Favorite ship defenses? (MoO2)

[scratchthepitch]

I guess the real problem with the Orion/Antaran techs is that they don't miniaturize.

I'll agree with you there. Though as you get higher in weapon level, the beams get more accurate, also, which helps compensate for the lack of miniaturization some. This is why lasers still miss a lot when you're using high level computers. I'm partial to death rays, even if they don't miniaturize. One hit from a heavy death ray tends to remove all the marines from whatever it hits and these weapons are excellent to attack planet bases with, since they get through all the shields with ease and do a lot of damage. I don't use particle beams much, unless it's still somewhat early in the game when I get them. The shield piercing is nice, but their damage potential is limited, and for ship attack, I'd rather use AP/AF mass driver types or enveloping types instead. For planet attack, I prefer beams capable of doing more damage.

 

[El_Machinae]

I've never enjoyed mobility defenses. I've never been able to 'feel' the benefits, since it merely changes ratios at which you're taking damage. In fact, I usually 'sell' ship defense, and rely on armour/shielding to win any battles.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I've never been able to 'feel' the benefits, since it merely changes ratios at which you're taking damage.

I've noticed that when my ships get a beam defense bonus of around 120-150%, most of the AI beam armed ships simply are unable to hit them. It was during a game a long time ago that I realized that, hey, these guys are not hitting my ships hardly at all, I might as well use the space I was using for HA and RH for more weapons. The Antarans, with their high level computers could always hit, though, so I continued to use planet bases and orbitals against their raids, instead of wasting ships on them. Ground batteries really clean up.

 

[creamcheese]

Ground batteries really clean up.

Isn't that the truth! I always find them the most annoying defenses to take out. Unlike the other planetary ones they have PD weapons and can shoot down missiles. This negates my usual strategy of mass MIRVed missiles to kill planetary defenses. Starbases have PD as well, but they don't have the spectacular damage reduction that planets get, nor the planetary shields that make all those defenses twice as annoying. Makes me almsot ready to put bombs on my ships .

 

[scratchthepitch]

Isn't that the truth! I always find them the most annoying defenses to take out. Unlike the other planetary ones they have PD weapons and can shoot down missiles. This negates my usual strategy of mass MIRVed missiles to kill planetary defenses. Starbases have PD as well, but they don't have the spectacular damage reduction that planets get, nor the planetary shields that make all those defenses twice as annoying. Makes me almsot ready to put bombs on my ships .

Usually I'm only using beams by the time I see AI ground batteries, so I never noticed they also had PD weapons. I thought it was only heavies, since that's what attacked my ships. Besides the annoyances which you mentioned, when ground batteries are allied with fighter garrisons and missile bases, the game doesn't let you pick which you would like to attack first. It selects it, and frequently puts GB the last on the list. If the AI has one of the later armors, that means 1000s of points of damage are needed to knock out these defenses. Add in a good computer, a battlestation and a typical AI 30-40 titan-battleship defending fleet and.....

Ground batteries are almost like having a star fortress at 1/10th the cost as far as the heavy beam compliment. Once I get these installed on a planet, then Antaran raids are no longer something to worry about since GB will take out Antaran cruiser raiders. I've never seen the Antarans advance to using battleships in their raids, I wonder if they do if you stretch a game out long enough?

 

[El_Machinae]

I find that it's missile bases that give the most benefit. The AI isn't very efficient in their anti-missile strategies, and so missile base creates a lot of defensive power for what you pay for it. For example, the Antarans die to my missiles very easily, even in the early game.

I hate fighter bases. They seem to just be extra armour for whatever is bombed after the fighter base is destroyed

 

[scratchthepitch]

I find that it's missile bases that give the most benefit. The AI isn't very efficient in their anti-missile strategies, and so missile base creates a lot of defensive power for what you pay for it. For example, the Antarans die to my missiles very easily, even in the early game.

I hate fighter bases. They seem to just be extra armour for whatever is bombed after the fighter base is destroyed

I find it's usually the opposite. Most of the time AI arms their ships with a lot of those anti-missile rockets. I cant get them to do much, but the AI seems to do fairly well with those rockets. If they attack with a couple of battleships, the missile base fails to stop them. I have better luck with fighter bases in that situation because the AI has a tougher time destroying fighters than missiles. When I have a choice between MB and FG, I generally build the FG 1st, if a planet is under threat.

A major failing in the game program is the lack of mirv on the missiles in the MB. I had thought that might be because mirv comes 2 tech levels after the basic missile tech for a given kind of missile and the program just selected what was available when the missile was first acquired. Modding experimentation showed that wasn't it, even when all the missile specials were available at the same time the basic missile is, the program does not put mirv on MB missiles. So it must be something intentionally left out by programmers.

Against Antarans, I've found the MB is good for fighting off the first couple of raids of 1 or 2 frigates, and fail on the 3 frigate raids. Fighter garrison is about equally effective. MB and FG can handle 3 Antaran frigates easily, or 1 destroyer (3rd and 4th raids) but can be overwhelmed by stronger attacks. At that point, I need a star base or battlestation.

 

[Sleestak]

Gotta say that I focus on attack rather than defense. MIRV nukes to clear out the homeland, and modded mass drivers to take the fight to the enemy. Sad thing is sometimes there are Meklars, the mass drivers have a hard time taking them out due to their auto repair. Even worse is when there are Psilons who trade around heavy armor, which negates my AP mod.

As for defense. I mostly rely on offense and the production capacity of a high population race. Whatever armor I have is good and heavy armor and reinforced hull is awesome. Usually take the latter, seldom have the former. Sometimes I don't bother much with shields until I can get the class sevens.

 

[neilkaz]

I probably use missiles considerably more than and beams lots less than anyone else who posts here and since these are 2 shot missiles I don't rely heavily on ship defense, especially early in the game.

I do usually want reinforced hull but that is about it until near the end game.

My favored early warship is the Nuke 18, which has battle pods and reinforced hull and 18 fully mod (except EMG as I won't have it by then) MIRV Nukes. If I've been forced to fight early and that often is the case playing Impossible Cluster map, I will have Trit armor as well.

Once I get to Zort armor I can make Merc 18's with 18 MIRV Mercs and these are real killers that are often effective well past turn 250 (Pre-Warp). If I took Pollution Processor instead of Mercs, then I make Nuke 36's until I can steal a better missile. Once I get EMG, I will often toss on a couple of fully mod EMG missiles.

As the game progresses, I won't use any serious defenses on ships until I get to Class 5 shields. Hopefully I've taken Orion by this point (thx EMG Mercs) and have Damper Field instead. I will also use Reflection Field if I have that. Of course without shields I need to worry about enemy EMG missiles.

I usually switch over to beam weapons once I have Death Ray from Orion or once I have Disrupters (preferably with one size reduction). Then my ships need to stand up in battle rather than shoot and scoot, so I need/want more defenses than just armor and reinforced hull. If I've stolen heavy armor I might use that as well.

Very occasionally I may go with earlier beams, perhaps if I was non-creative and had the right researches or perhaps if I stole just the techs I needed or am a race that has attack bonus. Then I want tougher ships to stand in battle and will hopefully have some ship defense techs.

My Star Bases in the early and mid game can suffer somewhat from lack of shields and lack of a good beam weapon, but at least they usually have Mass Drivers. Often if I see an attack coming I can rush buy an EMG destroyer or hopefully get a couple to the planet in time to help repel the early/midgame attack.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

My favored early warship is the Nuke 18.....Once I get to Zort armor I can make Merc 18's

Curious what size hull are you using for these?

 

[neilkaz]

Curious what size hull are you using for these?

These 18 MIRV missile guys are BB's (Battleships) with nothing else but Battle Pods and Reinforrced Hull. All missiles are 2 shot MV,FST,ARM,ECCM and 18 just fit.

With one more miniturization 23 fit and with two more miniturizations, 36 fit.

I'll play some when I get home. In this ongoing game, am rusty so playing an uber race, I went for pollution processors instead of Mercs hence building Nuke 36's now that I have Zort. Nukes don't do much of anything to the Guardian, so I need to steal a better missile to go after him with EMG or research Zeons and EMG a few of them.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

These 18 MIRV missile guys are BB's (Battleships)...

Thanks, I thought it was a big ship, but I wasn't sure if it was a battleship or a titan. It's very rare that I build either of those sizes before the mid game mark. The only times I do is when there is an AI race or two close by intent on war and they have massive fleets. That doesn't happen too often and most of the time a few cruisers are enough to defeat their attacks. I don't like to build star bases before I absolutely have to and prefer to stick to destroyer size up till the time Orion is captured. Star bases take too long for new colonies to build and I can usually fend off the AI with missile bases and fighter garrisons during the first half of the game. Until around mid game, battleships take too long to build and I have too few planets able to build them. The new colonies can build destroyers fairly rapidly, so I'd rather put them on those, or infrastructure improvements, than have them spend the time building star bases and capital ships. The home colony has a star base and a good production factor, but I'd rather they build colony ships (if I'm a builder), or cruisers, since I can build 2-3 cruisers or colony ships in the same time it takes to build a battleship. The same goes for the few colonies built up enough that they can build cruiser sized ships in a reasonable time frame. By the time I start building battleships, I have better computers and at least battle scanner, so I rely upon beams and just use a few missile armed ships for attacking planet bases and orbitals. In fact, when I get those items, that is when I usually begin building cruisers.

Nukes don't do much of anything to the Guardian, so I need to steal a better missile to go after him with EMG or research Zeons and EMG a few of them.

Interceptors don't hurt the Guardian much, either. But lots of bombers will, an alternate way of doing it if the missile tech isn't forthcoming.

 

[neilkaz]

@scratchthepitch

Yes, I try to take the time to make BB's, even rather early on and with 18 MV Nukes they rule the early game and easily take out SB's and allow conquest. I play the vanilla game, so I don't have the big CP boost from being warlord as in your mod so if I make a bunch of smaller ships I am suffering from major CP deficit.

That being said, sometimes I have to make ships quickly for defense or when and where I don't yet have SB's so then it is usually DD's that I make. A couple EMG 2's (Destroyer with two 2 shot MV,FST,ARM,ECCM,EMG Merc missiles) can typically defend vs a small enemy fleet and even one with a BB or two.

By going all missiles early to mid-game I don't need computers and can research the techs I want in that line and typically don't have anything other than the basic +25 comp until I get the final and best comp (+125). I also can postpone battle scanner research and hopefully steal it or tachyon comm since I want both in the early game. I've passed up battle scanner in a couple of games when I was running very poor due to massive CP override costs and simply had to have tachyon comm, but then my starbases couldn't hit anything much with beams etc.

If I played your mod where I have much fewer early CP issues and have some basic fighting techs at the start, I'd be using more smaller ships.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

neilkaz

I should take the time to build the larger ships, but I'm too impatient most the time to wait more than 10 or so turns for a ship to be built. I agree that having those large ships early makes conquest much easier. Another reason I should build them is that so they can gain experience. I forgot what the boosts are for attack and defense are for elite and ultra elite, but I remember they are pretty good. By mid game, the surviving destroyers that were built early in the game are ultra elites, while my heavies, just recently built are only veterans.

 

[neilkaz]

In my ongoing Mrrshan game, I made (in the 330-340 turn time frame) a couple Titans with X-armor, heavy armor, reinforced hull and automated repair unit and a couple other specials and I am surprised how hard they are to kill. They are sometimes taking 500 to 600 damage/turn but just healing right away. They also have class V shields and my weapons are currently heavy gauss cannons. Of course, I am making and mixing in other ships and some loaded with weapons and less defense.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

I made (in the 330-340 turn time frame) a couple Titans with X-armor, heavy armor, reinforced hull and automated repair unit and a couple other specials and I am surprised how hard they are to kill.

You probably just need one of those. Put aug engines and inertial nullifier or stabilizer on them and the AI wont even be able to touch them.