ship designs in mid and late game

[vmxa1]

Well the AI does change tactics based on the perception of the best ship you have. It seems it gears towards that ship even if you never build it. Anyway it is not real effective.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Aqa
But that was the only battle I ever had with DS against DS, usually game has ended before even I have had that tech.

So is it possible to make a ship that stays invisible all the time? I cannot imagine any other way to do it. How else can one ship absorb the damage of 300 stellar converters(psilons had at least one stelcon in every ship)?

If you play on Huge/Imp maps you will see DS often.

The way it works is with the phased cloak you can uncloak and fire and then recloak so that you are not under fire. I do not use this tactic. It requires TWF as well. Here is The Orion Globe:

Achilles Targeting Unit
Battle pod
High Enegy Focus
Hyper-X Capacitor
Phasing Cloak
Structural Analyzer
Time Warp Facilitator
* One optional System


- Has 900% increase in weapon power by using the AutoFire mod, the High Energy Focus, and the Structural Analyzer! Allows less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel.

- Allows 100% effectiveness of the Structural Analyzer (except against hard shields) by adding the Shield Piercing mod to the Phasor weapons to bypass the shields. Allows even less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel.

- Cuts weapon usage to destroying enemy ships in HALF by using the Achilles Targeting Unit to completely bypass their armor. This effect is accumulative with other systems!!

- Has double the weapon shots by using the Hyper-X Capacitor and Time Warp Facilitator Combination! If the Orion Globe has 200 weapons, that's 400 shots every turn an enemy takes! No ship can fit that many weapons! This effect is accumulative with other systems!!

- Avoids enemy fires by using the combined effect of the Time Warp Facilitator and the Phasing Cloak. Decloak, fire weapons, next turn, take weapons offline, recloak.

- Has room for an extra System for increased mobility or defense! Recommend Subspace Teleporter for Maximum added mobility.

The result is a ship that is so deadly, one of its kind can take on the entire universe, no matter how big, and it won't suffer any direct damage.


(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

My very last version, after many, of Orion Globes, Has a Stellar Converter on Board. I know I said that it takes up too much room, but it still kicks. Besides, It's awesome for planetary sieges. If the Enemy has Barrier Shields on their planet, none of the phasors on-board will work, even if you fire all of them at once (yes, even the heavy mounted Phasors can't penetrate a Barrier Shield). The Converter can take out 2 of the planetary defenses every time you fire it.

But why would you want a Torpedo' you ask? 'cause it's FUN! The old ship had power, but it's no fun just making enemies disappear. Target little ships with the Torpedo, and watch it do it's job; you can even savor the moment as the shields disappear on Star Fortresses and raid them. It's not very powerful at all, it wastes space, but it's fun.

For fun, I also added a Hv. Disruptor and an Ion Cannon on the Globe. Ion Cannons disable ship drives, and causes immobility in enemy ships or even Warp Core Breaches. But in order for it to work on the enemy, their shield has to be down first, and that's where the disruptor comes in handy. Watch them as they can't handle being disabled and chooses the honorable death of committing suicide and self-distructs the ship instead of being captured. It's just fun to watch.

The Subspace Teleporter is there to increase mobility. There's no need for an Inertial Stablizer because the phasors are already 360' capable.

Although a lot of space is used for 'fun' equipments, The original Globe had too much power itself, and lots of phasors were wasted anyways. Having the extra stuff there means that I won't be bored with the Globe and just press Auto and let it do it's job, but rather take some time to torture the enemy ships.

(07/31/99) A good ratio of Phasors, Phasors(360') and Hv Phasors(fx) is 8-5-2, for a good and even coverage of areas. I used to have a 1-1-1 ratio, but that wasted room on heavy phasors that did the job a regular phasor could have done. So here's a new ratio to fit the max amount of weapons, and being efficient at the same time.

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 the Orion Globe, and you are attacking first, SKIP THE TURN!!! Let the enemy go first. If the Orion Globe 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, then 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. Besides, you'll only have like 20-30 ships to worry about if they launch an attack anyways. There's PLEANTY of firepower for that.

A ship of this time has taken down all 100 ships by itself.

[The Mad Monk]

It's been a while since I built one, but I had a very high tech design that I called the Ballista First-Strike Battleship; all it had was the advanced thrusters, the phase cloak and/or the time warp facilitator (if there was room), and a miniaturized stellar converter.

The build made it faster than any AI battleship, and many cruisers, so it would be able to take the first shot. That shot would be used to strip the shielding off the larger enemy ships, and give fast boarding ships a decent chance to make the capture. It could not stand on its own in battle, but had its place in a large fleet.

[moomin]

I use to call my late game stellar-converter titan "Traktor", to celebrate the Soviet custom of demociding population when I turn their planets into so much rubble.

It fearful how fun it is to play really, really evil.

[Aqa]

vmxa1, I just had a sudden flashback, actually I designed once same kind of ship which was invisible all the time. Wasn't much of a fun tough...

[vmxa1]

Yeah, I do not use them. I found that you can take out anything you are likely to encounter with just the standard specials and lots of guns. One DS with the normal items is beyond most fleets I have encountered to destroy, while it can flaten anything it sees.

[moomin]

Yup. Against the AI, firepower is everything. No need to do anything tricky.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by moomin
Yup. Against the AI, firepower is everything. No need to do anything tricky.

True, it is just for fun that I try some unique things or "tricks". Not that you need them. You can (and I do) win at imp level with only battleships using disrupters.

[moomin]

I really hope they get Moo3 MP right. It would be so much fun going up against opposition that actually requires some serious trickery. Or imagine if they could get the AI up to that deviousness level...

[vmxa1]

I can not think of any games that don't rely on "bonus" items to make the game hard to beat. None seem to use a real clever AI. They tend to "know" the world or what you are doing and have more resources or start with extra units or the like to win. If you want a challenge to over come then play AoW2 at higher settings and suffer. I would like an AI that plays with what ever legal uses of the game it can come with, but no help from cheats or extra stuff. Make the AI play better as you go up the ladder, but that takes more code and time, so it is unlikely. It would require nore horse power than otherwise needed.

[moomin]

Well, I can live with a cheatin' AI, but I'd love to see a competently cheatin' AI for a change. Still, if they could solve that, why do games? That kind of talent can take way more well-paid and prestigeous work elsewhere.

[vmxa1]

It is not hard to do, it just takes more time and that is not allowed as it means money. I also suspect that it would make the games too hard to beat. It could be handled, given the resources.

[moomin]

I think writing up an AI that might counter human ingenuity is neigh-on impossible. Consider the time and effort spent to do decent chess...

[vmxa1]

I do not know about beating good players, but it could be improved enough to make normal not require any cheating or boost and maybe hard as well. At hard or impossible, it may become too large of a job. I would think a good player (designer of game) could anticipate most tactics. Like I said it would require more horsepower, look at the boxes that are used in beating top chess players. I do not think they need to beat the best players at normal setting, only normal players. At easy level you could choose a less aggressive path. I think easy should mean only brain dead players can lose. Currently that is not the case, look at AoW2, needed to add Beginners level as Easy was killing good players.

[Aqa]

Problem is that it's not the enough to anticipate most tactics, game designer should anticipate every tactic. As sooner or later, usually sooner, someone comes up with a tactic that can beat the AI every time. Good AI in games like MOO2 should be adaptive. How hard it is to make the game log what the player does("hmm, vmxa1 uses BS with disrupters and kills me, what if I make DS with disrupters and see what happens" or "hmm, this player likes to rush, maybe I should build up defences fast" or "hmm, this player techs up until it attacks and kills all, maybe I should attack first(with force)")? If you get what I mean. Like that super indestructible DS. What would you think if suddenly Psilons attacked you with it...

I think there's slight difference between 'Kasparov beating' chess and 'normal' games

BTW is AoW2 good?(off-topic, but...)