SAM land units

[Mead]

Originally posted by Flubber



They are great if you are polluting for damaging locusts. Usually one good SAM arty blast and then you can mop up the rest with an empath SAM unit or two. I will usually buils a couple of these SAM arty if I am polluting and harvesting pearls. They actually allow you to easily kill native life even if you are running a bad planet rating

I found SAM Empath ships are great for taking out Locusts if you are in a high pollutting game (either PBs and other atrocites or just plain high minerals).

The ship allow you to combine the SAM with empath and artillery. (I found because you are limited to only 2 special abilites for each unit, ships were the only way to get SAM, Empath, and artillery in the same package.) Plus, I was purposely polluting so much that the sea levels were rising phenomenally, allowing my cruisers to go just about everywhere.

I only did only one game like this (it did kinda get a little boring) but eventually I had a bunch of string <30> empath cruisers at the highest polluting bases which ensured that I was able to kill the Locusts by the dozens each turn. (OK, I was going Green, Cyber, and had DT too. I just wanted to see just how must native life forms I could stir up and still survive. I found with the empath SAM ships, and above settings and SP, the native life forms had NO chance.)


Mead

PS
One question, does a higher weapon rating (i.e. String vs. Shard) cause more damage to a native life form? I think it does with artillery, but I am not sure?

[Chaos Theory]

In normal psi combat, the weapon has no influence, except if it is resonance, in which case it's a 25% bonus.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Mead


I found SAM Empath ships are great for taking out Locusts if you are in a high pollutting game (either PBs and other atrocites or just plain high minerals).

The ship allow you to combine the SAM with empath and artillery. (I found because you are limited to only 2 special abilites for each unit, ships were the only way to get SAM, Empath, and artillery in the same package.) Plus, I was purposely polluting so much that the sea levels were rising phenomenally, allowing my cruisers to go just about everywhere.

I only did only one game like this (it did kinda get a little boring) but eventually I had a bunch of string <30> empath cruisers at the highest polluting bases which ensured that I was able to kill the Locusts by the dozens each turn. (OK, I was going Green, Cyber, and had DT too. I just wanted to see just how must native life forms I could stir up and still survive. I found with the empath SAM ships, and above settings and SP, the native life forms had NO chance.)


Mead

PS
One question, does a higher weapon rating (i.e. String vs. Shard) cause more damage to a native life form? I think it does with artillery, but I am not sure?

Interesting idea. I've used ships before for this sort of thing, but never thought of adding empath to the mix. I don't tend to pollute massively, but there are times where a certain base starts to piss planet off...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Mead

One question, does a higher weapon rating (i.e. String vs. Shard) cause more damage to a native life form? I think it does with artillery, but I am not sure?

I agree that the higher weapon makes no diffeence to regular psi combat but it has always seemed to me that the higher weapon artillery causes more damage to the natives

Your use of ships is a smart way to get additional abilities into your artillery troops

More generally, I think that artillery is probably an underappreciated part of the game. While I use it mainly against natives, it can be useful as well in conventional war when stuck near tech parity.

I recall one of darsnan's challenges where the enemy caretakers had 3r armour early when I had only impact. Add in the caretaker defense bonus and my best advantage was 5:3.75 and an abundance of rocky squares made attacking foolhardy uif they benefitted from that additional 50%. Other than working my behind off to get commado or elite units my other solution was artillery. I actually set up a battery of \ 4 artillery units at a choke point. Dropping an enemy from 10hitpoints to 5, 6 or 7 made a huge difference and it turned a war that was slowly going against me into one wherer the AI sent troop after troop into a slaughter/kill zone