Are Needlejets worthless or neccessary...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Petek


Disband the unit (hotkey is Shift + d). You'll be presented with several options, one of which is "Activate self-destruct overload sequence!"

Yup and be careful since the self-destruct effect works on all adjacent units including your own!!

[Dis]

thanks, I figured it out though. Like when I was trying to destory terrain enhancements and accidently did the disband command. Then it showed up.

I tried it a couple of times. But I wasn't impressed.

In one case I had a very slight advantage to win the battle. But just for the hell of it, I self-destructed. I got him down pretty low in the red, but he still wasn't gone. I was using a quantum reactor shard needlejet btw. I was going up against a defense 12 unit (it was either a gravship or ship- I can't remember). It was over water, that's why I had decent odds with a 13 against a 12. I forgot to check, but I'm sure it wasn't AAA.

I'm just not that impressed with self-destruct. I may mess around with it some more in the future though.

[Urban Ranger]

Self destruct is good if you have a lone unit attacking a massive enemy stack.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Dissident


I'm just not that impressed with self-destruct. I may mess around with it some more in the future though.

As UR pointed out, its usually not worthwhile against a single unit but

1. it can be superuseful for say a chopper where you have attacked a few times and would die when you crash-land-- move it adjacent to as much stuff as possible and destruct it with a move remaining

2. Its excellent against stacks when you might otherwise have a disadvantage on the attack. One self destruct might be enough to allow you to kill them all. (although for health reduction I confess that I prefer artillery)

[Commy]

Or you could just use missiles...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Commy
Or you could just use missiles...

Missiles Prove the value of self destruct tactics-- You do much better destructing and killing a stack than losing a missile to merely kill a unit in the open.

Missiles IMHO are best for self destructing or for trying to take out a strong defensive unit in a base. Otherwise I rarely fid them to be worth the mineral cost

[Commy]

Well, if you are in multiplayer, they are a great way to take out condensors or boreholes and screw over a base or two...sometimes more feasible than using aircraft and artillery...

[Gremnon]

Missiles, like Needles, have the uses. I prefer to cover the enemy in Fungus with fungal missiles first then move in and knock them out while they're busy getting rid of the fungus and the natives.

[Sebed]

i can say one single thing:
in times of choppers the role of needlejets is marginalized - you can live without them indeed...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Sebed
i can say one single thing:
in times of choppers the role of needlejets is marginalized - you can live without them indeed...

I agree.

While I can find some uses for my leftover planes, once choppers are in play, I rarely build more planes

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Gremnon
Missiles, like Needles, have the uses. I prefer to cover the enemy in Fungus with fungal missiles first then move in and knock them out while they're busy getting rid of the fungus and the natives.

But for the mineral cost of those fungal missiles you can build some extra attacking units and take out your enemy with all their terraforming intact

[Sikander]

Self destructing is just too good. 10-1-1*2 drop infantry are relatively cheap (compare to a missle) and can go almost anywhere once you get orbital insertion. Self destruct means that in addition to suffering the 2-1 typical deficiency in combat factors and the astounding disadvantage of the enemy moving and attacking with all of his units before you can respond, now the defender must abandon linear tactics and any defense in depth which places two or more of his units adjacent to the same tile.

[Net Warrior]

I think self destruct should be banned in PBEM's

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Net Warrior
I think self destruct should be banned in PBEM's

That is one solution but I actually didn't mind it that much since I almost never would stack a substantial mineral cost of units together and if someone wants to destruct 2 units to kill 1 of mine they are welcome to do so.

The biggest problem I saw was that it made it almost impossible to defend any crawler fields. You can build interceptors to defend against long range plinking but there is really not much you can do against the self destruct tactics. the fact that your now dead crawlers didn't cost that much is small consolation when you look at all that lost production

Even then you can try to defend in up through mid game if you can simply maintain distance between you and your enemies with a lot of patrolling to look for the suicide chopper runs

[foxfire4321]

I think needlejets are essential to my strategy. As I am typically running Pirates I typically have a few planes running patrols on the borders and then use a base near my enemiy to just soften up the cities defenses. After conquest I always hurry an Air Base (Per Cloudbase Academy) and then move the main force there to leapfrog to the next city.