is it possible to win without building offensive spaceships?

[martinuzz (OP)]

Say if I only use cloaked troop transports, construction brigades, PDCs, automines and mass driver bombardment. Would it be possible to mass drive all NPRs from the galaxy without ever designing an armed spaceship?

[Jorgen_CAB]

As long as they don't guard their Jump Points I suppose it would be possible to do so.

Personally I think using mass-driver as a weapon is sort of a cheat since you should be able to use your own mass-drivers to catch the minerals. But I guess it can be rationalized through any technobabble...

As long as you are prepared to commit genocide to reach your goal its all up to you to use the most expedient method to vanquish your foe.

[Garfunkel]

Just build massive terraformer ships with huge armour and plenty of CIWS, then suck the atmosphere away from all NPR planets you encounter.

[linkxsc]

Something along these lines? Probably would want higher tech, since I'm still only in ion engines, GC ROF1, and jump efficiency 4 in the game I'm in. 

Oregon class Cruiser    1,514,500 tons     6540 Crew     95452 BP      TCS 30290  TH 12000  EM 0
396 km/s    JR 2-25(C)     Armour 10-1174     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 39    Max Repair 62797 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Habitation Capacity 50,000   
Terraformer: 20 module(s) producing 0.03 atm per annum

JC1500K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 1500000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 2
300 EP Commercial Ion Drive MK2 (40)    Power 300    Fuel Use 7.07%    Signature 300    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 12,500,000 Litres    Range 21.0 billion km   (613 days at full power)

CIWS-80 (150x2)    Range 1000 km     TS: 8000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

Kinda slow to get there and would be pretty slow at sucking out someones atmosphere.

Warrior class Cruiser    4,500,000 tons     17940 Crew     370010.9 BP      TCS 90000  TH 7500  EM 0
694 km/s    JR 2-25(C)     Armour 75-2428     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 51    Max Repair 62797 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   
Troop Capacity: 100 Battalions    Habitation Capacity 50,000   
Terraformer: 100 module(s) producing 0.35 atm per annum

JC4500K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 4500000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 2
625 EP Commercial Magnetic Fusion Drive (100)    Power 625    Fuel Use 2.65%    Signature 75    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 105,685,000 Litres    Range 159.4 billion km   (2658 days at full power)

CIWS-320 (300x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 32000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

Now thats what I'm talking about. Turn out a dozen of these (over 100 years eating up all the resources you have x5), eat someones atmosphere in a few months. Better yet, you could fly it over and pour a some hazardous gasses (hydrogen sulfide, and such) into their atmosphere, crank the colony cost through the roof and also watch as they die slowly.

Another 1 that comes up would be a huge mining ship, fly it over. Eat all the trans-newtonian minerals on their planet and fly off leaving them trapped on just 1 planet. Fly in, give them a mass driver. Every few years you send them a packet of minerals to mess with. Watch as they futilely try to expand.

Classic

[Whitecold]

Just build massive terraformer ships with huge armour and plenty of CIWS, then suck the atmosphere away from all NPR planets you encounter.

The problem, any energy combatant will get through any kind of armor in a few month.
Also the question of win is kinda debatable with the price tags of those monsters.

[iceball3]

The problem, any energy combatant will get through any kind of armor in a few month.
Also the question of win is kinda debatable with the price tags of those monsters.

In which case, boarding action. Toss loads of marines on to them. By the end of it, you will end up having offensive space ships without needing to build them! Technicaloties, muahahaha! At that point you should be able to take care of diggters if abd only if you arent overwhelmed.

[linkxsc]

Actually the best counter to a massive armored terraformer would probably be boarding it yourself. After all itll have a speed of 1 while assaulting a planet.

[83athom]

Actually the best counter to a massive armored terraformer would probably be boarding it yourself. After all itll have a speed of 1 while assaulting a planet.

But then again, that would be difficult as the terraformer (Warrior class) has 100 battalions of troops onboard to negate that tactic. Even though they could have just dropped those troops off on the planet, but oh well.

[linkxsc]

Assault then at close range with tons of meson fighters? Would take a while, but would be able to down 1 of these fairly quickly relative to its atmospheric modification speed. Especially if the defender had a decent fighter production ability. Also it wouldnt take long at all to design them.

Death by 1000 pricks as they say.

[iceball3]

Well, yeah, 1000 pricks if those pricks were 3 foot long needles that were pushed all the way through. Even with internal armor mesons tend to hurt.
That said, if you are expident with your boarding action you could potentially board anything short of fighters. Explanation? Board a slow offensive ship. Commandeer its weapons, blow out the engines of faster ships, board them, fix them when done. Rinse and repeat.
It would be kind of interesting having an entire combat fleet consisting only of stolen enemy vessels. Preformed like a true space pirate.

[linkxsc]

Am teching up an empire Thats going to be focused on that. Started in the year 1500 (dunno why, felt like it). Getting basic weapons across the board, but im teching lasers up cause i have 6 EW researchers at 50-65%. Other than that Im just gonna focus on C/P, propulsion, and l/g(for the drop mods)

All i plan to build is a few of my own carriers, maybe some scouts, and tons of fighters/facs. From there,I plan to steal EVERYTHING.

[bowman]

Instead of removing the atmosphere why not just add a gas that is poisonous to them? Any amount of flourine on a Human planet results in (I think) min cost of 3 or 5, and when a planet has 2 billion people on it and no infrastructure. .

Granted, that only works for worlds they have turned into garden planets.
It also wouldn't even kill all of them because the population would build infrastructure while dying thanks to trade.

Technically though, I'd consider a terraformer armored to remove a planet's atmosphere to kill the population as an "offensive ship".

[Barkhorn]

Well, yeah, 1000 pricks if those pricks were 3 foot long needles that were pushed all the way through. Even with internal armor mesons tend to hurt.
That said, if you are expident with your boarding action you could potentially board anything short of fighters. Explanation? Board a slow offensive ship. Commandeer its weapons, blow out the engines of faster ships, board them, fix them when done. Rinse and repeat.
It would be kind of interesting having an entire combat fleet consisting only of stolen enemy vessels. Preformed like a true space pirate.

How are you going to board that first ship though?  Even with first level TN tech, outrunning these monsters is easy.  All you need is 700km/s, which is nothing.

Now, consider how boarding works.  Unless you're much faster than your opponent, your boarding party will take huge casualties even before breaching the ship.  The idea is that it's harder for the drop pods or whatever the marines use to hit the target ship if said ship is fast.

[amimai]

the solution to "massively armored anything"

Code: [Select]

MK7 BC+ 120cm C25 Far Gamma Ray Laser Cannon
Damage Output 377     Rate of Fire: 80 seconds     Range Modifier: 12
Max Range 45 240 000 km     Laser Size: 38 HS    Laser HTK: 19
Power Requirement: 377    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 25
Cost: 5824    Crew: 114
Spinal Weapon Only

[Barkhorn]

The funny thing is, that's not that hard to block with equally-advanced shielding.