Hawkwings wrote:you know, if I refuse to play... I don't loose effortlessly!
Calm down, bro. He's just saying, if you want to win, you'll be best set doing it with politics and strategy rather than saying "I've got a superweapon, you are dead."
For example, strike at multiple enemy systems at once, drawing the main mass of the enemy fleet away to intercept a feint while your main mass takes out one of their smaller garrisons.
Oh, and some combat pointers and game rules:
Hypermissiles: These weapons are common, most powers use them in a variety of ways, and as such, all ships are assumed to have hypersheilds. Hypershields generally come in 2 types- Broadband and Frequency Agile. Frequency Agile hypershields can only cover a couple layers of hyperspace at a time, so they change constantly to intercept incoming missiles. This form is found on cheaper cruisers and most escorts. Broadband shields cover all hyperspace angles, and need to be battered down with sustained fire to be defeated.
Missiles: Missiles are, by and large, long range weapons for dueling with the enemy from amny AU away at ranges where lightspeed weapons are useless. They tend to do less damage overall than short-range weapons, and can be inrtercepted by point defence, ECM, and even properly equipped fighters. Hypermissiles and STL missiles are usually mixed in volleys timed to hit at the same time, so as to force enemy computers to both track STL targets as well as moniter hyperspace and change shield bands.
Interdictors: All nations are automatically assumed to have a handful of hyperspace interdictor platforms, which are of limited use against hypershields, but are effective at holding capital ships. Unless you pay starship points for them, they are little more than converted freighters and will die rapidly in a fight.
Planetary Bombardment: A single destroyer can render an unshielded world uninhabitable in a matter of an hour or so. A large fleet can burn a world to the crust in a matter of minutes or seconds. Shielded worlds, on the other hand, are much harder to take out. It can take hours, even days, for a fleet to burn through the shields of a major world. Only major systems are assumed to have the shields, having a large number of worlds shielded requires capital points. It should be noted that small breaches can be opened in planet shields with concentrated bombardment in only a matter of hours or, for large fleets, minutes- but it is only enough to allow a quick volley of re-entry vehicles through, and the enemy will know where they are coming from and will likely be prepared.
Orbital Support Fire: Bombing targets on a planet's surface to take out enemy troop concentrations is very possible, but if you don't want to bomb indiscriminately, you need spotters- otherwise, advanced camoflage and ECM can spoof your attacks. This makes it hard to take a world intact- cities in particular- without landing troops and being prepared for a scrap.
Combat Ranges: Space combat takes place at very long distances, and a "tight formation" might have it's ships many thousands of kilometers apart from one another. Missiles reach out over AU distances, and gun combat often takes place at ranges where the human eye can not make out the enemy.
Superweapons: Superlasers, planet-cracker missiles, and the like, do exist. Technology has weakened in the days since the Cataclysm, though, and superdreadnought-sized platforms are necessary just to mount a light superlaser barely capable of demolishing a planetary shield. A superweapon platform costs as many capship points as a superdreadnought, but, because it must power it's collossal weapon, is lightly shielded and armed for it's size. Such a weapon, however, can make taking a fortified planet a great deal easier.
Hypelanes: The Cataclysm made most old hyper-routes useless or dangerous, fouled with the ruins of dead stars, the black hole remnants of distortion missile warheads, and ancient robotic killing machines which would make a modern dreadnought wall-of-battle piss itself. This makes travel harder than it used to be. One can cross the galaxy in a matter of hours if one follows the major hyperlanes (see map,) but travelling, especially for large fleets, outside of those lanes can make trips take many hours, even days or weeks.
Planetary Defenses: Unless you pay capship points, don't expect massive planetary defense gun networks or fighter squadrons. A capital world, if unpaid for, might have 12 cruiser points worth of defense guns. It should be noted that capital points spent on defenses go further in terms or armament and shielding than those spent on warships, but the static nature of standard defenses render them vulnerable to such dastardly tactics as c-fractional kinetic bombardment from beyond the system's ecliptic.
Black Ops: Funding rebellions, assassinating leaders, hiring privateers, dispatching agents, all these are possible. Assassination attempts on nationleaders, however, are very unlikely to succeed unless the target is away from the protections of his private vessels and palaces. This of course depends on the cleverness of the assassin and the target, or at least the players behind them. Black Ops on worlds which have only recently been conquered are far more likely to succeed, and are a popular method of slowing the expansion of the more potent empires.
Ah, that should more or less cover it... I'm not a mod, so Marcao or Pablo might want to correct me on one thing or another.