14-10-2001 22:36									#1
	moo3 SuperFleets.. Tired of ads?

In moo2 and moo1 it was possible to build a fleet of 7 or 8 doom stars. You could then take these ships around and go blow up anything you wanted with out the other side ever getting off a shot. Is this type of thing still possible in moo3 ?

	15-10-2001 05:23									#2
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There are various reasons why it would be impossible or impractical.

1) There are no more "doom stars" in MOO3, so you can't build them. Okay, in a more serious vein...

2) Space combat is real-time, so unless you are faster and have longer-range weapons and sensors than your enemy, you're virtually certain to get shot at.

3) Because of jump lanes and the need to keep your ships in supply, you'll have to be careful with a one-stack fleet. If it gets cut off from supply, it's going to be in trouble.

4) The task force system tends to promote a mix of ship sizes and types. Even if you can build a ship that can do everything, it won't likely be very good at any one of the things, and a properly designed and balanced task force could do you some serious harm.

There are probably more reasons that I could think of if I had the time, but these'll do for a start.

	15-10-2001 06:59									#3
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Ship's supply? Task force system?!?
Hello!! What do we have here?

Care to explain more, Stormhound?
When you have the time, of course!

	15-10-2001 07:34									#4
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Briefly:

There will be a system for supply...this goes hand in hand with the hyperspace movement and lack of absolute limits on how far you can go (no more "fuel cells"). I'd give you details, but I'm not in possession of any. However, it will be possible to cut off a fleet's supply if they don't guard their routes as they plunge into the heart of your empire (or you into theirs).

Task forces are the basic unit of battle for ship combat. You design task forces to perform different types of missions, and ships to fit within those task forces. In combat, you give orders to each task force, not each ship, and the orders are of a general type (go here, try to do this) rather than detail of who fires every shot and at whom. Task forces are generally designed to resemble the modern naval model: an outer ring of pickets, a middle ring of escorts, and a center of heavy ships.

	16-10-2001 05:50									#5
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this is probably a well-gone-over issue, but will there be any fleet size restrictions a la MOO2?

	16-10-2001 19:34									#6
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There won't be a "Command Point" system, no. It's your budget; spend as much on maintenance of fleets as amuses you.

	16-10-2001 21:28									#7
	Re: moo3 SuperFleets.. Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by markusf In moo2 and moo1 it was possible to build a fleet of 7 or 8 doom stars. You could then take these ships around and go blow up anything you wanted with out the other side ever getting off a shot. Is this type of thing still possible in moo3 ?

...err... you mean "7 or 8 dozens doom stars", right?

	18-10-2001 01:54									#8
	Re: Re: moo3 SuperFleets.. Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Rosacrux ...err... you mean "7 or 8 dozens doom stars", right?

I remember doing that . . .

Thanks for the info Stormhound! I always thought the supply system in Space Empires was pretty good, but this sounds a hell of a lot more challenging.

	18-10-2001 02:16									#9
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...err... you mean "7 or 8 dozens doom stars", right?

I have never needed a fleet that big to take out anything.

I fought an AI fleet of 65-70 Doom Stars with about 10 ships total, only 2-3 of which were Doom Stars. Granted they did get to shoot back, but the battle was over in 2 rounds.

	18-10-2001 02:52									#10
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As techs move up to higher levels, the stuff you get should be better. In MOO2, the best weapon by far was the plasma cannon. Unfortunately, this weapon was at least 3 steps lower than the highest tech. This meant that as you advanced in tech, your ground bases got worse.

	18-10-2001 19:31									#11
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I don't recall building any doomstars in MOO1, since the largest available ship was a dreadnought. But you could build literally thousands of ships. The AI had a bug which allowed some negative ship numbers to max out- resulting in a 36,000 ship task group!

	18-10-2001 19:35									#12
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quote: Originally posted by pchang As techs move up to higher levels, the stuff you get should be better. In MOO2, the best weapon by far was the plasma cannon. Unfortunately, this weapon was at least 3 steps lower than the highest tech. This meant that as you advanced in tech, your ground bases got worse.

Actually the best beam weapons were either heavily-modified phasers (shield penetrating, auto-fire, continuous, with achilles targeting and other stuff) for ships and the death ray for planetary bombardment. The plasma cannon was awesome until v. 1.31 which made it prohibitively expensive.

	18-10-2001 19:46									#13
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My favorite weapon was a HV, AF Disruptor. You could only get the AF mount when you had the last physics tech. Plasma Cannon gets pretty useless if the enemy has class 5 shields or higher, but it rocks on no shields or class1.

Yeah the HV, AF, SP phasors rocks too. I prefer the Disruptor for most ships in endgame because it can bombard planets as well as take out ships.

	18-10-2001 22:20									#14
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I guess my main enemy at then end was the Antarans. This explains my fondness for Plasma Cannons. Ground Batteries never got any of the other specials.

	19-10-2001 17:30									#15
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36 000

That might not have been a bug....I remember often having to fight a Klackon stack of 25 000 obsolete fighters...(of course, this is when you need the Black Hole generator....)

Klackons seemed to do this more than others.

	21-10-2001 09:06									#16
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To not burden my economy, i would just build one doomstar outfitted with Achilles, Hv, Hyper-X gauss cannons. That could usually kill 20+ battleships a turn

	21-10-2001 14:17									#17
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Phasors became useless with either hard shields (negating shield penetration) or with neutronium armor (which phasors barely dented). Combine the two and watch your phasor-armed fleet get shot out of the sky.

I always went for autofire disruptor cannons myself. Also, can the armaments on bases be controlled in MOO3? There was nothign more annoying than a starfortress with a mere 3 death rays.

	21-10-2001 20:58									#18
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Yes, you'll be able to control those things. Orbital defenses are treated just like ships without any movement engines, in fact.

	22-10-2001 10:41									#19
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quote: Originally posted by The Templar Phasors became useless with either hard shields (negating shield penetration) or with neutronium armor (which phasors barely dented). Combine the two and watch your phasor-armed fleet get shot out of the sky.

One of the specials (Achilles? I forget which exactly) gave automatic armour penetration. The hard shield option was a bit of a nuisance though.

	22-10-2001 13:51									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Stormhound Yes, you'll be able to control those things. Orbital defenses are treated just like ships without any movement engines, in fact.

I liked to have my orbital defenses pre-armed, like in MOO2. I could spare some time. Now that is one more thing to micromanage!

	22-10-2001 17:38									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Zealot I liked to have my orbital defenses pre-armed, like in MOO2. I could spare some time. Now that is one more thing to micromanage!

You *are* kidding, right? The utter uselessness of Moo2 starbases due to moronic AI arming is legendary in the annals of space gaming. I never understood just why it was so frigging impossible to have starbases/battlestations/star fortresses just be battleships/titans/doom stars with no engines and CP generators hardcoded, but otherwise just like any other ship. Much as I loved Moo2, that was one of it's more horrifying shortcomings.

	22-10-2001 20:18									#22
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Yeah with some sensible designing that Starbase could be useful, usually it just sucked.

	22-10-2001 20:22									#23
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quote: Originally posted by moominparatrooper You *are* kidding, right? The utter uselessness of Moo2 starbases due to moronic AI arming is legendary in the annals of space gaming. I never understood just why it was so frigging impossible to have starbases/battlestations/star fortresses just be battleships/titans/doom stars with no engines and CP generators hardcoded, but otherwise just like any other ship. Much as I loved Moo2, that was one of it's more horrifying shortcomings.

Well, at least I expect I can macromanage the upgrade of my defences in MOO3! I mean, if I develop, for example, MIRV for my missiles, I don't have to go to every single Battlestation and upgrade those missiles, like I had to do to every space ship!

	23-10-2001 19:30									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Zealot Well, at least I expect I can macromanage the upgrade of my defences in MOO3! I mean, if I develop, for example, MIRV for my missiles, I don't have to go to every single Battlestation and upgrade those missiles, like I had to do to every space ship!

I agree it would be a MM pain in the nether regions to have to upgrade all your planetary defenses yourself, but I think we can happily look forward to a smart solution from Quicksilver. They're not exactly stupid, even if I sure don't approve of everything I've seen from their design sketches, I am nevertheless confident they realise this all by themselves as well. They have gone through contorsions to eliminate MM everywhere else, so there is absolutely no reason to think they'd add to it here.

Peace and klackons!

	23-10-2001 22:17									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Stormhound Yes, you'll be able to control those things. Orbital defenses are treated just like ships without any movement engines, in fact.

Hmmmnnn... Does that mean that I can build a bunch of them surrounding a planet if I want? Like, say I have lousy tech, but have a large number of bases surrounding my world to help make up for it.

Kind of like in MOO, where having a bunch of lousy missile bases on a world would help make up for the fact that they were poorly equipped.

Or is this a situation where I can only build one per planet?

	24-10-2001 00:13									#26
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You'll be able to build multiple orbitals per planet; I believe the limit is tied to the size of the planet in question but unless the planet is absolutely miniscule you can have more than one. You can also build them around the moons, I believe (same limit) and since moons appear on the same combat screen with the planet it could add up to some decent firepower.

Ships will still be the mainstay of a defensive force, however.

	24-10-2001 07:02									#27
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Great, in Moo2 it always seemed rediculous that only one orbital defense station could be built around a planet. I mean, i can build an artificial planet but not an extra orbital defense station? I applauded this decision.

	24-10-2001 12:16									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Stormhound Yes, you'll be able to control those things. Orbital defenses are treated just like ships without any movement engines, in fact.

This and multiple bases are great news. Thanks.

	24-10-2001 13:44									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Admiral Great, in Moo2 it always seemed rediculous that only one orbital defense station could be built around a planet. I mean, i can build an artificial planet but not an extra orbital defense station? I applauded this decision.

Good point!

	28-10-2001 11:41									#30
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My favorite game (for a while) in MOO2 was to conquer the galaxy but for the tiniest, most toxic planet I could arrange for the enemy to be on. I'd develop my tech to some totally ridiculous level, and then give every system but the home to the enemy. It was great. They'd be all nice and smarmy for about 10 turns at which point they (predictably) declare war on me. They come at me with some 300 battleships and are completely wiped out by my handful of doom stars. Did I mention my ships had 5 Stellar Converters and Time Warp Facillitators and this other thing that triples damage? It was a great opportunity to go through and destroy all the Tiny and Small planets so they could be rebuilt later as Large. I'd get my final score up to something crazy...

The catch of course was that even maxed out planetary defenses couldn't defend against more than a couple of their battleships, so I had to keep a Doom Star at every system during my 'Reconquista'. You say this sort of thing can be alleviated in MOO3? Yay!

--
Jared Lessl