Flechette

[Ned]

Has anyone actually seen a Flechette defense system shoot down a conventional missle?

I ask, because in my current game I have one base close enough to Diedre for her to use missles. The base is equiped with a Flechette defense system. However, I have lost 20+ sea formers to her missles. The formers, when hit, were right next to the base!

Ned

[WhiteElephants]

I was under the impression that flechette's only added to the defense of units against air attacks in the base square and had a 50%(?) chance of shooting down planet busters within two(?) squares.

I've honestly never used them in SP because I'm usually past ODP's before anyone else gets to PB's, and in MP we haven't gotten that far, yet.

[stuntman19]

I think W E is right in that Fletchette has no affect on conv missles only PB's. The only time to build them would be if you don't have ODP tech and enemies have PB's or will soon. Then maybe build at key bases with SP's you don't want to lose. Although when I did that awhile ago against AI Himinee her PB's still all got thru, so there really fairly worthless IMO.

[Chowlett]

I think WE is more correct even than that - I also am under the impression that they give +50% defense against missiles to the base square only, and I reckon that this is their main use. It basically means that units that aren't AAA-Elite have a chance of surviving a couple of missile attacks.

[RedFred]

I can only confirm that they do work on PBs as advertised. I don't build them unless the tech is coming unusually slowly. At that point in the game tech is normally quick, so ODPs are only a few turns later.

[Chowlett]

I didn't mean they didn't work on PB's, just that that wasn't their primary purpose. You've got ODP's for that, admittedly a little later, but still the most effective way to get rid of the things. I reckon Flechette's were designed because people complained that missiles were too powerful.

[Misotu]

Well, everyone is right as far as I can see. Yes, Flechettes are intended to rein in the power of missiles. But here's the text from the datalinks:

--(Flechettes provide) +50% defence against conventional missiles for any units up to 2 squares away.--

Now, this means that units with armour, in a base, with some existing defence like AAA will probably fare quite well. But a sea former has pretty much 0 defence against a missile. +50% isn't going to help that much, so a sea former is going to die ...

-- (continuation of Datalinks text) Also, if you have no ODPs, the Flechette can shoot down a non-conventional missile (PB, tectonic, fungal) 50% of the time when used inside a 2-square radius of the base. Both effects are cumulative. --

This is where the confusion lies, I think. It provides *+50% defence* to conventional missiles. But *it doesn't shoot them down 50% of the time*. That only applies to non-conventional missiles.

This is consistent with what I've seen in the game.

[Ned]

Only ICBM's? That doesn't make sense!

[Furril]

in a recent game an AI opponet I got PBed at a base with a flechette and it didnt stop it, I reloaded many times (about 20, hardly a 50% defence) before I got a message that said it had sucessfully shot the missile down..

then I got a message that siad the guns were ineffective and impanct in 5....4...3...2...1......

so yes its a bug and the guns are ineffective against PB's
sucks to be you.

[Tau Ceti]

Sounds strange. I have certainly seen them shoot down PBs - at a very critical moment in an MP game, in fact, so they do work.

[RedFred]

I am in agreement with Tau.

Some 'random events' are reasonably random and some seem almost preordained. So reloading and replaying will not necessarily produce a different result.

Case in point is the dreaded asteriod strike. Last time it happened to me I had Ironman off on account of crashes. So I decided to play around a bit. A save one year prior always seemed to lead to a strike on by HQ the next turn. The .sav five years prior also lead to the obliteration of my HQ, but the year in which it happened varied a bit.

[Misotu]

Yeah, I was about to post to say I'd seen a Flechette shoot down a PB in an MP game at a critical moment ... it was Tau's Flechette of course so he beat me to it

The 50-50 odds don't seem to play out in some games though, it's true. In another, very recent, MP game I was involved in a pretty heavy ODP war. I was under attack from a player intent on shooting down my ODPs to clear the way for the dreaded busters.

They were consistently getting much better than a 50-50 success rate - in some turns I was losing 8 out of 9 battles (!) Luckily, I'm sufficiently paranoid to build one-for-one plus some spares, rather than relying on the odds!