PD Weapns. Are they necessary? MOO2

[Sleestak]

What are your thoughts n PD weapons?

I used to always put them on, usually PD mass drivers, but now I find that putting on more AP primaries is more important. I'll put PD's on to fill space, but I don't think they make much of a difference. Missile boats can head to the corners and be lost if the battle lasts that long.

What does everyone think?

 

[vmxa]

I stopped even filling the spaces with them, but you can. Just use heavy mounts and stay at range as long as they are tossing out lots of missiles.

 

[Sleestak]

I stopped even filling the spaces with them, but you can. Just use heavy mounts and stay at range as long as they are tossing out lots of missiles.

I don't think there are heavy mount PD's.

The only time I go for the PD fill is if I am fighting an opponent that likes to build fighter garrisons.

 

[vmxa]

I said I do not use PD now. Not that I use heavy PD, which does not exist. Why would you think I said I used heavy PD? I just stand off and whack those missile throwers. If it is early enough that missles threathen a ship, you pivot to use fresh shields or retreat that ship.

 

[neilkaz]

As I've often said, I play almost exclusively using 2-shot missiles in the early/mid game.
If using a custom OP race, the games rarely go much longer than that. I'll switch over to beams (Death Ray) if I've taken out the Guardian early (thx EMG). So my ships aren't designed to last in battle until I have some powerful beam weapons so I don't have a computer or battle scanner onboard so PD is just a waste of space. I also won't usually research shields until Class V.

However, once I am making beam ships which need to last, then some PD is useful if the enemy(s) are using lots of missiles or worse yet, fighters. If you get Particle Beam from Orion, that makes an excellent PD weapon, noting that 15 space for a regular PB becomes 7 for the PD version. PD Phasers are also good and will miniturize.

PD Mass Drivers can be useful due to no range dissapation. In my Mrrshan game I went for Mass Drivers early on to take advantage of +50 attack and since my main enemy had ECM. My ships were about 75-80% Heavy MD's and the rest PD. Since there were many fighters coming at me, I could use the non-targetted ships' PD to help destroy them by moving them up next to incoming fighters. PD was useful then, but these ships and with Class 3 shields were designed to last a few turns in battle so as to fire many heavy MD's.

In my Bulrathi game (I won one for once) I'd allready taken Orion, but didn't have Particle Beam. I honestly made an Assault Shuttle Ship once the Antaran attack was coming (nice to have a 5 turn warning) and used it to capture an Antaran ship (first time I did this in years) and scrapped it to get Particle Beam for PD use.

I recommend some PD if the enemy has EMG as you don't want to be hit by EMG missiles, especially if using Damper Fields instead of shields.

PD with a poor computer or without Battle Scanners doesn't seem to hit too often. I've seen my PD in my Star Bases early on be ineffective w/out Battle Scanner, noting that I usually won't research a good computer until the last one since early play is with missiles for me.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[El_Machinae]

I use them in the early game. Since I'm a mass drivers guy, though, I find that I just use full-size mass drivers (and the gauss cannons) as the PD weapon. The important thing is that I don't upgrade the mass drivers that I've designated as PD (except autofire), and I create them as a separate weapon category

 

[scratchthepitch]

I use the regular sized version of the beam, since they take out more missiles/fighters and have the longer range. The regular size is also multipurpose. The only time I might use 1 PD size beam is when that's all I got room for on a design.

 

[Sleestak]

I have to add that if I am playing a game where there are Psilons trading techs about, having a few PD weapons on my ships is quite useful. Planetary shield and missile base can be a tough nut to crack.

 

[El_Machinae]

I find missile bases to be a very powerful defense. Probably the most impressive, relative to their cost. A full array of PD can make all the difference against them.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I find them the easiest planet defense to face. A few destroyers dedicated to the anti-missile role armed with regular size fusion (env, cont) and/or mass drivers (af, ap) and the missiles never reach a target. I also put at least one of these weapons on my other ships of cruiser size and larger. Each of the these regular beams is sure to take out at least 2 missiles (often 3-4) and I think missile basses launch something like 20 missiles. So 10 of these beams among my ships is all I need. It can be annoying having to deal with a new launch every round until the base is destroyed during the early game if the AI has planet shields, but only because it takes longer to knock the base out, not because it represents that much of a threat. I find star bases and fighter garrisons, and especially battlestations and ground batteries, more threatening. Those heavy beams are much harder to stop than missiles.

 

[neilkaz]

I played several games using AF AP Mass Drivers, mostly Heavy, rather than missiles and this certainly was effective, although often I had to make a couple early missile ships and then refit. All in all I prefer missiles to MD's until later game when you use powerful beams. However, once you get to class V shield and can no further miniturize MD's (I think) you have a nice war ship indeed.

But more to the point, I tried a game with almost all normal range MD ships with the idea to shoot missiles and fighters down but the problem was that my ships had to advance closer to hit the enemy and I think Heavy MD's were more accurate at long range. All in all I prefered Heavies with some PD for Mass Drivers. Typically if I had about 10 heavy MD's I'd put on 7 or 8 PD.

Lightnining field which you can get on the way to Class V is also useful, and one game vs the Psilons who grabbed N-Armor and Zeon Missiles (bloody creative)during my war with them I was really wishing that I'd used Lightning Shields along with some PD.

Again, this is playing the vanilla game where sometimes even with subspace comm researched you can have issues with CP to maintain a bunch of specialized smaller ships.

 

[neilkaz]

I find missile bases to be a very powerful defense. Probably the most impressive, relative to their cost. A full array of PD can make all the difference against them.

In Vanilla missile bases are something I most definately want to trade for or steal since I can often rush buy one or two for new colonies that are threatened and not have to worry about that stray enemy cruiser showing up while my fleet is taking his other planets. Howver, there's no way I'd not research factories in favor of bases.

 

[scratchthepitch]

One trick I use against incoming missiles or fighters is to find out which of my ships these are targeted against and then move those ships first. This brings the missiles closer so those ships I will be using to destroy them often don't have to move before firing at the missiles. That leaves them free to then make their moves against the AI once the missiles have been destroyed.

 

[Sleestak]

Worst case scenario for me is when there are both Humans and Psilons in the game. The Psilons trade arounbd the low tech rare stuff and the Humans, if they are not near me so I can eliminate them early, trade the borrowed Psilon tech while researching pretty well themselves.

Once I get heightened intelligence I pull ahead with my high pop systems. But I hate that I can't shred them with my AP Gauss cannons and mass drivers as Psilon Heavy Armor has been traded around and the Humans might shoot back with Phasors.