Are Needlejets worthless or neccessary...

[sentry33]

Native life is good counter to nerve gas kamikaze runs, which might be important if you can't popboom to recover lost population.

[Senethro]

Ah, I never thought of that. Designated defender mind worms, interesting. Get the Neural Amplifier and some sensors and you're laughing.

[Sikander]

Yea, I've gone the native life route on occasion to deal with enemy aircraft when I don't have any aircraft of my own and they are definitely an improvement. I know I hate them when my choppers are ravaging the world, as they are typically a lot more effective than other units. They don't care much about weapons or armor, and don't care at all about reactors.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by sentry33
Native life is good counter to nerve gas kamikaze runs, which might be important if you can't popboom to recover lost population.

The "empty base " tactic works as well . I've done this in my "secure" interior on some occasions as a cheaper way to keep the base population up.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Sikander
Yea, I've gone the native life route on occasion to deal with enemy aircraft when I don't have any aircraft of my own and they are definitely an improvement. I know I hate them when my choppers are ravaging the world, as they are typically a lot more effective than other units. They don't care much about weapons or armor, and don't care at all about reactors.

Totally agree . . . Even when you kill native life, it causes so much damage that a chopper is ineffective for a second attack and often will die if it can't return to base.

The counter to natives though is artillery. If you can bring any amount of artillery at all to the scene of the fight, it shreds natives. So the result is that natives are very useful against longer range marauding but this effectiveness is lessened once enemy ground troop and arty are on the scene.


I used to be a HUGE fan of native life until I saw what arty can do to them

[livid imp]

Aircraft trump infantry,
Mind worms trump aircraft,
Artillery trump mind worms,
Hovercraft trump artillery,
whatever vs whatever.........

The point is if I make you have to show up with a large well balanced army to cover any potential counter, then I have caused you to spend minerals you otherwise could have used for building infrastructure.

You may always win the fight, but at what cost?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by livid imp
Aircraft trump infantry,
Mind worms trump aircraft,
Artillery trump mind worms,
Hovercraft trump artillery,
whatever vs whatever.........

The point is if I make you have to show up with a large well balanced army to cover any potential counter, then I have caused you to spend minerals you otherwise could have used for building infrastructure.

You may always win the fight, but at what cost?

A point I have made many many times. There is no magic unit and EVERYTHING is vulnerable in the open to something. Cost of the forces is key . . . The reason I used to like natives is that I thought they could have decent survivability and this made up for their cost. Arty changed all that for me . . . I just no longer see them as being worthwhile all that often.

[Commy]

Plus, with mindworms, you can't use special abilities or clean reactors...

Anyway, I think the closest thing to a "super unit" than can cover almost anything is either a 24(30 for SMAX)-12-gravship with clean reactor and blink displacer or clean reactor and air superiority...the only weakness is that AAA tracking can hurt them...but since weapons are twice as good as shields, it doesn't really matter, its an equal battle...plus, with blink displacers, base defenses are down...

The only thing that might be better would be hovertanks...they have speed and aren't affected by AAA (but there is still comm jammer)...and infantry with blink displacer...can kill any unit in a base...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Commy

Anyway, I think the closest thing to a "super unit" than can cover almost anything is either a 24(30 for SMAX)-12-gravship with clean reactor and blink displacer or clean reactor and air superiority...the only weakness is that AAA tracking can hurt them...but since weapons are twice as good as shields, it doesn't really matter, its an equal battle...plus, with blink displacers, base defenses are down...

Yup and that gravship could be shot down by a basic SAM rover/scout with a 13 weapon or above. or self sestruct ANYTHING with a big enough weapon next to it

The only way to build really survivable units is when you have tech superiority. There can be a window when you first get to fusion when you can make it prohibitively expensive to kill your units for example but with tech parity, everything can die to something and it comes down to industrial capacity and some tactics

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Flubber


Totally agree . . . Even when you kill native life, it causes so much damage that a chopper is ineffective for a second attack and often will die if it can't return to base.

The counter to natives though is artillery. If you can bring any amount of artillery at all to the scene of the fight, it shreds natives. So the result is that natives are very useful against longer range marauding but this effectiveness is lessened once enemy ground troop and arty are on the scene.


I used to be a HUGE fan of native life until I saw what arty can do to them

Drop Artillery can really ruin your day if you've invested a lot on native units for instance. And unfortunately, natives aren't cheap. One of the reasons that I dislike the self-destruct tactic is that it discounts some of the elegance of the rock-paper-scissors system. What you end up with is largely a battle of offensive units with little regard to types or terrain or position, where your only defense is to have destroyed the enemy last turn.

[johndmuller]

Viz-a-viz the arty weakness of NL, if you have your own arty with your NL force, it takes any arty attack on itself, sparing your other attacking units (to the extent that it wins sometimes). If you want to maintain the NL purity, you can use spore launchers, although they sometimes are buggy, not always knowing whose side they are on. I haven't tried this, but I wouldn't be surprised if a spore launcher (or maybe even a standard arty) on board a gravship transport in the same force as your locusts would take any sam arty attack on itself.

[Gremnon]

There might not be any magic unit, but when it comes to defending bases, I find I use several units, with different abilities to help.
Normally two arty, one of each native, two standard land and if it's a sea base two standard sea and a transport.
I find that normally works for me. It costs a lot to maintain, but if you get high support or minerals in it shouldn't be a problem.

[Senethro]

Thats a large roster you have Gremnon. How do other people compare, before and after the advent of Clean Reactor?

Defense is not a strong point with me. I'm still stuck on my builder roots and have a single TrancePolice scout in my bases until needs dictate otherwise. Instead, I tend to have a large offensive force patrolling my borders and scouting units beyond that. If my force gets beaten in the field I tend to fold.

[Sikander]

I rarely have more than one or two units in a base until my air force is built. Then there are typically three units on my border bases, a chopper, an interceptor and an infantry or rover defender, usually AAA. The chopper scouts each turn for approaching enemies.

[Gremnon]

Originally posted by Senethro
Thats a large roster you have Gremnon. How do other people compare, before and after the advent of Clean Reactor?

Defense is not a strong point with me. I'm still stuck on my builder roots and have a single TrancePolice scout in my bases until needs dictate otherwise. Instead, I tend to have a large offensive force patrolling my borders and scouting units beyond that. If my force gets beaten in the field I tend to fold.

Before the Clean Reactor, the others have the advantage of being able to build virtually unimpared. But after clean reactor - then they have problems keeping up, since I extensivly mine for mineral, but I have to or I can''t keep my base defences intact.