Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: Silvarelion on September 14, 2017, 03:08:38 PM
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Hey guys
Just wanted to get some tips and feasibility suggestions on a HPM/Meson/boarding action doctrine. My current thinking is to tank whatever ASM/AMM swarms are launched with railgun/PD FACs, then pick apart the enemy with long-range HPMs and Mesons, before boarding any ships slowed to reasonable speeds. I've seen examples of HPM fighter swarms, but what about a larger ship that sits outside of beam range?
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I'm 95% sure lasers outrange HPM of the same tech level. And lasers outrange same-level beam FC's. This means you'll need to be at a higher tech than your opponent in both BFC range and HPM range if you want to use HPM's from outside laser range. At which point I question why you'd bother with boarding attempts.
If you're opposed to fighters, you could have a fast ship with mostly shields for defense. This would dart in, blast whatever it could in 1-2 increments with HPM fire, then dart back out and wait for its shields to recharge. Instead of using speed to avoid beam fire like fighters do, you let your shields soak it up.
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Note that that requires your ship to be faster than the enemy or otherwise it cannot disengage.
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Note that that requires your ship to be faster than the enemy or otherwise it cannot disengage.
Mhmm, for sure.
Testing out swarm tactics at the moment. Initial testing is suggesting against heavily armored and lightly shielded opponents, a half decent swarm can knock out all fire controls in an increment or two. Makes it safe for anything else to come in.
Need to test my railgun PD against an NPC AMM swarm to see if the HPM fighters can get close.
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I'm 95% sure lasers outrange HPM of the same tech level. And lasers outrange same-level beam FC's. This means you'll need to be at a higher tech than your opponent in both BFC range and HPM range if you want to use HPM's from outside laser range.
So don't do it from outside laser range! How many sensors and fire controls does the average ship carry? I would think that if you have dedicated destroyers firing nothing but full broadsides of HPMs, even at a fraction of the enemy's tonnage you should be able to engage in a short-range melee battle and survive. Assuming you're fast enough to close with the enemy.
Note: I have never tried this, preferring to use fighters, but it seems sensible...