[MoO] The Guardian

[Tabarnak]

I found 2 strategies on the internet but both failed so far. I don't play Creative btw.

The 1st implies gyro destabilisators on 2 Titans. I miserably failed. Then i had read about a patch that corrected this powerful set-up. So it's not good at all.

Then i stomped on this :

THE MINIMAL GUARDIAN FLEET

In this sense, the considerations for "minimal" are with respect to
research and production time. This allows some deviation depending on
your research/production situation. As it turns out, the Guardian can be
killed with two frigates and two cruisers, and no research beyond fast
missile racks, zortrium armor, and emissions guidance system.

First cruiser has:

1 2-shot ECCM ARM FST merculites
4 2-shot ARM merculites
6 2-shot MIRV ECCM merculites
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull

Second cruiser has:

2 2-shot ARM merculites
6 2-shot MIRV ECCM merculites
1 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merculite
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull

Frigates have:
1 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merculite
battle pods

How this works: On the first turn, the Guardian will fire on one of the
cruisers with both death rays and target it with both of its torpedoes.
Regardless of which cruiser is hit, the frigates should fire and move
forward eight to ten spaces. The EMG cruiser should move forward one

space, fire both racks of ARM missiles, then both racks of non-EMG, then

both racks of EMG, and sit still. The other cruiser should move forward

one space, fire the ARM then the MIRV missiles, move forward two more
spaces, fire the ECCM ARM FST missiles, and sit still. The Guardian will
react by moving forward, killing the wounded cruiser with one death ray,
a frigate with another, and about seven of the ARM missiles with its
Point defense particle beams. The remaining frigate should then move
about 6 more spaces toward the Guardian, and fire its remaining missile.
The Guardian will charge, trigger its spatial compressor on the ECCM ARM
FST missiles, leaving the non-fast missiles unharmed, and continue to
plow into the pile of missiles. The MIRV missiles will usually clear the
shield, and most likely, the EMG will blow the engine. If you want to be
sure about the kill, add another frigate into the mix and do the same.

Given the appropriate race and universe conditions, such a fleet can be
assembled and sent close to turn 100 in a pre-warp game. Several races
can pull this off by turn 120.

Now, i have tried to kill the Guardian with mirv missiles, zort. armor on 6-7 battleships. And that wasn't even close. Not the same approach but it's still a lot of mirv missiles...The only way i found for now is to tech the beams and computers fields. I'm currently quite a noob at moving and firing ships on the battle map and most of the time i put this on auto to save time(and play more games ).

The AI is just too dumb to even try. I can counter every AI actions with auto battles. But in this case(and probably against humans hehe) and some others where you need to make chirurgical moves...i guess that you can leverage your fights a lot(and use less ressources for same results).

Questions now :

Is this strategy actually works?

Do you have another strategy that is less intensive(more techs, big ships) but let you beat him...let's say...around the turn 120-140?

 

[Tristan_C]

I haven't been able to kill the guardian without neutron scanners (900 RP), and this should be a clear choice anyway so you can skip tachyon scanners. I also haven't been able to do it with his cruiser fleet. I used the battleship. Build a battleship and 4-5 frigates on his specs and the battleship will survive the battle. Not that that matters too much when you have the avenger, but it's still 1400 hammers.

2 2-shot ARM FST merc
4 2-shot ARM merc
11 2-shot MIRV ECCM merc
2 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merc
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull​

The idea (which the auto battle button might not grasp— I haven't even tried) is to have the less expensive missiles trigger the guardian's defenses out of range of the rest of main payload. In my battle, the guardian killed 2 frigates at the opening and launched his torps at two of the others. I kept these in the fight, clumping them towards the battleship. Battleship advances 1 space (? can't remember), fires its main payload, advances two spaces, and fires the fast missiles.

The number of turns varies with the size of the map and level of AI interference. In a big galaxy plan to build a couple of outpost ships to accompany the fleet.

 

[vmxa]

The gyro was nerfed in a patch, so I would suspect that was written prior to then. It was pretty strong in early Moo2.

Patch 1.3 :

Gyro-Destabilizers now take 75 space and cost 50BC. Their damage
has also been decreased to 1-4 per size class of target ship.

 

[neilkaz]

I wrote in a different thread.

"I arrived at Orion on turn 137 with a Battleship with 10 MIRV Mercs and 4 MIRV EMG Mercs along with 3 EMG DD's (2 missiles) and 4 EMG FF's (1 missile). A FU EMG Merc requires 37 space and just fits on a frigate with battle pods and nothing else.

The Guardian was destroyed but I had to self distruct my BB to finish off his front shield to let the EMG's thru. Never before have I taken Orion this quickly playing Impossible Pre-Warp. The game turn said 3513.6 which is turn 137 since it starts at 3500.0. I'd done 140 turns once with a UniTol race and a superb start but this game I had a poor start and had a colony ship blow up!"

The key to killing the Guardian with missiles rather early is to knock down his shield and hope a couple EMG missiles get thru the lightning field and blow his drive.

So as we see, in my example, I didn't have adequate missile power to reliably knock down its shield and would have been better off with an additional BB or maybe 18 MIRV non EMG Mercs.

A few words about fighting the Guardian with EMG missiles.

1) Nukes aren't strong enough to do much if any damage. Thus you need to tech to the Zort armor level so you can MIRV Mercs.

2) The Guardian will usually kill two Z-armored destroyers (DD's) with beams. It's torpedo will kill another DD, but that DD can get a shot off before dieing. If you have FF's (tiny frigates) that torp will split into two and kill two FF's.

3) EMG missiles take up at least (rounding) twice the space of non-EMG missiles but do the same ammount of damage to the shield. Thus if you use all EMG missiles, you need lots more to knock down the shield. Better to knock down the shield with non EMG and then hope that some EMG get thru for the kill shot.

4) If you don't have a drive as good as Ion, from my experiences, your missiles won't close in on the Guardian fast enough and he may turn a non-damaged shield towards them.

5) Once in a while The Guardian will become immobilized. If so, you want to kill him that turn as he'll repair.

6) In a pinch, you can self destruct a ship next to the Guardian and do good damage to its shield.

7) There are 8 weapons bays. Weapons in the first bays are fired first. I put my EMG missiles on BB's in later bays so the non-EMG hit first.

 

[neilkaz]

Here's some MIRV Merc ship designs that I use. Note that I rarely use fast missile racks, preferring to research assault shuttles and since my 2 shot missile ships can often get off the 2nd shot anyhow. All these designs use battle pods. I rarely use cruisers unless tele-blitzing so I am not as familiar with those designs. All missiles are FU, ie fast, armored, and ECCM (unless otherwise noted) since I am planning on using this ships vs a likely variety of AI's and the Guardian.

Battle ships... BB's with BP and rein hull (I don't want to lose these easily) have 325 space. Each FU Merc at the Z-armor tech level requires 18 space. So 18 can fit and be spread over a few or more of the 8 bays. I call these Merc18.

I can mix in some EMG (37 space) and make a Merc10 EMG4 BB or even a Merc8 EMG5 sometimes depending on mood. To do the regular missiles in the first bay or two need to lose ECCM to make them a bit smaller. (Three of these mixed EMG/non-EMG BB's will kill the Guardian and you may want to bring along a few smaller ships as cannon fodder).

Cruisers... CC's aren't a ship I use all that often, but I recall I can make a Merc9 if I remove ECCM or armor from some of the missiles to get them down to 16 size.

Destroyers... DD's with BP and rein hull have 75 space. They can hold 4 FU MIRV Mercs, Merc4 or 2 EMG FU Mercs, EMG2.

Frigates... FF's with BP have 37 space. I don't worry about rein hull with these since I need the space to make either a Merc2 or EMG1 and if they get hit they're dead anyhow.

EMG1's and EMG2's will make good guard ships to leave behind at planets during a conquest so the enemy cannot easily counter attack your new conquests with a stray ship or two while your main fleet continues onward.

I've often killed the Guardian with two Merc18's (knock down the shield) and 6 EMG2's (get a couple EMG's thru to blow the drive) but it can be touch and go sometimes and you might not kill him on the first salvo. You can add in another DD or two or a couple FF's or I've also had good results making one Merc18 a Merc10EMG4 as the shield is usually knocked down and the added EMG means more chance to blow the drive.

Of course, often by the time you can get to Orion, you've been or are in a war or two and have a decent number of planets and a bigger fleet than needed.

One time I was Alkari and had a leader who greatly boosted my CP and had about a dozen FF's around for space monster killing and serving as a defense so my AI opps wouldn't think I was easy pickings. I then decided to go after Orion with only FF's. 19 Merc2's and 11 EMG1's did the job although I had to destroy a few ships to finish blowing the shield and took heavy losses as expected. A total of 32 FF's would likely be safer and not too costly to Mrrshan or some other Warlord in CP overruns. I'd recommend bigger ships to go after him in most cases.

In attacking the Guardian I charge right towards him and then fire my missiles (watch out for his torpedo as that targetted ship cannot advance fully) since I want them to hit quickly and not give the Guardian a chance to turn another shield towards them.

 

[Tabarnak]

Thanks all.

I begin to be familiar with manual use of ships and i have read about the self destruct trick(what a chessy one!). I will try to adapt your strategies to mine and i hope for better results in some days! I will report a game with screenshots later.

I played yesterday and managed to beat the Guardian with 5 battleships :

2 of them were equipped of zort. armor and mirv merc. missiles(they were by far the oldest)
2 of them with phasors, battle sanner and the cybertronic computer(i skip labs if i need a computer and go for the galaxic cybernet if i need more science)
1 of them with same things but with shiled piercing(1 extra miniaturization...phasor rifles)

Of couse it wasn't fast like you because i was already playing the turn 175(pre warp of course) but manually beating the Guardian was quite a nice way to learn the actual balle screen. I think it was one of my best times but im not sure(have intensively played some years ago, mainly ceative)

With the self destruct thing and the way to place missiles and stuff, i guess that i will be pleased from what i will see later!

It's more like a challenge than anything else...in fact it's almost better to NOT beat the Guardian to finish the game faster...you keep your ships for the AI instead...get more pop...research the Stellar convector...and bang!

 

[vmxa]

Don't forget you get a free tech and several Antie techs. You also get Loknar and then can see the whole map. I only want to gain one thing from Orion and that is the X armor, the rest just a bonus.

 

[Tabarnak]

Tried a game and built a battleship like TristanC has suggested. Not sure about how to build frigates though.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I didn't succeed at all. I teched everything and also ion drive. I want to put the save and let you try for me or at least check what i'm missing. Where are these saves btw? I can't find them.

 

[vmxa]

Saves are in the Moo2 folder. Where that is depends on the installation. I put mine as a standalone. If is GoG, probably under the GoG folder. Search for save*.gam.

I note that you have fast missile racks. iirc they are not used in his build.

 

[Tristan_C]

Fast racks are indeed used. Post the save!

 

[neilkaz]

Don't forget you get a free tech and several Antie techs. You also get Loknar and then can see the whole map. I only want to gain one thing from Orion and that is the X armor, the rest just a bonus.

Damper field is really nice also. The last time I put them on battleships they only required 25 space and stop 3/4 of all damage.

 

[neilkaz]

Tried a game and built a battleship like TristanC has suggested. Not sure about how to build frigates though.

I didn't succeed at all. I teched everything and also ion drive. I want to put the save and let you try for me or at least check what i'm missing. Where are these saves btw? I can't find them.

Frigates are the scout sized tiny ships.

You have 7 destroyers with that Battle Ship. I'd want them to have EMG missiles.

Replay your save and check why you couldn't kill the Guardian. Was it bcuz you didn't completely knock down the shield? In that case you need to hit it with more missiles. Or did you blow away the shield but not have any or enough EMG missiles get thru its lightning field? In that case you need more EMG missiles.

Certainly if you sent along a second battleship, you'd kill it. But that is lots more hammers needed.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[scratchthepitch]

Surprised nobody discussed this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQkvBEEOK-s

I think there was another video version of the same strategy using 8 destroyers, instead of 10, with 3 of these armed with EMG Merculites, instead of just 2 ships. The trick doesn't always work. Sometimes the Guardian's shield isn't breached. Sometimes the Lightning field blocks all the final EMG shots. Sometimes the EMG ships cant reach a position next to an unshielded side of the Guardian. Using 4-6 EMG armed destroyers and 10-12 non-EMG armed destroyers was pretty sure to get the Guardian. To avoid the EMG ships not being able to reach position, I sacrifice one of the EMG merculites and give them augmented engines, filling up the rest of the space with the best missile possible.

Ship data:

EMG destroyers - specials = battle pods, fast missile racks, augmented engines. Armament = 1xEMG mirv, ECCM, merculite (2 shot), fill remaining space with best missile.

Non-EMG destroyers - specials = battle pods, fast missile racks. Armament = as many mirv, ECCM, 2 shot merculites as possible with remaining space taken up by next best missile choice.

It is important that all the missiles have ECCM otherwise they wont avoid the lightning field.

The advantage of this strategy over using fewer cruisers and battleships is that you don't need star bases to build the ships and even low production planets can build one of these ships in 5-6 turns. So even a small, weak empire can build up the necessary ships pretty quickly once Orion is found.

 

[Tabarnak]

I just can't find moo2 files on my computer.

Closest thing i have found is this :

1. Open Windows Explorer and look for your account. (possibly Owner)
2. Go to Tools and Folder Options and click on the option view all files. You are looking for a hidden folder called AppData.
3. Go to AppData - Local - Virtual Store - ... - where you have Master of Orion 2.
4. When you get there, you should see your saved games. This is where Windows 7 stores the game data, instead of the normal hard drive location.
5. Copy SAVE1.GAM from the Zip file to SAVE1.GAM. Note that you will lose the information on that game so you might want to rename your save file if you want to preserve it.

Can someone tell me the right directory to find the appdata/local/virtual_store file?

I tried the *.gam thing(save1.gam, etc.) and my comp doesn't see anything. I also disabled hidden files so i can see everything.

@scratch : I have seen this vid before making this thread. The biggest problem if this strat is that you need antaran ships! There is no way to get some before the turn 150.

 

[vmxa]

In order to search for files that could be in any folder, you need to search from the root. IOW the whole locate drive such as C:.

In Win7 (Vista/Win8) the install will want to go into the ProgramFiles X86 folder, IF it is running with admin authority. If that is the case, then when the app (game) will want to write in that folder as well, IF it has admin. If it does not or then it will be send to one of the sub folder for USERS.

Appdata may be a direct sub or it may be under a username folder, depends on the OS. Appdata has three folders Local, Roaming and I forget the other. You could have the saves in any sub of those three.

 

[vmxa]

The trick is to always install and always run the same method. It can be as admin or not, but do it the same. Else you run into the game running as admin one time and not the next and not seeing the latest saves.

I use to go to the properties and force them to always starts as admin. In Win8 you can have them on the start and right click and select run as admin.

 

[Tabarnak]

Alright i finally found the save locations. They are pretty well hidden when you don't know where to start.

But now i can't attach the file(error : invalid file) here

 

[Tristan_C]

In the meantime you can try this save to see if it works for you. Typical DemoLith rush on the guardian, this battle is at t127 in a large galaxy. I brought a battleship and 6 frigates. The battleship and two of the frigates survived.

Oh and zip your save into a rar file to upload it here...

 

[Tabarnak]

Well i finally got Orion before the turn 150

This time i brought 2 battleships and 4 frigates. He ''torpedoed'' a frigate and let my 2 battleships alive! Just throwed fast racked missiles to him then boom

At least i found a way to kill him with missiles only. Now it's time to reduce hammers needed and see if i can get there faster with fewer ships.

Note that i teched for gravity generators first and didn't bother about Orion but it had turned into a nice opportunity.

Some pics :

I slowed down Sulcus production to get fast racks in time and get 2 battleships with these powerful missiles

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Battleship design

Spoiler :

Sulcus finished a colonial ship ready to go for Orion!

Spoiler :

Now i can see how to go for a better time with same fleet but im sure i can do better with smaller ones.

@TristanC : Wow that's some great time! I will check it out. Alright for the .rar file thing!

Edit : Ok here is the file :

Edit2 : Forget that...it was another game...i forgot to make copy of the 135 turn save(i did post the save but removed it later).

 

[Tabarnak]

Is this a bug?

Spoiler :