29-04-2005 03:03									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Petek Disband the unit (hotkey is Shift + d). You'll be presented with several options, one of which is "Activate self-destruct overload sequence!"

Yup and be careful since the self-destruct effect works on all adjacent units including your own!!

	29-04-2005 04:28									#92
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thanks, I figured it out though. Like when I was trying to destory terrain enhancements and accidently did the disband command. Then it showed up.

I tried it a couple of times. But I wasn't impressed.

In one case I had a very slight advantage to win the battle. But just for the hell of it, I self-destructed. I got him down pretty low in the red, but he still wasn't gone. I was using a quantum reactor shard needlejet btw. I was going up against a defense 12 unit (it was either a gravship or ship- I can't remember). It was over water, that's why I had decent odds with a 13 against a 12. I forgot to check, but I'm sure it wasn't AAA.

I'm just not that impressed with self-destruct. I may mess around with it some more in the future though.

	29-04-2005 08:22									#93
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Self destruct is good if you have a lone unit attacking a massive enemy stack.

	30-04-2005 08:52									#94
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident I'm just not that impressed with self-destruct. I may mess around with it some more in the future though.

As UR pointed out, its usually not worthwhile against a single unit but

1. it can be superuseful for say a chopper where you have attacked a few times and would die when you crash-land-- move it adjacent to as much stuff as possible and destruct it with a move remaining

2. Its excellent against stacks when you might otherwise have a disadvantage on the attack. One self destruct might be enough to allow you to kill them all. (although for health reduction I confess that I prefer artillery)

	01-05-2005 04:46									#95
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Or you could just use missiles...

	01-05-2005 06:43									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Commy Or you could just use missiles...

Missiles Prove the value of self destruct tactics-- You do much better destructing and killing a stack than losing a missile to merely kill a unit in the open.

Missiles IMHO are best for self destructing or for trying to take out a strong defensive unit in a base. Otherwise I rarely fid them to be worth the mineral cost

	02-05-2005 02:58									#97
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Well, if you are in multiplayer, they are a great way to take out condensors or boreholes and screw over a base or two...sometimes more feasible than using aircraft and artillery...

	03-05-2005 12:51									#98
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Missiles, like Needles, have the uses. I prefer to cover the enemy in Fungus with fungal missiles first then move in and knock them out while they're busy getting rid of the fungus and the natives.

	03-05-2005 21:04									#99
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i can say one single thing:
in times of choppers the role of needlejets is marginalized - you can live without them indeed...

	04-05-2005 01:56									#100
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quote: Originally posted by Sebed i can say one single thing: in times of choppers the role of needlejets is marginalized - you can live without them indeed...

I agree.

While I can find some uses for my leftover planes, once choppers are in play, I rarely build more planes

	04-05-2005 01:57									#101
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quote: Originally posted by Gremnon Missiles, like Needles, have the uses. I prefer to cover the enemy in Fungus with fungal missiles first then move in and knock them out while they're busy getting rid of the fungus and the natives.

But for the mineral cost of those fungal missiles you can build some extra attacking units and take out your enemy with all their terraforming intact

	04-05-2005 15:45									#102
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Self destructing is just too good. 10-1-1*2 drop infantry are relatively cheap (compare to a missle) and can go almost anywhere once you get orbital insertion. Self destruct means that in addition to suffering the 2-1 typical deficiency in combat factors and the astounding disadvantage of the enemy moving and attacking with all of his units before you can respond, now the defender must abandon linear tactics and any defense in depth which places two or more of his units adjacent to the same tile.

	04-05-2005 20:27									#103
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I think self destruct should be banned in PBEM's

	04-05-2005 22:43									#104
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quote: Originally posted by Net Warrior I think self destruct should be banned in PBEM's

That is one solution but I actually didn't mind it that much since I almost never would stack a substantial mineral cost of units together and if someone wants to destruct 2 units to kill 1 of mine they are welcome to do so.

The biggest problem I saw was that it made it almost impossible to defend any crawler fields. You can build interceptors to defend against long range plinking but there is really not much you can do against the self destruct tactics. the fact that your now dead crawlers didn't cost that much is small consolation when you look at all that lost production

Even then you can try to defend in up through mid game if you can simply maintain distance between you and your enemies with a lot of patrolling to look for the suicide chopper runs

	06-05-2005 18:53									#105
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I think needlejets are essential to my strategy. As I am typically running Pirates I typically have a few planes running patrols on the borders and then use a base near my enemiy to just soften up the cities defenses. After conquest I always hurry an Air Base (Per Cloudbase Academy) and then move the main force there to leapfrog to the next city.

	14-05-2005 22:59									#106
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Native life is good counter to nerve gas kamikaze runs, which might be important if you can't popboom to recover lost population.

	14-05-2005 23:21									#107
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Ah, I never thought of that. Designated defender mind worms, interesting. Get the Neural Amplifier and some sensors and you're laughing.

	16-05-2005 13:39									#108
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Yea, I've gone the native life route on occasion to deal with enemy aircraft when I don't have any aircraft of my own and they are definitely an improvement. I know I hate them when my choppers are ravaging the world, as they are typically a lot more effective than other units. They don't care much about weapons or armor, and don't care at all about reactors.

	16-05-2005 20:31									#109
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quote: Originally posted by sentry33 Native life is good counter to nerve gas kamikaze runs, which might be important if you can't popboom to recover lost population.

The "empty base " tactic works as well . I've done this in my "secure" interior on some occasions as a cheaper way to keep the base population up.

	16-05-2005 20:35									#110
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quote: Originally posted by Sikander Yea, I've gone the native life route on occasion to deal with enemy aircraft when I don't have any aircraft of my own and they are definitely an improvement. I know I hate them when my choppers are ravaging the world, as they are typically a lot more effective than other units. They don't care much about weapons or armor, and don't care at all about reactors.

Totally agree . . . Even when you kill native life, it causes so much damage that a chopper is ineffective for a second attack and often will die if it can't return to base.

The counter to natives though is artillery. If you can bring any amount of artillery at all to the scene of the fight, it shreds natives. So the result is that natives are very useful against longer range marauding but this effectiveness is lessened once enemy ground troop and arty are on the scene.


I used to be a HUGE fan of native life until I saw what arty can do to them

	16-05-2005 23:33									#111
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Aircraft trump infantry,
Mind worms trump aircraft,
Artillery trump mind worms,
Hovercraft trump artillery,
whatever vs whatever.........

The point is if I make you have to show up with a large well balanced army to cover any potential counter, then I have caused you to spend minerals you otherwise could have used for building infrastructure.

You may always win the fight, but at what cost?

	16-05-2005 23:46									#112
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quote: Originally posted by livid imp Aircraft trump infantry, Mind worms trump aircraft, Artillery trump mind worms, Hovercraft trump artillery, whatever vs whatever......... The point is if I make you have to show up with a large well balanced army to cover any potential counter, then I have caused you to spend minerals you otherwise could have used for building infrastructure. You may always win the fight, but at what cost?

A point I have made many many times. There is no magic unit and EVERYTHING is vulnerable in the open to something. Cost of the forces is key . . . The reason I used to like natives is that I thought they could have decent survivability and this made up for their cost. Arty changed all that for me . . . I just no longer see them as being worthwhile all that often.

	17-05-2005 01:59									#113
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Plus, with mindworms, you can't use special abilities or clean reactors...

Anyway, I think the closest thing to a "super unit" than can cover almost anything is either a 24(30 for SMAX)-12-gravship with clean reactor and blink displacer or clean reactor and air superiority...the only weakness is that AAA tracking can hurt them...but since weapons are twice as good as shields, it doesn't really matter, its an equal battle...plus, with blink displacers, base defenses are down...

The only thing that might be better would be hovertanks...they have speed and aren't affected by AAA (but there is still comm jammer)...and infantry with blink displacer...can kill any unit in a base...

	17-05-2005 08:14									#114
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quote: Originally posted by Commy Anyway, I think the closest thing to a "super unit" than can cover almost anything is either a 24(30 for SMAX)-12-gravship with clean reactor and blink displacer or clean reactor and air superiority...the only weakness is that AAA tracking can hurt them...but since weapons are twice as good as shields, it doesn't really matter, its an equal battle...plus, with blink displacers, base defenses are down...

Yup and that gravship could be shot down by a basic SAM rover/scout with a 13 weapon or above. or self sestruct ANYTHING with a big enough weapon next to it

The only way to build really survivable units is when you have tech superiority. There can be a window when you first get to fusion when you can make it prohibitively expensive to kill your units for example but with tech parity, everything can die to something and it comes down to industrial capacity and some tactics

	17-05-2005 12:42									#115
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quote: Originally posted by Flubber Totally agree . . . Even when you kill native life, it causes so much damage that a chopper is ineffective for a second attack and often will die if it can't return to base. The counter to natives though is artillery. If you can bring any amount of artillery at all to the scene of the fight, it shreds natives. So the result is that natives are very useful against longer range marauding but this effectiveness is lessened once enemy ground troop and arty are on the scene. I used to be a HUGE fan of native life until I saw what arty can do to them

Drop Artillery can really ruin your day if you've invested a lot on native units for instance. And unfortunately, natives aren't cheap. One of the reasons that I dislike the self-destruct tactic is that it discounts some of the elegance of the rock-paper-scissors system. What you end up with is largely a battle of offensive units with little regard to types or terrain or position, where your only defense is to have destroyed the enemy last turn.

	17-05-2005 12:48									#116
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Viz-a-viz the arty weakness of NL, if you have your own arty with your NL force, it takes any arty attack on itself, sparing your other attacking units (to the extent that it wins sometimes). If you want to maintain the NL purity, you can use spore launchers, although they sometimes are buggy, not always knowing whose side they are on. I haven't tried this, but I wouldn't be surprised if a spore launcher (or maybe even a standard arty) on board a gravship transport in the same force as your locusts would take any sam arty attack on itself.

	17-05-2005 15:11									#117
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There might not be any magic unit, but when it comes to defending bases, I find I use several units, with different abilities to help.
Normally two arty, one of each native, two standard land and if it's a sea base two standard sea and a transport.
I find that normally works for me. It costs a lot to maintain, but if you get high support or minerals in it shouldn't be a problem.

	17-05-2005 16:02									#118
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Thats a large roster you have Gremnon. How do other people compare, before and after the advent of Clean Reactor?

Defense is not a strong point with me. I'm still stuck on my builder roots and have a single TrancePolice scout in my bases until needs dictate otherwise. Instead, I tend to have a large offensive force patrolling my borders and scouting units beyond that. If my force gets beaten in the field I tend to fold.

	17-05-2005 16:10									#119
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I rarely have more than one or two units in a base until my air force is built. Then there are typically three units on my border bases, a chopper, an interceptor and an infantry or rover defender, usually AAA. The chopper scouts each turn for approaching enemies.

	17-05-2005 16:33									#120
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quote: Originally posted by Senethro Thats a large roster you have Gremnon. How do other people compare, before and after the advent of Clean Reactor? Defense is not a strong point with me. I'm still stuck on my builder roots and have a single TrancePolice scout in my bases until needs dictate otherwise. Instead, I tend to have a large offensive force patrolling my borders and scouting units beyond that. If my force gets beaten in the field I tend to fold.

Before the Clean Reactor, the others have the advantage of being able to build virtually unimpared. But after clean reactor - then they have problems keeping up, since I extensivly mine for mineral, but I have to or I can''t keep my base defences intact.