Thanks for that link, I'll check it out.

vmxa

Also thanks for the link you posted

 

[shoopi]

Oh wow, thanks for answering all my questions It's great.

I'm curious, why is it that spying without the repulsive trait gets you attacked? I'm asking this because I almost always play with repulsive, and this gives me even further incentive to stick with it. Although, creative races don't really need offensive spying. Still I find the -6 picks from repulsive too good to pass on, the only real alternative is low-G which I dislike, because it quite hinders your game until you get the appropriate research.

By the way, do people still play this game online? I don't really plan on doing that, but I was just wondering.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I'm curious, why is it that spying without the repulsive trait gets you attacked? I'm asking this because I almost always play with repulsive, and this gives me even further incentive to stick with it.

Dunno why, it's just the way the game is set up. It's a nice trade off for not being able to do research and trade treaties.

Although, creative races don't really need offensive spying.

Spying while creative is a waste, but ironically with creative, you get the spy techs you desperately need that you have to sacrifice other important techs for if not creative.

Still I find the -6 picks from repulsive too good to pass on, the only real alternative is low-G which I dislike, because it quite hinders your game until you get the appropriate research.

If you have creative, the hindrance from low gravity is only a temporary set back. I use this negative trait all the time with creative, and especially with telepathic, since you don't need to use ground troops to take a planet. It doesn't take long before you get the gravity generator and then it's only 1 extra building to build on colonies, a building you need to build around half the time anyways.

By the way, do people still play this game online? I don't really plan on doing that, but I was just wondering.

I think they do, but I've never tried it myself, as I'm a s-l-o-w player. I believe the versions of the game with the 1.40 patch, from Good Old Games, and along with some mods are designed to be played online.

 

[vmxa]

I mostly use repulsive, but iirc you can still be attacked for spying, without or without that trait. It is more a function of your relative strengths.

Last I knew Moo2 had players doing online matches. That was only 2 years ago, so may not be true now.

 

[shoopi]

If you have creative, the hindrance from low gravity is only a temporary set back. I use this negative trait all the time with creative, and especially with telepathic, since you don't need to use ground troops to take a planet. It doesn't take long before you get the gravity generator and then it's only 1 extra building to build on colonies, a building you need to build around half the time anyways.

Assuming you also go for a government, Creative + Telepathic + Unification I presume?

Low-G with or without Creative is a perfectly sound option, as diplmocay can go a long way and the disadvantages of Low-G may be nullified in the long run. By the way, boarding ships with telepathic is awesome, but I don't think you can bypass the -10 from Low-G when boarding / defending ships.

When taking telepathic, I just find blitzing the most effective. That usually means TeleUni + useful picks, ranging from spying bonus for sabotaging starbases, homeworld bonuses such as large rich artifacts, and more unique strategies such as trans dimensional. This blitz strat is almost too effective against the AI - you don't need to build a single colony ship and you will win in about 80-120 turns (impossible large 8 pre-warp). This is why I will generally not mix telepathic with creative - which is also bulky, and gives you a slower start in return for a dominating middle-endgame. Also, with creative you will have a huge ground troops advantage eventually anyway. It's just a matter of play style at the end of the day though (that's what so great about this game).

Regarding spying and repulsive, I think that with the repulsive trait, every successful espionage / sabotage where you get blamed just lowers that AI's diplomacy relation towards you, which might result eventually in war. However without repulsive, the AI seems to get really annoyed and declare a war on you much quicker.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Assuming you also go for a government, Creative + Telepathic + Unification I presume?

Sometimes, but using dictatorship or feudal, and using the points saved for other traits is also fun.

By the way, boarding ships with telepathic is awesome, but I don't think you can bypass the -10 from Low-G when boarding / defending ships.

That -10% gets buried by midgame by all the troop bonuses you get with creative. It's not that noticeable. Ship and orbital capturing needs several techs before it is really good for steady use. In the early game, sometimes you get lucky and disable a ship and have enough marines on ships able to reach it that turn. Often the AI will explode their disabled ships the next turn, so if you cant board the same turn it got disabled, it's wise to keep your ships maybe 8-10 squares away, or they could be damaged or destroyed by the AI ship self-destructing. Once you get neutron blasters, you can whittle down the marine numbers on an opposing ship first, then board. Same, only much better with death rays. This more than compensates for weak marines of your own, a ship with 0 marines is automatically captured when boarded. Besides neutron blasters and death rays, assault shuttles and teleporters are good techs for ship capturing. There are 2 races problematical for captures, Bulrathi, because of their bonuses from the heavy gravity trait, and Antarans, because they have all the techs. Killing off a ships marines will negate the Bulrathi advantages, but to capture Antarans, you need lots and lots of boarders because you cant kill off their marines using ship weapons because Antarans use damper fields instead of shields. You need at least 10 boarders for every Antaran marine aboard the ship.

When taking telepathic, I just find blitzing the most effective. That usually means TeleUni + useful picks, ranging from spying bonus for sabotaging starbases, homeworld bonuses such as large rich artifacts, and more unique strategies such as trans dimensional. This blitz strat is almost too effective against the AI - you don't need to build a single colony ship and you will win in about 80-120 turns (impossible large 8 pre-warp). This is why I will generally not mix telepathic with creative - which is also bulky, and gives you a slower start in return for a dominating middle-endgame. Also, with creative you will have a huge ground troops advantage eventually anyway. It's just a matter of play style at the end of the day though (that's what so great about this game).

One other advantage from telepathic is you don't need to lug around those short ranged transport ships (transports don't have the extended fuel tank range). That means you can capture systems further away quicker, without having first secure a route your transports can use to get there.

Regarding spying and repulsive, I think that with the repulsive trait, every successful espionage / sabotage where you get blamed just lowers that AI's diplomacy relation towards you, which might result eventually in war. However without repulsive, the AI seems to get really annoyed and declare a war on you much quicker.

I found, without the repulsive trait, that about half the time I got a tech through spying, the victim immediately declared war. The rest of the time they either canceled treaties, or gave a warning. Once I got a 2nd tech, they almost always declared war. It seemed very rare they did not catch me at it. Because of that, I didn't spy unless I was about to go to war against them.

 

[Serutan]

One other advantage from telepathic is you don't need to lug around those short ranged transport ships (transports don't have the extended fuel tank range). That means you can capture systems further away quicker, without having first secure a route your transports can use to get there.

A third is not having to deal with those annoying whack-a-mole revolts
that always start happening just as you're about the capture the final couple of
planets of an AI civ (when on Impossible).

 

[scratchthepitch]

Yeah, those too.

I found that dumping lots of troops on the planet usually prevents them succeeding. Generally having a few more troops than pop on the planet will stop the rebellions. Against Bulrathi, this doesn't always work because their enhanced ground stats give them much better odds of winning a rebellion.

 

[Darza]

Just a short reply on most obvious mistakes. Can write more in case of activity will be produced. Creative in classix moo is pretty weak pick even for 6. PD weapon are much better than normal beams in 97% of cases. Missile's mods should be always present at max, except special cases like anti-monster fleet (and possible some special anti-AI fleet exploits too), exept mirv and emg (usually you need some non-mirv dummies at first slot and usually only one emg slot). And if played right - the game is over around t100 from prewarp on huge 7 AI's.

PS. Ah yes, missile HP's (from Gontzol, http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/197873-master-of-orion-ii-battle-at-antares/faqs/16743, its about 80% correct, so can be useful for you). And yes, AP is pretty useless mod, and it doesnt affect missiles.
ARM non-ARM
Nuclear Missile 8 4
Merculite Missile 14 8
Pulson Missile 20 12
Zeon Missile 30 16

 

[shoopi]

Hey Darza, thanks for contributing to this thread.

Creative is a pretty weak pick...

I agree with you about this. I also believe it is simply inferior if your goal is to have a quick win. However, it does have it's merits if you're going for a longer game, so it could also be a matter of preference and play style. Personally, winning my first 8 player impossible game ASAP with a blitz race using telekinesis etc was really fun. But doing this over and over again is not really fun. Winning as soon as possible isn't the only way to play this game

PD weapon are much better than normal beams in 97% of cases

I would really like to know why. The way I see it, PD beams cost half as much, and do half damage, so this more or less balances out (however, PD will be less efficient against shields). PD beams get 25% bonus to hit, but their range is halved. So again, this is pretty much balanced. What am I missing here?

Missile's mods should be always present at max

Hmm, what if you only use a couple of armored missiles in the first slot, so the rest can be unarmored and save up some space? At least when playing against the AI, if I shoot 10 missiles, for instance, I know at least 5 missiles will hit, Sometimes 7-8.
Also, this might count as an AI exploit, but occasionally (especially early on) the opponent does not have ECM at all, so ECCM might be unnecessary.


I have a few more noob questions.

- When a ship explodes it damages all nearby ships / projectiles. How is the damage calculated for missiles and fighters? for instance, if I have 10 armored nuclear missiles (80 total health) in a single stack, and there is an explosion of 40 damage. will half of the nukes be destroyed, or all of them (as if each missile was damaged individually)?

- If the maximum power of my shield is 40 for example, does it mean 40 total for all sides (as in 10 power for each side), or is it 160 total for all sides (as in 40 power for each side)?

- I heard there was a bug with interceptors regarding wrong damage calculated for Mass Driver (lower than Fusion Beam). How to fix this bug? I have patch 1.31 installed.

Thanks.