Author Topic: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs  (Read 2206 times)

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Offline the obelisk (OP)

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Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« on: May 24, 2020, 01:34:57 PM »
For those of you who already have experience here, what reasonable ways are there to deal with enemy STOs?  My current vague plan is using a shielded drop ship to get a specialized expeditionary force onto the planet, and hope they can take out the guns, letting me bring in my commercial troop transports.  Is this a sensible plan?  Should I be trying to use stealth or something instead?  Should I just shoot at the guns from beyond their range until I've destroyed them all, and write off the collateral damage as unavoidable?  How do you usually go about this kind of thing?
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2020, 01:40:27 PM »
I think its possible to send little shuttle thingies a short distance through the enemy defenses, maybe you just need to start sending them through and seeing who lives.  I believe you could set up shuttle ships that just shoot people at the planet, and then keep refilling said ships from commercial ships.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2020, 01:44:11 PM by QuakeIV »
 

Offline Ulzgoroth

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2020, 01:42:40 PM »
An variant on the long-range bombardment approach to consider would be to launch many ground-attack fighters from outside the STO's range. They can't be targeted by space or STO weapons once they reach the planet, instead they're at risk of taking hits from AA ground units.
 

Offline consiefe

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2020, 01:48:46 PM »
I shoot them out of the existance with beam weaponary. This makes way less collateral damage than others. Maybe 1 or 2 installations are destroyed this way.
 

Offline CharonJr

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2020, 01:49:26 PM »
It depends on the tech/ships I have available.

Both space based bombardment of the STO worked for me (with acceptable collateral damage) as did sending in forces via drop assault.
 

Offline DFNewb

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2020, 01:55:03 PM »
AMM's out of their range work well against them in my experience.
 

Offline Droll

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2020, 12:05:38 PM »
AMM's out of their range work well against them in my experience.

Missiles cause more radiation damage than beamy bois. Might not be desirable to use them if you want to use the planet or whatever is on it.
 

Offline Gabethebaldandbold

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2020, 12:17:02 PM »
big time gauss, shields and a good dose of bravery have been my answer to STOs so far, and it has had varying degrees of success. I suppose particle beams would be optimal, to strike from longer ranges and be nicer on the shields, but its not really my style
To beam, or not to beam.   That is the question
the answer is you beam. and you better beam hard.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2020, 11:34:56 AM »
The same way I would fight an enemy fleet -- bring a bigger fleet of my own and tank the damage while landing a million-plus troops.

If your problem is two dozen STO emplacements shooting your one-and-only troop transport while it lands a single brigade, your problem is not STO fire.
 

Offline Droll

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2020, 11:11:33 PM »
Honestly the best solution is to make your troop transports have drop pods, be fast and armoured/shielded. Drop and scoot. To this effect consider smaller transport ships as opposed to big ones. The game is very good at splitting up formations by element and putting them back together once landed - so instead of building transports to fit entire regiments, maybe make them fit a single battalion or company. Having 60 or so transports all doing a landing is a good way to make sure if any get shot down you dont lose a massive proportion of your ground forces with them.

Or nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure.
 

Offline Rince Wind

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2020, 03:02:36 AM »
It would be nice if we could put ECM on our dropships without making them military.
 

Offline liveware

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2020, 02:29:13 PM »
I recently ran into a spoiler race with STO's. My solution was to use about 30 of the ships below loaded with various types of colonial marines. The marines destroyed all of the STOs after a few rounds of combat and I lost zero drop ships.

Code: [Select]
Barracuda-TL class Fighter      500 tons       8 Crew       71 BP       TCS 10    TH 45    EM 0
4504 km/s      Armour 4-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 2/2/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 14.97 Years     MSP 97    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 12    Max Repair 22.5 MSP
Troop Capacity 250 tons     Drop Capable   
Lieutenant    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.9 days    Morale Check Required   

Chaimberlin-Sherman Internal Fusion Drive  EP45.00 (1)    Power 45    Fuel Use 1976.42%    Signature 45    Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 19,000 Litres    Range 0.3 billion km (21 hours at full power)

Chaimberlin-Sherman Thermal Sensor TH0.2-2.2 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 2.2     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11.7m km
Chaimberlin-Sherman EM Sensor EM0.2-2.2 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 2.2     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11.7m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

*EDIT: Posted wrong ship design. Fixed.
Open the pod-bay doors HAL...
 

Offline liveware

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Re: Advice on dealing with enemy STOs
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2020, 02:40:08 PM »
The same way I would fight an enemy fleet -- bring a bigger fleet of my own and tank the damage while landing a million-plus troops.

If your problem is two dozen STO emplacements shooting your one-and-only troop transport while it lands a single brigade, your problem is not STO fire.

It does depend somewhat on the size of the hostile army. I was able to capture a spoiler race planet with a force of about 1.2k individual troops, organized into a couple of company-sized formations. I think they had about 400-500 individual troops defending the planet. Losses were heavy but for my first real attempt at a planetary invasion, I count it as a win. Definitely learned some hard lessons on that one.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2020, 02:42:25 PM by liveware »
Open the pod-bay doors HAL...