Orbital Defense Pods in PBEM

[Mr. Harley]

How do they work - when they are all deployed and they've missed? Does one automatically get sacrificed? Do you wait to the targeted player's turn, and then he makes the choice? Does it make a difference if the AI shoots the Buster, or a human does, i.e. the dynamics? I'm in my first PBEM that's gotten that far, I can choose Self-Aware Machines next turn if I get lucky, and need to balance that versus going after something like the Super-Tensile Solids which will take three techs/five-six years if I get lucky.

The other reason I need to make this decision is that Miriam has the Planetary Data Links, so she IS going to get Orbital Spaceflight. Is she willing to use it if she is hostile and seething, and her target is the UNI and number one as an added bonus? In single-player I've never let the AI get that far, so I am in entirely different world. I would sort of like to leave her alone, but if I have to build an entire host of satellites, conquering her may be cheaper, she doesn't have Fusion power yet, but it's not too far in the future. Also, if I have deployed the Orbital Defense Pods, will she go after someone else? I am pacted with someone, and that would be dirty to leave her alone when I can defend myself and then he gets nuked. Thanks.

[Flubber]

I never actually shot down a nuke in a PBEM but my understanding is that it would be automatic. I did get in an Orbital and nuke war but in that case I used my 20 ODPs to shoot down the 7 he had up ( and some of his energy sats as well) before using a reactor 4 nuke to take out a bunch of bases. Personally I have never tried to throw a nuke if the opponent still has ODPs up. I assumed but never tested that it would get killed.


If I were you, I would get some ODPs up ASAP and if your pactmate is solid, I would consider giving/trading the tech to him with advice to get ODPs up as well.

Against the AI you don't need a host of satellites. You can even afford to wait until you see the AI building a nuke since I don't think they rush things well. Four or five ODPs give you really good protection (get more if someone else has ODPs). Personally I am more nervous about humans having nuke ability and would want some ODP's up anyway.

Sats aren't that expensive-- You can rush them for what 200 ec minus some in bases with bigger industrial capacity. I generally think of that as pretty cheap insurance . . . and if the game goes on, they are great for allwowing you to nuke your enemies

[Mr. Harley]

We're on a huge map, and using Nerve Gas can make me uneasy - so I've always tried to avoid Nukes. I've built and used them once in SP, just to see what they were like.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
We're on a huge map, and using Nerve Gas can make me uneasy - so I've always tried to avoid Nukes. I've built and used them once in SP, just to see what they were like.

I didn't nuke much either -- never in SP as its not necessary but I did it a couple of times in PBEMS . . . In each case it was a gamewinning and pretty much game ending strategy as a nuke taking out someone's heartland can be pretty game-changing

[Major Guz]

A little off-topic, but I recently found out that ODP's can shoot a geosynchronous survey pod and so eliminating the +25% defense bonus 3 tiles around the base that has is (stacked with the regular sensor). So making it easier to capture a base instead of killing it.

Off course throwing a nuke will kill the base entirely, but I just wanted to say this, sorry for the off-topicness of this post.

[Mr. Harley]

Actually, thanks. That is very on topic - satellite warfare in PBEM.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Major Guz
A little off-topic, but I recently found out that ODP's can shoot a geosynchronous survey pod and so eliminating the +25% defense bonus 3 tiles around the base that has is (stacked with the regular sensor). So making it easier to capture a base instead of killing it.

Off course throwing a nuke will kill the base entirely, but I just wanted to say this, sorry for the off-topicness of this post.

how do you destory other satellites with ODP's?

[Major Guz]

You can shoot down other factions sattellites in the orbital attack view (F5, F6 or something near, maybe F7 or F8, IIRC it is F7). That pops up a screen like the research screen. Instead of displaying current research, it shows an orbital view of Planet.
Most of the time it is empty (until sattelites are launched).
Once you have at least one satellite up (doesn't matter what kind) the view will be filled in with little dots (representing sattelites, ODPs in Red, others in White, IIRC).

Once you have ODP's up, there will be an "ATTACK" button available. If you press that button a second display will come up asking which factions satellites you want to attack. After that I can't remember if there is a screen that will ask you which kind of sattelite you whish to attack (but I think there is one).

After choosing who/what to attack you just have to press the attack button again to confirm your attack.

Be aware though, there is a 50% chance (IIRC) your sattellite will miss. If you fire an ODP it will become deployed (for that turn).
This will be displayed as someting like "ODP 4/3" (meaning you have 4 ODP's up but 3 of them have been deployed).
There is also a chance your satellite wil critically miss and blow up, but leaving the opponent's one unharmed.

One time Yang selectively killed all my ODP's and then Nuked me, BASTARD!

One other thing: There is another structure in SMAX that offers a 50% chance to intercept a nuke within a 2 square radius of the base that has it (meaning it will protect even units near that base. That structure is the Flechette Defense System (SMAX only, sorry for all you SMAC'ers). Another feature of the Flech. Def. Syst. all defending units inside the base (I cant remenber if it also applies to those in a 2 square radius) get a +50% defense against conventional missile units. So a AAA garrison inside a base with an aerospace complex and flechette and a tachyon field will be a tough nut to crack if you are on par armor wise.

I hope this helps guys! Sorry for the somewhat long post.

[Major Guz]

Re: Orbital Defense Pods in PBEM

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
How do they work - when they are all deployed and they've missed? Does one automatically get sacrificed? Do you wait to the targeted player's turn, and then he makes the choice? Does it make a difference if the AI shoots the Buster, or a human does, i.e. the dynamics?

I may have the answer to these as well.
If you get nuked, first the pods you did not deploy will try to shoot down the nuke (making them deployed until the start of your turn). When they are all deployed and the nuke has not been shot down (or a new one is launched against you) the ones that are deployed (imagine they fire laser weapons and need to cool down their circuitry for the remainder of the turn) will shoot again at the nuke (by doing that their circuits overload resulting in the destruction (i.e. sacrifice) of that particular pod). Deployed ODP's shoot one at a time until the nuke is down. This may result in the sacrifice of just one, if the first deployed pod sacrifices itself and hits, or all of your pods in an extreme situation. So the process of sacrifice is automatic. (A popup screen will tell you the result of the satellites defense endavour, it goes something like this: "Chairman Yang of the hive has launched a Planet Buster against us, X ODP's have deployed [or sacrificed if that is the case] and shot it down", X being the number of ODP's deployed/sacrificed in the process)

If all ODP's fail to shoot down the nuke your last line of defense will be those Flechette Defense Systems I mentioned in my previous post (however they only work against nukes targeted within their 2-square radius). So if all your bases have them, they all have that last line of defense, but if not, only the vicinity of those bases that have them enjoy this last line of defense.

Each pod (deployed or not) has a 50% chance to shoot down a nuke, in addition to that (if you have them in/near the targeted base) Flechette Defense Systems also have a 50% chance to shoot down a nuke.

These "rules" apply to both humans and AI opponents, it makes no difference if you launch them or the AI.

Statistics imply that 2 ODP's should kill a nuke, but I'd rather have 3 up for every nuke that the AI has (you know how much nukes the AI has by looking at the infiltrator screen (look at base garrison for every opponent.))

[Chaos Theory]

In my experience with single player games, ODPs need to shoot down each nuke twice (oddly). Undeployed ODPs first shoot at the nuke, and seem to have a less than 50% chance to hit, though I haven't worked it out. If you have no remaining undeployed ODPs, you can sacrifice one for certain destruction of a nuke. As with all questions that would be asked out of turn, I'm not sure how this would work in PBEM, but you can test it out by starting up a hotseat game and getting the appropriate tech (edit alpha.txt to make it quicker).

[Dis]

Originally posted by Major Guz
You can shoot down other factions sattellites in the orbital attack view (F5, F6 or something near, maybe F7 or F8, IIRC it is F7). That pops up a screen like the research screen. Instead of displaying current research, it shows an orbital view of Planet.
Most of the time it is empty (until sattelites are launched).
Once you have at least one satellite up (doesn't matter what kind) the view will be filled in with little dots (representing sattelites, ODPs in Red, others in White, IIRC).

Once you have ODP's up, there will be an "ATTACK" button available. If you press that button a second display will come up asking which factions satellites you want to attack. After that I can't remember if there is a screen that will ask you which kind of sattelite you whish to attack (but I think there is one).

After choosing who/what to attack you just have to press the attack button again to confirm your attack.

Be aware though, there is a 50% chance (IIRC) your sattellite will miss. If you fire an ODP it will become deployed (for that turn).
This will be displayed as someting like "ODP 4/3" (meaning you have 4 ODP's up but 3 of them have been deployed).
There is also a chance your satellite wil critically miss and blow up, but leaving the opponent's one unharmed.

One time Yang selectively killed all my ODP's and then Nuked me, BASTARD!

One other thing: There is another structure in SMAX that offers a 50% chance to intercept a nuke within a 2 square radius of the base that has it (meaning it will protect even units near that base. That structure is the Flechette Defense System (SMAX only, sorry for all you SMAC'ers). Another feature of the Flech. Def. Syst. all defending units inside the base (I cant remenber if it also applies to those in a 2 square radius) get a +50% defense against conventional missile units. So a AAA garrison inside a base with an aerospace complex and flechette and a tachyon field will be a tough nut to crack if you are on par armor wise.

I hope this helps guys! Sorry for the somewhat long post.

thanks

I have smax. I sometimes build flachette systems if there are nukes around and I'm a long way off of ODP's. They don't seem to work that well against conventional missiles, but the ai uses so many of them, they eventually get my defender anyways.

And are you saying a computer controlled Yang destroyed your ODP's and then nuked you? That's impressive AI behaviour, I didn't think they could do that.

[GeoModder]

One should always be aware of Yang! ... and sometimes Domai.