07-03-2003 01:19									#31
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Are the fighters interceptors or the other brand?

	07-03-2003 02:10									#32
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My guess woul dbe Space Control Fighters?

	07-03-2003 02:46									#33
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Carrier battles can be fun :-) Had one last night where several groups of fighters swarmed in on a TF, and chewed up all the ships but one in a matter of seconds. I don't know what that one ship was, but I spent the next 6 minutes watching the ship ineffectually swat at the fighters while the fighters ineffectually ate away at its shields. A constant stream of blue numbers (shield hits, right?) rose from the ship, but nothing better. Then the ship decided to go after my carriers, and an escort ship managed to score a yellow hit. All of a sudden all of the fighter hit numbers turned yellow or red, and the ship blew up in a few seconds. I don't know if the fighters were slowly eating away at the shields of that ship and the timing was coincidence, or if the ship was regenerating its shields as fast as the fighters were blowing it away and the escort hit was needed to tip the balance.

Anyway, the visuals of the battle were quite interesting. After 6 minutes of battle, the multiple carrier TFs had launched so many more waves of fighters that I couldn't see the ship anymore, and usually not the TF frame. I could usually make out the status bar, but sometimes even that was completely obscured That ship would have been toast much sooner if I hadn't been using obsolete fighter designs. I was using my old carriers to prevent piracy and the AI jumped one of my forward colonies that was only there because I charted it from the other end of a wormhole somehow, and the colony AI immediately threw enough colony ships at it to populate the whole system in one turn, bringing even the Reds up to colony status. I guess even the AI got bored of my slow, methodical plodding

	08-03-2003 04:16									#34
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I was using SCF's because I believe they have more durability.

	08-03-2003 07:35									#35
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I'm biased toward carrier TF's as well. Both for concentration of fire purposes, because they seem to have a longer "shelf life", and for sheer coolness value

	08-03-2003 12:52									#36
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Yes one of the fun things is to see a large swarm of fighters jump on someone. I also enjoy the defensive fire when they come for your fleet.

	08-03-2003 16:24									#37
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I killed a guardian without losing a single ship. All I had was about 25 destroyers, light cruisers and cruisers. at least 90% of them were carrier-based. They packed in as many neutron-interceptors as could fit and the fighters swarmed the guardian. (Actually I forget if it was neutron or fusion, I know it wasn't that advanced) The guardian was spinning around, desperately trying to destroy the huge swarm of fighters but before he was able to, the 2nd wave of fighters came in and finished him off. The other 10% were combo-long range attack vessels. Basically just heavy mount fusion beams with som missiles. forget what type but they did quite a number on the guardian without a chance to defend against them. Mind you, his shields were gone by then so it was probably a low-level missile with armor-piercing warhead lol

I remember thinking it had to be as week as the Moo2 guardian and I can take that down with a force of 10 frigates but my innitial attack failed miserably.

Personally I value carriers greatly. sacrifice speed for fighter-compliment and I was able to stick a good 160 interceptors (phaser) on 1 superdreadnought system-ship! And that was including ECM, ECCM and a few other useful things. I think 2 lighting field generators, not sure anymore. I built a task force of 10 of those... I could barely see my victims beneath the swarming hive of fighters.

Oh, and to retreat you have to be in control of the battle... found that out the hard way lol

	11-03-2003 03:30									#38
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The missle PD bug, if exploited, is the easiest way to knock out the guardians.

I wiped out all of the guardians with ease...

A sizable fleet with nothing more than 1-shot missle racks of light chassis nuclear missiles (and, because of their small size, ZILLIONS of the little suckers) did the trick EASILY.

A single volley not only overpowered and destroyed each of the guardians I attacked with that fleet, but that fleet (because of the PD bug) could take down most fleets in the game with equal ease.

When I decided in another game NOT to exploit the PD bug, I've used mostly carriers... they work pretty well once you get to higher techs.

	11-03-2003 06:24									#39
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quote: Originally posted by sartha Personally I value carriers greatly. sacrifice speed for fighter-compliment and I was able to stick a good 160 interceptors (phaser) on 1 superdreadnought system-ship! And that was including ECM, ECCM and a few other useful things. I think 2 lighting field generators, not sure anymore. I built a task force of 10 of those... I could barely see my victims beneath the swarming hive of fighters.

Let's see, what have I learned about Carriers and IF ship design? Or should I say, what do I think I've learned? (in other words, all of this is gleened by looking at the numbers and a little bit of gameplay, no in-depth research, and all of it is my opinion, which could be wrong).
Chop the system drive speed down as slow as it will let you. Not only does this make for more room for fighters/missiles, but since the ships wind up staying where they are, the combat AI is much less likely to do something stupid with them if you cede control or watch combat. Heck, I even design special escort and picket ships just for the carrier/IF ships that are every bit as slow, since they can't move any faster than what they're escorting, and that gives me more room for PD and short-range/long-range weapons.

Lightning field generator is my favorite PD weapon. By the time you multiply the Multifire/FireRate, you're getting 10 shots every 1.875 seconds. The best any other weapon does is 6 shots every 1.5 seconds.

NOTE: The following paragraphs are based on a total and critical lack of data concerning the damage rating of fighters and missiles. I don't know if they change at all, or if the damage rating is determined from the volume of the fighter/missile. It isn't in any of the spreadsheet files. Testing is needed, but I'm not in a position to set up two machines for head-to-head testing right now. The following opinions assume that they don't change.

Avoid the double weapons pods for fighters. Sure, you get two shots for just less than twice the size, but you haven't increased the fighters ability to sustain damage. I'd rather have 18 fighters that do damage X than 10 fighters that do damage X*2 if the same amount of damage that would kill all 10 of the dual-pod fighters would only reduce the single pod fighters by 66% in number.

Avoid the armor piercing fighter weapons. Again, you are getting at best the ability to do 33% more damage, but taking up 50% more space to do it, and you're still swatted down just as easily. In this case, however, from a purely AU-spent ratio, the AP weapons (both fighter and ship-mount) do better, because AP doesn't affect the cost of the fighter/weapon.

Autofire lasers are more of a tossup, however. Three times the damage (though each of the shots has to overcome the armor deflection rating seperately, I believe) at the same cost, but you can only fit half as many fighters into the same carrier. Makes for cheap carriers which might be important early on.

The three previous paragraphs go out the window if the damage a fighter can take is based on the space a fighter takes up.

Similar logic applies to missiles. Armor Piercing weapons just aren't worth it unless cost is the limiting factor. In fact, AP missiles take up twice as much space, rather than just 50% more.

Missile Chassis thoughts: Oddly enough, the Heavy Missile beats out both the larger and smaller chassis on a bang for the buck and bang for the space comparison, but I suspect that the larger missiles are more vulnerable to PD fire, since there will be fewer of them. If they have more damage points, that might affect the outcome, but without knowing how the damage points scale, I'm not sure. The missile-interceptor chassis has the advantage that the missiles will chase down other missiles and fighters if no other target presents themselves, but I've never been able to deliberately target fighters or missiles with them.

	11-03-2003 07:58									#40
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I tend to agree that more fighter or missiles is better. The only caveat is that if you are talking about missiles, then being able to hit the target (if a ship or orbital) hard enought to destroy it in the first volley is better than needing a second volley as they do not get to retaliate again. For this is seems better to use those heavy damage dealing missiles. Fighter are differnt as they get to stay on site to continuing to damage.

	11-03-2003 18:28									#41
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Here's my strategies:
Carriers: Make a list of all the fighters available. Stick what I want on them and then add the "potential" fighter types. Then I stack as many of those fighters as I can, then get rid of them and do the same with another type etc, each time I calculate how many fighters I can put on of each type and how much "overall" damage they do. The winning combo is the one that has the most fighters and the highest damage in that order.

Missiles: Same as the carrier except I choose the missile types carefully, Point Defense for defensive fire and the heaviest mount available for raw power.

I have found that in both cases, I can eliminate a technologically supperior foe with ease.

As for putting in a Thruster with speed 1... Can I say EASY target? lol It's not worth it. The amount of ECM/Cloak tech you'd need to stick onto a carrier or missile ship with 1 speed to avoid getting destroyed easily + the armor and shield costs/space makes the ship loose more space. I usually limit the engine speed to about 1/2 it's norm. So only 750 on Thrusters and so on. They won't outrun their enemy without suppressing fire... wich normally they do anyways with their fighters and missiles hehe.

System ships are something else, I make system ships with 1 speed as an intercept version of the defensive bases.I find it annoying when the enemy parks right overtop my planet without attacking me and I end up not recieving the food and minerals I need for that planet! So with system ships, I blow them out of the skies.

	11-03-2003 21:07									#42
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Reasonable thoughts. I don't find the slow carrier and IF TFs too easy of a target, because I never deploy them alone (at the very least I include a fast moving recon/PD TF to play spotter/bait), and they don't have to be anywhere near combat to be effective. Could have to do with the fact that the AI doesn't maneuver much, just tends to charge in and hope for the best. It could also have something do to with the fact that I usually field carrier and IF TFs in large sizes (armadas when practical) to ensure that they have a decent level of protection from their escorts.

My TFs that aren't carrier or IF based don't get the slow treatment, and often I use SR/LR TFs to guard the fire support ships. Oh, there's one ship type to never skimp on system speed. SR TFs need every bit of speed available, as they need to close fast or die.

As for the missiles, I can't find a use for the torpedo mount, since heavy mounts are cheaper and do more damage for a given amount of space, but other than that, I often follow your plan. Sometimes I put everything in a point defense mount just to put so many targets out there that I can overwhelm the PD of the target, but that's expensive, since PD missiles are about 3 times more expensive for a given amount of volume than standard missiles.

Couldn't agree more about the orbitals. The only advantage to orbitals that I've seen is that they don't all get clumped into one TF. I always build system ships before orbitals, especially since system ships will defend/blockade-bust any planet, not just the one they're orbiting.

	12-03-2003 00:07									#43
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Anyone,

I ran in to a Guardian early in a game and immediately bugged out.

Silly me, I forgot to write down the name of the system and later in the game I couldn't find it again.

Is there some way to identify Guardian worlds?

GB

	12-03-2003 01:46									#44
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Not that I can see, except as you mentioned. write it down. Not the planet, but the star.

	12-03-2003 01:51									#45
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Still doesn't help much, since it doesn't label the star after you retreat. (Doesn't make much sense, since you knew what its name was before you retreated, except that it lets you know that the system is still unexplored).

	12-03-2003 04:03									#46
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The way I play, guardian worlds are easy to find... just look for the "curiously" unexplored system amidst a group of explored systems hehe, usually if there's multiple jump points leading to an unexplored system AFTER your exploration spree, there's a good chance it's a guardian world.

Personally, with my Elerian mod I made, I go straight for Draconis and "liberate" it hehe. As the Ferengi said in BotF... "Supperior numbers are just as effective as supperior technology!" ... I stand true to that... I've almost got the Stellar Converter and yet my most effective group of ships happens to be those 5 squadrons of generation 1 (beginning of the game) carriers I built and stuffed full of laser-interceptors. Mind you, I'd never fight the Antarans with that fleet! lmao

I fought an Antaran group of 40+ ships with roughly 120 carriers (each had 110 interceptors with neutron tech)... Though I reduced their numbers to 15 ships, those 15 remaining ships were UNDAMAGED! I would watch as the blue numbers went up into the -200,000 damage and STILL no yellow or red! ... Tough sobs... I think I'll wait until I DO have Stellar Conversters before fighting them unless they have that very annoying "invincibility" flag on.

	12-03-2003 23:58									#47
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I think that even with the PD bug fixed, the easiest way to take out damper-field protected ships will be with missiles, since missiles ignore shields. Unless the opponent likes to cram as much PD into a TF as I do.

	13-03-2003 01:39									#48
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The easiest way to kill something is to annihilate it... nothing does that job better than a Stellar Converter... I remember in Moo2 when I'd stick 1 of these miniturized puppies onboard simple little frigates to form a huge, yet innexpensive fleet of stellar converter guns. Nice way to empty out a galaxy in a few turns lmao

Ofcourse my other strategy was to stick a Stellar Converter, Time Warp Facilitator and Phased Cloak onboard a doom star then as many stellar converters as possible... No offensive or defensive combo was more destructive than that. Decloak, Shoot, Cloak, Decloak, Shoot, Cloak. lol

Almost as useful as my "Doom Star full of Assault Shuttles" strategy hehe

That's one of the many things I miss in Moo3... the ability to capture enemy vessels in battle. Along with the ability to purchase a project into completion... And the mighty Doom Star, screw the Laviathan, I want a mobile moon! lol

I also miss those moo2 races they took out. I liked the space combat advantages of the Alkari, and the Telepathic abilities (and omniscience!) of the Elerians ect. Who really cares if those races were "orriginal" or not? (I didn't realize the Elerians were a ripoff of the Sireens of Star Control until I played Star Control 2 and 3 lol) I hope someone out there makes a very detailed mod that will include some of these missing things hehe.

I also miss the "uniqueness" of the ship designs in moo2. Every race (well, color) had a different set of ship designs. In moo3 there's only a different set for each type of race and it bugs me.

Anyone here know why the game always picks the harvesters at least once every darned game?! I hate that! I almost never see humanoids. Almost always harvesters, saurians, insectoid and whatever the type the Trilarians and Nommo are lol

You know, from what I see of how the battles are managed, it has a very "star trek" feel to it but I still say the battle system of Birth of the Federation with a few improvements would have been better (and it would have been turn-based too!)

as for the PD Bug, i only take advantage of that when I have exhausted all other possiblities. I hate cheating, it ruins the game.

	13-03-2003 04:29									#49
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quote: Originally posted by sartha The easiest way to kill something is to annihilate it... nothing does that job better than a Stellar Converter... I remember in Moo2 when I'd stick 1 of these miniturized puppies onboard simple little frigates to form a huge, yet innexpensive fleet of stellar converter guns.

I hate to start anything, but you wil notbe fitting any stellar converters into a frigate.
Frigate has 31 space. After all tech learned and you are starting adv tech 1 the converter need 500 space.
At that point it will only fit in a DS.

	13-03-2003 06:35									#50
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quote: Originally posted by sartha The easiest way to kill something is to annihilate it... nothing does that job better than a Stellar Converter... I remember in Moo2 when I'd stick 1 of these miniturized puppies onboard simple little frigates to form a huge, yet innexpensive fleet of stellar converter guns. Nice way to empty out a galaxy in a few turns lmao

Is the converter in MOO2 better than shieldpiercing autofire phaser with every damage boosting equipments? a dozen of doomstars with phaser could vaporize 100 enemy doomstars in one turn..

	13-03-2003 10:35									#51
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Advanced Tech miniturizes all the equipment related to that tech field. I had something like Advanced Tech 100 when I was able to fit a stellar converter onto a frigate.

And as for the phasers, well... 1) Stellar Converters can blow up planets, phasers cannot. 2) A Phase-cloak/time warp facilitator/stellar converter combo is IMPERVIOUS to all attacks if you always skip the even-numbered turns ; So your "phaser" fleet would be getting blown to smithereens without any hope of so much as damaging one of my doom stars.

	13-03-2003 11:26									#52
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What could you possibly be doing to make the game last that long? Adv tech 100, even when doing scoring run I never dragged it out that long.
I am well aware of what and how convertors behave and phased cloaking and Time Facility.

	13-03-2003 14:01									#53
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Sartha, stop lying - in MOO2 the Stellar converter miniaturizes itself only to size of 200 and NEVER becomes smaller.

	13-03-2003 14:05									#54
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For the antharian ships - they have a thick quickly regenerating shield called "Damper Field" That's why you cant kill them if their regeneration exceeds your firepower

	14-03-2003 01:17									#55
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I'm not lying though, the converter did fit... wether it was in version 1.0 or 1.3 I don't remember, I recall many things (including the space requirement for plasma cannons) changing in 1.3...

As for dragging the game a while, well, I like long games, I hate to win a game without doing everything that can be done.

As for the Damper Field, in moo3 it's 32,000 hit points and regenerates 32,000 hit points every 5 seconds so unless you can deal that many hit points of damage every 5 seconds, you aren't going to get through. (Not all antaran ships have that, I was able to wipe out a few of their ships with ease)

	14-03-2003 02:43									#56
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sartha I understand that, but I mean I have done a huge map and colonized all planets and AP. Ran the game out till all planets have all pop points, but 4 and still was only at adv tech 6. One planet with 1 pop left to get when it was time to do in the anties. So to go long enough to get to adv tech 100, is really hard to imagine.
I would have nothing left to do after adv tech4 or so.
Anyway you are free to do so it.

	14-03-2003 03:26									#57
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If I remember well, I was trying to see how high the advanced tech levels went... I got up to 156 I believe before I got bored and blew up every planet in the galaxy except my homeworld... hehe

	14-03-2003 04:34									#58
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How did you attack your own colonies?

	14-03-2003 04:36									#59
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I gave them to the AI as gifts... hehe aren't I just the evil one?