Smacksim

(to replies 3,4,5) LOL. Why defend it? You are not disagreeing with the OP, only justifying his observations: "You're right, there is no tactical AI to speak of, but but but..." I'd love to see a script-able AI for a game like this. Players write engagement scripts for the AI, and the game auto-downloads them on performance. But barring that, even a rudimentary set of movement tactics would be really nice. See: Total War. Some day... some day. BTW, flanking does help i

Tumbler, I don't disagree with you that carriers are mostly pointless, just that you can 'prove' this by extrapolating from their unit-vs-unit 'straight fight' performance. It is potentially more complex than that, so such a comparison is far from a coup-de-grace.

[quote]I'll be back...[/quote] Now THAT is in the spirit of gaming. I applaud your tenacity Kruelgor. And by the way, some of us in the peanut gallery know what you mean when you say: Spam vs. Spam as shorthand for: "Faster production, earlier, @ less resources == more #s.".

[quote]This is a critical test because if there is not a group of enemies they can defeat on their own (equally priced) then in a larger battle they must be countering a group worth less than themselves and this gives the enemy an advantage against you in a balanced fight.[/quote] Logic problematic here. See Iconius Guardians. Not that carriers have a support ability worth their cost, just that you cannot extrapolate in this way.

[quote]Many of you raise some interesting points for strategy. Thanks.It's too bad that we are forced into playing a defensively weak approach. I wish this game had an option for setting defenses to whatever level you want. Personally I find it way to weak. Imagine what World War 2 would have looked like with such pathetically weak defenses...[/quote] There is nothing to do while turtling. There are cookie cutter economics, and...diplomacy? So the game is wide open to keep the action goi

I don't know Sideshow. I'll have to start a new game to check, but I'm able to use up my metal/crystal supply pretty quickly. It would be one thing if a "non-upgrader" was just sitting on extra crystal and metal, but if it is used for research/ships/fleet/upgrading new planets, there [B]is[/B] a time advantage of some kind. I've been experimenting with taking Ice / Volcanic early, and filling out most of my first fleet cap with light frigates, second fleet cap with LRM/assailant/illumin

In SP, pre-1.03, I buy 300 crystal at the start, and don't start the population upgrade on the home planet for about 15-30 minutes. I lose out on ~3600-7200 credits from the upgrade being delayed. In exchange, I spend the 750 credits, 225 metal and 225 crystal on research facilities, ships, and initial planet upgrades, because I colonize faster than I could have had I bought the upgrade. I expand to chokepoints, and sometimes to choke off a neighbor AI. I expand so that I'm not wasting

Expand so that you have as few fronts as possible. I know, obvious, right? But are you doing that? When you take a new planet, decide right away if its: 1. Going to be a chokepoint. 2. Going to be an interior planet. 3. A risky proposition. And invest accordingly. Attack 1 AI empire at a time, unless you just have to do missions for someone to get them on your side. With enough defenses set up, the AI generally conservatively will NOT attack.

[quote]I'd just like to state a few things to FF. Late game strategies make FF pretty ineffective. I've love you to FF on my TEC Battle ship, I'll turn off the guass gun keep the shield running while I have the Dunov's Regen the shields and thus you are suddenly screwed. by the time you actually kill it... (by then you probably won't) I'll ruined most of your fleet. Sure your caps are still pretty safe and I may lose my battleship in the end but you'll still have lost more ships. So, one's

1. Speed across the gravity well, invulnerable to all but flak, fighters, and capital special abilities, replaceable with antimatter (free). 2. See #1 3. See the damage charts for damage vs. armor types. Takes awhile to learn, but is necessary to get the most from fleets. Flak (anti-strikecraft) also do well vs. LRMs, and make decent meat-shield targets early game, being cheap and high-hull. 4. See damage charts again. Generally Fighter-> Frigates and enemy fighters, a

A good idea "thecaptain_ps". Its a positive incentive, its realistic, and it would reward tactics other than FF. Verra cool.

[quote]but wouldn't the most effective solution be to focus fire but with sub groups of your fleet onto the enemies that take the most damage according to dmg/armor type...?this way you are still removing DPS sooner from your enemies fleet (albeit slower than 'true' focus fire), but not receiving the harsher 'penalties' from mitigation granted by focus fire. Or has this been the focus fire model you guys have been using all along?![/quote] This would work, IF mitigation had a higher threshol

I see, so how are you going to get people to only give feedback and suggestions that fully anticipate the effects of their suggested changes again? Frankly, direct posts, even critical ones, are a better signal that it isn't the fan's job to fully understand the implications of their suggestions, nor take responsibility for the product balance (unless you're making a mod, eh?). Besides, Is it not true that siege frigates needed some lovin'? Is it not true tha

The only micro tip that comes to mind regarding movement is to get ships in closer than their max range, in most cases, as a rule of thumb. This is to account for the target ship moving away, which will cause your ship to have to chase. Because acceleration is a factor, this can interrupt your firing on the target. Secondly, some ships have side-mounted weapons, as mrlarone mentions. It is important to consider that. Third, by getting in closer you have some chance of switching to the n

"Stop Criticizing". The problem with this is that it is hypocritical. And hence, nobody can take it seriously. Is it unpleasant when fans are overly harsh? Yes. Will a thread like this inspire the current generation of fans to clean up their act? I don't think so. ..... Blame the fans for the patch? That really belittles the judgment of Ironclad. It is their choice, their code, and their job (to whatever extent they want) to weigh the pros and cons of chan

Hmm, good reply Transitive. But I do understand how this works, though I'm sure your explanation will help others. I should have written in more detail to demonstrate what I mean, as you did with your example. If overkill was unmanaged by the AI targeting systems, it would play a significant factor in how ship-size affects the effectiveness of focus firing, but thankfully, a large part of overkill is anticipated and handled by the AI if not force-re-targeted on the FF-target sh

Good questions. #5: 3/habitable rock, 4/uninhabitable rock. You can check by hovering over the rock.

[quote]SmackSim Which cruisers do you find "not necessary", thougth there are abilities on some, like the Serevun Overseer's Mobile phase Dection which I find uesless after some tech upgrades. Also do you have any ideals to fix these fillers?[/quote] VS Human players I'm sure cruisers can make or break battles. It is (was?) vs. the AI that I think they're a little questionable. IE, in balanced encounters the cruisers can be deciding factors, but when the AI is fielding spam frigates, wh

OP: Good try, but no cigar gun for you. If you can fire a gun in space without recoil, you can also invent a perpetual motion machine and sit on Newton's grave and laugh.

Allure doesn't raise allegiance. It raises the cap of allegiance for culture effects, IIRC. So the 25/45 seems right. 35 could happen from some culture balancing act against AI culture I suppose, but with Allure + Culture and no other influences, should rise to 45%, I think.

[quote]So now that everone has found a way to have planet defense counter pirate attacks, does any one find the raider xenophobia to be useful to the Vasari? Also do you guy think that there are any other useless techs that need to be fixed?[/quote] Harsh, but I think more than 1/2 of the techs are just filler. The core mechanics don't allow for much complexity, so, filler-time!. What is the filler? Culture upgrades: speed of spread, resistances, xenophobia and related one-off dampeners

[quote]an example of a typical mid-game Vasari fleet that i've used to good effect1 Level 6 Evacuator cap ship (the first cap ship I built) -2 squadrons of fighters -rank 1 colonize -rank 1 gravity warhead -rank 3 nano-disassembler -Drain Planet super ability1 Level 4-5 Devastator cap ship (the second cap ship I built) - 1 squadron of fighters - rank 3 power surge - rank 2 disruptive strikes 24x Assailant LRM frigates 6x Sentinel Flak frigates

[quote]Second, it significantly reduces vulnerability to focus firing. During focus fire only one ship is being damage at a time so a tougher ship will last longer, particularly it will have more shield+hull remaining once it has reached the 60% mitigation cap which gives the already durable vasari ships that much more effective durability.[/quote] No. Fewer ships per DPS means Focus Fire works better against Vasari, not worse. Imagine the opposite case: Hundreds of tiny-DPS units. At s

Advent Cap ships make a good balance against the late LRMs: Illuminators. I've seen some experimentation with getting a second capship early, rather than rushing to defense vessels / Illuminators. Other than the high cost of the capship research this makes a good bit of sense for an economic player as you'll need the logistics spots for Civil Labs then Trade Ports/Refineries, and Broadcast centers. Since Advent capships are arguably their strongest suit, militarily, this fits with a longterm pla

You asked how to respond to micro as well? I don't play MP, so big grain of salt, but I'd say two things as general counters: 1. Assume the other guy will follow jodonnell's suggestions and plan accordingly. So, try to anticipate which of your units will be targeted and either decoy them, sacrifice them, or use tactics based on their threat (like split your LRMs to draw him out). 2. Try to face the enemy with difficult choices: Attack your support cruisers or your DPS-