Space Empires IV Gold Game

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-06 08:16pm

It would appear that the turn's already processed. I'm not sure how far Brian can turn back the clock...

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2005-12-06 08:24pm

We're all making mistakes here. Just part of the game, I guess. Heh.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-06 08:52pm

Maybe Brian can roll the clock all the way back and give me non-shitty planets.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-06 09:04pm

Then:

brianeyci wrote:
Damn that's a big handicap. If you want we can... restart.

Dalton wrote:petaQ! It is a challenge! A Klingon warrior does not ask for a restart, for it is without honor.

Now:

Dalton wrote:Maybe Brian can roll the clock all the way back and give me non-shitty planets.

Tell me, Klingon, is it that your memory is that short, or that your commitment to your so-called honor is so weak?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-06 09:12pm

Romulan I think the Klingon was being facetious. Not a natural Klingon trait I know.

If you send a message before the end of your turn your message can be "missed" somehow, a bug. I'm not sure whether this can fuck up your orders. I always save before sending messages and send messages as the last thing I do.

<edit>Ha I looked up facetious and it's not the word I wanted to use

. I meant that Dalton was trying to be funny. Okay back to watching Gena Davis.</edit>

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-06 09:21pm

brianeyci wrote:Romulan I think the Klingon was being facetious. Not a natural Klingon trait I know.

snip

<edit>Ha I looked up facetious and it's not the word I wanted to use . I meant that Dalton was trying to be funny. Okay back to watching Gena Davis.</edit>

Brian

I know, I've just grown accustomed to our RPing flamewars.

Probably should lay off a bit, though, with first contact with the him becoming imminent. I'm not *quite* ready to lay the smackdown on the Klingon Empire yet.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-06 10:26pm

Dalton wrote:Maybe Brian can roll the clock all the way back and give me non-shitty planets.

Fair enough. I'll make do without those ships.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-12-06 11:23pm

Nephtys wrote:
Dalton wrote:Maybe Brian can roll the clock all the way back and give me non-shitty planets.
Fair enough. I'll make do without those ships.

I wasn't being sarcastic towards you, just making a tongue-in-cheek reference to my own situation

EDIT: Trogdor, I will have your heart for lunch.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-07 12:29am

Dalton wrote:EDIT: Trogdor, I will have your heart for lunch.

Now there's the Klingon blowhard I know and love!

Eat my heart for lunch? I think not, Klingon. Your people will call mine masters soon enough. I'm raking in over 100k more research points per turn than you are. I'll be able to destroy your suns before you perfect "batlith" technology.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2005-12-07 12:36am

Trogdor wrote:"batlith" technology

Robin, quick! The Bat Rock!

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-07 12:56am

Alan Bolte wrote:
Trogdor wrote:"batlith" technology
Robin, quick! The Bat Rock!

Hey, that's how the people who made the mod spelled it.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 01:05am

I don't think Dalton will be using Bat'leths if he's smart. They cost 40 minerals and building a whole new troop only costs 30. It seems these Bat'leths that do only 3 damage are more expensive than a disruptor rifle, pistol and shield generator put together.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-07 01:06am

What a load of crap. It's just a hunk of metal!

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-12-07 01:11am

Hey, that's Klingon "technology" for you.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 01:11am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:What a load of crap. It's just a hunk of metal!

You know what's really a load of crap make a Shuttle V, put in a warp core and impulse engines -- 48 move point fighters first strike in any situation!

Advanced Ship Construction might be worth getting just for the Shuttle V.

Although, they did put a lot of hard work into this mod and I'm happy so far.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-07 01:36am

I never use that warp core stuff. Who needs 48 movement points, anyway? 24 will more than guarantee first strike, and leave 10 kT over to greedily pile on shuttle phasers and armor plating.

But yes, fighters are overpowered, especially for a Star Trek setting where we very rarely see fighters and they never come in large numbers or seem to make any difference.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2005-12-07 05:36am

I'm kind of unimpressed with the mod myself. I've almost finished researching all the Dominion Energy Weapons but I've barely gotten above 400kt hulls. Huh?

That, and is it just me or are ships wayyyyyyyyyyy too cheap. I think I've thrown away more resources than I've used. Totally took me off guard how cheap stuff is and how plentiful our resources are, I was expecting to slam into the maintenance wall in the first few years.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 11:27am

I made storage facilities so I never waste. And not really I only have 40 ships and I'm in a deficit, the only reason I'm staying afloat is because of trade agreements with neutrals. 20 ships really is not a lot if you hit maintainence wall at 20 ships I would be disappointed, I want hundreds of ships eventually. I also have 900 kT hulls and am moving onto the battleships.

I ran some more sims. 72x5 Kingpin 4 and Kingpin 5 (360k mins, total around 400 fighters) to the equivalent in point-defense battleships (20 ships). It looks like that the bell curve shifts heavily in favor of ships later in the game. What we are overlooking is that point defense always gets first shot, even on the defender side. If the defending ships are in a wall, let's say ten ships in line formation, the fighters run up and get cut to pieces before they can fire. Also shields X soak 5 damage per hit and the most powerful weapon does 15 damage and is 2 reload. Shuttle phasers are 6 damage so they'll only do 1 damage to Shield X equipped ships. I ran a sim with 1 point-defense ship versus 320 fighters equipped with shuttle phaser and the 1 ship won with no internal damage.

Can somebody duplicate these test results. Of course this overlooks that units don't require maintainence so you can stockpile them over time, but when the simulation is so heavily lopsided (only 4 ships lost to 400 fighters) maintence becomes a non-issue.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-07 03:04pm

The first time I ran the simulation, I was struck by how lopsided the results were in favor of the PD ships. Then I realized that it was because the fighters were being given 1% of their supplies and were running out after 2 shots, so I set it up with fighters being launched from carriers. This wasn't quite so lopsided, but the PD ships still won, and they were just cruisers (500 kT), so it seems that you're right. We're at the point where ships have become better than fighters.

Still, you can build fighters on planets with no shipyard. So if every planet cranks out 3 fighters per turn after it's built its facilities, that's hundreds of fighters in a system by the time somebody attacks, or hundreds waiting to be scooped up by carrier ships going off to the front. A large enough fleet will still make them irrelevant, especially with big PD ships carrying 20+ PD weapons each, but there's really no reason not to build them, except when running short on minerals.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 03:28pm

Yes, fighters do not become irrelevant. Really the amount of fighters is the issue, it becomes a guessing game. Will he field mostly fighters? You'll need 80% point-defense ships. Will he field mostly ships? If you go with 80% of your ships as point-defense your fleet will be torn apart. Maybe a 60-40 split is safer but even then you can't ignore fighters. If he fields fighters and missiles, maybe they'll be enough that they can break through your point defense. It takes two point defense shots to shoot down a missile, meanwhile that means less guns targeting the fighters. Or if they ignore fighters entirely and go 100% ships, then when you come in a quarter or half of your ships will be useless.

Another note is that torpedoes can't play anti-fighter roles but if you go shuttle phasers or phase cannons your fighers will reek against ships (the torpedo's 2 reload doesn't hurt much because by the time it shoots it's probably dead). I'm not sure how well Kami-fighters will do but take a look at anything Maurader and above having a shuttle bay. I wonder if you stuff a shuttle in a Maurader and use it to ram with a lot of move points and a kami warhead, whether you can knock out whole fighter stacks with one shuttle of your own. Heavy Cruiser+ all have built-in shuttle bays.

It's good that there's nothing useless in this mod. Then... there's drones. Torpedoes can't target drones at all, and most advanced weapons can't target drones.

It's going to be a game of rock-paper-sissor only with infinite possibilities rather than 3.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-12-07 03:38pm

That's what I was glad of. The game's more balanced than the usual horror-pile where only PPB/DUC (early game) and APB (late game) battlecruisers with mounts were the ONLY useful weapons. Fighters and drones are both now useful. Sats and weapon platforms have gotten a nice buff as well.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-12-07 07:03pm

Small phaser cannons can target drones, however, so fighters should tear them to shreds.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 07:36pm

I just ran some sims with drones and was not that impressed... until I added some Shield X. Shield X is key to defeating fighters. Turns the shuttle phaser into a pea shooter and more than halves the phase cannon. Since torpedoes can't shoot drones anyway, drones can take down fighters. 20 Mercedes versus 60 Kingpins, Mercedes win with 4 losses. Plus... take a look at the defense bonus

I still don't like drones though. They are a shock weapon, after hte first battle the drones can't form into fleets and you can't give them orders. They just fly and keep killing until they die, and since they can't go into a fleet they'll come in one by one and die off. 3000 mins for a one-shot deal? Probably not. But, they are actually useful for something unlike in stock.

Brian

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-12-07 08:19pm

brianeyci wrote: It's going to be a game of rock-paper-sissor only with infinite possibilities rather than 3.

Brian

...Doesn't that basically boil it down to rolling the dice, picking a technology, going for broke with it, and hoping that your opponent didn't choose the technology that counters yours? If you go near-100% fighters and your opponent goes with a mixed package, you'll overwhelm his anti-fighter capacity and steamroll him, right?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2005-12-07 08:34pm

Maybe. This is all conjecture though. Nobody's really had a big battle. And you underestimate the power of the warp point. You can defend a warp point in stock with 2 to 1 or sometimes even a greater disadvantage if you have the right ships there. I'm guessing the following : Fighters are poor defenders of warp points, the best would be ships or static like bases/sats because they get first shot and are not shot at. Fighters are also bad for attacking because they have to launch first and the enemy gets first shot on your carriers. Fighters are overrated run some sims with those designs, larger ships with 20+ PD really rape fighters. There's also the fact of geometry. Since the plane is 2-Dimensional, as long as you have enough PD ships to plug the front line the fighters will fall before they shoot. Make sure to put your ships in a formation like line or wall. If they launch in a bigger wing like 100 instead of 10, it's one target rather than 10 different ones I imagine easier to destroy. Everything I've read suggests launching in big wings though. If they go 100% fighters they won't have any projection capability because fighters can't go through warp points and need a carrier. The only out is warp point openers, but I bet everybody is getting their system gravitational shield facilities online by now.

So I'm not worried, no single technology can be dominating, I assume that a mix will be just as effective if you go one way or the other... besides if you go all one way another empire might attack you and you might find yourself annihilated so it's safer to go a mix. I think.

.

Oh yes, system gravitational facilities remind me, there must always be at least one point of entry between each of your systems and the rest of the galaxy. In other words there must be at least one warp point in each system. You can fortify the shit out of your warp points if you want but you cannot build a system gravitational facility and close every single warp point. If there is only one entrance to your empire that's okay but 0 entrances is not okay. Especially not okay is having a system gravitational facility in queue, scrapping your old one, sending your fleet through it then letting the new one construct effectively meaning you can strike with impunity.

<edit>Anyway it goes it is damn more exciting than stock. Right now I'd be using battlecruiser with shields APB and a couple point defense guns (maybe PPB if I had enough rads) and every other experienced player would be as well, instead there's choice.</edit>

Brian