BinLaggin wrote:
I'm sure it's sub-optimal, but I usually go for a 40/60 mix of kinetics/missiles or beam/missiles. It seems gamey to use all three weapons on the same ship.

Any combination with missiles is really good.



Beam + Missiles is probably the strongest choice at the moment, since everybody is getting fast beamtech - which comes along with kinectics shields.



Also make sure youre missiles are up to date. In case you lose the battle yuor missiles will still kill some ships at the end of the battlephase

i dont understand the point of building kamakazi battleships with a mix of different kinds of weapons. shouldent the goal to be to completely overwhelm the enemys even remote chance of having enough fleet tonnage in defenses to counter your weapons, and therefor you should just stack the crap out of missiles or w/e to the point that it overwhelms anything they can possible have to stop it?



at least thats what i do in my games, and its hilariously effective. especially mid game. i usually try and build two fleets, a fleet high in defenses, and a kamakazi fleet for wiping out hero commanded fleets, and oh man, the hero fleets dont stand a chance.

Ah I see, forgot about the race specific techs and didn't think xp was that powerful. Should read the wiki a bit closer I guess.



Thanks.

I guess it must have changed in a patch.

Level 2 only gives +5% HP... though it also gives +5% damage and defense now.

The UE Affinity Bonus for ship XP makes all of their ships be built at level 2, effectively giving them a constant +20% HP.

Each race gets a few race specific techs. UE tech is mostly more health for their ships techs.

@Sovereign



What do you mean by UE hidden abbility of +40% Hull? I thought that was from strong alloys++ they have or am I missing something?



Or is it the ship xp that makes such a huge difference?

I was making just for fun an Custom race with the underpowered UE Affinity...and cause my magic word is cumulative i taked strong alloys (2/2) and optimal Structure (2/2) for in combination with UE hidden abbility of +(i dont know how high^^)% Hull cause i always wanted too see a 23000+++ Dreadnought.



So the MP(normal speed)was well balanced everyone got a more or less good pocket no rush trys forced someone to leave (cause it was an big game 8 players...what is good for UE^^)

In the beginning i build some Rocket Destroyers and Laser Destroyers(bouth with 6 anti Rocket modules) as suicide defense Fleet...(in fact...with extra 70% hull....sometimes they dont even make their Kamikaze stuff THEY SURVIVE in some cases..wonderfull!...to die for it!) i call them hardglass cannons



Okay these nice guys were able to protect my Empire till it had builded the first Cruisers (arround turn 45 i think) with 6 Anti Missles Modules(i made the experience 6 is the magic Number by missles and high damge missles are the biggest threat for high Hull Ships) and about 5-7 Schilds....and maybe some deflectors (i scout in most cases what the other players gonna use)



as weaponary i prefer sometimes Missles (same tech Tree as Armor) but sooner or later of course Beams. For their weaponary i spend 30% of the tonnage (should be somewhere about 7-9 Modules)



+ later the modul for extra tonnage.

+And Repair Kit cid of course (thats with the 10% healing in combat)



The Rest goes Armor...thx of the UE special Armor Tech...u can made quite *early* some 2800 -3300 HP Cruisers (with XP even higher i think)



First i thought *oh crap a cruiser with about 500 Industrie Costs...yeah...great*



But then....wow ...wow ...wow

My Fleet: Production costs about 2800 Industrie

4 of these Brick Crusiers + 4 UE *Hardglass cannons* (without hero) so 8 Ships ; )



encountered two 13/13 full Glass Cannon Fleets



His Fleet:

2x(13/13) Glass Cannon Fleet...Beam damage each about 350+ when i remember correctly and with very little Defense in schilds and miss...

Production Cost...about...3640 ( cause what i have seen so far Glass Cannon costs even with with beneficial traits about 100-140 Industrie Points)



Losses:

Me:3 of my so called hardglass cannons about 200 Industrie each...(the expensive stuff the Cruisers all survived gladly and with 75%+ HP)

He: All



losses in Production costs:

He about 3000+



Me:

600





IF u can defend your empire till your cruisers were produced...your are save ; )

I was suprised by my self...especially what a few low tech Flak Modules have such an big mpact for the effectivness of the Cruisers.



Dont wait on Dreadnoughts ; ) (well of course they would rock with about XXXXX HP)

your not Sophons...u didnt get them fast enough ; )







High Hull Cruisers is the way to go ; )

And a possible Counter for Monohull...Glass Cannon Swarms....(but yeah also i have to say the other fleet was not Hissho...soo maybe extrem laser beam glass cannon Hisso players can shot the Bricks down...i have to test this)



But well OP of Hissho is other Topic ; ) i know that i play them by myself quite often ;=)

Depends on the phase of the game. I play exclusively SP or with a friend in MP with multiple AI opponents.



Very early, after encountering the AI I will make laser destroyers to keep the AI in check. Basic models with two units of kinetic defenses or such and all lasers.



Middle game, I get into battle ships. Normally I float two designs so I can flip the defenses based on AI ships I encounter.



Late game, all dreadnaughts all the time. Just load them up on health, defenses, and split attack between two types. Four per fleet.



Things I have found while playing.



Late game, any ships with those four dreadnaughts (22cp limits them, duh) is just fodder. I tried mixing cruisers as support to early destroyer fleets but they tend to draw fire and poof quickly. I was trying for flavor - so that meant having my cruisers care sensor suites, best repair and fleet speed engines. While its good for the RP the AI seems to target larger ships first and cruiser hulls don't get a defensive module boost so if they do not put an inordinate amount of tonnage towards those items they come off as bulls eyes.



The AI is pretty dreadful when it comes to fleets and such. I only lose when he surprise attacks and starts a war. Then it is only for a turn or two until I get a fleet or two to match him. Watching the stock pile of fleets/ships he has in one system over only to throw one or two ship junk fleets at me is maddening. Many times I knew the AI could walk over a large part of my empire if it would only use the ships it has.



Late game repair features are just too good. Four Dreads with top end repair, a boat load of extra health, are just damn near immune to the AI. Glass cannon fleets can take them down and are still too damn cheap.

I usually go 70% defense (emphasis on flak+beam defense, a little kinetic) 30% offense build (missile+beam, no kinetic) with a lot of battleships, playing at serious difficulty. Not sure how it goes for higher difficulty levels, but it's rare I encounter ships with greater military strength than I do, and at the rare occasion I encounter an AI fleet of equal MS I still win without casualties (and most of the time without damage). I just can't imagine using a pure offense design though.

I tried out using missile destroyer spam / glass-cannon ship designs after I read about the idea in some other thread.

The designs were way inferior to my usual designs, a total waste of production points. Maybe the idea makes sense in multiplayer, but definitly not in single player.



Very early in the game, an all attack missile ship can obliterate the usual pirate / early defense ships of that stage with one volley. However, a design with 2/3 missiles and 1/3 deflectors will also obliterate any early game ship with one salvo and ignore any long range kinetic fire, allowing it to take down a second ship with a second volley in the medium range phase (and maybe to survive the battle). The glass-cannon version can only fire one volley before it is destroyed - a much worse investment.



Later in the game the glass cannon designs are still pointless - they hardly profit from the system improvments that increase experience or hitpoints. Experience boosts attack and defense power, but considering glass cannon design have no defenses at all you waste half of the gain. Having a monopol on that luxury resources that can boost your defenses by 40% is pointless. Placing commanders in a glass cannon fleet is a total waste. Playing defense cards in battles is of course useless.



In contrast, a dreadnaught with 2/3 of the space used for (the right) defenses can become an almost unstoppable force if you combine ship experience, a good fleet commander and the hitpoint-granting system improvements - even at equal tech levels. Once you manage to get a great techological advantage you can build dreadnoughts that can kill entire fleets alone, without even taking a scratch (4 command points vs. 22!).

Well, at this point in the game you could probably win with missile destroyer spam too, but you would have to constantly replace them.

Draco18s wrote:
Quite well, actually. If I manually participate in a battle and use the Defensive Wall action (the fence looking one) I take ZERO damage. The only thing that kills my ships are missiles that impact "post victory" as the battle card is no longer "active."

(Trying to get a test case to see if this is true, or whether the missiles would kill the ship anyway, hence adding flak to the mix when the AI starts using it).

This strategy only works against weak military races.



I guess if you would meet my Hissho customized fraction with +15% precision, +36% dmg, +30% more tonnage, (+20% dmg from bushido) etc. your hp won't help at all.



Anyways since everybody is going for the laser weapon/kinectics shield route in MP its quite easy to kill them.

I'm sure it's sub-optimal, but I usually go for a 40/60 mix of kinetics/missiles or beam/missiles. It seems gamey to use all three weapons on the same ship.

Wilson212 wrote:
How is that working out?

Quite well, actually. If I manually participate in a battle and use the Defensive Wall action (the fence looking one) I take ZERO damage. The only thing that kills my ships are missiles that impact "post victory" as the battle card is no longer "active."

(Trying to get a test case to see if this is true, or whether the missiles would kill the ship anyway, hence adding flak to the mix when the AI starts using it).

illuminati wrote:
10k HP cruisers don't even use up half the ship's tonnage. You have more than enough room to fit whatever else you want.



This works in the very early game with manual battles, too. It takes quite awhile before the AI can deal with a 700+ HP destroyer that heals 600+ health per battle(Intelligent Tools + Repair card x3). And again, those kinds of stats don't even take up half the ship's tonnage.

The AI might not know how to deal with it, but a human would go all-up glass cannon on you, I'd think. With 4 Ti-70, apparently you can get a destroyer with basic missiles to cost around 50 I/O, or a laser destroyer with Hyperium somewhere similar. Those things can output the 700 damage per phase needed to take one of your ships down, although you might be whacking back at a similar rate.



(There are, however, viable solutions to the glass cannon problem, too... I suspect it's sort of a rock/paper/scissors thing.)

Nah, Intelligent Tools heals 10%. It can be the second thing you research in the Applied Sciences tree, which makes high health ships really strong from the get go.



Kinetics are terrible during the 1st phase, and unless you have the Sniper trait, aren't all that hot in the 2nd phase either. IF the 3rd phase rolls around, kinetics still has to deal with extra high HP ships at full strength.

Beams fare a little better. They're not too hot in the 1st phase unless you have the Sniper trait. but they still only have 2 phases with which to destroy a ship.

The best way to counter it is with focused burst damage. You need to deal enough damage to destroy the ship before it can be repaired, so missiles(that don't randomly hit different targets like other weapon types) are the best counter. Incidently, chaff research is right next to armor research, so.....

Well the repair card is overpowered as it is, and can be counter very easily.



But a cruiser with half tonnage to HP can be easily damaged by an AI even when using kinetics!



Yeah the AI isn't very adaptable.



Doesn't intelligent tools only heal like 2% a turn?

10k HP cruisers don't even use up half the ship's tonnage. You have more than enough room to fit whatever else you want.



This works in the very early game with manual battles, too. It takes quite awhile before the AI can deal with a 700+ HP destroyer that heals 600+ health per battle(Intelligent Tools + Repair card x3). And again, those kinds of stats don't even take up half the ship's tonnage.

That is really late game technology, you might have already won with that type of technology, besides, without proper defenses you would still be just as venerable fire.