RBMoo SG1 - Oh the Humanity - Team A

I think the idea is that you guys don't have any troop ships on which to put the gropos. Don't know if that's true but that's what I uderstood Charis meant by the comment.
 
Yes, I know the troops themselves go into the pool, but I was hoping to launch the gropo force from the closest star system. Then I noticed I couldn't because there was no mobilization center there. (Now there is, I just built one :p )

I originally wanted to build a troop transport / assault force from there (Cebalrai) because they had just built a ten pack of troops, and I forgot that they don't stick around the planet, but poof into the reserve pool. Odd - you can fill that reserve pool instantly and send troops made on the planet there right away, but can't draw them out of that reserve pool without the MOB.

I didn't mean to pick you Jester, you just so happened to be the one before me - lack of strategic comments or 'why' behind actions is in general lacking. And even that's just because there are 1 or more 'total newbs' in game.

Charis
 
That report WAS a rush job. I'll try to give more strategic weight to my reports as we get into deeper waters. Part of the problem was that I played the turns late and quickly, since the first time I got to play them was already almost two days from the handoff.

I see what you mean about the mobilization centers. My bad.

Jester
 
I ended up being "up" in two games at once, and neither game is at a point where I can play though quickly.

It's Monday already, so Sirian, if you want to go ahead of me in this one while I finish up the inf2 turn, that would be fine. I can take this one when you're done with your turn.

Just let me know, I'm flexible. :)

-Griselda
 
As for troop invasions, keep plenty of troops and transport ships around... In my last game I did a low-violence invasion on a planet using all my troops. I had built exactly 1 troop force. To my dismay I notice my overwhelming armour army fails to defeat the very last marine. And then my ground force gets disbanded :mad: :eek: :cry: ??? That's 5 turns waiting and another 10 turns travel ?

Reload game, switch to mayhem, burn planet. Ithkul dead, planet mine.
 
I know I'm not really one to be talkin', but... who's got the ball here? Sirian, are you picking this one up? Are we waiting for Griz?

I'm cool with whatever. We've just been idling for a couple days, so I thought I'd check in.

:cool:

Jester
 
Gris is still Up Now. Since she just posted her INF2 turn, I hope she has time to slip this one in here shortly.

Between the war news and playing a lot of MOO3 mods, figuring out what is working and what's broken with the game and involving myself heavily in feedback to QS at the IGMoo board, I have been content to let this one idle. I have been keeping an eye on it, and perhaps have been lax in pushing it forward. My apologies.

Please read my reply to Ozy at RBMoo for more information.

If Gris isn't able to play her turn here fairly shortly, I'll pick it up and get it, erm, MOOving again. :crazyeye: :lol:


- Sirian
 
If it gets round to being my turn, I'm moving house and will be out of action for at least all of this weekend. Feel free to skip me :)
 
(101) Change Tilamas so military and econ are due in 2.

I'd like to take it to the harvesters, but, as Charis has noticed, we don't seem to be able to conquer a planet without ground troops in the task force. I note that we still don't have any transport ships, so I try my hand at designing one. At this point, I couldn't see anything wrong with the auto-suggestion, so I accept it, and TroopTrn3 is born. It doesn't have any weapons, but i'm figuring they could go well in a task force with those MassDriver3's. So, I don't TF up any of those ships either, waiting for the transports.

I set some planets to build a few TroopTrn3's, and wait. I don't think the harvesters can really hurt us in the meantime.

I'll try to Oppressometer trick again, since everyone's content except for Cebalroi III, and that one looks like it would be content next turn. O-meter to 5.

Between turns, I get the combat screen @ Tilamas, but for my whole round I just hit defend planet, because I'm waiting for the gropo's to attack. There's always no combat when I do that. I also get a combat screen @Andurfin, with the Aquials, but there's no combat there either (that also continues all turn).

(102) Balren VI - automated mine, Balren II - automated factories, Cebalrai IV - gov't DEV. Lots of Sanitation Infrastructure. We kill a FP-876-DEYS spy. :)

There's unrest at Balren III, Balren VII, Nitzer IV, Cebalroi III, and Laan I.

Level 13 bioscience.

The Omarasis want a TA research. We accept formally.

Opressometer to 2.

(103) Hellfire cannon complete with positive overrun. We have trained Avalon, a political spy. Balren VII - bulk freight module. Lots more Sanitation Infrastructures. Cebalroi III and Laan V - Bioharvest DEA. Tyr I - Basic Systems Module. Unrest at Nitzer IV, Cebalroi III, Laan V.

Kraaktha declares us powerful, and prayerfully entreats us for mutual trade/econ agreement, cringing! We accept politely.

Mostly just waiting for stuff to build.

(104) Boo! A Scath'lok hive is uncovered on Balren II, and destroys some buildings. Laan V is in unrest. I check- it's level 3, due to piracy! I TF up our extra FtrRecon2 to go to Laan V for some piracy reduction.

A spy from New Orions escapes capture. Some unrest in the Nitzer system.

Fusion Drives are ready. Is my new design obsolete already? I obsolete MassDriver3 and make MassDriver4. I keep most everything the same, just because of costs. The Hellfire cannons are tempting, but right now we really need quantity over quality, I think. Going to a Warp4 engine alone doesn't cost much.

I also design TroopTrn4, obsoleting TroopTrn3.

Sirian might want to doublecheck my designs; I've never done stuff like that before!

(105) Laan III - space port. Cebalroi IV - mobile (Shoot! Did I let it build just one?). Laan II securities board destroyed. Empire wide unrest increases due to enemy terror, boo. Unrest at Nitzer IV and Laans. I turn off migration to Laan planets for now so at least it won't get worse.

Since unrest is mostly piracy, and heavy foot of gov't seems low compared to other civs, I try turning o-meter to 5 again. I start work on some shield generators in systems with piracy and unrest.

BT- Combat screen at Ungal vs. Lularga. Our choices are assault or blockade, so I blockade - no combat.

(106) Protests vs. Bioorganic Monitoring Station. Tyr I - beam base. Seki IV - System Seat of Government. Cebalroi V - missile base.

Minor unrest - the Balrens, Talitha IV, the Nitzers. Bad unrest (2-3) at the Laans.

We've explored Ungal. There's a Y1/G, a G2/G, a Y2 controlled by the Lularga, and two reds. I have no idea why we still don't know the Lularga.

I keep the o-meter at 5, hoping we'll catch somebody next turn.

(107) Laan 1 unrest. We get a warning that Laan V could revolt. Spies blow up Tyr I's System Seat of Government. Shoot, we're getting it from both sides now! Someone us terrorizing our citizens, also causing unrest. :p Unrest at the Balrens and Nitzers.

Level 16 social arts and science.

Naturally, we caught no spies. :( The o-meter is going to have to stay at 3 until we get shields done in those high-piracy systems. I do prioritize the shield heavily, turning off research there (we can already barely keep up with techs!), and putting some partial projects on the back burner for the time being. Hey, it's just for a few turns- shields are cheap! The trick is just to make sure to remember to go back in to the planet screen as a planet completes it's shields, and turn back on research and infra.

We *still* don't know the Lularga. I really don't know what I'd need to do that would be considered "contact".

(108) Our spy Underdog is ready. Our other leader is poisoned, leaving us with none. Shoot!

Unrest at Balrens, Laans, Nitzers.

Laan II - Mobilization center

Empire-wide unrest increases again due to terror tactics. I'm really looking forward to taking care of that piracy!

I start an economic spy, since out other one is getting old. I try to insert an agent in the FP-876-DEYS. I choose military, since we have two military spies now.

Keep MM stuff to get shields built.

Ack! I notice that starvation is causing the unrest at the Nitzers! Why aren't they importing? The Kraaktha have a ship there, but they're not blockading, are they? I can't figure it out at all. I turn off migration there, at least so it doesn't get worse.

I can't do much to improve food in the system, but I can plan a bioharvest DEA on Nitzer V, so I do. I still prioritize shields at NItzer, because that will at least help with the piracy aspects of the unrest.

(109) Autofire railgun completes with overrun. Railgun Miniaturization II will be another turn due to protests.

Unrest at Laan I , the Balrens, and the nitzers. Knaa III completes industry DEA.

Our first shields are done at Balren I, Balren III, Nitzer IV, Laan V, and Talitha IV. :party:

I MM all planets that completed shields. I notice that piracy is still listed as a cause of unrest there- does it take a turn to go away? (everything else takes a turn, sigh) The Nitzer system is no longer starving- yellow food, not red. The only thing that's changed, that I can see, is that one of the Kraaktha TF's has moved off, but there's still one there. What's going on?

I notice that we have no spies inserted, but I didn't see the failure notice. I try to reinsert.

(110) Railgun miniaturization II, bioorganic monitoring station, and tritanium are complete with positive overrun.

Balren III unrest.

Fighter cannon I and armor piercing rail gun complete. Also, my notes read that we completed something called "envelop fusion", but I can't read my own handwriting.

Shields complete Balren II, Laan II. Tyr I and Balren VII - automated factories. Nitzer III - gov't DEA.

Our spy doesn't get in.

We kill a NO spy- hey, we're having better luck with o-meter of 3 than we ever did at 5! :)

Then a messenger message comes through and crashes the game, and I successfully use ctrl-alt-esc to get it back (that sure is a neat trick, this is the first time I've tried it).

Laan I , the Balrens unrest. Nitzer IV and Talitha IV unrest.

We've explored Alsciaukat. It has a Y2/G with magnate, a R2/G, and a Y1/R.

Level 14 biosciences and level 15 energy.

OK, I note that piracy is no longer an aspect on those first planets that built shields, but some of them are still in unrest with "human" as the only factor. Does it take another full turn after piracy ceases to be a factor for the unrest to adjust?

Note that we have 2 turns left on our new economic spy, then we should probably retire that old one.

(111) Unrest at Balrens, Nitzers, Cebalrois, and Laans.

We have a diplomacy message - Check for that Omarasis proposal!

Shields complete at Balren V, Laan I, and Balren VI. They will need some MM attention this turn.

Nitzer VII completes mobile X 10. We still haven't finished any troop transports, mostly because the Balrens would be the main ones building them, but they needed shields badly.

Nitzer IV - Space ship fighter base. Bioharvest DEA complete at Nitzer V, Knaa III, and Laan V. Government DEA at Andurfin V.

Someone is terrorizing our citizens and causing unrest. Phooey!

We kill a Harvester spy!

When checking into the unrest, I note that some of the planets that built shields first have piracy once again listed as a cuase of unrest. Hopefully Sirian can figure out how to deal with that. :(

Good luck! :)

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/rbmoosg1a-turn111.zip (note they've created "uploads4" but not marked it)
 
Just an FYI, to establish contact with another race, you need to have a colony (or outpost? Not sure on that detail) within 2 star lanes of a colony (or outpost?) of theirs. Just meeting them is not enough. Heck, you can shoot their ships out of the sky and burn all their planets into the ground (in theory) without ever making official diplomatic contact.

Hope that helps.
Arathorn
 
Think it has to be a full colony. I've had outposts that close to their colonies & not have diplo contact.
 
Gris, very nice report. I plan to take the time to answer your various questions, comment on your choices, etc. I'll also see what I can do about Zed's idea for transforming MOO3 SG turn reports. I liked his focus-based idea, compared to the awkwardness the Civ3-style turn-based reports seem to bring, so I plan to give that a shot, see how it works out.

Oh, and I've Got It. :)

- Sirian
 
TroopTrn3 is born. It doesn't have any weapons, but i'm figuring they could go well in a task force with those MassDriver3's. So, I don't TF up any of those ships either, waiting for the transports.
Click to expand...

Your transports look pretty good, G. The autobuild gave them five pods (number of pods the most critical, need at least four, preferably five, to transport a whole Corps size gropo unit) and that's the main thing. The ships do have some space left over, though, which should be used either for sensors, jammers, faster engines or light weapons for defensive fire.

By contrast, the MassDriver4 design, erm, leaves MUCH to be desired. So now might be a good time to go over ship design in more detail.

Ships have two components: hull space and armor. The hull space is the interior of the ship and must account for crew, engines, weapons, shield generators, and electronics. The armor goes on the outside, and is NOT limited by space nor does it affect what you can put inside. Improving armor adds cost only. Armor does not come as a tradeoff to other items. So if your ships are going into combat, if their mission types will see them coming under fire, you pretty much want the best, thickest armor your technology will allow. The only times you might want to go with cheaper armor is to reduce costs on ships that you do not intend to allow the enemy to get close to or, preferably, even to fire on at all. Armor is thus a cost/benefit item. If you figure that the cost of better armor means that you can produce fewer of the ships in the same time, armor DOES come at the expense of other items, in the form of producing fewer, more expensive but better armored ships vs producing more ships not as well protected.

Some good rules of thumb about armor:

* Never use "No Armor" (except on colony and outpost ships) if you have an alternative.
* Never use "Very Light" armor if you have a better alternative.
* "Light" armor is a good solid armor for the price. This is the "cheap" armor. It gives some protection at little cost, and is still worth using even into the late game for some mission types.
* "Medium" and better armor must be researched. Any gunships you design for combat duty should have the best armor you can put on them. IF ships and Carriers can go lighter on armor if you protect them by keeping them in the rear while gunship TF's close and absorb the enemy's attention.
* Ships designed specifically as point defense and escort for IF and Carrier ships can go lighter on armor, just as the ships they guard, but you need to be clear about keeping these types of TF's in the rear and preferably minimizing their exposure to enemy fire.
* As far as armor TYPE, you pretty much always want to use the best available. In MOO1, better armor types were more expensive, so there was a cost tradeoff. Here there seems to be only a cost tradeoff on armor thickness. Better armor type seems to be cheaper, so as soon as a new type of ship armor is researched, all your new designs should use the best.


Now inside the hulls of the ships, the crew and such are automatic. (The designers should have just abstracted these elements). The starships engines, you always want the fastest available. The system engines, you always want the best type available, since like armor, improved tech seems to be improved all-around, with no tradeoffs to make. The only tradeoff is with system engine speed.

System Engine speed is critical. Since ALL your system ships are bunched in one TF, no matter how large it may grow, this TF will be as slow as your slowest ship. Arrgh. This means if you have System Ships from early in the game that you don't scrap, they will make sure all your system defense fleets are stuck at the slowest speed. For this reason, I have come to conclude that 1500 is the best speed for system defense ships, ALL of them. That's the fastest speed you can muster in the early game, and keeping all your system defense ships at this speed all game does render them slower than some enemy types, but gives you more space in the later game for weapons, space that would be wasted on faster engines that you won't get to put to use anyway.

By contrast, for starships, you have to be careful about the system engine speeds. The autobuild will build slower engines into certain mission types: missile ships, carriers, troopships. Yet you do not want your TF's with different engine speeds. So optimal ship design needs to factor in not just the ship type you are building, but the type of TF you want to build and which designs you intend to put into which TF's.

Short Range, Long Range TF's always want the fastest engines. Gunships need speed for closing with the enemy, for chasing down enemy fleets that are trying to maintain distance, and for maneuvering to protect your slower forces. Carrier fleets and missile fleets may want slower engines to pack more firepower, but if so, their escorts may also want to use the same engine speeds so they can also pack more firepower. Yet you don't then want these slower escorts to end up in with the gunship TF's, so you really have to be careful. If escort ships are given smaller engines, they need to be identified as escorts for slow TFs.


Now, what kind of ships you want to build depends largely on two things. The foremost is your available techs, the second is upcoming techs vs current techs vs obsolete techs. This starts to get more complex, where players need experience in interacting with the tech tree. I don't want to get into that too much yet. You do at least want to open up the tech panel and see what's currently being researched in the lower left box. These are techs you are actually researching, which are due in soon. And for example, looking there in the save I've inherited from Gris, I see two missile techs upcoming: Missile Shields and a new warhead type. This means I do NOT want to design any new missile ships until these techs come in. If we need more ships or new designs, I want to focus for now on some other type of ship, then build a new missile design as soon as key new missile techs come in, using the latest techs to build a design that will, I hope, not be rendered obsolete too quickly.

It is looking ahead to what techs are coming up soon, as well as what we're currently short on, that I can decide how best to focus the military on my round.


Now, in terms of designing ships, let's start with a gunship.

There are four considerations here.

1) Strategic needs and priorities.
2) Mission type, TF purpose.
3) Available guns.
4) Available gun upgrades.

Gris completely missed step four in her MassDriver4 design. She's got no upgrades at all on the guns! That's not always bad, but it is only acceptable if using state of the art guns that are so new, you don't HAVE any upgrades for them yet.

Also, it seems that Griselda built her design by modifying the MassDriver3 design. That's not a good idea. You can end up with all kinds of obsolete tech on a ship.

* We want the thickest available armor on a front line gunship. MD4 has "light" armor, while medium is available. Not good.

* We want the best type of armor available on a front line gunship. MD4 has Zortium, which is the worst armor type. Since it's our only available armor type, however, that is the best we can do, so that's a thumbs-up. :goodjob:

* We want the strongest shield type on a front line ship. MD4 has Class 1 shields, while Class 3 have recently been researched. :smoke:

* We want the strongest shield generator on a heavy gunship. (Carriers or escort might go with weaker shields to save space/cost, but any ship taking a point position wants the best defense you can muster). MD4 has "small" shield generator, which is only half as strong as the "Standard" generator. That's not good either.

* We want the strongest overall gun for our front line ships. This will be either the latest guns, OR slightly obsolete guns fully decked out with upgrades. MD4 is sporting ancient guns rejected by the Homeworld Museum as too weak/old to be put on display. :p

* We want our Ships of the Line to bristle with firepower. MD4 has 20% of its space unused. (Perhaps the crews are playing zero-g volleyball in the unused areas). Not good. That space could be used for more items, or the ship hull size could be reduced if these are all the items we want.


The best way to make a new design is from scratch, with the aid of the autobuild. That is, forget existing designs and start over. Once you know what to do, it goes quickly -- in fact, more quickly than all the checking and messing around you have to do to ensure an effective upgrade from an existing design.

You select the desired hull size (colony ships are always destroyer class, gunships of the line and carrier/missile ships should invariably be made from your largest available hulls, while escorts or raiders may call out for being made in larger quantity from smaller hulls, and defense ships may need to be specific sizes to accomodate newer planets who lack for shipyard capacity). Then you select the appropriate ship type: orbital, system, starship. Then the most urgent, you select the correct mission.

* Gunships of the line should be Short Range Attack. You want them to close and destroy.

* Support-fire gunships intended to nibble at the enemy from a distance should be set to Long Range Attack. These ships will try to maintain distance from the enemy, closing to the outside edge of their attack range. They should have your longest available guns and mounts. Since the AI prefers this type of ship, however, there are few times when you can nibble at the enemy like this. It's only highly effective when you outrange the enemy, and more so if your engines are also faster. Thus, if you can fire with impunity because you can remain out of their range, these types of ships can be main line units. Otherwise, at best, they can provide rear guard fire support for the Line ships.

* Missile Ships should be Indirect Fire. These will mill around in the back lines.

* Carrier ships should be Carrier. These will seek a range behind the Long and Short range TFs, but not try to run/hide as dilligently as the missile ships.

* Escorts for IF and Carrier fleets should, in fact, be designated as Point Defense. This gives them an improved AI to understand that their only mission is to sit back and guard the heavy distance hitters. These ships can be made with ligher armor and shields, and short range weapons, since they are more likely to need to engage enemy fighters than anything else.

* Escorts for Line fleets should be programmed the same as the core ships: Short Range Attack for front line, Long Range for harassment and support fleets.

* Planet Busters (if we advance that far in tech) should be designated as such.

* Transports/Colony/Outpost should be designated as such.

* Large task forces require "Picket" ships which must be given the Recon mission, to go into the outermost ring of the formation. These ships can vary in design. You can add sensors, if you wish, or fighters, or guns, or electronics, you name it. You can even design core ships and assign them the Recon mission if you want to produce the heaviest, baddest task forces late in the game.

When assembling large Task Forces, an appropriate number of escort and picket ships must be avilable in applicable ratios. These are shown in the task force assembly panel.


OK, so you select the correct items from the three pull down menus (size, type, mission) and then click Autobuild. This is the START of your ship design. Next you want to modify what the shipyard viceroy has suggested. It helps to know what the autobuild will put on ships, not only for your own use, but in recognizing what the AI's will be putting onto their ships.

* For ALL combat ships, the autobuild selects the best armor "type", the latest shield "class", the latest starship engine (for starships; for system ships it leaves out the stardrive), the latest system engine, selects specials to add to certain mission types, selects armor thickness, shield generator size, and system engine speed according to mission type, then fills up the rest of the hull space with applicable weapons.

* Short Range Attack: the autobuild selects gun types of shorter range but bigger damage, and mounts them on spinal mounts. It fills up all the weapon space with such guns, then fills the remainder of the space (that last little bit) with point defense guns (or light mounts, if you don't have PD mounts). Short range attack ships are autodesigned with the thickest armor and heaviest shields, and given full speed on engines.

* Long Range Attack: the autobuild selects gun types of the longest available range and mounts them on spinal mounts. It fills up all the weapon space with such guns, then fills the remainder of the space with point defense guns. Long range attack ships are autodesigned with the thickest armor and heaviest shields, and given full speed on engines.

* Indirect Fire: the autobuild selects SMALL shields, LIGHT armor, slows down system engines considerably, then fills the hull space with your biggest, baddest, best missile racks: strongest warheads, largest delivery systems, and stocks all racks with five shots apiece. Any remainder of space will be filled with Point Defense Nuclear Missiles, also with five shots apiece. (I have found this general design to be highly competent, though I may increase the armor load and dump the nukes for a gun or a special).

* Carrier: the autobuild selects SMALL shields, LIGHT armor, but installs full speed system engines. It fills the combat space with your best available fighters with all available upgrades, with Space Control chassis. Any remainder of space is filled with sqauds of unimproved Laser Interceptors.

* Point Defense: the autobuild selects your best shields, armor, and engine speed, then fills the space with your best gun mounted on Point Defense mounts, or Light mounts if you don't have PD mounts.

* Recon: the autobuild selects SMALL shields, LIGHT armor, full speed engines, and fills the ship with electronics. (Not good. This could stand some improvement).

* Transport: the autobuild selects SMALL shields, LIGHT armor, slashes the system engine speed, and fills the space with troop pods.


(Continued...)
 
Now knowing what the autobuild will do, and understanding the general pattern of its "thinking", you will be equipped to move quickly. You select the three pulldown menu items, click autobuild, then tinker only with the items you want to change, name the ship, and bang, you're done. I can design ships in seconds, now. The only thing that ever takes me time is if there is an odd bit of "remainder" space into which nothing good seems to fit. I may spend seconds on the whole design, then minutes tinkering around looking for ways to make good use of the last ten or so units of space.

* Short Range Attack: You can trust the weapons, shields, and engines. The only thing you need to change is the guns. You do NOT want the spinal mounts it suggests. Also, the autobuild never makes use of the "Autofire" gun upgrade, which is actually
the best and most desirable gun upgrade there is. Tsk tsk on the AI, but I suppose if the game actually made the perfect ships, it wouldn't leave the player room to compete. Since Short Range Attack fleets are the bread and butter of my game plans, I usually load up on the best overall gun package I have. This may mean the latest guns, or it may mean recently obsolete guns with upgrades. It usually means Heavy Mounts, if I have them. Standard, if I do not. I may add some Light Mounts, too, and tinker with the numbers to get an ideal "fit" in the space I have, as close to the limit as I can get without going over, and without slowing engine speed. Finally, for a minority of capital ship designs (the biggest core ships) I may add some electronics.

* Long Range Attack: Frankly, I don't use these ships much any more. As time goes on, I have become a bigger and bigger fan of Short Range, heavily armored and shielded, "linebacker" designs that blitz the QB on every down. Nevertheless, if I do design Long Range attack ships, I will still want to dump the guns the autobuild suggests, in favor of Heavy or Spinal mounts with the best gun package: upgrades, etc. I may also add electronics. The biggest downside to Long Range Attack ships is that they deliberately stay out at the longer range, where most beam weapons are "diffused" and do less damage. The short range ships get as close as they can, and up close is where beam weapons savage the enemy.

* Indirect Fire: I trust the missile selection. This design is probably the autobuild's best layout. I may increase engine speed to max in some instances, though, and I will tend to change "Very Light" armor to "Light" or "Medium". I may also stick one gun on there, or one electronic.

* Carrier: I usually have to redo these. I like them to have more armor and shields, and I may scrap fighters with "armor penetrating" or "enveloping" upgrades in some cases, just to get more total fighters onto the ship. Sometimes I also prefer interceptors, IF my intent is just to create a diversion. If the fighters are intended to do actual damage, and especially if I have fighter armor and fighter shield techs, I prefer the space control fighters, as they CAN take multiple hits and they pack a bigger punch and can really harass the daylights out of some enemy types.

* Point Defense: I usually redo the guns, mainly because the autobuild doesn't choose the combo of gun upgrades I prefer. I may also add some heavier mounts for longer range.

* Recon: I scrap the stack of electronics and add whatever my fleets may be lacking in. Sometimes it's fighters (I've built SWARMS of destroyer-size "Recon" carriers in some games) and it may be electronics or guns. I don't tend to use missiles on recon ships because I need a lot of recon ships and missiles are much more pricey than the other two weapon classes.


Now... all of that may sound like a mouthful, but so does Civ3 dotmap strategy or trading strategy until you learn it. Once you know it, understand what you want out of a task force, what you want out of the task force components, and what you want out of your ship, the design process is fairly well painless. Since a LOT of the game strategy comes in with your ship designs and use of the various techs and components, being comfortable with the shipyard is crucial to playing the game.

Here is a comparison between Gris's design and the design I made to replace it. First, let's examine the guns and the currently available upgrade options.

Here is our latest gun tech. There are no upgrades available:



Now here is the gun tech that Gris was using. Note that this is with my selection of preferred upgrades. Without upgrades, the weapon is even weaker:



Now here is the gun I decided to use:




First note that all of these are stats for the Heavy Mount version of these guns. I'm designing a SOTL, or Ship of The Line: a vanguard gunship, the heavy hitter who charges into battle at top speed.

Let's compare the range. The Hellfire range and Railgun range are about equal. The MassDriver range is... shorter.

Let's compare the damage. Now keep this in mind: the game does not factor rate of fire into the damage. Using different mount sizes (different rates of fire) affects damage, not per shot, but damage-over-time, which is the critical element. The autofire upgrade doubles the gun size but triples the fire rate, yet that is not listed in these stats. So you need to think in terms of tripling the listed damage for autofire weapons to calculate the "real" damage they will do. On that score, the Mass Driver is not as far behind as it may first appear. We get 100 damage out of the HF, we get 32x3 or 96 damage out of the MD, and we get 45x3 or 135 out of the Railgun. Since all these mounted on the same size mounts, the fire rates are the same (and we've already accounted for the autofire).

Next up is comparing the Size of the weapons. This limits how many we can fit on the ship. Despite two miniaturization upgrades that reduce the MD size by 40%, it is still a hog, at 49 space per gun. We've got 36 space per gun for the Rail, 33 per for the HF. Also consider that the MD has "Improved" upgrade, which adds 50% to the damage (that is correctly shown, so without that the damage would be 21 per shot). The "improved" upgrade comes way late, only after a gun is truly obsolete, but may in some cases add enough extra punch to ancient gun techs to make them desirable in some instances.

Finally, there's one more consideration you can't see here: that's beam vs projectile weaponry. Hellfire is a beam weapon. Beam weapons diffuse over range, doing more damage up close and less at long range. Projectiles do a fixed amount of damage (and thus make for some of the best items to use for Long Range Attack fleets). The "Mass Driver family" are the projectile weapons, and the rail gun is the next in line in that family. Thus you also need to factor in that MD and Rail guns will do their full damage as soon as you are in range, while the HF gun, being a beam weapon, will not, but will do more damage as you get closer and bonus damage at "point blank" range. (This is the sort of subtlety you can't see at a glance, but can pick up on and enjoy as you become experienced with the game, much like you can pick up on and enjoy finer points of Civ3 or other games the more you play them).

Now let's compare Gris's MD4 design...



...with my Rail HvyC4 design:



Note that she's got five Light Mount mass drivers with no upgrades. These have a range under 5000. My design is on a Battle Cruiser hull, which IS larger, so keep that in mind. I've got extra space to use, and she didn't use all of her space. The Rail cruiser has size autofire rail guns on Heavy Mounts, with one miniaturization upgrade. Instead of the 55 damage her gun rack lists, mine lists 270 damage and with autofire fires three times as fast (well, almost. My mounts fire slower, so the total is twice as fast as her shots). So twice as fast, in the time her design would do 55 damage, mine would do 540. That's almost ten times as much! Also note that my ship has about two and a half times the range of her guns.

Finally, note the cost per ship. My cost is 2200, hers is 1400. In general, it pays to build ALL your capital ships (the core of your TF's) on the biggest hulls you have available. Escort ships may be built on the biggest hulls if you have enough production to do it, or you may want to build escort ships two to four hull sizes smaller than your largest available hull, and build some of these at less industrialized worlds. (You don't want ships taking too long to build even one, or they are obsolete before they come out of the shipyard, so it may pay to have one design with medium or small hulls that can be built almost anywhere). I hope that once the Military Build Queue (MBQ) gets revised in the patch, the micromanagement horror of controlling what ships get built will be relieved.


Let's also consider armor and shields. First, the armor on the MD4:



Now the armor on the Rail HvyC4:



For a cost difference of 60AU vs 20AU, on a ship that costs over 2200 AU regardless of the armor, it seems vital to me that the extra be paid and our navy guys be better protected. Note the protection is doubled on Medium vs Light armor!


Now the shields. First the MD4 shield:



Then the Rail shield:



Note that protection is 2.5 times better, AND the recharge rate is comparably improved as well, meaning that if damage is taken more slowly enough to allow some shield recharging, the better shield is MORE than 2.5 times as good.


Finally, there is a mission I have that the game doesn't have a mission for, that's a Jammer ship. I will, in the late game, usually design one ship that is all or almost all electronics. The ECM 3 and 4 items are really big space hogs. I will usually load my jammer up with one of each of my best ECM and ECCM, my best sensor, a cloak if I have it, and maybe additional electronics or maybe not. I prefer fighters if I'm going to stick any weapons on them, usually I don't bother. I assign them as Short Range Attack and stick them in the core of the TF where they are better protected, and usually stick one of each of these in every large TF I make, rather than filling up my other designs with electronics. Seems to work out well.


OK. I've got another big "lesson" planned for this round, too. But that's all for tonight. I've completed one whole turn on my round as I write this. There was a lot to adjust on the planetary front and some bits at the empire level. I need to go over the big strategic picture, too, as well as play out my round.


- Sirian
 
I almost forgot. Shipyard Capacity! Each shipyard upgrade improves your "largest buildable hull size" by one level. There is no difference in the shipyards, so if you skip the cheap "basic" facility and build the pricey high tech ones first, there is no benefit. The shipyards are all the same, in effect, but you need to accumulate more of these upgrades at a planet to qualify to build larger and larger hulls.

Each planet starts with "Frigate" capacity. Your homeworld starts the game with the two low-tech shipyard facilities already built, so it can build Minimum+2, which is up to Light Cruiser.

We do have Frig+4 Hull size: Destroyers, LC's, Cruisers, and HvyC's (or Battle Cruisers). The next size up is Battleship, which we don't have yet.

We also have four shipyard types, or up to Min+4 SYC (Ship Yard Capacity). This means we can build our largest hulls, the HvyC's, but only at planets with all of our available shipyard facilities in place, and right now, that ain't very many locations!

You can click on the shipyard possibilities in a planet list. Build the cheaper ones first, but if you get them mixed up it doesn't matter.

The order of the four cheapest upgrades are:

* Basic Systems
* Space Environement
* Matter Conversion
* Materials Processor

I think the next one may be Auto-Assembly, though don't quote me on that. :)

One thing of note is that our shipyard capacity was very poor on my last round and it hasn't been improved much since. That will be one of my top priorities, at least at our biggest industry planets and largest population centers. We will be better off to build fewer, larger, stronger ships and keep them alive than we will to build lots of cheap ships. In the same way that I showed how it is cheaper to build a cruiser with four troop pods than it is to build four tiny ships with one pod each, so it is with warships. You get more firepower for the dollar with larger ships, as well as making TF's that are tougher and take fewer casualties. Takes longer to amass a high number of ships, but quality beats quantity in almost every instance in MOO. It was true in MOO1, and it is true again in MOO3.

The PD bug is the one thing that really rubs quality ships the wrong way, since it doesn't care if the ship is a husk or a pricey state of the art warship. That's a separate issue, though.


- Sirian
 
Good gosh Sirian. This needs to be reposted over on RBMoo as part of your guide for beginners. I know I'm printing it out and putting it on my wall for reference. Thanks for putting in the time for this!
 
Sirian, you went exactly the opposite way that I've settled on in ship-building strategy now!

First, let me second your step-by-step ship-building instructions, however, since that's the same way I do it; I also find I can make ships in very little time. The thing that slows me down the most is that the last step is changing the name and then having to go and click on the Confirm button instead of being able to hit 'Enter' and have that confirm the design...

Anyway, I auto-build a hull but then I set the engine speed down to 600 on all the ships. On the larger hulls it's AMAZING how much more stuff you can pack into a ship when the engines are 'underpowered.' I can't run away, but I can sure get to a planet; if you're running you WILL get away but the system will be blockaded.

I always put at LEAST one ECM (more when an Exchange Items shows me that the likely enemy has ECCM) of the best type in every ship, since--if it's working as advertised <g>--it will keep the enemy from targeting me, be it fighters, missiles or beams.

So what we would have in a head-to-head between our current styles is that you'd be closing like a madman while I'd be pounding you with a LOT of mass-drivers or fighters or missiles, and then when you got in range, hopefully, my ECM would kick-in to make your short range beams less effective. (Since the early ECM is ONLY effective at short range.)

At least that's the theory. As usual, it DOES all depend on the tech levels you're both at...but coming up with these differing strategies, dare I say it, is what makes it a game? <g>
 
Doh! CFC File Server is not responding, not showing pics, etc. How am I supposed to illustrate my explanations about technology and tech-related strategy without the file server? :)

- Sirian
 
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