Antaran Expeditions..

[Angmar]

Lets talk about X.

I have only barely started to explore this method of winning the game. I just discovered were to activate the explorations a couple days ago. I told it to send out a detachment to see what it could find. Many many turns later I get a message that "they" found something and were going to start digging. Turns later I heard that my ship was destroyed.

What Ship? I didnt seem to get to choose which ship went out. I could only pick the size of the detachment? Did it send out one of my Warships?

Turns later Im exploring building the ultimate in Point Defence / Picket ships ( a BB with lots of ECM and ECCM ) and I discovered the resarch lab special. Read up on it and says that it gives a +20 bonus for each lab for finding an X. Im excited! I finish off the BB and hop right back into the ship builder and I start working on a science vessel.

It was a BC with decent defence, light PD weapons ( Just in case it has to fight along the way .. ) and 4 ( I think ) research labs. Having just discovered the SuperDreadnaught tech ( which justified the BBs in the picket ). I started to build a couple SDN to augment the Warfleet. Then I queued up a couple of these Science vessels. Built a few and I went back to the Antaran X menu.

Again Im trying to figure out how to select my science vessels to send them out. Never did. Never sent out the a second expedition. Been stuck at work here ever since.. Sadness ..

Anyone have any knowledge to share?

Cheers,

 

[bladester]

I haven't had any experience with expeditions myself but I read somewhere that when you select the size of the task force it will choose the ships from the reserves to fill it up with.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[DaEezT]

I discovered 4 X's so far, all by doing expeditions. I designed 2 ships: a recon cruiser and a long range attack battle cruiser. Both have 1 laboratory and best shield/engine/cloaking + 1 weapon. But it seems like the expedition groups aren't bound by the same laws as task forces, so you don't need recon ships for groups of 6+ ships.
I lost about 2/3 of all ships so far, but they are cheap enough to mass produce so I don't mind that.
The ships for the expedition are taken from the reserve, but be warned: the ships are taken in alphabetical order!

 

[pterrok]

Taken by Alphabetical order?--I did not know that!

But it's cool--for this reason! If you read the RBMoo SG1 thread for Team A, Sirian has made a ship naming convention for his team to include the drive number so you won't make fleets with different speeds--thereby slowing the task force to the slowest ship.

He was putting the number at the end, but in my games I was putting it at the front! Plus, I am using USN Ship Designations so I was having things like 1C, 3B, 4BB, 5CV etc.

I had sent some Antaran expeditions out, but I could not pick what I was sending--which was annoying!--but if it's alphabetical, then I was sending my old, slow ships! Something useful to do with them. Talk about serendipity!

 

[Lucky]

It does not work alphabetically, at least not primarely. At first it will select your biggest scouts with research labs on them. Then going lower in size and nr. of research labs as well as picking other missions, too.

I´m not sure how high the AI values the research labs, it might very well be that non-scouts but with many labs are picked first.
In the end, it will fill up the task force with outposts and troopers.
Btw, I know that it does not really go by alphabet because my 4 taskforces were composed of dreadnoughts and battleships, as well as cruisers. I named them DN-X, BB-X and CH-X. In the beginning the DNs were long range and the BB IF missions, the CH were PD. He picked all DNs and then some BBs and CHs for the first 2 task forces. Later I changed the DN-X design to scouting, yet still had some BBs and CHs, but he only picked the DNs.

Your best bet is to create the biggest and fastest ships you have with as many research labs as you can as a Recon ship. Build as many as a taskforce is made of.

Letting it pick older ships is not a good idea. You should give the ships the fastest engine possible and the most research labs. Both will drastically decrease the time frame for a fully successful mission. The longer a mission takes, the more ships are lost and therefore the higher risk of failure you have.

Btw, if you are playing a nice game and think you are safe from an unexpected victory because you just sent 4 expeditions and got 4 Xs, do NOT destroy all Guardians.
I was really unpleasantly surprised when it told me that it discovered the 5th X. Right when I was researching tech levels 44 and up, meaning at the time of Behemoths and Leviathans. Well, at turn 340 something (IIRC) it was about time for finishing the game anyway.

 

[DaEezT]

Originally posted by Lucky
It does not work alphabetically, at least not primarely. At first it will select your biggest scouts with research labs on them. Then going lower in size and nr. of research labs as well as picking other missions, too.

I´m not sure how high the AI values the research labs, it might very well be that non-scouts but with many labs are picked first.
In the end, it will fill up the task force with outposts and troopers.

In my current game I had 2 ships called "Artemis" which where built for combat (thus no research lab on them) and several ships called Expedition I&II (one was recon, the other long range attack) both with 1 research lab each and now guss which ships where taken into my first expedition...
those 2 Artemis class ships took longer to build than 5 Expedition class ships

 

[Cantankerous]

I had 7 BC-hulled "X"-scouts equipped with 3 or 4 Research Labs each. I also had 6 older CL-hulled scouts with 1 research lab each.

I ordered a group of ships to go on an expedition (I selected a "Pack", which is 12 or so ships) and sent the expedition.

The next turn I looked at my ships in the reserve and noticed that all of my CL X-scouts were still in the reserves, and 6 of the 7 X-BC's were still there as well. I couldn't figure out what if anything else was gone from the reserve, but I couldn't help but wonder: WHY DIDN'T THE RESEARCH LAB-EQUIPPED SHIPS "DISAPPEAR" FROM THE RESERVES?

The manual says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this and the readme has no real information about the subject as well.

I really like the game (with a few little nit-picks), but it's frustrating that something SO IMPORTANT to the game--for crying out loud it's a victory condition--is not even discussed AT ALL in any printed information from the designers. And the in-game encyclopedia is worthless on the subject as well.

Anyone have any ideas as to what if anything I'm doing wrong?

 

[Bloog]

Maybe the game was designed for / tested using almost empty ship reserves. When I ever get to my Antaran eXpeditions, I guess I have to go through reducing my reserves to my expedition ships only.

A taskforce type "Ant Exp" would be great...

 

[Odin442]

What I do is wait for a new engine to come along, then redesign the important mission ships (IF, Long Range attacks, Recons, and sometimes carriers) to take advantage of the engine and then- and this is important- mark every other design obsolete. That done, I let the computer build what it will, toss off an armada expedition composed of the previous designs, and form task forces out of whatever is left in the reserves. This insures that I never have inferior ships in an expedition with current designs, and thus I never have to worry about what the computer is putting into my task forces.