Discussion on NPRs and their logic - current & new spoiler

[Beersatron (OP)]

This is a thread that I hope will be used to discuss NPRs and the tactics that they use plus hopefully ideas that Steve can take to give them more bite.

Therefore, it will contain spoilers so do not read on if you would rather be surprised (possible even pleasantly) by NPR actions whilst playing.

[Beersatron (OP)]

[spoiler:gbo2vwgd]I was performing some Gravsurvey chores when my wee GV picked up a pair of contacts in the GB range. I got him turned around and boosted back to the JP but I was on the other side of the system and the GBs were twice as fast. They released box launched missiles and literally wiped all 2 layers of armor off, damaging most system and leaving me with just the Jump Drive and 1 standard drive. Luckily, because it was box launchers, they headed back to reload and whilst they did that I got repaired enough to make the JP and get out.

I sent in the best of the best, 1st Fleet - CruRon 1, and took out the two GBs sustaining some damage in the process due to resolution sizes and what not. As I was moving further in from the JP I picked up larger contacts so decided to turn tail and get some more ammo before returning.

But, and this is the reason for the post, I decided to sit on the JP watching the contacts come towards me. When they stopped moving I presumed they were firing missiles so I stayed for another 30mins and then jumped out. I then waited 2 days and jumped back in, repeating the tactic of sitting and waiting for the NPR to launch missiles - thus wasting them.

These are precursors so on the first instance they probably did not know that the JP was there until they saw my use it. On the second instance they probably would know. So, what I was thinking is: can you give an NPR the decision to hold fire if a contact is within range of a JP or LP so they do not waste missiles?

The continue my story, I got cocky and chased the NPR in system. My resolution was just shy of locking them up though, so they were lobbing missiles at me whilst I couldn't respond. I ran out of AMMs and lost all 4 light cruisers (half of my military at the time!). They ran out of missiles too, but there stockpile must have ran dry also and they rammed the 4th light cruiser to death just as I thought it would escape.[/spoiler:gbo2vwgd]

[Hawkeye]

This happened in my last 4.7 game

Look at this screenshot. The two hostiles in the center are a 22.850t missile armed BC (magazins empty) and a 7.650t DE.

[attachment=0:1gugi9ne]encirclement.jpg[/attachment:1gugi9ne]

They could outran any ship I fielded, and kept running away from my battlefleet after emptying their magazins (4 other DDs got destroyed in the previous battle)
Now, I had chased those two from between the asteroid belt and Jupiter to beyond Pluto and the NPRs kept running away, up to the point my fleetscout shut his active sensor down. Immediately they stoped (I take it, they couldn´t see any of my ships anymore) and just sat there.
This allowed me to split up my fleet, encircle and finaly crush them.

I saw something similar, when a few NPR ships came through a jumppoint, saw my picket 10 mkm out and started to close. As soon as the picket shut down the active sensor, they lost sight of him and stoped. I had expected they would at least move to the last point of contact, which, actualy, would have let them see my picked again (at 1.000t, it was too small for their actives, but they would have closed enough to see him, even if I moved him away at full speed)

So, what I wanted to say. The NPRs should either go further looking for a lost contact, especially when they are aware that my ships are slower (sometimes a lot slower) than theirs, or retreat to safety, but not just sit there until, after a day and a half, I have finished my preparations to destroy them


Edited for typo

[waresky]

Code: [Select]

Queen class Star Swarm    60000 tons     3829 Crew     17241 BP      TCS 1200  TH 1200  EM 18000
1000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 11-136     Shields 600-300     Sensors 2000/2000/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 136
Annual Failure Rate: 12000%    IFR: 166.7%    Maintenance Capacity 0 MSP    Max Repair 5625 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 16000 tons    

J60000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 60000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Magneto-plasma Drive E7 (15)    Power 80    Fuel Use 70%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 10.7 billion km   (124 days at full power)
Epsilon R300/21 Shields (200)   Total Fuel Cost  4,200 Litres per day

Quad R6/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (8x4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 6    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 40-20000 (3)    Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (32)     Total Power Output 96    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor S336-R100 (1)     GPS 33600     Range 336.0m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor S28-R1 (1)     GPS 28     Range 280k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-2000 (1)     Sensitivity 2000     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  2000m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-2000 (1)     Sensitivity 2000     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  2000m km

ECCM-3 (1)         ECM 30

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

This Carrier come in "clear" design when am lucky retrieve some Alien's poD and succesful interrogation.
2 times ive been encounter this curious design.
And in all 2 times am return winner,because this race lack on missile attack AND decent defence.
20 Gunboat 800-tons are loaded in Carrier hangar.Launched as well and in "right time" i see,STeve's code run as well.
BUT this ships LACK totally in maintenance spare parts.Bug?error?mistake?
Show ANNUAL FAILURE..absurd.hope steve check this.
Dnt know.

[welchbloke]

Code: [Select]

Queen class Star Swarm    60000 tons     3829 Crew     17241 BP      TCS 1200  TH 1200  EM 18000
1000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 11-136     Shields 600-300     Sensors 2000/2000/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 136
Annual Failure Rate: 12000%    IFR: 166.7%    Maintenance Capacity 0 MSP    Max Repair 5625 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 16000 tons    

J60000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 60000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Magneto-plasma Drive E7 (15)    Power 80    Fuel Use 70%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 10.7 billion km   (124 days at full power)
Epsilon R300/21 Shields (200)   Total Fuel Cost  4,200 Litres per day

Quad R6/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (8x4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 6    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 40-20000 (3)    Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (32)     Total Power Output 96    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor S336-R100 (1)     GPS 33600     Range 336.0m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor S28-R1 (1)     GPS 28     Range 280k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-2000 (1)     Sensitivity 2000     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  2000m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-2000 (1)     Sensitivity 2000     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  2000m km

ECCM-3 (1)         ECM 30

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

This Carrier come in "clear" design when am lucky retrieve some Alien's poD and succesful interrogation.
2 times ive been encounter this curious design.
And in all 2 times am return winner,because this race lack on missile attack AND decent defence.
20 Gunboat 800-tons are loaded in Carrier hangar.Launched as well and in "right time" i see,STeve's code run as well.
BUT this ships LACK totally in maintenance spare parts.Bug?error?mistake?
Show ANNUAL FAILURE..absurd.hope steve check this.
Dnt know.

That is a mean looking ship. Should be able to pick it apart with enough missiles (assuming all of the GBs have been fried).  Running into one of these would stir up a hornet's nest (quite literally). I guess that was Steve's intension. I wonder what he's got up his sleeve next   I think may have intentionally disabled the maintenance for this ship.

[Sotak246]

I've run into that ship in my current campaign.  All I can say is YIKES!!!  Only reason I was finally able to whittle it down was my task force had taken along all 6 of my colliers(lucky goof on my part only ment to send 3 along).  My colliers all ran dry and I was almost down to throwing rocks by the time that monster finally exploded.  Luckly I realized I could control the distance of the engagement and got him within range of my large lasers on my escorts and they helped to nibble him down.  That monster's shields and armor are just incredible to see in action.  Just glad the gunboats he carried came in separately.   I rearmed after killing them then waited to explore the system till my colliers went home and reloaded, otherwise I would have been way short on missles when I finally bumped into him.

Mark

edit - cotinued to explore the system and found 15 more 800 ton drones, they just sat there as I lasered them to death.  Note, they took quite a bit of damage each before even being disabled...yikes.

Mark

[Erik L]

Took me around 400 missile hits with strength 5 and 7 missiles to wipe it out. Taking it out seems to render the "drones" useless. At least they didn't shoot back as I closed to laser range.

[Greiger]

Just fought that thing myself.  Heavy focus on laser weapons for me, with some low tech missile capability for long range, and plasma carronades for main ship guns.   I managed to take down the first wave of GBs with every fire control targeting a diffrent drone.  Only losing my two small missile boats.  Then I got to the queen and started firing everything I got, finally putting those Plasma Cannons to use for something other than overkill.

As far as I could tell in a full minute of nonstop firing on it I never got through it's defenses.  And after 30 seconds, it launched another swarm of GBs.  I never stood a chance.      3 10000 ton laser corvettes, 2 8000 ton PD destroyers, 3 10000 ton missile corvettes and a 15000 ton EWACS,  Resulted in no noticeable damage.  I don't even know If I managed to penetrate the shields.

The EWACS was back picking up alien lifepods from the first wave, so at least it made it back out of system when the fight went bad.

[Erik L]

I took in around 70 ships against this. I encountered three classes. One which stuck on a moon, the queen and the drones. The drones did nothing to me after exterminating my survey fleet that found them. Not sure if that is a bug or not.

I had 40 missile ships (2 classes DDG/CAG), 10 escorts, 2 scouts and 30 beam ships (DD/CA). Total tonnage of my fleet was just under 600k tons. My missile ships fired dry (nearly). I think I had two CA with ~10-12 missiles total. Not having the designs on this computer, I think my fleet had around 5500 missiles, not counting the 4500 AMMs.

I'm not sure why the drones didn't close on me. They had a speed advantage of 5500 kps. I destroyed the last of them at around 20m km. The Queen popped prior to them, as that is what I focussed my fire on.

[Greiger]

I suddenly have the distinct feeling my "supermegafleets" are tiny little insignificant things.

[Erik L]

[Erik L]

Continuation of the above with some thoughts.

I need to redesign the SS-7 series. The extended range is nice, but I might increase the size to 8 and dedicate the extra space to warhead. That will double the damage to 10. Which seems right to me that a larger missile should do more damage than a smaller one. Of course, that also drops the speed to under 20k.

Code: [Select]

SS-8-X1
Missile Size: 8 MSP  (0.4 HS)     Warhead: 10    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 18700 km/s    Endurance: 85 minutes   Range: 95.4m km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.055    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 5.055
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 187%   3k km/s 60%   5k km/s 37.4%   10k km/s 18.7%
Materials Required:    2.5x Tritanium   0.055x Uridium   2.25x Gallicite   Fuel x8500

Development Cost for Project: 506RP

A little toying around comes up with this.

Code: [Select]

SS-8-X2
Missile Size: 8 MSP  (0.4 HS)     Warhead: 10    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 26200 km/s    Endurance: 43 minutes   Range: 67.4m km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.055    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 6.055
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 262%   3k km/s 80%   5k km/s 52.4%   10k km/s 26.2%
Materials Required:    2.5x Tritanium   0.055x Uridium   3.25x Gallicite   Fuel x6000

Development Cost for Project: 606RP

Of those two designs, I'm partial to the SS-8-X2 over the X1.

Also as I mentioned, the Enterprise JCV need internal mags for the parasites. 4 shots and they are done. Of course, 160 of the Banshee missiles would put a cramp in anyone's day.

[Greiger]

Is there some trick then to making sure your ships aren't targeting dead ships or multiple ships targeting a single ship when they really shouldn't be?  I have trouble keeping up with that with a half dozen ships.   There must be to be keeping up with some 90 ships in combat.  Right now I just go through the combat assignments screen, compare the target #s to the target #s assigned to the fire controls and change the target if the fire control has something as it's target that dosn't appear to exist anymore.  

With 7 or 8 ships that takes me 2 minutes per 5 seconds of game time.  More If I have missile ships firing into the furball to try to minimize the number of missiles that self destruct because what it was targeting just got cut in half by a 30cm laser or something.

[Hawkeye]

This is a suggestion for the Star Swarm.

In a recent engagement, I brought in 6 CG, 3 CE, 12 DDG, 6 DE, 3 DD (Laser), 36 Missile-FAC, 6 Scout-FAC
I was facing 200+ Star Swarm Gunboats.

After emptying the magazins of the CG/DDGs/Missile-FACs, I was in full retreat, with some 80 gunboats still in pursuit. It was obvious, I wouldn´t make it to the jumppoint.
So I ordered the FACs to slow down, so they would trail the main fleet some 200k km. When the gunboats reached firing range with the FACs, they too slowed down, allowing the main fleet to open the range. I then let the FACs stop and the gunboats too stopped. The time they needed to take out my FACs was enough to kill about 50 of them with AMMs from my escorts (most were damaged allready and while the whole swarm concentrated on one FAC, I spread my fire as much as I dared).
In the final phase, the remaining 25 to 30 gunboats cloased to point blank range, which let me use the numberous Meson PD-turrets on my escorts (range 15.000km). They were ripped appart. If they would have stayed at range, I probably would still have taken them out, but with a lot more damage to my fleet.

So, suggestion 1: The swarm should spread fire at least somewhat, at least against small targets.

suggestion 2: The swarm (but any NPR, realy) should ignore ships, that are no longer any threat and go for the bigger fish

suggestion 3: Beam armed NPR ships should use the range of their weapons. Don´t go to point blank range, if you outrange the majority of the enemies warships.

[Beersatron (OP)]

Three updates from my 4.82 game:

I just lost 9 10k ton GEs to a swarm, they were 2nd generation refits with good officers and crews. They were also my only GEs!

------

I am currently at war with an NPR, I am faster than them, but do not have the salvo density to get passed their massive home fleet so I bypassed it and chased down some freighters/colony ships and then headed to their homeworld (in the B component) figuring I could get a few licks in before home fleet caught up. This is with 3 CruRons of: 1 CLJ, 1 CLE, 2 CLG.

I could barely manage a few hits on their orbital bases, which was sweet btw. So I moved into AMM range to thicken my salvo density but in doing so I entered their longer AMM range so the PD protocols were overriding my specific targeting - which is correct imo. What ended up happening though is that their bases were reloading from the planet and my PD AMM were trying to hit their AMM that was trying to hit my ASM. Very confusing and I lost hundreds of AMM from self destruction!Not sure it is possible to make this 'smarter' unless there was a way to tell the PD if an incoming missile is targeted on a ship.

I ran out of AMM and decided to run away gracefully, the 500k KM I had to traverse to get outside their FC range was hellish as wave after wave of massive AMM salvos bore down on me. One armor 5 15k ton CLE got totally sand papered and lost some engines before finally limping out of range. I repaired the CLE and headed at a slight tangent back in general direction of entry JP. I do not know if they did it on purpose, but they managed to get a fleet in the direct line of my tangent course and the JP (I only know of the single JP, haven't surveyed so they could have came from further out). I skirted that fleet and decided to head to a colony of theirs in the A component. It had no defences and just a small garrison so I bombarded expecting to just do damage and then high tail it out of there. The population surrendered! Alas I had done too much damage and destroyed most of everything, not sure if they had any missiles before I leveled the place.

Problem (already noted by Steve I think) is that the NPR home fleet came along and bombarded the planet later. But also, a freighter came along too so I pwned it and captured the crew as earlier. Of about 15 crew interrogations I got partial geosurvey results for one system - anybody know the formula for intel?

I finally ran for the JP and got away and that got me to thinking that if they had a small squadron of cruisers sitting there waiting I would have been mince meat.

While this fighting was going on, production of 2 more CruRons completed at Earth. I had a 4th CruRon standing guard over the GEs that I had lost earlier - but had brought it home for repairs and refuel

Once I get a couple months training for all 6 CruRons I am going to go back in and see if I can either penetrate their home fleet defences or get some proper hits on their actual home world. Problem is, I have a colony 4 jumps from them and we have both built a lot of JGs! It has one 20k ton PDC and 12 FACs guarding it - snow balls chance in hell of surviving if their home fleet comes out to play.

Currently researching railguns from scratch to design a heavy hitter if I can't get passed their PD.

------

Precursors and Star Swarm just spawned in the same system!

And these Precursors have Beam/Missile defence bases plus a very sizable fleet. I finally dragged myself away from the PC around 1:30am after my NPR fight so haven't been watching the Precursor-Swarm fight yet, but they are fighting.

I never realised, but I presume that Precursors scale the same way NPRs scale as the game progresses? Hence the larger fleet, bases and mine fields?

This game as been virtually bug free and running for ages with 3 NPRs (although one is stuck in a distant B component 50billion km away from nearest survey location and another started same time as me but with poor shipyard generation) 6 Swarms and 6 precursor systems. Total of about 60 systems so far.