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ship spammers-A Guide to Fighting Back

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ship spammers-A Guide to Fighting Back

annoying b*tches

from Sins Forums

You all know them, and you all hate them.  You call them ship spammers.   For most of you that word probably has a meaning.  But let me explain it to those of you who have never had a game ruined by a spammer.  A ship spammer is someone who build a crapload of one type of ship (such as 150 LRMs) and attacks.  I am writing this fresh from a particularly stinging defeat at the hands of a ship spammer.  It is important to know that these people CAN be beaten, and playing a game with a ship spammer is not the end of the world.

All ship spammers are n00bs, they spam because they know that they will not win any other way.  Often, it is easy to make a ship spammer stop spamming simply by telling them that they suck and won't amount to anything.

If that doesn't work it's time to go to Plan B.  The whole idea of spamming is to start building ships (the most popular one is the torpedo frigate or it's equivalent), as soon as possible.  Therefore, spammers will sometimes not even bother to colonize other worlds.  They will build 2 research facilities, research torpedo frigates, and start building.  Often times, they will build between 3-4 more frigate facilities to speed up the process.  Their greatest weakness is that they spend ALL of their money building ships, so while you're going out there and colonizing worlds, they're sitting in their one little world building more ships.  This means that often times when a spammer attacks you, the best strategy is to simply attack his world.  They never have more that 3.  Spammers send ALL of their ships in for an assualt, leaving none behind for defense.  Go around his fleet and attack.  Just bomb his planets and he's done.

If that doesn't work, you have to give them a taste of their own medicine.  Spam a ship one level above his.  If he's spamming light frigates, build torpedo, if he's building torpedo, build flak, and so on.  When that's done, there will be nothing left of him, and you can walk all over him.

Please make replies on the Ideas for v1.03 post and tell them that there needs to be a unit cap for individual types of units.

Get admins and hosts of servers to boot spammers and let them know that their n00bey ways are not appreciated.

Beating a spammer is actually easy if you know what to do.

Good luck!

120,687 views 186 replies
Reply #76 from Sins Forums Top
Spammers are committed to a certain ship type and every ship type has a counter. As long as you know what they're spamming it's usually not a problem to beat them. Like you said sacrificing one of your planets to take three of theirs is usually a good trade.
Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top
Im sure that alot of other countrys thought that the Russian strategy of flooding Europe with a armor rush in the cold war was noob to, but it still scared the rest of the world into developing strategys to respond to this threat. As you are scared and trying to develop a startegy to counter this one, which proves that its a valid tactic and thats what the games about. I think that people who dont build anything and all they do is colonize other worlds and build economy can be a bad strategy also, it sounds like sour grapes to me. Sometimes a fast rush is the only way to beat a player who is a econwhore who dosnt expect to be attack and expands ridiculously. If someone scouts you and you have no defense so they flood you with low tech ships to take you down whats wrong with that? Sounds to me like they know what they are doing. I think your on the right track to talking about a certain strategy that plagues you in games and getting a good counter to it, I think you are going about it the wrong way insulting people and generalizing.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #78 from Sins Forums Top
I believe it's just the opposite.

It's not that noobs are ship spammers, it actually that noobs do not know how to defend against ship spammers.
Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top
Im sure that alot of other countrys thought that the Russian strategy of flooding Europe with a armor rush in the cold war was noob to
End of quote


I don't think one person thought the word "noob" when it came to Russia. LOL!

Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top
It's not that noobs are ship spammers, it actually that noobs do not know how to defend against ship spammers.
End of quote


Thats a good point there.

if i build nothing but illums for a small fleet and i see that the opponent doesn't know how to cope with them or counter them. there is no real point in putting effort into creating a balanced fleet and doing more research to get those ships or to better my armor/weapons.

Its simply more time and cost effective to simple keep building illums and overwhelm him.

with that said, a balanced fleet of combined arms will win any day vs a mass of a single ship type, in every battle I've had that i can remember in this game. Just don't expect win against superior numbers simply because your fleet is balanced
Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top
Fleet caps are another level of artificial limition set on strategies. More variety is better then less right? (Heck, there are some people who don't even want the current total ship fleet caps in the game. Why would they want more limitations?)
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precisely

besides, its already easy enough to overcome a shipspammer, the only dissadvantage you're held to is getting a bit more research, and if you can hold in for that he's going to be the one blown out of the water.
Reply #82 from Sins Forums Top
Spamming is, in my opinion (which has changed), a valid strategy, AS LONG AS it does not require degenerate strategies - which is, as someone said, what happens when you have a counterspam. If spams can be stopped with, as that same person said, a) easily erected anti-spam defences, b) obvious unit counters, and/or c) combined arms benefits (which I think should be the case here), then it's valid. If not, there's a problem with the game design and balance.
In the case of obvious unit counters, a counterspam wouldn't be needed, since the ratio could, in theory, exist in rather long terms before the sheer weight of the spammer overcomes the defender.

By the way, spamming is NOT a TACTIC, for crying out loud. It's a STRATEGY. Don't people know the difference?
Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top
if i build nothing but illums for a small fleet and i see that the opponent doesn't know how to cope with them or counter them. there is no real point in putting effort into creating a balanced fleet and doing more research to get those ships or to better my armor/weapons.
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I have to agree.

besides, its already easy enough to overcome a shipspammer, the only dissadvantage you're held to is getting a bit more research, and if you can hold in for that he's going to be the one blown out of the water.
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Again, I agree. Actually, if you know they are going to Lrm spam you can just get your flak unit which is the same tier as Lrms anyway, so you might not even be at a disavantage.
Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top
As a surprise tactic it can
be effective but once people learn to counter it spamming will go out
of style because it will stop working.
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In my experience, anti-rush countermeasures need to be rather liberal and heavy-handed before the strategy falls out of style.

Rushing is very effective in most RTS (and a number of turn-based) strategy games - it can become an issue in any game that forces you to make early decisions between economic and military build-up.

If it stays in the realm of complex counter-strategy to deal with rushing effectively (ie, it requires a complex combination of units and tech, and or micro-management) then rushing will remain a predominant strategy until the community size shrinks to the point where the only remaining players are the ones who have either mastered rushing, or the complex counter-strategy for dealing with it. This number usually isn't very large.

So for the sake of attracting a wider audience and letting people learn to play the game, it is usually in the developer's interest to cripple rushing. It is very difficult for new players to learn a game when they are routinely eliminated in the earliest phases of play. Making very obvious and effective counter units and defenses to deal with it is in their interest.

In other words, Stardock needs to give noobs a way to deal with the rush, or they will not have many new noobs. And without a steady stream of noobs, you've got no community to play your game.
Reply #85 from Sins Forums Top

The game design encourages spamming. There are a lot of research techs that boost specific weapon types. Putting research resources in missle techs and spamming LRMs is a good play since that's the way to make research pay. A combined arm fleet need 4x as much research to get all the weapons the same % boost.

If the designers wanted to reduce incentives to spamming, they would have made anti-weapon techs instead. Put in research lines for +10%, +20% missle defense and similar defense lines for other weapons, will actually give incentive for using combined arms.
Reply #86 from Sins Forums Top
I believe spams can be countered by research. Fish out all the stats on the spammed unit, fish out all the stats on your viable counters, do the calculations and come up with a micro procedure to efficiently destroy your opponent in as little time and as little resources as you can manage.

For example, crunching the numbers for Advent Aeria Drone Hosts vs. TEC Javelis LRM Frigates, taking Armor Types, Shields, Shield Mitigation, Shield Regeneration, Armor, Hitpoints and Hull Repair all into consideration, you discover that 4 non-upgraded Advent Fighter Squadrons is what it takes to kill a non-upgraded Javelis in a single pass with minimal wastage.

So you build your Drone Hosts in multiples of 4 and put lots of cheap Seeker Vessels up as meatshields, at least 1-1.5x the number of LRMs, depending on your fleet supply. Then, grouping your fighter squads into stacks of 4, you're killing off as many LRMs as your number of carriers divided by 4 every 12 seconds, meaning maximum efficiency and minimum time wasted cutting through mitigation/regen/repair. Having 17 squads is going to do you no better than having 16 squads, this way, and the extra carrier would be a waste of resources at the time when your economy still needs input.
Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top
I believe spams can be countered by research. Fish out all the stats on the spammed unit, fish out all the stats on your viable counters, do the calculations and come up with a micro procedure to efficiently destroy your opponent in as little time and as little resources as you can manage.
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One problem would be the problem I outlined recently in my scouting thread:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=402&aid=301424

That is, before you counter, you have to scout and know what your opponent is up to. I believe that this is impractical in a competitive, high pressure RTS. You don't have time to do effective scouting, what you must do is have an initial plan that you start executing as quickly as possible as soon as the game begins (for instance, drop 1 weapons lab, research assailants, and start pumping them ASAP).

Now, you will get sporadic intel as the game progresses - for instance when you meet his fleet and find out what he has. Or, when your spy happens to catch his fleet cruising through an asteroid or whatever. Or, when your spy happens to catch his fleet being massed at his frig factory. But you certainly don't have the luxury of waiting for this to happen before plotting a course of action. All you can do is react and adjust once you do get intel, which may very well be after you've had your first battle.
Reply #88 from Sins Forums Top
I frankly think spamming is simply a noob (regardless of how much they play) strategy that doesn't require complex thinking and is a simple solution that in my opinion and experience has never been an effective strategy.

In fact I no longer build more than my free cap ship because I loose capital ships too fast with missile frigate spammers. I just invest them in a balanced fleet of heavy cruisers, flaks, reg. frigates, and missile frigates. Basically, a balanced fleet. In the last game I played, this dude had 72 illuminators and 4 or 5 level 1 or 2 capital ships. I had 13 vasari enforcers, 16 missile frigs, 12 or 13 regular frigs and about 7 flaks and 20 or so carriers and one level 5 capital ship.

He focused on my capital ship and so I lost it pretty quickly (no surprise). Then I just took out his 5 capital ships and started focus firing on his illuminators. I killed over 50 ships and had lost maybe 15-30 max. He said gg and surrendered.

Frankly, I think the op is right in the fact that spammers work on ships only. They rarely upgrade techs on the ships. Assuming that quantity beats quality, i.e. zerg rush from starcraft. I have yet to loose a game to a spammer that I have played. That is not a challenge, simply my experience ;).

balanced fleets will always win if managed properly during the battle. I have seen time and time again.
Reply #89 from Sins Forums Top
You are right in that cap ships (IMHO) aren't worth building. I always built the 1 free cap ship, and that was it for the game. If I ever lost it, I wouldn't rebuild it, because for the cost I could build regular frigs that as a group were more powerful.
Reply #90 from Sins Forums Top
This is the problem with Cap ships in late game. When leveling their damage output and damage absorbtion really need to scale better.
Reply #91 from Sins Forums Top
I actually think I would have enjoyed a game built more around capships than frigs and cruisers. I'm talking every ship being a capship, with there being more capship types to choose from. But that's neither here nor there.
Reply #92 from Sins Forums Top
That is, before you counter, you have to scout and know what your opponent is up to. I believe that this is impractical in a competitive, high pressure RTS. You don't have time to do effective scouting, what you must do is have an initial plan that you start executing as quickly as possible as soon as the game begins (for instance, drop 1 weapons lab, research assailants, and start pumping them ASAP).
End of quote


Or you could send your scout to his homeworld(by microing it of course) and check if the enemy's massing LRMs or Light Frigs or going for 2 cap-ships or going flak-heavy or something else, and you should have the counter procedures for the possible early game strategies from beforehand.

The TEC scout would be the best at espionage since it can drop Probes in a hostile gravwell and, later in the game, place Timed Explosives on a building before making it's escape. Scouts can even harass the enemy by destroying an unfinished structure and sending all that cash & resources down the drain.

One thing I missed in my previous post is that 4 Advent Fighter Squads are enough to take down a Javelis in a single go if their passes are spaced by 1-2 seconds so as to fool shield mitigation into dropping. No time would be wasted since the first squadron would just move on to a different target and the rest would follow. The details make a ton of difference.

In fact I no longer build more than my free cap ship
End of quote

You are right in that cap ships (IMHO) aren't worth building.
End of quote


One capital ship also has an advantage in that, if it doesn't get killed, it will level up much faster than if you have multiple caps leeching off experience points. One Level 8 carrier with 200 supply worth of support cruisers and heavy cruisers would be a lot better than 5 Level 1 battleships.
Reply #93 from Sins Forums Top
It annoys me but frankly if someone spams one type of ship it is quite easy just to spam a counter ship and ruin their fleet.
Reply #94 from Sins Forums Top
Setting arbitrary limits and caps is simply lame. The Germans attacked with overwhelming numbers of tanks and infantry (blitzkreig), there wasn't anyone telling them they could only send 50 tanks and 2000 men....

The idea is to balance the game, no matter what strategy is employed. Doesn't mean you make only one strategy, cos that would be boring. But you have to have paper-scizors-rock.

IF someone builds 150 of a unit, while your researching and developing, then thats the way it goes. Its not like in the real war, one side spends most of their resources researching new technologies, while the enemy walks all over them, so you can't expect any different.

Anyway, games such as Red Alert suffered from unit spamming (heavy tank), but its not like they NEEDED to fix it to restore fun to the game. I haven't played sins, hence i think i can be fairly impartial in my suggestion that you just need to have technologies or something to counter someone that spams units. Maybe a tech that lets you use a 'stun bomb', which stuns all the ships for more time depending on the number of the same unit there is. That would mean its fairly cheap to counter 150 units, however you won't win with it unless you build some ships yourself.
Reply #95 from Sins Forums Top
Setting arbitrary limits and caps is simply lame. The Germans attacked with overwhelming numbers of tanks and infantry (blitzkreig), there wasn't anyone telling them they could only send 50 tanks and 2000 men....
End of quote


You're right - my view, for one is revised.
Reply #96 from Sins Forums Top
Intelligence gathering is the single most important part of any game or any war. I mean really if the US and Britians Intelligence actually told the US military hard facts about Iraq Chemical Weapons, then the US would not be in Iraq, with the occupation it is currently in (and billions in dollar in depth with a rising inflation in economy).

Spamming is a easy counter to beat in this game, read about it, read about other strategies and grow your arsenal of strategies. Spamming in small maps is a vital part of the battle to contain your enemy, but can easily lead down a path of self destruction for the spamming empire, if the non-spamming player knows what to counter with.

Again, intelligence in this game is really important and greater knowledge of the strengths of the Empires unit and statistics.

For example I suck completely with the Aeon in Supreme commander: Forged Alliance and finally read more about Aeons units to do better. Now I know that T3 Artillery sucks and I am better off building Experimentals much earlier in the game. Also how to build my economy better to compete with other players. I also realized I need to relay on more intelligence from the enemies base more of the time too, so I can target his economy.

http://supcomdb.com/db/

Reply #97 from Sins Forums Top
For example I suck completely with the Aeon in Supreme commander: Forged Alliance and finally read more about Aeons units to do better. Now I know that T3 Artillery sucks and I am better off building Experimentals much earlier in the game. Also how to build my economy better to compete with other players. I also realized I need to relay on more intelligence from the enemies base more of the time too, so I can target his economy.

http://supcomdb.com/db/
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Yay! Another supcom FA player!
Well, a lot of you other guys probably play it too, I suppose.
Totally off-topic, but I think FA was a great improvement on the original.
Reply #98 from Sins Forums Top
Intelligence gathering is the single most important part of any game or any war. I mean really if the US and Britians Intelligence actually told the US military hard facts about Iraq Chemical Weapons, then the US would not be in Iraq, with the occupation it is currently in (and billions in dollar in depth with a rising inflation in economy).
End of quote


Offtopic: Well that is if you believe all the propaganda... 'Sane' people recognise the US is there only to secure the oil, they couldn't give a flying **** whether Sadam had chemical weapons and used them on people, as long as the oil kept flowing...

Oh, and the wars have cost about 2 trillion dollars (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html?_r=2 etc), enough to buy everyone in the USA a $5000 computer.
Reply #99 from Sins Forums Top
Off-topic continuation: Of course the war's going to be expensive. It's a war. Wars are expensive.

Notice also that, since Rumsfeld left, Iraq's been going a lot better. The Democrats are using cost to justify the end of the war where they used to use "loss of troops" and "we're not winning" strategies.

But yeah. Have all our points on this thread been resolved?
Reply #100 from Sins Forums Top
personaly i dont give a crap what anyone thinks i will spam ship if i chose fight me or die i dont care
you spam me good for you i like a chaleng make me beter thats what i look for
im not gona sit here and cry like some little girl