Aasch

"The end of it all: The US isn't a superpower, nor it really ever was - it does not act with the same impudence and true freedom that characterized such superpowers as the history of this world has seen." In the sense that the US is not a super power in the traditional sense your very much correct. The idea of Empire has changed radically even during this century... no longer is it using your military to exert direct control on a nation. Instead you used a combo of military and econom

OK a few things you are not considering here. Will America decline? The answer is we already did as an economic power. Back in the eighties the balance of total monetary value exchanged shifted to the Tokyo stock exchange without most people in the US noticing or commenting. The rift has only gotten bigger over time. We produce very little in the way of products any longer ourselves and instead rely on production outside US borders. We don't call the center of our nation the "rust be

[I]Another problem is other carriers - with the same amount of money, if one side has only Carriers and one side has Carriers + Guardians, the side with only Carriers is in an advantage. StrikeCraft are generally not so good vs. Carriers (ironically) and the Advent Carriers are the weakest.[/I] Simple counter... if you expect to be using this tactic make your cap ship be mostly Advent Carrier Cap Ships. They use a push ability that damages and slows incoming strike craft. This is about

You can use some of the tenants of Guerrilla warfare. There are differences in speed of units that can be used to place multiple fast moving units into action all over an opponents empire to damage and retreat to the cover of a more conventional fleet. You can use diversion and ambush fairly well as long as your enemy doesn't scout constantly. A good example is once you get a fleet into an enemy rear area it is most effective in many ways to break it up into 6 or 10 ship groups and

Mopes that was... impressive. Your story line was fantastic. You also displayed a better understanding of how to head off the enemy fleets and reduce pressure on a choke point than I have. Seems I have a lot to learn still.

The Vesari Cap Colonizer can hold its own early in the game particularly if you take the time to get a level or so of the nice damage over time ability. Don't bother with Gravity warhead early on. I just get one level of the colonize ability then get the damge over time. The DoT can kill early ships with one application and can take huge chunks out of other cap ships in a limited engagement. It is no battleship but it will work jut fine if your intention is colony rushing... Also

well... hard ones on locked I have done as many as 5 on a random map. It can be done but only because the AI does not consider it's ally fleets when looking at the balance of the battle... so when I bring in a decent fleet ALL the AIs flee the area. After that the hard bit is killing the first few AIs off... if you focus on one player at a time you can knock them out... particularly because the other AI's will actually help you by colonizing any planets you wipe out behind you denying them to

A suggestion ... if your worried about the fighters invest in the Kol battleships flack ability, get a chunk of flak cruisers (against computer advent I like to have 15 or 20 of them for a mid sized fleet), and get some fighters... the secret about Advent fighters is there are a lot of them but they are made out of paper... like a fleet of Origami Cranes. There are about 7 to 9 bombers/fighters in a squadron with a handful of health each. If you have a Kol or 2 and your own fighters you can ki

You know I don't usually have more than 2 or 3 caps ships even in a really big fleet. I think of them like big support ships. It is too easy to lose them or have them disabled for the battle. I like the abilities but I don't rely on them for firepower...I can usually get more damage from regular ships... What I get depends on the map a lot. If I am going to have a lot of asteroids I will get the Akkan. Otherwise I will get either a pair of Kols with damage reduction and anti-fight

As myemail21479 said above this post except I will actually put it as many as 2 to 4 Frigate Factories with 4 or so repair bays. The rest of my slots are reserved for fighters in hangers if I feel the need. I station a smaller defensive fleet of tough ship there and they keep a long replacement program running replacing ships as needed. If I have money left over I will put a few turrets in just to keep people honest and PJI are a nice touch (but a late game touch for some races). The

I have played around with them both some and concluded that once i have scouted the first few planets even (yea I am a scout builder first thing also =P ) and have a good look at how the space lanes are layered out just 2 jumps away I know if I will be needing a battle ship or if I can get the greater economic advantage of the colony cap ship. Keep in mind I play mostly as Advent or Vesari and I consider their colony caps to have abilities I want later. The Advent is obvious for the Malice but

If your map has a lot of asteroids the targeting system can give some advantage... if you can persuade a unwary opponent to engage you there. Most people don't really pay attention to terrain much though I suspect that will change over time. Not a huge advantage but it can make a difference.

I also noticed that missiles will sometimes fly around a target if fired at a poor angle. They won't actually do thier damage till the last missile in a volley hits. No big deal for an Assailant but sort of annoying for some Vasari mother ships. And if the ship they are attacking has beam weapons it can get off an extra shot. Not huge but there it is.

So here is another way to think of classes of ship. This is gonna get long winded so prepare yourself: Some time in the 1960's a change happened in the way ships were designated. This trend may have started in WW2 but was accentuated later over time. Instead of thinking of ships in terms of displacement and size instead an emphasis was placed on [I]role[/I] in the fleet... Take for instance a typical carrier group from the 1960's to 80's. Most of the carrier's anti sub war

Like them. They are free exp for me early on if I want it... with a little scouting you can see where they will attack with some probability in the beginning of the game. Then you choose if you will pay them to attack or absorb the exp. If you are willing to pay a lot of bounty in the first few rounds you can turn them into a force that has to be dealt with. The more early bounty they collect the faster the threat level rises. In a multi player game this can turn them quickl

[quote]All you need are cap ships heavy cruisers and defense vessels.Try 4:1 heavy cruisers to defense vessels with as many cap ships as possible.The only thing that can counter your heavy cruisers are bombers which get torn to shreds before doing much of anything by a pittance of defense vessels, and heavy cruisers which you can out micro or out spam. A few shield support vessels are also useful.[/quote] I would make a similar fleet but substitute Illuminators for the heavy cruisers.

OK after reading some and experimenting with some friends I have to agree that RA has some issues. I took the time to read through this whole thread but didn't bother with any of the others yet so correct me if I am rehashing an idea that has already come up. I like the idea of limiting phase gates to one per system. It is however possible that since this game is not very fond of the idea of limits on structures in general the developers may not opt for this solution. Simple

yea I was going to say... even a decent fleet of cap ships will get owned without support. I actually tried it out with a few fleets... only a bunch of Vasari Vulkoras did decently and even they lost badly (the missile swarms killed a lot before I had to pull out). If I need to kill lots of capitol ships I use Guardians and strike craft... or I just consume them with Illuminators. But I play a lot of Advent mostly because no one seems to like them. =) Illuminators will total capitol

I generally just fortify choke points to some degree. That way all the random guys who tool around your home systems get picked off there by a couple hanger defenses particularly if you have a Phase Jump Inhibitor. If some one gets really annoying and uses a random guy or 2 to pick on your orbital installations you just cluster them and put in a turret or 2 or you invest in a hanger defense or 2 in major systems. That way your defense fleet doesn't get pulled out of position for random stuff

Unless you can afford to do both at the same time... then you might as well. I often have 4 or so frigates already cued to build ... then I just get upgrades to go with them so I don't waste time. Better if your money is doing something rather than just sitting around. I only save when there is a purpose in it so I also don't usually cue more than 4 ships at a time unless i will have to leave my factorys alone for a while to do something else. If I cue more than that my money is just sitting

A fun little experiment is to try out 2 Dunov's together to do an early game push... if you can afford the resources to get 2 it is sort of wrong. All their weapon systems are laser based so you just get those upgrades... throw in some Cobalts... and start killing stuff. Early game focused fire is not as effective and you just keep regenerating shields on the capitol ships. =) Not unbeatable but really annoying if your enemy doesn't see it coming.

Resurrection: This ability seems to work only if you build a capital ship of the same type as the one you lost. Example: You have a level 5 Halycon and a Progenitor that has Resurrection. In a headed battle your enemy focus fires and kills the Halycon for what ever reason (usually because the ability that refresh energy weapons faster needs to die as soon as possible). So you build yourself a new Halycon and send it somewhere close to your Progenitor. Poof it gets levele

Yea Solaron it was you. I just couldn't remember your name before. I tried out what you described and it works well. One of the main advantages is that if you just rely on a back up fleet and some system defenses, once that first fleet is blown through by a strike fleet you have to rely on making a fleet some where and getting it to the staging area. Your strat lets you build the fleet next door almost any where instead of potentially giving up a system or 2. On big maps I t

usually if I raid I use a carriers or LRM/Illuminators. IF there is defense in place I lay down flak if I know there are fighters. LRM's take care of turrets on their own and so do bombers. If there are phase jump inhibitors and hangers I use bomber swarms to kill them as I move across the system. Unless there are a whole lot. If there are a whole lot I just kill everything I can in that system as fast I as I can and force them to rebuild it. OR I just kill the extractors and resea

The Advent are at a big disadvantage early... if I think a lot of LRM's may be comming I will go military and get defenders then grab the shield upgrades. IT doesn't work against really good players but the disciples are awful and I refuse to get them if I have any choice about it. It is like sending a fleet of rubber ducks at the enemy. It means you start a bit behind though... there is not much to be done about it. Later game you can do very well though. Probably the big