Well I just had a few games of MOO 1 recently and I was faced with a situation that my opponents had few series of 32000 ships and I just had few thousand small ships but good one. It took me a little time to figure it out how to handle a situation like this but finally I found out how to beat a big guy like that. So I wanted to ask if you like to discuss about a situation like this.
What would you do when you have an opponenet which almost has 200,000 good ships?
- Thread starter bahman
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I have seen stacks of 64,000 ships, all 5 types were in the thousands. One stack of huge and two 32,000 large.
How to deal with them depends on what the ships movement and you defense. These all occurred on impossible and not small maps, forget the size now.
In some cases they are slow movers and I can use bases to thin them down. I will have up to five stacks (well only 1 sip in each) of medium missile ships. Use those to force the retreat and pound with the bases, untill either I use up the ships 5 pack or they are destroyed.
Often the attackers will leave once the defending ships are gone. If the attackers have better ships and faster moving, then I will need to have a bunch of HIgh Energy Focus large ships to do as much damage as I can, along with the bases.
I have on a few occasion been unable to stop the attackers, when the main defending fleet is not strong enough or cannot get there in force.
How to deal with them depends on what the ships movement and you defense. These all occurred on impossible and not small maps, forget the size now.
In some cases they are slow movers and I can use bases to thin them down. I will have up to five stacks (well only 1 sip in each) of medium missile ships. Use those to force the retreat and pound with the bases, untill either I use up the ships 5 pack or they are destroyed.
Often the attackers will leave once the defending ships are gone. If the attackers have better ships and faster moving, then I will need to have a bunch of HIgh Energy Focus large ships to do as much damage as I can, along with the bases.
I have on a few occasion been unable to stop the attackers, when the main defending fleet is not strong enough or cannot get there in force.
I personaly was able to finish two sets of 32000 tiny and small ships with two shoots. I had to design and gather a specific ships to sallow them all. First I had a close look at their desing when they attacked my first system. The tiny one had avarage accuracy and good maneuverability. But they were armed with disrubter. The small one was armed with disrubter and pulson missile of five racks, well that means speed four for their missle.
I design a ship with very high accuracy, I mean attack level 12. A small one with two scatter pack X of two rack and one tacyon beam. I putted the best engine I had which was Ion driver and maximaize the maneuverability. I wanted to give the first shoot otherwise whatever I could produce would melt down by one shoot. I built 2000 of them which takes almost 5 turns from me. They attack two of my system but I just wait until they send its fleets to one my system. They destroied the system but I could catch them in the next turn. I engaged the batttle and give the first shoot of my missle to small fleet I should stay in right distance other wise I couldn't use my second shoot. The first shoot hitted and nothing remain from the first one. In mean time the second one get close to me but its distance from mine was 3. That was what I consider in my calculation. I just put one step back and give the second shoot of my missle. It putted to step ahead to could hit my ship, but they were gone before being able to push the trigger.
That was very good experince. But lately I had another game that I could find any solution for it. There was no way that I go to head to head war. The guy had 32000 huge ships with everything insdie. Another two series of 32000 large ships and one 32000 small one. You could find every nasty thing inside theri ships. Neutrun stream project was the most painful one. I lost 2000 small ships to a group of ten huge ships. They first use thier neutun strem project on my ships and then tachyon beam almost finished the job the rest was destoryied with a shoot of scatter pack VII. So I was really puzzeled with this situation. The worst thing was that the computer keep insulting me everytime it destroied a bunch of my ships or one of my system. I will give my save file in attachment soon to let you know how terrible was my situation. Hopefully you will find the same solution as I found. I will post the result of my war after almost 10 turns to show how much the situation changed in facour of me.
I design a ship with very high accuracy, I mean attack level 12. A small one with two scatter pack X of two rack and one tacyon beam. I putted the best engine I had which was Ion driver and maximaize the maneuverability. I wanted to give the first shoot otherwise whatever I could produce would melt down by one shoot. I built 2000 of them which takes almost 5 turns from me. They attack two of my system but I just wait until they send its fleets to one my system. They destroied the system but I could catch them in the next turn. I engaged the batttle and give the first shoot of my missle to small fleet I should stay in right distance other wise I couldn't use my second shoot. The first shoot hitted and nothing remain from the first one. In mean time the second one get close to me but its distance from mine was 3. That was what I consider in my calculation. I just put one step back and give the second shoot of my missle. It putted to step ahead to could hit my ship, but they were gone before being able to push the trigger.
That was very good experince. But lately I had another game that I could find any solution for it. There was no way that I go to head to head war. The guy had 32000 huge ships with everything insdie. Another two series of 32000 large ships and one 32000 small one. You could find every nasty thing inside theri ships. Neutrun stream project was the most painful one. I lost 2000 small ships to a group of ten huge ships. They first use thier neutun strem project on my ships and then tachyon beam almost finished the job the rest was destoryied with a shoot of scatter pack VII. So I was really puzzeled with this situation. The worst thing was that the computer keep insulting me everytime it destroied a bunch of my ships or one of my system. I will give my save file in attachment soon to let you know how terrible was my situation. Hopefully you will find the same solution as I found. I will post the result of my war after almost 10 turns to show how much the situation changed in facour of me.
Do you know that the highest value shown for a stack is 32,000, but they can in fact have 64,000? So watch out that they in fact did not have more than you figured.
Got it will try to get to it soon.
Ok, I looked at the game a bit. I do not know the level, though. I turned off the reserve spending you have over 60K now.
I traded the Psilons for Star Gates and got it for next to nothing. This should have been done long ago and the gates should be up.
Changed construction spending to have a smaller investment. Always put something in all fields after they get to advanced techs. Reduced Planetology after all you already have Adv VI or something. It had a large investment? Anyway got the two open fields with using all the research spending or nearly all set to those fields. Got the break through and now all but one done, the last field.
Put a spy on Darloks to see what they have. It turns out only two items so switch it to the other races we are at war with. After that I will go to non war races. I use 4.4% as the best amount for me to get spies.
Ships designs are not to my liking. Pegasus has 3 racks of 5 shot stingers. I prefer to only go up to Merc, unless I do not have them and then I will go to stingers, not beyond them though. The reason is I do not want to use them for anything but dithers. I will start with my best missile up to a stinger, but prefer Merc. ONE 5 shot rack only. Then best eng, then best armor (II). Next movement, then max ECM, then Max shields. If any room left add in specials. Repair is the most common.
I will have as many designs of this small missile ships as I need. Rarely up to 5, but one for each stack that I have to face, is ideal. I stationed one and only one at any planet that comes under attack. One of each ship design.
Spend money on Quayale to speed up the process of getting it online. This means shields and 20 missiles, if it can come under attack.
Excalibur has three specials I never use, Cloaks/Nullifier/Teleporter. This is not useful if they have Interdictors as the porters cannot be used or if they have porter ships on hand. I know the idea is to port bombers over and hit them first. I do not bomb planets out like that.
Well I will bomb them out in the very early part of the game to deny them a jump-start. I bomb them out with attackers that carry 1 bomb each or more if extra space. Late in the game I will use a few maulers instead of bombs.
Avenger is a bomber and I do not use them, except in a rare case and only early in the game.
Go to all planets and stop relocation. Switched to new missile ships at one or 2 only. Send ships at Orion back; let them fight over it for now. Sent the other stack home as well, it was over an empty planet. I do not want to add any planets right now. I want to get gates up and then massive numbers of new attackers.
Next turn put all on gates at max speed, except those without shields.
Design large ship:
Neutronium armor (not II), best eng (usually, not always), max move points to start, will back off if need be. Battle Scanner, HeF, Nullifier as I do not have Stabilizer, which I would prefer as it takes less space. Max comp, shields and then ECM. Now slap in, as many of my best beam as I can, not long range versions. Space left adds in Neutron bomb.
I prefer to have a multiple shooter such as Pulse Phasor, but it is not available. If they do not attack in three turns, they are doomed. Even if they do come sooner, it will probably not be an issue, but you could lose a planet.
Once I get the new ship into production, I will build them flat out as we have none now. These fleets will be able to take down their ships and I will hunt them down. I may bust planets since this map is sooooo big. I dislike playing on large or huge maps, as the game is boring, as you have to smash so many ships and planets.
I traded the Psilons for Star Gates and got it for next to nothing. This should have been done long ago and the gates should be up.
Changed construction spending to have a smaller investment. Always put something in all fields after they get to advanced techs. Reduced Planetology after all you already have Adv VI or something. It had a large investment? Anyway got the two open fields with using all the research spending or nearly all set to those fields. Got the break through and now all but one done, the last field.
Put a spy on Darloks to see what they have. It turns out only two items so switch it to the other races we are at war with. After that I will go to non war races. I use 4.4% as the best amount for me to get spies.
Ships designs are not to my liking. Pegasus has 3 racks of 5 shot stingers. I prefer to only go up to Merc, unless I do not have them and then I will go to stingers, not beyond them though. The reason is I do not want to use them for anything but dithers. I will start with my best missile up to a stinger, but prefer Merc. ONE 5 shot rack only. Then best eng, then best armor (II). Next movement, then max ECM, then Max shields. If any room left add in specials. Repair is the most common.
I will have as many designs of this small missile ships as I need. Rarely up to 5, but one for each stack that I have to face, is ideal. I stationed one and only one at any planet that comes under attack. One of each ship design.
Spend money on Quayale to speed up the process of getting it online. This means shields and 20 missiles, if it can come under attack.
Excalibur has three specials I never use, Cloaks/Nullifier/Teleporter. This is not useful if they have Interdictors as the porters cannot be used or if they have porter ships on hand. I know the idea is to port bombers over and hit them first. I do not bomb planets out like that.
Well I will bomb them out in the very early part of the game to deny them a jump-start. I bomb them out with attackers that carry 1 bomb each or more if extra space. Late in the game I will use a few maulers instead of bombs.
Avenger is a bomber and I do not use them, except in a rare case and only early in the game.
Go to all planets and stop relocation. Switched to new missile ships at one or 2 only. Send ships at Orion back; let them fight over it for now. Sent the other stack home as well, it was over an empty planet. I do not want to add any planets right now. I want to get gates up and then massive numbers of new attackers.
Next turn put all on gates at max speed, except those without shields.
Design large ship:
Neutronium armor (not II), best eng (usually, not always), max move points to start, will back off if need be. Battle Scanner, HeF, Nullifier as I do not have Stabilizer, which I would prefer as it takes less space. Max comp, shields and then ECM. Now slap in, as many of my best beam as I can, not long range versions. Space left adds in Neutron bomb.
I prefer to have a multiple shooter such as Pulse Phasor, but it is not available. If they do not attack in three turns, they are doomed. Even if they do come sooner, it will probably not be an issue, but you could lose a planet.
Once I get the new ship into production, I will build them flat out as we have none now. These fleets will be able to take down their ships and I will hunt them down. I may bust planets since this map is sooooo big. I dislike playing on large or huge maps, as the game is boring, as you have to smash so many ships and planets.
I saw a stack of 32K or whatever it was on some planet, but they never appeared in the game. I took most all of teh rich and artifacts, except Orion and a few other good planets close and busted a half dozen and finally voted myself in as I was tired of capturing planets (too many in the game).
The biggest fleets I saw where 3 or 4 stacks of 50 to 70 huge ones. I did have a few close calls and lost on big stack of 400+ large ships to torps. In the end I had bust out the coids and the Darloks and had punched the Psilons down to no fleet.
I kill so many Mek planets that they could no longer muster much of an attack. I was making 100 to 150 large per turn with more guns in them from time to time.
I got Atmos and later Adv soil from the Meks. I could have stolen sooner, but waited until I got it from captures.
This must be something like the second or third setting of difficulty. Average or easy maybe.
The biggest fleets I saw where 3 or 4 stacks of 50 to 70 huge ones. I did have a few close calls and lost on big stack of 400+ large ships to torps. In the end I had bust out the coids and the Darloks and had punched the Psilons down to no fleet.
I kill so many Mek planets that they could no longer muster much of an attack. I was making 100 to 150 large per turn with more guns in them from time to time.
I got Atmos and later Adv soil from the Meks. I could have stolen sooner, but waited until I got it from captures.
This must be something like the second or third setting of difficulty. Average or easy maybe.
I first should say that the level of game was impossible.
Well, I should have said a little about the history of game too. I just had a long war with both Pis and Mek and it was hard to talk with them. Mek felt down every other time after voting and Pis also keep bothering me and stealing the thing from me. I was not able to protect myself from their spys with adding 20% to my security. The Mek ships were even able to take down my system with 900+ missle and XX planetary shield. Each ship could do a little damge in each attack, but painful thing was again Neutrun stream proj. All my missle disappeard after a couple of use of NPS and latter a simple shoot of missle or even simple bomb which in normal situation are useless against planets I had.
Those designs you found were what was left from a long war and they were all old. Pegausu could hold them away from my system for a while. I have 10000 of them so I could give very strong shoots and keep them to move back and in mean time give few more shoots with my plane's missile. Later as Mek's fleet got bigger, it starts attacking my ships so they were practically useless. I lost main part of them in an attack and realized that I just could not simply defend my system even if I had 1000 missles on my system. It was impossible for me to build 32000 huge ships with that quality. Fortunatly I found that most Meks system near mine. So I went for its econmy instead of attacking its ships. I desing a tiny ships as bomber and produce 10000 of them which was easy. I could take four systems each turn and just forgot about defending my systems. Its fleets simply dissapear because its econmy could not support that number of ships.
Here I am attaching my other saved game before lunching my attack. Now you can easily find 32000 huge ships, two series of 32000 large and one 32000 avarage.
I first attack one of its system in very left, so it sent its fleets for defend and to hunt my ships. I lucnh my attack from right then, and keep attacking its systems. My ships were very weak but very fast, so I could hit much more than I got. I almost finished most part of its systems before its main fleets could reach the first system I attacked. It did the same mistake over and over so it lost most its systems.
I lost two systems and at the end it just had one system. Well good trade. Well taking orion was very important in my task becuase I found hyperdriver there and that was the key point.
So what I learnt was to go for economy rather than hunting the ships. All you need in this situation is very fast ships with bomb and obviously good computer.
You can try with the saved game to see how easily you can finish its systems. All you need is divide the small ships to four fleet and keep attcking its system. Later you can even have more ships, so you can hit even more systems in each turn. Those little ships need a little support too if you send them to a system with many ships. You specially should protect them from the ships equiped by energy pulser.
Well, I should have said a little about the history of game too. I just had a long war with both Pis and Mek and it was hard to talk with them. Mek felt down every other time after voting and Pis also keep bothering me and stealing the thing from me. I was not able to protect myself from their spys with adding 20% to my security. The Mek ships were even able to take down my system with 900+ missle and XX planetary shield. Each ship could do a little damge in each attack, but painful thing was again Neutrun stream proj. All my missle disappeard after a couple of use of NPS and latter a simple shoot of missle or even simple bomb which in normal situation are useless against planets I had.
Those designs you found were what was left from a long war and they were all old. Pegausu could hold them away from my system for a while. I have 10000 of them so I could give very strong shoots and keep them to move back and in mean time give few more shoots with my plane's missile. Later as Mek's fleet got bigger, it starts attacking my ships so they were practically useless. I lost main part of them in an attack and realized that I just could not simply defend my system even if I had 1000 missles on my system. It was impossible for me to build 32000 huge ships with that quality. Fortunatly I found that most Meks system near mine. So I went for its econmy instead of attacking its ships. I desing a tiny ships as bomber and produce 10000 of them which was easy. I could take four systems each turn and just forgot about defending my systems. Its fleets simply dissapear because its econmy could not support that number of ships.
Here I am attaching my other saved game before lunching my attack. Now you can easily find 32000 huge ships, two series of 32000 large and one 32000 avarage.
I first attack one of its system in very left, so it sent its fleets for defend and to hunt my ships. I lucnh my attack from right then, and keep attacking its systems. My ships were very weak but very fast, so I could hit much more than I got. I almost finished most part of its systems before its main fleets could reach the first system I attacked. It did the same mistake over and over so it lost most its systems.
I lost two systems and at the end it just had one system. Well good trade. Well taking orion was very important in my task becuase I found hyperdriver there and that was the key point.
So what I learnt was to go for economy rather than hunting the ships. All you need in this situation is very fast ships with bomb and obviously good computer.
You can try with the saved game to see how easily you can finish its systems. All you need is divide the small ships to four fleet and keep attcking its system. Later you can even have more ships, so you can hit even more systems in each turn. Those little ships need a little support too if you send them to a system with many ships. You specially should protect them from the ships equiped by energy pulser.
Not really sure what the value of hyper drives is, I mean yes you can get to a given planet faster. That is not all that important as it cost you guns. Plus you travel at the speed of the slowest ship in the fleet. This means it has no effect until all have that drive, unless you send them out alone.
To me on a huge map, I will do all I have to get Gates, that is the key tech. You also did not have a decent missile for so late in the game. As I said, I like to wait till all tech is researched before going to Orion. If it was Moo2, I could not wait that long.
Anyway on a huge map as the Klacs, I would just swamp them with all the planets I would own. Soon I would be ahead in tech and steal what they had and it is a cake walk. I find the larger the map the easier the game.
Funny you mentioned steals as they did only a few attempts and mostly it was sabotage, so it was nothing. They probably had traded for all the tech by the time of the save. In fact I turned off spying right away, it is not money well spent, so late in the game.
To me on a huge map, I will do all I have to get Gates, that is the key tech. You also did not have a decent missile for so late in the game. As I said, I like to wait till all tech is researched before going to Orion. If it was Moo2, I could not wait that long.
Anyway on a huge map as the Klacs, I would just swamp them with all the planets I would own. Soon I would be ahead in tech and steal what they had and it is a cake walk. I find the larger the map the easier the game.
Funny you mentioned steals as they did only a few attempts and mostly it was sabotage, so it was nothing. They probably had traded for all the tech by the time of the save. In fact I turned off spying right away, it is not money well spent, so late in the game.
Well hyper deriver means that you become almost free of building Gates to defend your system. In practice gates are useless for lunching succesive attacks because you have to lunch your ships from a dead system. You can not defened your systems in this type of situation as I had, so just forget about Gate. In another hand with hyper derive you could clean the missile before they could hit you. you don't need teleporter. In my case it was essential because teleporter was useless.
I used the same strategy as you suggest when I start the game. I almost finished Darlok. It was number one and just blocked my expansion so I had to hit him. Latter I met Mek and Pis. They were allied and made my life very hard. It was almost impossible for me to steal anything from them. Unfortunatly I didn't have good chance to research good missile but anyway that couldn't resolve my final problem.
My last point is that Gate in practice are useless if you have to defend your system against very fast ships. Some sort of ships which could reach your system in one turn.
I used the same strategy as you suggest when I start the game. I almost finished Darlok. It was number one and just blocked my expansion so I had to hit him. Latter I met Mek and Pis. They were allied and made my life very hard. It was almost impossible for me to steal anything from them. Unfortunatly I didn't have good chance to research good missile but anyway that couldn't resolve my final problem.
My last point is that Gate in practice are useless if you have to defend your system against very fast ships. Some sort of ships which could reach your system in one turn.
The main reason I like large platforms for combat ships is that you can make several per turn on a decent planet with no strain. That means you can scrap a fleet that has 300 or so ships and replace them in a few turns.
Actually the replacements are probably better and fewer of them can do the same damage. Anyway you cannot defend planets late in the game on those large maps with missile bases, maybe with scatter pack X you can for a while.
You will need ships and HeF is the best way to go. You can shoot them before they can reach you. I was able to have them launch torps in such numbers as to wipe out any of my stacks, if they hit. They do not normally get to hit as I am able to dust those ships and goodbye torps. Not like Moo2 where the torps will still hit.
In fact I was often able to shoot many of those ships and jump around the stack and hit the planet. The torps follow, but not quite reaching. The rest of my ships finish the ships and the torp vanish. Not even fair.
If it was a bit earlier in the game you can have your ships wait and let them move up and hit them twice. You unloaded your volley and the round ends and it is your turn first in the next round and you unleash once more. If you need to retreat at that point you can do it.
I prevented them form hitting any establish planets by seeking out their stacks first. Putting them where they had to gather a fleet before coming. I hit the gather points next. They did get in a hit on one planet, but only busted the missiles, not even the shields.
Once the gates where up, I scrapped all missile bases down (less than 30) and raised more than 200K. This put a lot of money back on the table to support faster fleet building. I did not go all out on building ships. Many planets did not bother and none use anything close to full spending on ships. No need to go that hard.
Actually the replacements are probably better and fewer of them can do the same damage. Anyway you cannot defend planets late in the game on those large maps with missile bases, maybe with scatter pack X you can for a while.
You will need ships and HeF is the best way to go. You can shoot them before they can reach you. I was able to have them launch torps in such numbers as to wipe out any of my stacks, if they hit. They do not normally get to hit as I am able to dust those ships and goodbye torps. Not like Moo2 where the torps will still hit.
In fact I was often able to shoot many of those ships and jump around the stack and hit the planet. The torps follow, but not quite reaching. The rest of my ships finish the ships and the torp vanish. Not even fair.
If it was a bit earlier in the game you can have your ships wait and let them move up and hit them twice. You unloaded your volley and the round ends and it is your turn first in the next round and you unleash once more. If you need to retreat at that point you can do it.
I prevented them form hitting any establish planets by seeking out their stacks first. Putting them where they had to gather a fleet before coming. I hit the gather points next. They did get in a hit on one planet, but only busted the missiles, not even the shields.
Once the gates where up, I scrapped all missile bases down (less than 30) and raised more than 200K. This put a lot of money back on the table to support faster fleet building. I did not go all out on building ships. Many planets did not bother and none use anything close to full spending on ships. No need to go that hard.
bahman said:
What they allow is reloaction of newly minted ships to sites that are coming under attack. The engine speed nor gates will help if the attackers fleet is within 1 turn from the target planet.
You have to prevent that by smashing those planets and creating a buffer. I also start my war after I find them with a massed fleet. This lets me kill off a huge chunk of their ships.
Planets that are more than 9 parsecs away will not be able to send ships to a rally point in one turn.
As to the dead planet stuff, I am going to have a fleet stationed in the best location to prevent an attack. The fleet that is busting planets is independant and is not need for defense (hopefully). Often it is only one turn away and could return.
The thing is you must not allow any massing that can reach any planet in one turn. You see them massing at a rally point, stop it. If not at least park ships on the nearby planets to aid in defense.
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