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« on: January 15, 2014, 05:39:38 AM »
This is a little something I worked on last summer, but forgot all about it my work. I put it together because I couldn't help but analyze function and tactics. It is a major WIP, but I fear it will never see the light of day if I don't just post it now. Hopefully it will be of some use; and, at the least, it is meant to be a top of the hat toward a fantastic recreation of a mediocre game.
I would love to get other peoples strategies into it as well. Most of the stuff still works very well in 2.1, but I haven't tested extensively.
Note: I play predominately on easy, but I find it a tad boring. If I play on hard (what I enjoy) my wife usually distracts me, killing several of my ships. I don't like to loose even a single craft, and so I get in trouble for blaming her. :\'(
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I have rewritten several portions of the guide as I go. Hopefully this will be helpful to players getting started. I don't plan on mentioning anything specific about ships, but rather want to help you best choose for yourself.
1. Weapons
The manual has some great information here that I had somehow missed. However, I still feel that my description is good. Mostly I am tired of editing.
* Lasers - anti fighter weapons. Only effective on corvette type ships. Most ships can still use them with decent accuracy against bombers
* Concussion missiles - good against everything except shields. Theses are a cap ships best bet at killing fighters. Fighters can pack a nasty punch against everything with these.
* Masers - Hand version of the laser. Seems stronger, especially better against shields
* Proton torpedoes - bomber weapon of choice, good against everything they can hit, so bad against fast fighters
* Turbo lasers - good at hard point killing, OK against shields, can occasionally kill bombers but it's a waste of effort. Octuple Barbette version is horrifying.
* Ion cannons - demolish shields with horrifying speed. Not so useful elsewhere
* Mega masers - the maser turbo form. I like em. I believe they are competitive with ions. Great for killing.
* Enhanced targeting - a special on only two ships. Slow rate of fire, but one shots everything. Good bye super ships
2. Ship types
This is my terminology for the different ships and their roles.
* Fighters don't exist for killing stuff. They exist to die in beautiful balls of turbo laser fire, because only one in five hundred will hit it. That's easily a cap ship. Use these to draw heavy weapons fire off fragile things.
* Bombers are your best friend, and fulfill dozens of roles. There are lots of strategies for these, I recommend sitting them into at least two groups. The bad bombers, and the good. Let bad bombers die or kill, but manage your good ones and they will demolish fleets.
* Corvettes kill the two above types, and they excel at it. Use them to keep your big ships free of distraction. Bring at least two, but no more than six.
* Strike cruisers ate cheap and versatile. Use them to fill in your fleet after you have what you want. My best fleets are 20 points of these.
* Frigate's are baby cap ships. I bring at least two, but seldom more than four. These can be almost as good as a cap so, but two frigate's is far more versatile than one cap ship. At the least they can engage two separate targets, but many have useful abilities. (As of 2.1 I am bringing closer to 4 on average)
* Carriers are the haulers of bombers and fighters. They are vital to any fleet, but seldom are good fighters. Usually they are decent, but several are terrible in a fight. I keep them to the back, using them to rescue wounded ships.
* Cap ships are the backbone of your fleet. Insanely powerful, but more than one seems to get in the way of each other. Bring no more than two.
3. Factions
* Empire - The empire is champion of super efficient and specialized ships. In a fair fight they aim to be last man standing. No real abilities, however, limits the creative uses for this faction. If a ship is getting destroyed you probably can't save it. Their fighters are mostly junk, and bombers don't last very long even against cap ship lasers. This faction is different from the pentarstar for one reason only, it's light ships. It changes a lot through eras.
* Pentastar - Not much to say, it's the fighter happy empire. Fear corvettes, but without corvettes few fleets can out fight you. Swarm race.
* Rebels - The button clickers fleet. Strong and versatile fighters/bombers, coupled with survival oriented ships, if you design the fleet right, they are unstoppable. Gets stronger through the eras.
* Hand - They have masers, they are hard to use poorly, but are surprisingly complex. A fun faction right up till your first killed 150 point fleet with a 40 point fleet, no losses.
4. Ship differences
OK, the first thing I got wrong is thinking some ships are bad. Almost every ship has its uses, and I often tested them wrong. I still don't like some. For example, the sacheen, I actually like the ship it replaces more, and so I seldom use it. However, there are still times where I can see it could be of some use.
What makes this mod so amazing is there are very few bad ships. Every ship is fairly well balanced, and usually worth the money. Sometimes spa are not worth the command points. I dislike building fleets over forty for one reason, it is no longer fun
Shields are still not very well described by the makers, but generally a ship with the harden shields ability is tough to kill, making a great tank.
Weapons and abilities are what determine a ships role, and it will take some reading in the manual to get a basic feel for the weapons. Abilities are huge, and can usually save a dying ship. EG I had a Botham heavy cruiser getting shield mauled by two similar weighted cruisers. They had both used their ability to boost weapons, my shields were almost gone and they were about to take it apart. I could run and die or take at least one of them with me. Boosting my weapons I dumped the tiny amount of shields into one of my enemy ships, I damaged it enough that it tried to retreat. So I crippled it's shield and focused on its friend. At this point a backup ship arrived and I won the battle with no losses.
5. Abilities
* Boost engines is rediculous. I cannot stand fighting these ships, but it is very handy to keep stuff alive. Great for kiting an unwary for into a killing fields
* Boost shields is very situational. I have heard people swear by it, using it to quickly get ships back into action, if they haven't lost their hard point. I use it when I need it, having lost too many ships shield point on pulling out of the fight. Very useful when combined with a fast, well shielded ship.
* Boost weapons is great for killing. I only use it when I am attacking a lone target or when I am about to lose my shields any way. It drains your shields, which is super bad when you realized no shields exposes your ship to even determined fighter attacks. Often I find a situation like above where my shields suddenly disappear, is because the enemy is using this. Counter with the same ability right as both sets of shields go down. It is wonderful.
* Focus fire is admiral Akbar's special with it every ship focuses their attacks on a target. Trends to lead to overkill. This can be useful.
* Invulnerability is basically a weird harden shields. It is not really apparent how it's different. I prefer boosting myself. It seems more useful. Most ships that use this are dodger types, and only rarely does it help. It seems to run out right before you want it to. To be fair I have never list the falcon in a fight. MIllenium Falcon is the only one?
6. Basic tactics
These are the basic tactics that I use for all the factions.
* 1st - Harasser fleet - A frigate heavy fleet with only carrier support. Simple to manage and great for training. A perfect example is the Hand fleet. 4 chaff destroyer's and only aurittes to support it. That is a ton of fighters, send them to do whatever. Put the chaff into two groups, and focus on keeping them alive. When you get good start breaking bombers into smaller and smaller groups. You have figured out managing a fleet when you manage bombers individually.
* Overkill is your enemy. Have you had that target ship that you just keep pouring fire into and it takes forever to die? That's overkill, it's very tempting to focus fire one hard point, and it seems good to take them out quickly. It is the slower way. Disperse your fire as much as possible. Each craft should have an individual hard point target. Just give it a try, individual points die much slower, but they all tend to die at the same time. Golan 3's are great target practice to test this theory.
* Sweeping is what I call your solution to overkill with a cap ship. This is why I don't like cap ships that much. They require a lot of maintenance, but if used right can harness great power. Sweep your guns across the nodes. On armored targets take a few more seconds, on soft targets just count to three. One, two, three, nothing else. If your doing it right you should actually be three to give nodes ahead of what is doing. Finishing targeting each node and watch them die. This kills smaller and larger ships, very, very quickly. Reseults may very depending on individuals.
* 2nd - Sweep fleet. The best sweepers are super star destroyer's, and they are great to practice with as shields aren't very significant. If you use something else, make sure it is turbo laser heavy, and bring three smaller ships that are ion heavy. Group the ions and keep them ahead of your sweeper, so the sweeper is never wasting fire on shields. Bring carriers as the rest. Follow the same pattern as with the harasser fleet. Start with a SSD then add ion ships after you figure out sweeping. Then downgrade the SSD into an imperial start destroyer II. ISD II are the strongest ship out there in my opinion those octuple are fantastic sweepers. After you got the sweeper and ions under control start working on managing the bombers.
* 3rd - Battle fleet. My standard going in for a fight or two or five. It takes some practice, but it is unbeatable. This is my typical design and it is the clearest example with no tricks.
* 4 lancers
* 4 carracks (has the ion power of most cap ships)
* 4 Strike cruisers
* 4 Victory star destroyer's (not the mark 2 it's not as versatile)
* 1 ISD II
* 4 escort carriers
Here is the strategy. It's a combination of sweeper and harasser fleets. The victories are there to keep the enemy off of the ISD II. They are the flankers. Carracks are the ion support for the sweeper. Strike cruisers are your skirmishers, fulfilling any role you need. Protecting your line as an enemy cap so tries to punch through, rescueing a dying ship, or finishing off a dying ship so your sweeper can focus on other prey. It's difficult to manage properly, but pause should be a familiar button to you by now.
7. Special tactics
1. Pentastar
1. Praeter - sniper - This is an odd duck of a ship. It is technically a small super star destroyer, and so it's guns have a different range from the standard. It can easily shoot targets a third of the map away. Build some ipvs for anti fighter, bring plenty of carriers, especially some munificents for their skipray blastboats. Kill enemy fighters and corvettes first. Get your praeter in range and let him go. Don't tell him what to target, just let him find targets in range. Them let the fighters fly. No defense stands against this. Weak on defense, but still capable. Expect to lose some ships when defending.
2. Empire of the hand
1. Every ship in the hand is capable. I love them all, but this means the combinations are limitless. This are just my favorites.
2. Kariek kill squadron - The hands solution to SSD's. I have killed a SSD with 12 of these and no losses. Keep them in its engine, which is easy to do, and you win. Bring a half battle fleet to keep any enemy escorts of your back. The warlord is also a good choice, but is much more expensive. A kariek can survive a direct attack if it keeps moving, boat shields may be needed.
3. Kariek takes all. This ship can take a serious beating, and it can give a decent one itself. It is also ludicrously cheap. Use them to actually take damage, and you have a 40 point fleet that wipes out 150 without problems. All other shops should be damage oriented. Bring one cap ship, and two chats, 2 to 4 carrier guys (aurikes?), and many warlords if you have the tech. Enjoy the game on easy mode. (2.1 haven't tested kariek kill squads)
4. Carrier fleets. The aureks? are built at any shipyard, and carry a ton of fighters. They are also one of the strongest combat carriers, but they are super expensive. These are frigate's hiding in a smaller ships exterior. Just these can be a powerful force.
Hopefully this will be useful.
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