Best Race.

[Like2frolick]

What's the best kinda race?

Add Race generation+ship idea here...

[Master Marcus]

Truly, it's not only the "best race", it's also the best strats+unbeatable ships shared on many other forums in the past ( and you can find some in the MoO2 section on the recent MoO3 site )... déja vu , but why not sharing it here at Apolyton.

The government choice in MoO2 is crucial and affects more your gameplay style than the vast majority of other Empire-building games.
For a hybrid builder, Unification is the obvious choice for a faster expansion. Democracy is of course highly enjoyable; but Dictatorship ( slower expansion at the beginning ) is hard to tag along in my advanced games. Feudal may be the ideal choice for some warlords playing on tinier maps, it's just I can't stand the -50% research - a real @#*?@shh.
My favorite settings ( not all games ):

Hard/Impossible, huge map ( hey, it's gonna be a small one in MoO3), Unification, creative, +1 research OR rich HW, -10 spy, -10 Ground combat.

ship= before mid-game, interceptors are helpful. Later on I mostly invest on Hv beams.
favorite specials aside Battle pods: Heavy Armor, Reinforced hull, TIME WARP FACILITATOR.
a good Doom Star: 6 specials are sufficient i.e. Battle pods, heavy armor, reinforced hull, ECM jammer *, inertial stabilizer*, TIME WARP FACILITATOR. Weapons: 1 stellar converter, some Hv Death rays, some ECCM-FAST missles, only 1 bomb. OR you can make ONLY Hv plasma cannons ( enveloping ) for at least the same amount of damage done if not MORE, but imagine 40-45 ones in each Doom Star : the battle turns are too long.

*: their superior upgrades are great but with an already high defense, save the amount of space for weapons.

[Like2frolick]

Fighters are useless. <g>

C'mon! Mirv Missiles are ~much~ better, and later in the game Beam attacks are so staggering that a dozen PD guns will kill a dozen missiles.

[ravagon]

Favourite custom race (pre-patch) picks are; creative (a must IMO), cybernetic, omniscient and telepathic.
Penalties; Growth 50% (this one hurts), ground combat (with telepathy you hardly ever need ground forces) and spying (penalties offset by telepathy anway).
For the "mutation" (?) science pick later in the game I generally take warlike (double cp).

Favourite tactic is to try and capture (via transporters) and reverse-engineer antaran ships. Nothing beats that shield damper on a large ship with enhanced structure/armour and auto-repair (+ cybernetic).
Who needs shields? :D :p

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Like2frolick
Fighters are useless. <g>

C'mon! Mirv Missiles are ~much~ better, and later in the game Beam attacks are so staggering that a dozen PD guns will kill a dozen missiles.

For the fighters, they make a lot more damage against ANY opponent than any other weapon ( beams and missles are weak befor plasma cannon and pulson ) in the first half; as I said in my post I don't use them in the second half - then they are useless.

AS for your second statement, I completely disagree but hey - we each have a distinct gameplay style and MoO2 offer a lot of diversity for that. PD ability is strong, but I always found the AI very weak when using its missles. My other Hv enveloping beams are generally ( 90% of battles ) sufficient to eradicate an enemy fleet BEFORE its missles can reach me in the last combat turn.:lol:

[Like2frolick]

Try this:
Start out, get as much missile tech as you can, until you can put Mirv Nuke's on things.

Build several destroyers/frigates, with nothing BUT Mirving Nukes.

Destroy everyone in the immediate area.

Fighters: Have no shields, and take four times longer to do a similar amount of damage.

Generally speaking, early in the game, missiles are the king, middle: Beams, late: Beams

Mirv Nukes
Nuke Damage: 8(every missile does 8 damage)
MIRV: 2x cost, 4X damage
Damage per nuke: 32 damage/nuke

Generally, you can stuff 2 nukes on a frigate(with Battle-pods)
Or six-seven nukes on a destroyer

Frigate: 64 damage
Destroyer:192 damage per rack

Build a half dozen, and you can wipe out any new fleet. :)

Now..on the other hand

Interceptors: Space:25, (doesn't go down)
4 PD Beams(at this stage, lasers, or Mass drivers)
(Laser damage) 1-2
MD Damage: 3

Assuming you're using MDs, and don't have lasers(unlikely...)
12 damage, for all four fighters, if they get through. That's not bad.

Over the four rounds(assuming they're not destroyed)
48 damage.

Pretty good...BUT: A single Frigate can do 64 damage in one round...and 128 in 2.

Add in the fact that you're less likely to be shot down.....

:D

Now, if Fighters used shields, or armor....then maybe I could say it was useful. However, in comparison to such things as mirv-nukes, they're outmatched.

:D Go ahead...try it out.

:unban:

And, there's no doubt that, in the endgame, when you have Beam abilities of 100+, and shield-piercing phasors, or heavy Plasma Cannons, that you can smash your opponent ~well~ before he can harm you. <g>

[dexter4dxm]

i agree with you Like2frolick, I ended up using this strategy after countless hours of playing because it works.

[aaglo]

On MOO2 at first (when creating a race) I always wanted a creative race. But IMO the result was always a boring game, getting all the techs isn't that great. Usually I now play with something like this:
Subterranean, Unification, -10 spying, -10 ground combat, -20 ship defence and +50 ship offense (+/- something extra). Sometimes even uncreative, which gives some challenge, but in that case it's good to have charismatic also.

[Garth Vader]

I find the ship differences interesting.

I am a beam man myself.

My first warship is usually a cruiser with
2 HV AP, CO, AF, NR lasers
4 PD AF, CO lasers

battle pods, battle scanner, heavy armor(or reinforced hull, if I don't have HA)

I then find any AI who doesn't have planetary defense buildings and take em out. I usually like taking telepathic, so it's easy. If I have to I will build a destroyer with mirv nukes, but I only do that if I really want to take someone out and they have missile bases and fighter garrisons. I use lasers until phasers or plasma cannons (unless I happen to get graviton beam). I have been able to conquer a huge galaxy on hard while still using lasers.

My later designs are similar. For larger ships and later cruisers I add a third weapon which is normal mount and is used for shooting down fighters and missiles with more power so the fleet can support eachother better.

[Master Marcus]

yo, man, a "NON-MIRVIC missle addict" like me!

For newcomers passing by, you'll find also some other killing strats on "shining, spying, cheating" thread where many posters have decided to share their settings there, but it should have been here instead.

[jdlessl]

I only ever choose Creative if I'm playing on Impossible difficulty. It's just too easy to win otherwise.

Other than that, I usually get a 2 food production bonus. It helps immensely to only need half as many guys farming. Quite unrealistic, really. On an industrialized planet, you're not going to have more than a few percent of the population working on farms.

Subterranean/Large Homeworld also gives you a boost in the beginning.

--
Jared Lessl

[Sarxis]

Yeah, the Creative ability is a killer attritute, and any race that doesn't have will be FUBAR quickly.

[Like2frolick]

Creative is ~okay~.....

But...well. ::Shrug:: I personally prefer Subterraneon. <g> I can choose the most important tech's for myself, and steal/capture/demand/exchange the rest.

Although it's not FULL proof...as long as you have the important research/production techs, weapon tech's become less important, against the AI. :)

Trade Weapons for Nice, fun techs!

And Build Capture ships, and steal anything your opponent uses against you.,

[The Mad Monk]

I'm not sure about my favorite 'custom mix', but most of mine include subterranean and aquatic. Aquatic treats terran and water worlds as gaia class (in term of both food production and pop limit), and swamp and tundra as terran (again, as above). Consider what that food bonus does for early colonization efforts, and the pop boost does for later development efforts...add in the pop bonus of sub, and...:)

BTW, I usually 'pay' for these by taking all the negative combat mods, and either the negative spy mod or the farming hit, depending on what else I loaded on the race.

[The Mad Monk]

Some of my thoughts on ship design can be found here:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12563

[ravagon]

MM. Your last post in that thread states that the damper field blocks both death rays and neutron blasters. This isn't actually true. Neutron blasters are completely blocked as the damage they inflict, modified by the damper field means that any hit inflicts less than 5 points of damage hence no marine loss. Death rays, however, are still vey effective. Hit an Antaran small/medium ship at reasonably close range with a heavy, or two std death rays and you will see all of the marines onboard wiped out. A boarding action just waiting to happen. ;)

Also, I've never noticed any problem with damper fields messing up transporters? They don't really seem too effective (unless target is death-rayed first :) ) but I always attributed that to the superiority of the Antarans ground forces over my own.
Do assault shuttles work that much better?

[The Mad Monk]

I'm fairly certain about the kill negation from dampers and xentronium--let me check my notes...this might take a day.

[ravagon]

Actually, something I forgot to mention. This wasn't using the patch (I like creative for only 6 picks ;) ).

[Master Marcus]

Nothing can negates a Hv plasma cannon, nothing. it's 3 times cheaper than a Death Ray, AND more powerful at close range. The AI can't stand the enveloping ability even equipped with Damper Field at the end of a game. It doesn't block completely a Death Ray also. But it is a very powerful defense to have on the larger hulls, many times better than the shields - and at a cheesy low space cost. That will be tampered otherwise in MoO3 believe me.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Master Marcus
Nothing can negates a Hv plasma cannon, nothing. \

Agreed. Its just such a shame that ground batteries/battlestations get rid of their plasma guns after disruptors are researched. Planetary defenses go from virtually invulnerable to weak as a kitten in one fell swoop.
I've also found that std plasma guns are devastating against missile volleys (assuming I don't just target an enemy ship hoping for a core breach :evilgrin: ;) ). Target a 5 missile volley and its gone with only a gun or two fired. Anyone know why this is? Something to do with the enveloping effect I'm guessing.

[The Mad Monk]

Alrighty--on the damper field front, the description says that 'transported' troops have a 50% chance of dying passing through the damper. I don't know if this is in the same sense that missles have a 50% chance of destruction passing through a lightning field (it always appeared to have a higher kill ratio in my games), but I remember looking at the boarding screen and noting that I started off with 25% of the troops I sent. I have to dig up an old game and invade antares, just to be sure.

I think I was mistaken on xentronium--although it did have some special feature. Maybe nullification of the 'armor piercing' abilities of certain weapons?

[pchang]

With the patch:

Damper Field negates the special killing effect of Death Rays. Normal marine deaths due to damage still applies

Transporters have only 25% chance to succeed when transporting through a damper field. Expect 75% casualties. This is why I always use assault shuttles.

Xentronium armor negates armor piercing capabilities of weapons. Sometimes it is better to have a double hull instead of double armor.

[The Mad Monk]

Thanks for the confirmation, pchang!

Right now, I'm playing something a bit different than my usual:

Cybernetic, +2 industry, Subterranean, Charismatic, -10 (ship offense, ship defense, ground combat, and spying), and Poor Homeworld.

Note that leaves an extra point--which is used, along with the four from evolutionary mutation, to acquire Aquatic.

I spawned in a five planet system, including a rich, heavy gravity water world and only one gas giant. I love 5 planet systems.

First race I ran into was the Silicoids--I hate that. Fortunately, the nearest Silicoid world was promptly over-run. By the Darloks--I hate that. I also soon discovered repulsive Sakkra to the left :( and pacifist Psilons to the right :cool:. The Darloks proved to not only be non-repulsive (surpise, surprise), but amiable tech-trading partners. Between trading with them and leaning on the Psilons, I didn't really miss creative at all. Since I was shooting for the mutation fairly early on, I had several high-lvel techs in a field nobody else was hitting (lots of good trades).

Anyway, this is a fun 'build', and a nice change of pace.

[jdlessl]

If you want to get _really_ high scores, then here's the race you design. Play as Lithovore, then when you get Evolutionary Mutation, switch over to Cybernetic. You end up with 10 leftover picks, which basically doubles your score. Got 6000 points on an Impossible map that way. Cheap, yes, but effective.

--
Jared Lessl

[pchang]

In my games, I expand very quickly and get a huge tech lead. If I am not creative, I miss a lot of techs. This is because there is no one at my level to trade with.

BTW, I have never tried capturing the Orion Guardian. I think you can't. Can anyone confirm this?

[jdlessl]

As I recall, the Guardian is considered a monster, like the Eel, so you can't board it. Pity.

--
Jared Lessl

[The Mad Monk]

I can confirm that the Guardian is unboardable.

I can also confirm that the Antaran homeworld is unraidable--conquer, yes, capture ships and leave with them, no.

It was a fun attempt...

[pchang]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I can confirm that the Guardian is unboardable.

I can also confirm that the Antaran homeworld is unraidable--conquer, yes, capture ships and leave with them, no.

It was a fun attempt...

You only get to keep captured ships if you win the battle. If you win at Antares, the game is over.

[The Mad Monk]

I know...I was trying a workaround that didn't quite 'work around'.

I took a 'telepathic' pick, which allows immediate use of captured ships, on the theory that if I warped captured ships out of there long before my other ships left, I should get to keep them.

I remember it woking with non-Antarans; at least, I don't think I would have made the attempt without testing it on 'lesser' races first...it was quite a while ago...

In any case, it didn't work...:(

[Thue]

People seem to like heavy-duty defensive systems on their ships. But I found that (at least in end-game) a much better tactic was just making the ships fast (hard to hit) and then using the extra space for more weapons. You then get first shot.

Doing that I was comfortably destroying fleets 3-5 times my size. (I did have a slight edge in tech)

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Thue
People seem to like heavy-duty defensive systems on their ships. But I found that (at least in end-game) a much better tactic was just making the ships fast (hard to hit) and then using the extra space for more weapons.

I agree, though I personally like the "heavy duty defense" approach. That shows how incredibly customizable is MoO2's ship design "workshop" - and at the time of its release in 1996, this was considered almost revolutionary but overly complex.

[The Mad Monk]

I tend to build mixed fleets of specialized ships:

'Ships of the Line'or 'Slayers': Best defenses, best weapons without scacrificing defense, some capture ability (tractors or transporters, whichever is more compact); meant to neutralize enemy heavies before they can come into play, and absorb fire for the other ships. A must for hitting planetary defenses.

'Reapers': Standard capture vessels, first battleships, then titans (I find I rarely use doomstars--too boring).

'Escorts': Best defense, best non-heavy beam weapons, typically cruisers, occasionally battleships; specifically designed to take out fighter/missle swarms.

'Strikers': Best missles with 2-shot magazine, minimum defense, typically destroyers; designed to lay down massive barrages (before anyone else can move), and get the hell out. Can dump entire magazine and jump in one turn with fast missle racks.

'Stalkers': Best heavy weapon with armor/shield piercing ability, minimum defense, cloaked, typically battleship; designed to sneak in, blow up largest defense, get out.

'Watchers': NO weaponry, best defenses allowing for equipment, any/all 'wide effect' items (jump dampers, wide-spec ecm, etc.), cloaked if available, typically frigate or destroyer; designed to carry all that nifty stuff so that the larger ships don't have to (at greater space and construction cost, to boot).

[Admiral]

despite all the enthusiasm towards the plasma cannon, i find that i can build a few achilles/structural analyser/Hv Gauss/Disrupter ships (usually titans, sometimes doomstars) and can take out 10-20 ships a turn. Admittefly. this can get boring...

[Like2frolick]

:)

Personally...I don't like Plasma Cannons.

Yeah, they're effective, and if the opposition get's em while you're using MIRV Nukes and ENV Fusion cannons, you have to go whole hog to catch up(I've had that happen before..the freaking MrrShan got Plasma-Cannons and Class VII Shields without me noticing....and I had Class III and MIRV Nukes..But I was at the other side of the galaxy, and had better research, so I went whole hog for physics, and caught up before they finished killing the few outposts at that side of the universe)

But..if you have Plasma Cannons, and decent shields...basically the game is over.

[Bkeela]

Psilion are my fav.

[Thunderfire]

Creative is overrated. Those 8 points can be spent
much better if you know what you want.

[Shatter]

I prefer this custom race:

Subterranean Low-G Homeworld
Lithovore -10 Ground Combat
Warlord -10 Spying

I like the race simply because it will ensure almost unobstructed expansion, -any- planet will become at least a decent science or production center and many of your worlds will be able to build battleships and titans very fast. (often you'll get 28+ pop gaia worlds from critter protected systems, kinda nice) And I hate the usual struggle with food and freighters on starting colonies and command points when you can start cranking out ships.

Or: Unification, Subterranean, Creative (8p) (which seems rather easier for advanced games, but possibly worse for pre-warp or average)

Or a blitz race:

Unification, Telepathic, Warlord + bonusses to production, science or homeworld.

I usually try to go for positronic comp, neutron blaster and class III shields for ships with Pd, Co, Env fusion beams for defense; Hv, AP, AF mass drivers can be deadly to ships too.

Shatter