Apolyton conquers the Universe part 7

[binTravkin]

Are ion cannons worth it?
I heard they're buggy, but also heard they've been fixed..
What exactly they do?

Could someone still answer this question?

[Skanky Burns]

They have good shields so help your other weaponry survive longer.

[binTravkin]

And that's all?
They don't shutdown attackers shields/do other EMP stuff?

[Cyclotron]

No.

[binTravkin]

Crap.
So only really useful defenses are Small lasers, Gauss and Plasma I guess..

[binTravkin]

Seems B.O.F are particularly interested in us - one other guy just probed me again..

They have some powerful allies though like Norad, Avalanche, internat, Imperial etc.

If I could get clearance from the lords of our alliance I'd like to start some action..

[binTravkin]

Btw - I just did some simulations for ship types and it seems that on similar tech level, a combined HF+Cruiser force can smash BB + LF force, while pure BBs can be killed by HF force for approx the same price.

Seems that sheer numbers or rapidfire (as in case with LF-Cruisers) will win the battle.
Coupled with a good tech placement (high weapons would rock with high numbers of ships) it gets even better.

The only really good thing I see about BBs is that they die very rarely if enemy is vastly outnumbered (due to their uber structural integrity).

[Cyclotron]

Out of interest, what were the number of each ship in you rcomputations?

And by the way, I just finished my first BB.

[binTravkin]

equation by	BBs	HFs	BBs left	HFs left	Result
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
crystal		100	500	71		51		Draw
total res	100	600	0		233		HF wins
metal		100	666	0		355		HF wins
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

HF wins out on total resource and used metal equality, BBs more powerful on crystal equality.

[binTravkin]

equation by	LFs	Cs	LFs left	Cs left		Result
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
crystal		700	100	0		95		C wins
total res*	725	100	0		92		C wins
metal		666	100	0		97		C wins
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

And the cruiser absolute superiority over LFs.

* - deut taken in account as well to lower cruiser spoils.

[Cyclotron]

Well, of course the cruiser wins out over LFs - that's the point.

Also, BBs are not meant to be used alone like that - it would be stupid to pit them against HFs by themselves. BBs provide a lot of firepower per ship, so it only takes a few to make a LF/HF swarm much more powerful.

The real question, I would think, is which is more valuable - LFs or HFs? For resources, LFs are the better deal, but the cruiser's rapidfire against LFs might negate that. I wonder if a screen of HFs would actually be more effective against integrated fleets - those that include cruisers - than LFs, despite the higher cost for the same effectiveness.

[Sparrowhawk]

Still he makes a valid point, the cost of 6 Heavy Fighters is equivalent (in total resources) to 1 Battleship. Using this ratio HF wins out over BB in virtually every simulation I have run.

(My own main planet can defend against 80 Battleships @100% with tech parity but is completely destroyed by 480 Heavy Fighters.......actually with 250 Heavy Fighters it is still 100% for the attacker )

/me reworking his defense/offense strategies

[DarkCloud]

Back from vacation mode.

Added Chaunk to our list.

[Cyclotron]

Use 4mil resources:

Attacker: 400 HF
Defender: 40 BB, 400 LF

This ends in a draw at tech parity. As I thought, BBs are more effective when screened, even at the cost of fewer BBs. I've only done this one ratio of BBs to LFs - there may be a more ideal ratio where BB/LF trumps pure HF.

[binTravkin]

Cyclotron, a couple of arguments:

1.It's stupid to rely purely on BBs, yet go see the Hall of Fame hits of our (and other universes) - all the uberfleets are just a hundredish swarm of BBs with maybe little addition of some other type for flavour. The biggest mixed ship stack I've seen is 666BBs and 1734 LFs. It's not difficult to see that those LFs barely change anything in the overall setup.
It looks like the good old schoolboy habit - 'I want the most of the best'.

2.My analysis is broken down to ship type versus ship type because each and every fleet can be analysed that way (if you also look to the summary analysis after that).

3.I don't question LF vs HF, for me it's clear that once a comparable (by resources spent) stack of cruisers appear LF are dead.

4.There are 4 unit types which make it to real combats in Universe as old as ours:
-LF
-HF
-C
-BB

My analysis was following:
1.LFs can be stripped off, if one uses Cruisers intelligently (shown by simulation values posted above)
(some fiddling with values)
2.Cs are rubbish vs BBs, thus they can't form the entire force.
(some fiddling with values)
3.HFs vs BBs - I guess the best anti BB unit of the listed.
(some fiddling with values)
4.So, an ideal fleet which would be able to battle most of the fleets roaming around is something very close to HF+C combination in ratio 10:1. The cruiser role is auxiliary, yes, because LFs appear to be quite effective in disturbing HFs in HF vs BB+LF combat.

Also note that HF vs BB combat is 'swarming' combat.
It means that a big bunch of HFs will die in the first round (if ever), which in turn means, you need to get out of those dying HFs as much as you can, which leads to logical thought that maxing out firepower (weapon tech) might be beneficial (approved by simulations).
It as well points to uselessness of shields for HF force (as their shields are very small and they're not gonna survive for long, those +10% * x percents really make little difference), while armor could have some merit, especially if you happen to boost up a structural integrity to HF so that it needs 1 more hit from BB to die (which can make big difference, to illustrate, if 500 BBs can kill 50 HFs with a single shot normally, then if it takes one more shot, you'll lose only 45 HFs and those 5 more can make some difference in next wave).