Author Topic: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?  (Read 263548 times)

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Offline tryrar

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #210 on: February 13, 2012, 03:39:09 AM »
Well crap. On my newest game, I've aggressively explored all the star systems I can get to...unfortunalety, I've run into the problem of most of them being one JP only. Why is this the problem? Because the one system that I've yet to explore, and that probably contains a crapton of JPs, has Star Swarm. Worse than that, I got a HUGE active ping from the inner system before my scouts got jumped by a lot of swarmlings, so from what I've read, I'm expecting one of the bigger types. Any tips of fighting these bozos?
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #211 on: February 13, 2012, 04:13:30 AM »

Larger ships: Are slow but with strong shields. They're absolute killers in close range (a good 20+ meson batteries unless it's a worker) but thanks to their armament easy to out-range and out-manoeuvre. A couple of beam-armed ships with good crew training and >>>low<<< initiative to move after the queen's / matriarch's turn should be able to keep it at bay and lob beams at it from a safe distance.
6kt: Worker, low threat level
60kt: Queen, most common larger ship with decent shields and armament
200kt: Matriarch, rarely encountered huge mothership with well over 1500 points of shield strength and a barrage of mesons

Swarmlings: Definetly the biggest threat in a swarm fleet, due to their speed and (often) numbers. The AI fires at only one ship of your fleet at a time, often wasting the meson shots of many swarmlings during a firing turn. The tech varies, but with luck they might fire only once every 20-30 seconds. Best bet (depending on your technology) could be to either:
a) Out-speed them and lob missiles or beams at them (they're only lightly armoured - two strength 4 missile should do the trick in *most* cases)
b) Swarm against them, (probably with beam ships) exploiting that they only target one of your ships every firing interval while you can target multiple swarmlings
c) Get as many missile-armed combatants on site as possible and hope to kill the swarmlings before they can close in on your (probably slower than them) main battle line

Also, note that you should build up your fleet to a size and armament that you're sure you can beat the swarm presence with. All wrecks you leave behind while not killing all motherships will result in a ton of new swarmlings the next time you return.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2012, 04:17:14 AM by Vynadan »
 

Offline tryrar

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #212 on: February 13, 2012, 04:27:14 AM »
Well, my tech is piss poor missiles but awesome lasers(though I do need to get the next level caps to fire 15cms every 5 seconds). Is that good enough for a swarm tactic, or should I work on getting my missiles up? Definately do NOT want to leave behind a bunch of wrecks for the critters -_-
 

Offline Vynadan

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #213 on: February 13, 2012, 04:51:08 AM »

Mesons have really crappy range, so your lasers might do the trick - depending on what range they actualyl have. If it's above 100k km you're certainly outside swarm meson range. Depending on their tech level you might be save from the larger ships even 50k km away.
Unless you can design beam ships with speed well over 10k km/s, the only option with the swarmlings would be to swarm against them, though. I'd suggest taking at least 1/3 or half as many ships as they have swarmlings ...
I can't give you any concrete numbers, since I don't know your designs, playing style and the actual numbers of your opponent =)


If you're fine with turteling for a while, you could push your missile technology and hopefully reduce your casulties (though this will be costly due to missile, component and ship construction costs).
« Last Edit: February 13, 2012, 04:54:40 AM by Vynadan »
 

Offline tryrar

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #214 on: February 13, 2012, 05:29:47 AM »
To stop thread derailment, I'll move this over to to the ship design thread, since that's what is gonna primarily determine what I'm gonna do
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #215 on: February 13, 2012, 10:59:30 AM »
My first contact with an NPR was botched and they opened fire on my survey ships destroying both.  They then start building a jumpgate to my home system.  In retaliation I send in my strongest fleet, blow up the gateship, and split my fleet into two groups.  My main fleet and my bombardment cruisers and escorts.  After the bombardment I plan on sending in my troops to capture the system

Sounds like fun!!
 

Offline tryrar

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #216 on: February 15, 2012, 06:02:08 PM »
Wow, in my newest game, I think I just found my new capital.... ;D


Lalande 21185 A II

Colony Cost 0

Duranium 62,005,250(.9)
Neutronium 76,317,300(.3)
Corbomite 17,040,300(.2)
Tritanium 4,164,256(.2)
Boronide 58,982,400(.3)
Mercassium 38,292,740(.1)
Vendarite 8,956,756(.5)
Sorium,81,432,580(.5)
Uridium 10,036,220(.1)
Corundium 11,943,940(.4)
Gallicite 22,127,620(.1)
 

Online Garfunkel

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #217 on: February 15, 2012, 06:31:09 PM »
Great site for Duranium, too bad about the accessibility of the other minerals though. Maybe a Geology team can help it out.
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #218 on: February 15, 2012, 07:38:48 PM »
Wow, in my newest game, I think I just found my new capital.... ;D


Lalande 21185 A II

Colony Cost 0

Duranium 62,005,250(.9)
Neutronium 76,317,300(.3)
Corbomite 17,040,300(.2)
Tritanium 4,164,256(.2)
Boronide 58,982,400(.3)
Mercassium 38,292,740(.1)
Vendarite 8,956,756(.5)
Sorium,81,432,580(.5)
Uridium 10,036,220(.1)
Corundium 11,943,940(.4)
Gallicite 22,127,620(.1)


This is a pretty common post :D

Heres how I choose planets:

1.  Does it have minerals I need?  (it has em all so the answer is yes)
2.  Does it have moderate acceessibility and large numbers of minerals?
  It certainly has large numbers, but some of those low acc minerals won't help much.  However, take the total accessibility of this world: 3.6  Thats the sum of all accessibilities on the planet.  3.6 is good.  As long as the world answers question 1, i'll mine the crap out of anything with over 2.5 or so.  Especially given that the duranium is so high.  I would mine the crap out of this planet.  I've not found one like it in my current game, though  i do have worlds with most of the minerals in high abundance and high acc... but it took 5 mining worlds to get good amounts of all minerals.  If there is other worlds in the system with some of the weaker minerals, esp gallicite, you could fling them in with mass drivers.  

Post an update after your geo team knocks a couple of those low accessibilities up to .9.  that will make everyone drool ;)
« Last Edit: February 15, 2012, 07:40:57 PM by Thiosk »
 

Offline xeryon

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #219 on: February 16, 2012, 07:41:17 AM »
My first jump-capable extra-solar alien race was encountered.  Sol was found to have 5 jump points which have made this military commander a little leery.  Purpose-built FAC sentinels with powerful thermal sensors were set as near-invisible pickets at each of the jump points.  The timing couldn't have been better as my first visitor popped out of a JP not 6 months after the last sentinel took up his post.  The unarmed sentinels were fast and cheap and were able to be deployed before the planned sister ships armed with lasers could even have their design finalized.  The sentinel broke from it's picket to shadow the contact and a reliever was dispatched to cover the now open JP.  Several FAC squadrons were ready and waiting in orbit of Earth so a fully trained missle FAC squadron was detached and directed on an intercept course with intentions to intercept with all force necessary to preserve the sovereignty of Sol.

Here is where things get murky.  I learned very early on the benefits of leaving a diplomatic team stationed at home in the early years.  Being the intercepting FAC's were still going to take 15 days to intercept I directed my team to open comms with the aliens still fully expecting to blast them out of the water and hoping to gain some experience.  My guess is that the navigation officer on my sentinel was looking at pr0n instead of his nav chats because my sentinel FAC capable of 5000km/s was out-ranged by the 2222km/s unidentified alien contact.  The aliens were previously holding steady course so my intercepting missile FACs continued to the rendezvous point and..... nothing.  Woops, I forgot to turn on active sensors.  I the missile FACs have a sensor leader but only an active search and not a passive thermal.   I pop open my trusty combat management screen and ..... there is no "activate" sensor button???  WTH?  For the next 15 minutes I open every single window in Aurora possibly pertaining to ships and check, recheck and rerecheck my design to make sure I put it in there in the first place and finally it dawns on me it's broken.  It requires 147 units to repair.  Being a FAC my ship only holds 40 units.  I remember that fateful error message several years earlier with consternation.  I wrongfully assumed that the ship would be repaired when I returned to Earth orbit for refuel/resupply/overhaul.  Someone needs to explain to me how a ship can go through overhaul and not have the broken active search sensor repaired as a matter of course? 

So hear I am, fully armed and ready to blow aliens to smithereens and I am completely blind.  The original pursuing sentinel FAC was running low on fuel and had returned to base to fill up since the missile FACs should have been able to easily keep the ailens in active range had it been working.  I check my three other missile FAC squads and all have the same problem.  Crap.  I call in other sentinels with thermals and start scouring the area.  Two weeks go by and still no contact when out of the blue the missile FAC picks up a point blank thermal at the Grav Survey location and at the exact same time increment full communication relations with the alien race are established....crap.  My diplomatic team is good.  Crap.  I am now at the moral dilemma to blow up, or not to blow up a 'friendly' alien race.....
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #220 on: February 16, 2012, 10:37:05 AM »
For me, theres no dilemma.

Eradicate!
 

Offline ollobrains

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #221 on: February 17, 2012, 12:39:11 AM »
turned off all of the extra NPRs just the stock standard alien ones, 6500 solar systems.  Currently 3 jumps out each way a few wrecks to salvage no encounters yet.  Building up some defenses ready to go as the time allows and building up colonies
 

Offline xeryon

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #222 on: February 20, 2012, 08:16:16 PM »
Not the greatest accessibility but by far and away the most astounding quantity of minerals I have seen appear on a single planet.

Gliese 183-A III
Duranium 12,700,800  Acc: 0.1
Neutronium 125,440,000  Acc: 0.9
Tritanium 113,209,600  Acc: 0.1
Boronide 151,782,400  Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 5,664,400  Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 21,344,400  Acc: 0.1
Sorium 196,000,000  Acc: 0.1
Uridium 184,416,400  Acc: 0.7
Corundium 22,657,600  Acc: 0.1
Gallicite 98,803,600  Acc: 1

Point score of 33!  Woo!
Poor Corbomite...   :-\
I'll continue to level up my Geo Team and let them have a go at this one later.  From a RP standpoint I would sure hope they can increase accessibility and find a little Corbo to boot.  The planet isn't particularly large, about 120% Earth size.  The thing must be damn near solid Newtonian Elements....
 

Offline ollobrains

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #223 on: February 20, 2012, 08:27:15 PM »
what about the wider system for cormorabite

Actually id like to see some ingame regeneration perhaps comets as an event spawning into systems the civvies or u mining them and then having them disappear.

Jupiters should be a good source for sorium as a jump fuel gas giants have always been touted as a he3 type of fuel

Congrats on the find though
 

Offline xeryon

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #224 on: February 20, 2012, 08:49:50 PM »
Might as well share the next few bodies of the system:

Gliese 183-A I
Duranium 296,704,800  Acc: 0.3
Neutronium 37,088,100  Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 42,575,620  Acc: 0.1
Boronide 70,728,100  Acc: 0.1
Mercassium 155,500,900  Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 134,560,000  Acc: 0.1
Sorium 12,110,400  Acc: 0.1
Uridium 73,188,020  Acc: 0.1
Corundium 127,916,100  Acc: 0.1
Gallicite 151,905,600  Acc: 0.1

Gliese 183-A II
Duranium 4,428,288  Acc: 0.8
Tritanium 451,584  Acc: 0.3
Vendarite 1,679,616  Acc: 0.5

Gliese 183-A IV
Sorium 3,705,000  Acc: 0.2

Gliese 183-A IV - Moon 5
Duranium 37,393,950  Acc: 1
Neutronium 13,439,560  Acc: 0.7
Corbomite 73,170,910  Acc: 0.1
Gallicite 83,137,920  Acc: 0.1

Gliese 183-A V
Sorium 1,961,000  Acc: 0.9

Granted some of these are low accessibility but as a system I am impressed.  So far only about 25% surveyed.  II is a viable 2.0 colony cost planet to boot.