ship designs in mid and late game

[vmxa1]

I wil use Nulls in titans and larger if I get them.
I only care a lot about def in the unkillable DS, otherwise, the lost of an occassional BB in late game is of no concern. It rarely happens anyway as late game fights are about who goes first.

[bakalov]

TriMiro, the defence helps only against the AI in SP, it will not do you any good in MP. Everyone here will agree that the offence is the best defence. The proper approach to the late battles is to annihilate the opposition from the first strike so it wont have any chance to fire at you at all :-) The high initiative is the key to the victory there, and the player with more offence will usually have it.

[originalbork]

It amazes me that there is a whole thread on ship design for SP. From what I have just played (first games in 4 years) I only build 5 ships before the end of the game.

Scout - No Computer (NC) (wastes money) Extended Fuel Tank (EFT)
Runner (Frig) - Battle Pods Augies Extended Fuel (Can double as a scout to find wormholes)
BM-1 BP, NC, Reinforced Hull (RH), Augmented Engines (AE)
2 sets of 3 Nuclear Missiles Fast (2 shot racks always), The rest, about 14 are NM Fast, Mirg, ECCM spread out over all slots.
BM-2 after getting irridium fuel cells you replace the first 2 sets of nukes for fodder with fast mercs and you will get about 16 Mirv Nukes Here.
BM-3 After getting Zort, you build the same ship but make the fodder mercs, fast and heavy and replace the mirv nukes with mirv mercs.

These are the only ships you need to exterminate and conquer with 7 ai on impossible, prewarp and ave galaxy somewhere around turn 150-170. You will not lose a ship to the ai if done properly.

The only tech I have at the end of the game is through
Robos,
Anti-matter drive (the last definite tech I get),
Zort,
Space Academy,
Super Comps,
Soil Enrichment,
Tachyon Comm (heading to Sub Space at the end, I would never take tach comm in a MP game though),
Anti grav harness (need that ground combat)

[mufa]

Originally posted by vmxa1

(11/12/98) After many other trial designs, I have refitted a new Orion Globe. It now contains many other new options. See for yourself. This is now the official Orion Globe configuration.

(01) Stellar Coverter
(**) Phasors ( f ) sp,af
(**) Phasors (360) sp,af
(**) Phasors (fx ) hv,sp,af
(01) Plasma Torp. NR,env,eccm,ovr
(01) Disruptor (360) hv,af
(01) Ion Pulse (360) af

Achilles Targetting Unit
Battle Pods
High Energy Focus
Hyper-X Capacitor
Phasing Cloak
Structural Analyzer
Subspace Teleporter
Time Warp Facilitator

nice DS, are you not using any shield at all ? Because I tried to make this ship and after putting all the specials I have only 355 space available

[vmxa1]

To tell you the truth I can not remember anything much about it as I have not made one in a long time. What level was the tech for miniturization?
Here is what one would expect to see in a battle:

The time warp facilitator turns(version 1.31) works like this:

In each round,
_________________________________________
You start enemy start

Turn 1: you Turn 1: enemy
Turn 2: enemy Turn 2: you
---- ----
Turn 3: you Turn 3: you
----
go back to turn 1 go back to turn 1
_________________________________________

After both sides have taken a turn, the final turn (3rd turn) goes to the ships that have a time warp facilitator on. Know your turns so that you can shut off all your un-used weapons and allow the ship to recloak.

Therefore, if you are using this ship, and you are attacking first, SKIP THE TURN!!! Let the enemy go first. If the ship is the only ship standing up against the enemy (highly recommended), then when you skip your turn, the enemy will have nothing to shoot at because you have NOT decloaked yet. THEN you attack, and the Phasing Cloak and T.W.F combo will work. And if the enemy attacks first, the all is well, as long as your ships in that fight are cloaked.

If you do it right, you can sustain up to 10 rounds undiscovered, 10 turns to do whatever you want. Unless the enemy runs before they're all destroyed, but through my experiences, I doubt that they'll run before you finish mowing them down.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by mufa
nice DS, are you not using any shield at all ? Because I tried to make this ship and after putting all the specials I have only 355 space available

Ok you forced me to go create one again. I just to a game that had been won and refained from killing the last planet. The bad news was the game only went into turn 90's and had almost no tech.
I had to run the thing out to get to advance tech III.
This put me with everything in the ship as listed with X shields and X-armor.
I was able to fit 20 of the forward phasors, 13 of the 360 phasors and 15 of FX ones.
I think it had about 340's for space with all in except the phasors, so yours sounds about right.
The thing is that the amount of weapons is not real important a the ship is not going to be kill and can fire away over and over.
The other thing is with those specials the weapons will be many many times more effective that normal.
One took down the fortress of the anties. I suspect you know how much damage that can take.

[mufa]

Originally posted by vmxa1
The time warp facilitator turns(version 1.31) works like this:

In each round,
_________________________________________
You start enemy start

Turn 1: you Turn 1: enemy
Turn 2: enemy Turn 2: you
---- ----
Turn 3: you Turn 3: you
----
go back to turn 1 go back to turn 1

I just wander what is happening if the opponet has ships with TWF too. You can still shoot and remain cloacked ?

[vmxa1]

In an SP game you are not likely to run into that. They would have to have phased cloaks as well. IOW they would have to have your design and they will not.
If they TWF only you can cloak and they can not shoot
When you shoot it will be very painful as:

Normal weapon: x1
High energy focus: x1.5 (50% power up)
Achilles system: x2 (skipping the armor)
Structural analyzer: x2 (double structure damage)
Autofire: x3 (triple weapon fire)
Hyper-X Capacitor: x2 (double weapon fire)
---------------
x36
So you are going to hit them very hard even with very few guns. If you got X-arm from Orion, they will be hard pressed to hurt you.
You are not going to see one of these ship in any normal game.

[Thoth]

Structural analyzer: x2 (double structure damage)

?? According to MOO2's right-click help: "Structural Analyzer: Doubles all damage that penetrates sheilds"

[vmxa1]

Near as I can tell that is a difference without a distinction. Well ok, I guess you have engine and structure in theory, in practice it is basically structural.

[Kaptain Ken]

It must be assumed that the shields are taken out first, then the damage is doubled, or is the game text wrong?

[vmxa1]

I am not sure as to how to even test this, but it is of no import anyway.
The point is you can use this design to clean up as many ships as you wish.
I just tested it again by sending 1 DS to antaran and it busted their titan and fortress on the second round. I did not even use the cloaking, I just use auto combat.

[Thoth]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Near as I can tell that is a difference without a distinction. Well ok, I guess you have engine and structure in theory, in practice it is basically structural.

For the ship design you give above, that is correct. But there is a difference if you haven't got Achilles to bypass armour.

Either way, the SA is one of my favourite specials.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by vmxa1
You are not going to see one of these ship in any normal game.

I tend to drag my games out until I get one of these monsters wander about. Anyway I stopped playing MoO 2 but still play MoO 1.

[mufa]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Special systems:
damper shield

Guys, how do u manage to get damper filed, except from Orion ?
I captured an antaren ship, but I don't have damper field in my specials

Thanx