Fighters Supreme

[Aroddo]

I usually avoid Fighters because they are prone to proximity kills.
Last time however, I used them from the start because I figured, that the amount of exploding titans is very low in the early game. And they do pack quite a punch, even with lasers.

And the result: You need about 2-3 destroyers with battlepods, fighters and laser tech to kill a starbase.
They perform even better than x2 mirv nukes in early conquest.

I conquered the universe using only fusion beam technology fighters (didn't even get to bombers) and they overwhelmed everything, including space crystals and hydras (for eels and dragons I recommend mirvs).

And they scale well, too. Basically you only need to design your carrier once, since all relevant upgrades (better PD weapons) are applied automatically... and the carrier is relatively unimportant, since it's only duties are to deliver and survive/flee.


The race I used in a pre-warp game:
Unification, Telepathic, Transdimensional, Artifact Homeworld
Low Gravity, -10 Espionage, -10 Ground Combat.

Tech for Research Center and Automated Factory, then the tech for a first standard scout. Get lasers, tech to Battle Pods, then build 1 cruiser and 2-3 destroyer carriers.
Conquer.

And if necessary it's always easy enough to transition to beam or missile ships later.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I find fighters very useful early in the game. Fighter armed destroyers are cheap and can be built on most planets in short time. Typical example:

With battlepods and extended fuel tanks: 2 interceptors + 1 2 shot missile (nuke or merc)

For attacking monsters, I remove the shields since these don't help against their weaponry. Against other ships, I keep the shields and replace the missiles with the best defensive beam I can fit. If systems are close enough to dispense with the extra fuel, I can usually squeeze another interceptor in if I leave off the shields and the other weaponry. If battlepods are not available, you can fit only 1 interceptor (plus shields, missile or beam) if extended fuel tanks are needed. If you don't need the extra fuel, you can barely fit in 2 interceptors. If you have scout lab, then equipping one of the destroyers in a fleet with it gains a nice boost against the monsters (and Antarans) for the rest of the ships. These early carriers can also defend against the first couple of Antaran raids, if the planet being raided lacks a fighter garrison or missile base.

When attacking monsters, I use at least 6 of the battlepod equipped ships (prefer 8-10) to take down eels, crystals and amoebas. Against dragons and hydras, I use 12. The first 3 monsters usually only destroy 1 or 2 of these ships. Dragons may get 1 or 2 more. Hydras are the toughest and usually destroy 5-6 of the attackers. If the ships don't have battlepods, then I use at least 50% more ships.

I've had good results using these early carriers against early ships and star bases, also. By around mid game, I usually have switched to beam armed ships. I'll keep a couple cruiser carriers (armed with fighters and missiles) to attack planet defenses and as back-up for the beam ships.

When fighting against fighters and missiles, I find regular enveloping, continuous fusion beams and autofire, armor piercing mass drivers work very well. The fighters are much tougher to destroy than missiles, especially early game. A great thing about interceptors is they can be used to attack missiles and other fighters. In the early game, this is very useful since beams mostly miss till you get around +100% hitting bonuses.

Low Gravity, -10 Espionage, -10 Ground Combat.

I almost always used those negative picks on every custom race I played.

 

[neilkaz]

@Aroddo... quite an interesting blitz race. "The race I used in a pre-warp game:
Unification, Telepathic, Transdimensional, Artifact Homeworld
Low Gravity, -10 Espionage, -10 Ground Combat."

Unification for production and farming and to help alleviate the -10 spying so your techs aren't swiped asap. Telepathic is great for blitzes and we all know and helps spies as well. Telepathic also means that you don't care that your ground troops really suck due to LG and the usual -10 GC. Transdimensional means better ship defence and your carriers can scoot away quicker, and be less vulnerable due to the lack of reinforced hull (since you went fighters).

What size map do you typically play and how many players? (I usually go Cluster and 8) so blitzing can run out of steam sometimes.

LG is a big negative when you start colonizing other worlds since they build up slower, but as a blitzer you aren't making that many new colonies.

Nicely thought out race and strats .. neilkaz ..

 

[vmxa]

What is th point of the AWH? A teleblitz should not do research and not need AW. Something like:

Tel/TransD/RHW/LHW/Prod+2/Feud/Rep or
Tel/TransD/RHW/Omi/Warlord/Feud/Rep

The OMI is to let you see the map and make the fastest routes and prep any needed outpost. Rely on the other guys planets to provide tech. Your HW only makes ships.

No interest in spies issues as you have little to steal. Game is over before much research is done anway.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Think I would rather use uni/tel/+2 prod/RHW/uncrea/rep. Feud gives the reduction in ship costs, but uni and +2 prod have got to at least double production output. To add omni, go with +1 prod, you're still going to have a very high output.

 

[Aroddo]

When fighting against fighters and missiles, I find regular enveloping, continuous fusion beams and autofire, armor piercing mass drivers work very well. The fighters are much tougher to destroy than missiles, especially early game. A great thing about interceptors is they can be used to attack missiles and other fighters. In the early game, this is very useful since beams mostly miss till you get around +100% hitting bonuses.

I usually fire of my fighters and then turn the ship around to draw missile fire as long as possible before warping out the ship that's being targeted. The other ships then draw fire until the enemy is toast.
I barely ever see fighters engage missiles, mostly because I sick them on the enemy immediately. I'll try keeping one squad in reserve next time.

I almost always used those negative picks on every custom race I played.

For giggles I played a telepathic transdimensional HG Ground +20 once. Fly scouts to space station, capture, control, shoot up enemy ships with his own space station.
But this way is better.

@Aroddo... quite an interesting blitz race. "The race I used in a pre-warp game:
Unification, Telepathic, Transdimensional, Artifact Homeworld
Low Gravity, -10 Espionage, -10 Ground Combat."

Thanks, it worked out quite well. Transdimensional is speeding the game up quite nicely.

What size map do you typically play and how many players? (I usually go Cluster and 8) so blitzing can run out of steam sometimes.

Always maximum players and largest map.

LG is a big negative when you start colonizing other worlds since they build up slower, but as a blitzer you aren't making that many new colonies.

Nicely thought out race and strats .. neilkaz ..

LG is actually less of a problem than I originally thought it would be. The -25% worker penalty on normal gravity planets is annoying but not crippling. And since the whole point of a teleblitzer is letting your slaves do all the real work, your starting race can suck as much as you like.

What is th point of the AWH? A teleblitz should not do research and not need AW. Something like:

Tel/TransD/RHW/LHW/Prod+2/Feud/Rep or
Tel/TransD/RHW/Omi/Warlord/Feud/Rep

The OMI is to let you see the map and make the fastest routes and prep any needed outpost. Rely on the other guys planets to provide tech. Your HW only makes ships.

No interest in spies issues as you have little to steal. Game is over before much research is done anway.

AHW is for the initial tech boost. The whole point is to get the most important early techs as fast as possible to catch the other races unprepared. Early tech means early scouting and that makes up mostly for lack of Omniscience. Late game the conquered will do research, which is why I picked AHW instead of +1 research for the same price.

Think I would rather use uni/tel/+2 prod/RHW/uncrea/rep. Feud gives the reduction in ship costs, but uni and +2 prod have got to at least double production output. To add omni, go with +1 prod, you're still going to have a very high output.

Uncreative could leave you without fighter tech, which was pretty much the point of this particular game.

 

[vmxa]

The whole point is to win the game as fast as possible, hence the term blitz. No need for research. Omi is to find the fastest way to get to them. If you are going to research, no need for tele or transd.

74 turns in a large map all dead. That was not my game as the best I ever did was about 80 turns, but I did not try it that many times as it gets pretty boring. The longer the game goes the less value there is to being a tele, so research just negates that trait.

 

[Aroddo]

i played pre warp on a huge map, though. no 80 turns in that scenario.
took me 200 and it was a bad start with no one around me. ok, omi would have sped that one up, granted, but i'd rather keep AHW than trans for such games, i guess.

 

[vmxa]

I was talking about prewarp as well. A tele not using prewarp is hurting themselves. It is predicated upon getting to them before they have good defense.

 

[vmxa]

From Robber Barron on Atari website

"Settings: -50 Growth PHW Low G Uni (6) Creative (8) Tele (6) Huge PreWarp Min Rich Age 8 players Impossible Anties ON Tactic Combat Random On.


I get irriatated when people doubt what I say, so I will be sending you my start and ending saves of this game I'm going to log for ya. YOUR simple log was WAY too complex. I ended with 49 planets, so rather than show you every turn what every planet is doing I'll just tell you my system.

IF I'm building Auto Factory/ Research Lab/ Robo Miner/ Super Computer/ Auto Lab ALL people but the farmers are building these after these are built I switch to 1 person for industry and the rest (except farmers) are doing science. A couple of exceptions are at the begining I build RL then switch to 1 guy for building robo miner (IF AF is already built other wise its AF then RL then the 1 guy on robo) usually I have to finish up the robo miner with full work force first before I start building the Super computer. All other techs have just one guy working to build them all the time. The other exception is for my builder, in this case two builders. These have full work force working ALL the time.

Remember this is Advanced Civ, So I have 5 planets and three ships. Two BC and one destroyer.

I apologize in advance for boring anybody with this log but he DID ask for it, or rather something MORE than I'm going to give.

Start ships 1 gyro 9 AP mass drivers 3 Heavy AP mass drivers and the destroyer has 3 AP MD and 1 Heavy AP MD.

T0 Gnolam: Demand positronic computer, Mrrshan, Sakkra, Sillicoid
T1 Contact: Psilon : Demand irridiuem cells
T4 Take Zib (Sakkra) capture radiation shield
T6 Take Andromeda (Sakkra), Begin shipping sakkra to my Large Ultra Rich planet.
T8 Take Sssla
T11 Take Bier (Sakkra), Contact: Trillian, Demand from Gnolam Class III shield
T13 completed research on Super Computer
T14 Take Ovillus (Sakkra) sakkra dead
Contact: Meklar: Demand Neutran Blaster
Demand from Psilon Ion Drive
T15 Demand from Trillian planet Gharne
T16 Hired Garn
T17 New ship Built (Class III Shield/ Battle Scanner/ Augmentated engines/ Reenforced Hull/ 15 neutran blasters and 2 fusion bombs)
Refitting original ships at Gharne
T20 Completed research on cyber-security link
T21 Take Trillar 1: capture pulsan missile: lose destroyer
2nd New ship built (Fleet 2)
T22 Take Trillar 2
T23 Take Trillar 3
T24 Take Ynarl (Mrrshan): Fleet 2, New ship built
T25 Take Mirat 1 (Trillian) : Fleet 1
T26 Election 29/52 (almost did it)
Take Mirat 2 (Trillian) : Fleet 1
Take Templum (Mrrshan) : Fleet 2
T27 Completed research on Auto Lab
New ship built (Fleet 3)
Demanded from Meklar Zortium
Demanded from Psilon Atmospher Renewers
T28 Take Fische (Mrrshan) : Fleet 2
Take Galos (Trillain) : Trillian dead : Fleet 1
Demand from Meklar planet Woo
Demand from Psilon Microlite Construction
T30 Take Fieras 1 : Fleet 2
Completed research on neutran scanner
New ship built
T31 Take Degori (Silliciod) : Fleet 3 : capture warp dissipator
Take Fieras 2 : Mrrshan dead : Fleet 2
Demand from Psilon Nano desimenators
T32 Take Cryslon, Completed research on grav generator
T33 Built 2 new ships (Fleet 4) and extra, Found Orion with a scout
T34 Take Monkar 1 (Sillicoid) : Fleet 3
Demand from Meklar planet Montone
T35 Take Moyo (Meklar) : Fleet 1
Take Monkar 2 (Sillicoid) : Fleet 3
Demand from Psilon planet Rex
T36 Completed research on Shield Capasitors
Take Meklar
Built new ship
T37 Take Ecu (Gnolam) : Fleet 2 & 4
New ship built
T38 Completed research on phaser
refit a ship with phaser/neutran blasters
Take Laan ( Meklar) : Fleet 1
Take Nimbus (Sillicoid) : capture sillicoid ship : Fleet 3
T39 Completed research on anti matter drive
Demanded from Psilon planet Juka
T40 Take Gnol 1 : Fleet 2 & 4
Take Udara (Meklar) : Fleet 1
T41 Take Gnol 2 : Gnolam dead : Fleet 2
Take Qui 1 (Meklar) : Fleet 5 (two phaser and one blaster ship)
Take Ras 1 (Sillicoid): Fleet 3
Completed research on plasma cannon
Built new ship
Refit a ship (phaser/neutran blasters)
T42 Take Lambash (Sillicoid) : Fleet 4
Take Ras 2 (Sillicoid) Fleet 3
Take Qui 2 (Meklar) : meklar dead : Fleet 5
Take Unuk (Psilon) : Fleet 1 with added phaser ship
Built new ship (plasma)
Built outpost ship near Orion
T43 Take Oberon (Psilon) : Fleet 1
Take Ras 3 (Sillicoid) : Fleet 2 & 3
T44 Completed research on dimensional portal
Found and left last size population 1 Sillicoid (Denubis) : Fleet 4
Split fleet 4 to refit center and one turn away from Denubis
T45 Take Mentar : Fleet 5
Take Oki (Psilon) : psilon dead : Fleet 1
Completed research on food producers
T46 Refit 2 ships (plasma)
T47 Attack Guardian
Completed research on High Energy Focus
Build 2 new ships
Refit 5 ships
BUY 2 ships
T48 Send 22 ships to Antaries and 1 to Denubis
T49 Kill Antaries and Denubis
Score 2920

Less than 50... yeaaa!!!!"

 

[vmxa]

This is also from the old Atari site:

"VenomCrow How about That: 74 Rounds OK, I did not turn Random events off, but the only thing that hits me was freezing one of my system, but at that time I had about 10, so no problem.

My settings : 8, impossible, large galaxy, normal tech, normal galaxy age, random events on.

My race : Telepathic Warlord Trans Dimensional Omniscient Rich Feudal Repulsive



Strategy: NO RESEARCH until I got Research Labs through conquest. Just building Ships and kicking ass. First attempt was 97 Rounds. I had a little Problem with Psilons, I am sure 60-65 turns is possible. On huge it's much harder. You have to build too many outposts. That will slow you down. And if they are far ahead in tech you have no chance to get them fast.

I did it this way: HW builds cruiser with nine 2xnukes, extended fuel, no computer. It will take 19 turns to finish the ship (17 for Vmxa). Try to find a planet near an AI player with at least abundant, size does not matter. Build colony there and start building a destroyer with four 2xnukes, same as cruiser. Scouts check other systems for cash and leaders. Then refit at colony to one 2xnuke. At about turn 15-16 buy cruiser and destroyer. Planets build the same item again. If necessary HW builds outpost first. No freighter or anything else. Crush enemy #1 Now I have two more planets to build destroyers.

Crush enemy #2 Try to get my first fleet stronger and build a second with cruiser from HW. If one AI Player is too strong, don't wait until you have a larger fleet, attack the next one and come back with more ships. Get the second fleet to the enemies at the other side of the Galaxy. Build/buy more and more Ships and crush every enemy the fast you can. If you have to choose between enemies, attack the one with the higher production first so you can build ships faster there. I had 3 more games ending at turn 70 - 90, and my best one I've won at turn about T49 (nice extra money from pirate cache and space debris, perfect wormholes, and Silicoid right next to me).

Have you ever try boarding AI starbases with empty frigates before? Try playing feudal heavy G +10 ground combat, aquatic, rich, trans D, in a small map with 8 players. Then right at beginning make 1 destroyer filled with missiles, and make 6-8 empty frigates and use the empty frigates to board the starbase and capture it. It's a much faster tactic than telepathic, but you don't get mind control.

8, impossible, large galaxy, normal tech, normal galaxy age, random events on. Telepathic, Warlord, Trans Dimensional, Omniscient, RHW, Feudal, Repulsive

T0 - move all sci workers to industry. Design Cruiser as NO comp, 9 two shot nukes and extended fuel cells. This should take 19 turns to build.Note I make the missile array as 1, 2, 2, 2, 2. Design Destroyer as the same, except two 2 shot nukes (4 missiles). Design Scout with 1 nuke. Start CA on HW, send out colony ship to Abbith(?), not sure of name now, send out scouts.

T2(?) colonize planet and set to build DD (destroyer). Now once scouts have done all they can send back to refit.

T15(?) not sure when I did this, but around this time you can buy the CA (cruiser). One thing that is variable is when to refit the scouts. I found that sooner is better as it is usually needed to allow other ships to retreat. You also can not take down SB (star base) with just a 9 shot cruiser. Sent CA to Pund and capture it.

Txx (did not note exactly when but before T18)

Kill Silicoids frigates and retreated to Pund to await the DD and DE.

DE (scout or frigate) and DD and CA all to Cryslon. I started a frigate on pund as a place holder. You will need an OP (outpost soon). Capture CRY and srt OP. (Silicoids eliminated)

T18 buy DD and send to Pund to Cryslon. Now refit scout that was not already refit.

T22 OP done, start DD, send all to Trillar.

T24 OP on Caelueb (SP), send ships on to Trillar.

T25 DD done on Cry, sent to Trillar.

T30 Capture Trillar, switch Cry to OP, send fleet to Vagn.

T31 Capture Vagn (Trils eliminated).

T33 Finished Biosphere on Draco, start CA. Note in a tough game, you would not want to build anything other than ships and outpost.

T34 OP on Vij, send fleet to Gnol, buy OP on Abbith.

T35 Send 2nd fleet to Hastun (can read my notes on this name)to OP.

T40 Took Nazin and last planet on Gnol.

T41 Elim Gnol

T42 Elim Darlok, capture Poseidons.

T43 Buy OP on Abbith, send to Lar, fleet to Lar, OP on Cry is done. Better planning could probably reduce delays here, but I was lazy.

T44 OP sent to Zibbat, fleet to Zib. I am not sure now which planet this is, but one place I send an OP, I did not look to see what was there and boom, no planets, not even gas. This wasted more time as I had to send them some place else to reach Klackons or who ever I was after.

T50 Capture Aden.

T53 Capture Orf (?), I hope that is the correct name, it is all I have in my notes.

T56 Capture Katab.

T57 capture Liuce, defeat Sssla fleet, block (not sure what I meant here). I know one race had a few ships and a BB (battleship) and I was trying to ensure that they did not do any damage.

T58 Elim Klac, learned Research Labs via my research. I have had a few tech from captured planets, not important. I got Battle Pods from Kolden and designed a new CA that I built on Cry. Sent OP to Draco.

T62 Elim Saks, fleet to Draco.

T71 Capture Fieras.

T72 Capture Hycreles (name not clear), capture Que. Game over. This is probabaly not a totally complete log, but at least gets the concept across. I was making ships on most planets and even cranked out a few SB so I could make cruisers. I was too lazy to stay on top and buy some things when I could have. IOW, this likely could have been done faster. With this map, two finds where close at hand, but no splinter colonies and no leaders. Now that I think about it I did get an offer for a fighter, ut could not afford him at the time. I got colony leaders late in the game. I am not sure assigned them all, it is not uncommon for me to see the end coming an ignore that aspect."

 

[vmxa]

iirc Robber Baron was talking to me, when he mentioned my log was too complex. I put up a run like all my Moo logs, with every turn and all events. Early turns have all the numbers for planets pop and production, etc.

I don't think he was talking to me on the not believe part, but it could have been. Do not recall. As I have never played the set up he used, I do not know what is reasonable. I may have asked for a log, but that did not mean I thought he was lying. It would have meant I wanted to understand.

 

[vmxa]

The log for the 74 turns as I recall was from Alexfrog as he and Venon and few others where batting the idea of a super fast tele run and keep posting faster runs. I am not certain about it being Alexfrog. It was a long time ago.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Uncreative could leave you without fighter tech, which was pretty much the point of this particular game.

My comment about the uncreative choice was more directed at vmxa than you. He didn't want any research, or so it seemed, so I suggested uncreative as the other negative pick. The other -4 choice would have been -50% pop, and for the type of game you were describing, and my own choice also, I would go with the -50% pop. I use this negative all the time and it doesn't really hurt much. For a blitz game, where your own people will make up only a fraction of the people in your empire, slow growth pop is less important and planets wont have much time to build up huge populations, anyway.

The whole point is to win the game as fast as possible, hence the term blitz. No need for research. Omi is to find the fastest way to get to them. If you are going to research, no need for tele or transd.

74 turns in a large map all dead. That was not my game as the best I ever did was about 80 turns, but I did not try it that many times as it gets pretty boring. The longer the game goes the less value there is to being a tele, so research just negates that trait.

I find omni a toss-up. You know what is where at the start, but what is in range will be the same whether you have omni or not. Trans dem will get you there a turn or 2 sooner and greatly speed up travel early game. Both are useful, but I think I'd rather have the high production instead. I use tele to dispense with having to lug around transports mostly, so find it useful no matter how long the game goes for.

Your later posts are kinda confusing. The log portions are straight forward enough, but the rest it's hard to tell apart what you are saying and what you copied from others.

 

[vmxa]

Its called quotes. The stuff inside them is not mine. One can play anyway they want, but you will not beat the times using AWH. I personally do not care for tele other than a once every 5 years or so for a yuk.

Omi is only needed in a race for time. It lets you plan what you need and what the fastest route to use. IOW when and where you may need an outpost. Without the Omi you need to be lucky, beyond realistic expectations in going the correct and fastest route.

Everything in the log post other than the first line is from them, except the one line starting with VMXA and I will remove that for clarity.

 

[Aroddo]

ah, you quoted everything. i was a bit confused about whom you're talking to, too.

Anyway, quite the fast game, although none of them are prewarp nor huge. with advanced start you really don't need to research, agreed.

However: Did I mention that I like Fighters?

 

[vmxa]

Sorry was not paying attention I thought they were pre. I played my tele as prewarp large. Anyway I am not a fan of tele under any settings. Can't speak to fighters as I do not use them. Well I use them in Moo3 on carriers. Now that I think of it adv may be harder as races like the brains will likely have battle stations and missile bases.

 

[scratchthepitch]

Now that I think of it adv may be harder as races like the brains will likely have battle stations and missile bases.

You mentioned capturing star bases, or quoted it, earlier. With transporters or sub-space teleporters, that is pretty easy. The Avenger can capture a battlestation and knock out the missile base and fighter garrison (and possibly the ground batteries also) on the first combat turn. With the early tech, it's going to take a minimum of 2 turns to capture them. And during the AI turn, those heavy beams get to do their number on your ships. Star bases have too few heavy beams to be much of a threat, but battlestation and star fortress heavy batteries can be quite deadly if they have the later hitting bonuses. If I cant capture the orbital on the first turn, I usually try to neutralize it with beams that turn instead.

One thing I've noticed is the AI will usually prioritize targeting ships carrying a lot of bombs, or the largest ship. This can be taken advantage of by building ships with the best defenses and lots of bombs. I usually also give them aug engines (if I have that tech) because that increases their defense pluses against beams. Besides bombs, I give them several regular beams so they can operate against fighters and missiles. If these are also the largest ships in the fleet, using one of these ships will effectively draw most of the AI fire. If I have some captured AI ships that are larger than my regular ships, I'll sacrifice one of these instead, since they are "free".