Special Forces?

[Phobos]

Hi everyone.
I´ve been visiting this forum a lot but haven´t wrote anything until now. I thought it was about time

I wonder something. Do you use special task units for special operations? For example:
1 enemy faction has a SP that you really want. The problem is that the base is in the middle of his empire. And lets say that you cant afford to mind control that base.

How do you do? Build specially designed troops just for that task or do you just blast your way to that base?

I think that using Special forces is more fun but the problem is that you have to wait a long time before you get the really nice special abilities like the cloaking device.

[bobyk464]

I've found the best special forces for penetrating into the middle of a hostile empire are drop infantry. Here's where division of labor works well: outfit some with low-power weapons and max armor, with a mix of ECM and AAA; outfit some with max weapon and artillery reactor; and outfit the majority with max weapon, blink (if you've got the technology), and as much as armor as you think you can afford. You'll need a good sized force to pull this off. They're going to take a pounding when they land. A few drop rovers or tanks for field support is a good thing to add, too.
For air support, cruiser carriers with conventional missiles and extended range jets can help out. Risky to bring the cruisers in close enough to launch. If the enemy has enough interceptors, the jets will fail. The missiles are probably a better choice for a blitzkrieg assault on a single target.

I don't know how to easily hit the center of an empire in the early game - you've got to wait until you can make orbital insertions to do a drop to that distance. With enough air support (jets and choppers, rather than missiles), I suppose you could march from the coast to the target without the drop. The losses while doing this might be quite heavy. A better option is to take a coastal base as a foothold first, and then stage the assault on the main objective from there. This makes projecting air power much easier.

[RedFred]

Phobos, welcome aboard! One of our regulars is Deimos, so it is about time we had a Phobos.

Personally, I rarely spend a lot of time designing radical super powerful late game units. Unless you have all sorts of self-imposed restrictions on yourself, in single player mode you will have an unsurmountable lead by the late game anyway. So you should be getting all the best mid and late game SPs.

If the AI nabs a key early game SP then you have to ask if it is better to do without or to launch a 'blast away until you reach the base' attack and get it right away. I usually just do without.

Doing without is good training for multi player mode where you will likely get far less SPs and you will have to come up with good ways of compensating.

[Deimos]

Originally posted by RedFred
Phobos, welcome aboard! One of our regulars is Deimos, so it is about time we had a Phobos.

If we can get a Mars, we'll have the whole family in here.

Once I have the ability to produce drop troops/marines, I find that I'm basically set for any type of operation I want to perform. Diss. Wave is a nice-to-have, but not necessary. Clean is mandetory for some factions (Morgan), but not others (Yang, Miriam).

Basicaly, esp. in MP, you come up with ways to accomplish your objectives with what you have to work with.

RedFred is right about learing to do without for MP. Improvise, adapt, overcome. If you can't, you're toast.

[Sikander]

Infantry or other Drop Transports are handy for this and other missions where using a slot (for drop) weakens your assault units too much. Just add a transport module to regular drop infantry in place of it's weapon, add armor to taste and voila!

[Black Sunrise]

Lots of choppers. Upgrade them all on turn X-1 to have Nerve gas.
On turn X, Kill them all.
Now noone has the SP.

Indra

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Sikander
Infantry or other Drop Transports are handy for this and other missions where using a slot (for drop) weakens your assault units too much. Just add a transport module to regular drop infantry in place of it's weapon, add armor to taste and voila!

Funny you should mention these . . .

I've been using some of them lately in various forms and I can give a very firm mixed review .

First, they only hold 1 unit as cargo, so you might need a lot of them - but they aren't very expensive.

Nothing seems to be able to take their turn upon landing when carried by a drop transport compared to getting off sea transports or with drop combat units which can make a move after landing. OTOH, you can still transport something that has already moved its own turn - a drop transport relay is theoretically possible (although ludicrous perhaps)

Their range is pitiful - 4 tiles for (fusion anyway) land units - 5 for (fusion) NJ's (but they do get 10 with both turns). I haven't used chopper ones recently, but IIRC they only go 3 or 4 per turn, but get a longer total range at the cost of damage.

Rover drop transports get only one movement turn (at least when not elite; I don't know about elite ones) but they cost lots more than infantry ones. The look nicer than Infantry ones though.

You can't carry another transport inside.

They are fun to build .

One thing they are pretty good at doing is moving stuff around between bases inside you own territory in a hurry without mag tubes (or even without roads); say from a production base to the punishment sphere base to a base near a monolith to a seaport base etc.

They make your opponents and allies wonder whether you are just crazy or if know something that they don't know or if you have so much money that its coming out the wazoo and you are just playing with them.

[Flubber]

I tinkered with drop transports once but have never really used them so it is interesting to hear from someone with experience with them. I may tinker with them later.


As for special forces, I am a big believer in customizing your units to your target and onjectives. While an elite best weapon unit is fabulous, and you need some of those guys I find that there is often efficiency and usefulness in building a lot of cheaper units as well

- The upgradeable trained shell is a favorite- cheap to build and ready to become a best weapon or best defense at the cost of a single upgrade

-- Cheap radar planes or choppers-- You know they are vulnerable but heck a decent base builds one a turn and their suicide runs into the enemy provide necessary data-- These can also be useful for plinking crawlers, formers and improvements on a weakly defended frontier

- probes on an infantry chassis ( cheaper for at home defense)

- armored probes-- An unbribable sentry on the frontier that combines decent survivability with no p-drones if its out exploring

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Flubber . . . The upgradeable trained shell is a favorite- cheap to build and ready to become a best weapon or best defense at the cost of a single upgrade. . .

These are a quick way to produce good troops and can be produced in one turn by a lesser base. They are useful particularly when you are someone like Morgan in FM/Wealth, want decent morale levels and have the money to spare. If you build the trained shells in bases with BioEnhancement and Command Centers and visit a monolith, you can get Commando level Morale, which sure beats those green units you might otherwise get .

I've noticed in a test case of Rover shells at least, that the upgrade cost to make an augmented Fusion rover of some kind is the same, regardless of whether you started with a Fission or a Fusion shell unit; the fusion shell is at least one row more expensive to build, so it is a waste of mins. I have been assuming that this is true across all the possible upgrade cases, but I am curious whether anyone has an empirical or tested basis to generalize this across other chasis/ability types; there are quite a few combinations of from/to shells and finished units and I find the research project daunting, but would love to know the results.