woolfe99

Build some - do TACs - make choices....... An army of Special Talents will be pretty strong in the Psychic arena....... If we can ever land troops on that drop we've been experimenting on - then we'll see what happens and post some results. Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If I understand Pete's design philosphy correctly from previous games of his I've played, the concept of combined arms is what will help you most. In other words, you probably want a variety of different units, with tech bonuses in lots of different areas. - woolfe

Very good point. In order for a ship to effectively "block" an enemy from firing at a larger ship in the vastness and 3 dimensionality of space, the screen would have to have high maneuverability at the very least... - woolfe

Pete: I had a question and a few comments on your post. First, the question. The Bashkar had all its fire control systems on the smaller ship that had no armor or shields. If that ship went down first, would his FC rating have then been modified to "1" mid battle? If so, that could partially explain his poor performance, because if his FC rating dropped to 1 on say the first or second battle pulse, he'd have a very tough time getting past that screen with his other ships in ensuing pulses. Some comments. First, his two larger ships were decently armored and shielded. True, his defenses were tech lvl 2, but so were Apshai's weapons! That is a factor that some people have overlooked. This was a battle between two empires of similar tech lvl, except that the Backshar had some superior weaponry (attack fighters and heavy pulse lasers). While I agree that playing against a screen means you want to balance your design more toward defense, since your massive firepower is overkilling those junkers anyway and you want to survive to get past the screen, it seems that his two monitors had some reasonably OK defense here. Second, I agree with your remarks about the Deploc of the carriers. Since fighters are always considered at Deploc 1, you want your carriers as far back as possible. Third, I somewhat disagree with your remark about it making no difference if size is a factor in targetting. If junkers have to be 100,000 tons to be effective instead of 1,000 tons, that's a lot more production you have to use to have an effective screen. The Apshai here was able to not only defeat, but crush, a superior opponent, with about 75,000 tons of junker ships. That's a trivial amount of production to achieve this kind of effect. I agree that superior tonnage should not equate to victory every time. That would be a samey and boring system, where ship design and fleet tactics would be irrelevant. I like the idea of screening being a viable tactic. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing - making one tactic TOO effective. Looking at these results, with the Bashkar having about 70% more tonnage and a 2 TL weapon advantage plus decent FC, I seriously doubt he could have achieved victory even with a lot more armor on his ships, his carriers at Deploc 12, and no wasted tonnage. Maybe would have done more damage, but Apshai's trivial investment of resources to build 75,000 tons in junkers pretty much assured him victory over this superior fleet one way or another. I think you might consider making size A FACTOR in targetting in addition to the deploc of the ship. It wouldn't be hard to code. The core system would be targetting based on size, but effective size would be heavily modified by the DepLoc of the ship, such that ships in farther DepLocs read as much smaller than they are. This way, screening still works as a viable tactic, and it'll take a much bigger fleet of capital ships to defeat a well screened fleet, but maybe not on quite the margin we're seeing now... - woolfe

FYI: I'm told that Pete's ISP is down, and that this may delay the turns a bit this cycle. Don't kill the messenger. - woolfe

A couple points of clarification. Characters decrease the cost of the SURV. They do not add to your SURV points. The decrease is equal to 10% per level of explorer, and I think 5% per scientist level. They do add together, but not in a straight way. You will get less value for the second character (the one with the lower percentage effect.) Mk III JSSes are plenty for almost any warppoint up to a G if you have an explorer at lvl 6, and may work for some H's. If the Explorer is lvl 7, it'll work for anything to an H. You'd need the Mk IV's for I's and higher or for H's if you only have a lvl 6 explorer. Those are general guidelines. Individual results can vary a bit. On buying tech with SRP's, you can buy anything with a "good" rating or less, regardless of the name/designation of the item (e.g. MK III, etc.). - Woolfe

Expl finds are capped at tech level 3. I have to wonder if Pete will consider eventually raising that cap as the game progresses. Because we are getting to the point that within about 25 more turns, expls will be totally useless for 90% of the empires in the game... That doesn't appear to be the case for Informational finds, but definitely for Item finds. I was of course referring to item finds. I have no problem with the 1 point tech breakthroughs. It's the item finds, which comprize the majority of expl hits, that I am concerned about becoming useless. The free warp point surveys are also useless. There's probably 200,000 warp points in the galaxy. Getting a random free one, what are your chances of ever using it? If the code worked it so that free SURVs were always at least in your quadrant of the galaxy, then maybe... - woolfe

It's being produced by Touchstone, which is Disney's adult branch. This is a good thing, since I wouldn't want Disney undercutting the somewhat edgy humor and making it too warm and fuzzy. I am definitely looking forward to this one. - woolfe9

Expl finds are capped at tech level 3. I have to wonder if Pete will consider eventually raising that cap as the game progresses. Because we are getting to the point that within about 25 more turns, expls will be totally useless for 90% of the empires in the game...

Cool. Now I just have to find an excuse to cut out of work early. You know, now that I'm thinking about, I AM feeling sort of queasy...

"There's many a man hath more hair than wit." - William Shakespeare Wait a minute, I still have all my hair.... - woolfe

Two questions. First, given that all these bridge systems really just add to fire control, and don't do much of anything else, what is the difference between researching Computers and, say, Battle Imaging Systems, or Advanced Battle Displays? My impression was that Battle Imaging gives more fire control per tonnage than Computers at an equivalent tech level, but Computers do other things besides fire control. I never believed that the effect of Computers was huge. But I thought there was a modest effect there that would justify pursuit of Computers up the tech tree. Which leads to my second question: what is the point in putting RC's into researching Computers to high levels since even low level computers will give you the max fire control rating at a relatively low tonnage ratio? For example, the difference between Mk III and MK IV Computers might be something like maxing fire control at 2% tonnage vs. maxing fire control at 1% tonnage. Doesn't sound too earth shattering compared to the benefits of other tech advances that you could have used your RC's for. - woolfe

Mmmm...I'd count on those systems primarily for fire control. If you overkill and can target more ships than your enemy happens to have, it doesn't do you much good in that battle, but of course you might lose your flagship or other high-computer/bridge ships, so the overkill then becomes insurance. There's also the possibility that the enemy turns out to have lots of tiny screening vessels, and you'd be well prepared to clean them all out early in the battle with heavy multitargeting The following paragraph from the naval combat primer fairly well sums up the capabilities of your computer and bridge systems: Computers work in conjunction with the bridge of a ship, providing fire control solutions to the combat information center of a warship. A fleet with poor command-and-control will not be able to spread its firepower out over very many targets. This can result in overkill should an enemy force of many small targets is encountered. Ship systems such as holographic battle computers, fleet formation scanners, battle imaging systems and regular computers all work together to provide your entire force with superior fire control. Like sensors, computers are not required. It is also possible to have a single flagship present in your fleet, with that vessel coordinating the entire battle. You might be wise to place such a ship in the rear ranks of your formation, or make it hard to kill—the loss of that one ship could spell trouble if you were depending on its bridge for complete battle coordination duty. Am I to understand that computers have no function outside of fire control then? Because the ANZ description certainly implies a lot more...

As I understand it, there are other benefits to computers and other bridge systems, e.g. targetting, so that if you overkill your fire control it isn't a total waste of tonnage. Am I right?

Recalculates everything as ships are destroyed, so if you lose a flagship loaded with bridge gear, your fire control would drop on the spot. That would seem to affirm my theory that if you pack your electronics heavily onto a flagship in the rear, then as the battle goes on and you lose your screen ships in the front, you fire control rating will actually improve because fire control is relative to fleet tonngage. Am I right? - woolfe

I'd kind of like to know if PETE or RUSS are following this thread. They haven't popped in...