Space Empires Gold B5 Game (The Second)

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-11 01:54pm

Trogdor wrote:Yes, they were in a fleet. I didn't want to risk that they'd fight his fleet one at a time.

Damn, that may be why.

Shrapnel FAQ wrote: 6.2 Formations
6.2.1 If all ships in a fleet break formation, they go to their individual ship orders. This may be what you want.
6.2.2 You may want to change the default fleet formation to something other than arrowhead since this one is not very good. Wall is much better under most circumstances.
6.2.3 If the formation leader gets stuck by being surrounded by ships/objects and cannot move, the fleet will break formation.
6.2.4 Formations: good ones for general use: wall, phalanx. Also, it is generally good to break formation due to ships moving out of weapons range reducing damage per turn if they stay in formation.

If you stay in formation in a fleet the ships tend to always try and realign themselves and many ships move out of range. Also the target "has weapons" probably didn't help because one of his unarmed ships might have been far in the rear. I haven't looked at the whole combat yet so I'm not sure but in just the first turn I noticed all your ships moving around and not shooting. Golden rule in SE:IV is always break formation.

Thank god SE:V gets rid of all these stupid problems.

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-11-12 05:13am

Havent looked at the turn yet, but from the talk i guess i won. By the way , whats up with - the thing about DIlgar not being low enough to mine jump gates. I mean, come on!

Thats like the conversation in pirates of the carribean where will rants on about jack cheating and jack just looks at him and says "pirate!".

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-12 05:22am

What? Haven't we been over this a zillion times, people can write what they want in the RP. If the Centauri think mining jump gates is low so be it.

How far is Earthforce willing to go? You shall see. A certain someone will rise from the dead, a speckled thing who you shall dread

. And besides. Better Earthforce than the Minbari.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-11-12 01:45pm

Tobor wrote:Havent looked at the turn yet, but from the talk i guess i won. By the way , whats up with - the thing about DIlgar not being low enough to mine jump gates. I mean, come on!.

I'm not really pissed about that. Vir and Dmitri are another story, though, but I hope you can understand if they're pretty infuriated.

Although I have to admit you really did catch me by surprise there. I didn't even consider that you'd mine my gates.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-12 01:47pm

Well after what happened in Star Trek...

...Tuxedo's solution is to put one 32 kT Minesweeping X weapon on all his ships. With really large ships it's not a problem, and then you could split your ships into squadrons of 10 if you really wanted and still be safe.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-11-12 01:52pm

Well the treaty named Valusha and Thessin as my sovereign territory, so for some reason I assumed that he wouldn't put minefields on my gates, even if he did put satellites there. Considering that the Dilgar didn't respect the rest of the treaty I suppose that was foolish of me, but that's what I thought.

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-11-12 09:09pm

Brian, no one is asking you to be a content enforcer here!

The post was meant to be a reflection of the fact that whilst i'm sure it may have come as a surprise to trogs. If one were to stand back as though actually watching b5 and they saw that line being said in relation to the known parties then, well, i just found it amusing thats all...

---

Actually i only mined the gate the turn that i moved into Valusha, solely because i didnt want your other fleet coming through the back door so to speak. I didn't expect you to abandon your homeworld to attack me in open space though. I think that sacrificing a garaunteed first turn was probably a mistake (since if memory serves i got the first turn in that engagement). For the Valusha fight, i never meant to engage that thessin fleet. Also breaking ships off to hamper my mining was a strong play trogs, it reminds me of something i would do - cause as much carnage with as little as you can. Those Red Sabbaths are nice though.

---

As for the situation with Vir, "I" am sympathetic but please understand that the DIlgar confederacy isn't. We'll see what happens though, hopefully your ships will somehow make it past the blockade in Rhagesh to get up to Fir'mil.

---

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-12 10:33pm

Tobor wrote: no one is asking you to be a content enforcer here!

Good because I don't want to be

.

As for blockading Vir from making it to this planet or that, or arresting the Centarum or anything else. As far as I'm concerned people have control of their own characters, complete control, as in whether they die or live. If you want an RP excuse, because the Dilgar have trade with the Corporate Sector, the Minbari, the Earth Alliance, and even the Vorlons, Vir could make it out in an unmarked transport unless the Dilgar search every single ship, and that's impossible given the nature of commerce. There is a massive "shadow" economy, ships that aren't represented with game mechanics. But as far as I'm concerned he doesn't need an excuse--people can make a deus ex to spring their characters if they want. If Trogdor wants Vir to live, I think Vir can live.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-11-13 04:24pm

Under normal circumstances, if the Dilgar blow the Cotto Mobile before it reaches Fir'mill, I'd go ahead and say that Vir and his little written about assistant Ivan bought it. I'm not a big fan of deus ex events.

However, if that happens I'll be staring having zero characters in the face. All I'd have left is Dmitri, who's stuck on Centauri Prime, the fate of which is not looking too bright.

If I had no characters, my only options for the RP would be to a) invent some new characters, something I don't want to do, especially seeing as how the game's nearing the closing stretch, or b) claim that the Republic's in a state of total anarchy, which of course wouldn't be true since I'm directing it. So if the Cotto Mobile is destroyed, expect to see Vir congradulating himself for taking a merchant shuttle and sending his usual ride off as a decoy.

It'll be there by next turn anyway, so unless you've got a very fast warship hiding in that storm in Signet (which I actually wouldn't put beyond you), it's a moot point.

If you really want, I wouldn't object to you RPing that you caught a member of the Centaurum or two. Dmitri did say he expected most of them to make it, not all of them, after all.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-11-13 08:00pm

Good to see my Viral Defences getting some use!

Although they never came into play when I controlled them, I had always intended them to be within the planet itself, operating autonomously like a Shadow ship. You could make the case that the planet's defenders were unaware of them, that the platforms merely recognised the Vorlon ships as those that committed genocide against the Shadows previously and opened fire, a la Macross.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-11-13 08:12pm

I figure that the Vorlons will spazz out no matter what I say about the Shadow tech there, and I rather like the idea of the Hurr being so terrified and pissed off at the Vorlons that they used the Shadow stuff despite the obvious reasons not to.

I am glad you posted, though. You reminded me of something else I wanted to put in my RP post.

To the edit button!

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-13 08:34pm

That's another thing the ancients have better than the YR... they can build weapons platforms that can hit ships.

The Vorlons too have an edge over the Shadows with 35 kT fighter. The Shadow's skip armor ability means nothing because there's nothing that's considered "armor" by SE:IV in the game except for troop cargo bay (armor in this game is leaky as some of you have noticed, you can take out internals before the armor's all gone). Skip armor only lets you get through the damage soak of advanced armors, which aren't that great anyway. I'd much rather have the fighter.

EDIT : I just checked I'm absolutely wrong. The Vorlons apparently can't build a weapons platform that hits ships. The Shadows only can because it's a bug and they made PDF Multiphase Cutter to "All but Seekers" instead of the usual "Ftr/Sat/Seeker/Drone" Heh heh.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-17 09:23am

Breaking treaty was completely unnecessary Tobor

. I wouldn't have used Corporate warp point closers to relocate warp points for the EA. I'm trying to keep the Corporate agenda far separate from the EA's. Right now the Corporates are busy with their own thing. Though it's understandable since I said "buy" with the RP.

Anyway outmaneuvered you this turn, finally, you've been beating everybody else with maneuvers the whole game

. I actually was considering letting you relocate all the warp points since I know you worked hard setting up the defense, but the idea of jumping U235's precious carriers through and having them blown apart before they could launch fighters I could not stomach, and my lasers can't hit fighters either. I hope your bases kill off a lot of Omegas still, because their maintainence is killer.

Thank god for U235's 19 move patrol ship Yorktowns.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-11-17 11:39am

Somehow, I knew those little devils would come in handy some day.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-17 10:03pm

Goddamn Bill why did you have to waste the name Hyperion on a fucking population transport?

Now that's a Hyperion and I plan to make 5000 of them.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-11-17 11:27pm

I'm taking a break, possibly permanently from the game. Neph will, assuming she's ok with it, be running my turns.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-17 11:36pm

Noooooooooo now I can't kick your ass with 5000 Warlocks!

Oh well, you can always come back, and I get why it's getting boring, like I said I wanted to quit half a dozen times myself, actually did for over a month. Peace.

Brian

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-11-18 12:55am

As for the names, Hyperions come in several classes;

2216 Alpha - poorly armed with pulse weapons and a little plasma.
2217 Beta - missile boat that trades it's almost it's entire arsenal for missiles.
2230 Gamma - now sporting mostly plasma.
2240 Delta - refit of the Alpha to heavy pulse weapons and some plasma.
2246 Epsilon - Command cruiser. Heavy pulse and heavy lasers.
2246 Zeta - Uses rail guns with medium pulse weapons
2246 Theta - As Epsilon with plasma instead of heavy pulse.
2257 Lambda - EW ship with missiles and improves defenses.

Of course, you might not want more than one ship type per image.

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-11-18 02:35am

You might say that it wasnt necessary, but you've been posturing earth and corp. as a collective and since they're crewed by the same guy, well not to be inflamatory but i'm a suspicious player and well, caution seemed the better part of valour at that point.

*shrug*

Tobor · Post by **Tobor** » 2006-11-18 02:39am

One more turn and that defense would have been done too, its just that some unknown and unamed player, lets just call him kojiro as a place holder (:P) opened a jump gate where he shouldnt and relocated all my precious warp points *cries*

Damn treaties

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-18 11:48am

I really hated doing it, because I don't like using pissy game mechanics to win unless it's a free for all or the person's really asking for it. But had I not done it, I couldn't have attacked at all, because those EA heavy lasers can't hit fighters, the Omegas don't have interceptors, and my carriers would've been blown apart on turn one.

My Hyperions will be somewhat... special, let's leave it at that.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-11-18 11:21pm

For the record the Shadow Viral defense platforms need a nerfing. Perhaps it's just me but there doesn't appear to be a way to land troops on a planet defended by them without wiping out the planets occupants first.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-18 11:47pm

They don't need to be nerfed, they need to be fixed, like the Ancient sensors that don't work at all. It's not supposed to be able to target ships all.

I know a way, but it's not foolproof. Trogdor may hate me for mentioning it, but here it is : you put your fleet into capture planet and your ships into capture planet and allow them to target the planet. The ships will go in and start shooting, and the troop ship should move in at the same time as long as capture planet is drop troops primary anything else secondary. As long as the planet has enough hit points it won't die before the troop transport lands on it. Doesn't work for weak planets, since the planet might be killed before the troop transport lands.

Oh well. The RP explanation is the Republican Guard is putting the weapons platforms in urban areas, using its own citizens as human shields

.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-11-19 07:36pm

There's another solution. But I'm not going to tell you it.

Weapon Platforms exist in stock, can use any weapon with even better mount bonuses, and nobody complains that they're overpowered.

Kojiro · Post by **Kojiro** » 2006-11-19 07:57pm

brianeyci wrote:They don't need to be nerfed, they need to be fixed, like the Ancient sensors that don't work at all. It's not supposed to be able to target ships all.

Yeah I'm pretty sure everyone got that's what I meant by nerfed.

Guppy wrote:There's another solution. But I'm not going to tell you it. Weapon Platforms exist in stock, can use any weapon with even better mount bonuses, and nobody complains that they're overpowered.

How incredibly sporting of you. I just hope it's not exploiting the system. Perhaps if we were playing stock, you'd actually have a point, but in B5, as Brian said, they're not working as intended.