civvver
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 5,855
I'm in the middle of a game where the AI is actually hanging with me tech wise (or was, I just took orion a few turns ago, about to leapfrog them) and was wondering what ship builds to use to counter certain things they do.
Typically I see the AI gravitate towards either all huge ship designs, just the biggest, baddest things they can throw together, or they'll have a couple large ships with giant stacks of small ones. I'm not sure if this is based on personality or not, but I think it is. Klackon and Alkari always seem to build stacks of small ships while Meklar and Bulrathi seem to always build small amounts of big ships. The types of weapons and technology they use is random depending on their research. Like if the AI is going to put bombs on a ship it's usually because they stumbled on to it by chance in their research, not cus they are smart enough to jump tech tiers to get bombs to break down your planetary shields. Some obvious tactics vs giant stacks of small ships, use multiple fire weapons like auto cannons, use repulsor beams since small ships usually only have 1 square range and out range them, use black hole generators, use scatter pack missiles. Vs large ships I don't know, it kind of depends on what they're using.
Like my current game the Meklar are pretty advance, have level 10 shields on some huge ships that have around 2000 hits, stacked with plasma cannons. To kill them I've been using as many hard beams as possible on small ships with max computers and sub space teleporters. My ships get shredded but not before I get some huge first hits in and my ships are extremely cheap so I'm winning the war of attrition. The problem is he actually has black hole generators so I'm not sure if it's more effective to use bigger ships or tons of little ones.
How do you counter shields on a huge ship? It really prevents you from going with huge stacks of small ships with a couple weaker lasers. Normally I'd put up a stack of 500 smalls with 10 or so fusion beams and they'd kill anything without shields, but you need high tech weapons to get through a lvl 10 shield and the space is too much for a small ship.
When building your ships what do you leave off if you have to pick and choose? I generally use the best computer I have and the best engines and maneuver, and the best level 1 armor like zortium 1, but I won't spend extra space on zortium 2. Depending on space left I'll put on the best ecm (obviously if the enemy has zero missiles on their ships that's a waste), but I almost never have space for shields. Are shields that essential on a medium or small ship? What about choosing between a high level ecm and a zyro shield special? Which is more effective? I also feel like the high maneuver is sort of wasted on a ship with a teleporter since they never need to move, though the defense is really awesome.
Update on my meklar game, well I went for an all out battle at his home planet. I had a stack of 10 huge ships stock full of energy focus death rays, two stacks about 300 each of medium fast guys with stellar converters, and two stacks of 30ish large black hole generator ships with no weapons, just cloaks and zyro shields. All have sub space teleporters. Problem is his planets have those interdictor things so my teleporters are useless. Bigger problem he has a stack of 30,000 large ships, not sure what's on them, but they have missiles. They kill all my stacks in 1 hit. For whatever reason he decided to retreat after blowing up a couple stacks, then his planet of 80 bases took out my large ships but I was left with one medium stack and was able to destroy his colony. Sweet. So I'm thinking I'll just have to play defensive, keep black hole teleporting ships around my colonies in case he attacks and I'll hit the other races to kill all their population til I have 2/3rds of the votes. It just feels like there's nothing tactically I can do against gigantic stacks of ships with extremely powerful missiles and interdictors. Even with top ecm, cloaks and lightning shields, 30,000 missiles, at least a couple thousand will get through, so I'd need some gigantic stacks of my own.
Typically I see the AI gravitate towards either all huge ship designs, just the biggest, baddest things they can throw together, or they'll have a couple large ships with giant stacks of small ones. I'm not sure if this is based on personality or not, but I think it is. Klackon and Alkari always seem to build stacks of small ships while Meklar and Bulrathi seem to always build small amounts of big ships. The types of weapons and technology they use is random depending on their research. Like if the AI is going to put bombs on a ship it's usually because they stumbled on to it by chance in their research, not cus they are smart enough to jump tech tiers to get bombs to break down your planetary shields. Some obvious tactics vs giant stacks of small ships, use multiple fire weapons like auto cannons, use repulsor beams since small ships usually only have 1 square range and out range them, use black hole generators, use scatter pack missiles. Vs large ships I don't know, it kind of depends on what they're using.
Like my current game the Meklar are pretty advance, have level 10 shields on some huge ships that have around 2000 hits, stacked with plasma cannons. To kill them I've been using as many hard beams as possible on small ships with max computers and sub space teleporters. My ships get shredded but not before I get some huge first hits in and my ships are extremely cheap so I'm winning the war of attrition. The problem is he actually has black hole generators so I'm not sure if it's more effective to use bigger ships or tons of little ones.
How do you counter shields on a huge ship? It really prevents you from going with huge stacks of small ships with a couple weaker lasers. Normally I'd put up a stack of 500 smalls with 10 or so fusion beams and they'd kill anything without shields, but you need high tech weapons to get through a lvl 10 shield and the space is too much for a small ship.
When building your ships what do you leave off if you have to pick and choose? I generally use the best computer I have and the best engines and maneuver, and the best level 1 armor like zortium 1, but I won't spend extra space on zortium 2. Depending on space left I'll put on the best ecm (obviously if the enemy has zero missiles on their ships that's a waste), but I almost never have space for shields. Are shields that essential on a medium or small ship? What about choosing between a high level ecm and a zyro shield special? Which is more effective? I also feel like the high maneuver is sort of wasted on a ship with a teleporter since they never need to move, though the defense is really awesome.
Update on my meklar game, well I went for an all out battle at his home planet. I had a stack of 10 huge ships stock full of energy focus death rays, two stacks about 300 each of medium fast guys with stellar converters, and two stacks of 30ish large black hole generator ships with no weapons, just cloaks and zyro shields. All have sub space teleporters. Problem is his planets have those interdictor things so my teleporters are useless. Bigger problem he has a stack of 30,000 large ships, not sure what's on them, but they have missiles. They kill all my stacks in 1 hit. For whatever reason he decided to retreat after blowing up a couple stacks, then his planet of 80 bases took out my large ships but I was left with one medium stack and was able to destroy his colony. Sweet. So I'm thinking I'll just have to play defensive, keep black hole teleporting ships around my colonies in case he attacks and I'll hit the other races to kill all their population til I have 2/3rds of the votes. It just feels like there's nothing tactically I can do against gigantic stacks of ships with extremely powerful missiles and interdictors. Even with top ecm, cloaks and lightning shields, 30,000 missiles, at least a couple thousand will get through, so I'd need some gigantic stacks of my own.
