ship designs in mid and late game

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by bakalov
I would definitely take Mass Driver, Inertial Stabilizer & Class III. If you have Class III and inertial stabilizer you can rotate your ship during battle to take damage with all shields and it will be very difficult to kill. This is in addition to the defence boost. Pd AF Mass drivers can be used to kill missiles quite successfully too.
At least the early missiles :-) I always combine Hv + Pd; Another good use of Pd is when you see that you are winning and want to capture an enemy ship, you can fire on it only with the Pds and hope to immobilize it and board it instead of killing ....

All true and I often do just that. The one pick that is very hard to get for me is class III shields. I need that rad shield and will frequently take that instead and suffer the consequences. I will be able to live with out the Class III, but no rad shield means no farming on some planets.

[bakalov]

There is always an option to get the missing techs from your neighbours :-) There may be good or bad means to do it :-) If you are planning to play offensively then you should take the Class III. If you prefer building up and play more defensively you have to take the Radiation shield. Hey, missile base + Radiation shield is VERY strong defence for the early stages ...

[GePap]

After a certain point any ship you design will beat the AI, since its ships are so pitifull late game.

I prefer using more space for systems than weapons, since systems can give a huge advantage. Achilles makes all weapons ignore armor, structural doubles damage and High energy bonus doubles energy. So a sigle plasma cannon with all of these will do more damage than 4 or 5 plams without, since once you overcome shields, the enemy ship is toast. If you put in inertial nullieirs, then you can load up on weapons with a limited arch, since you can turn without cost, and you on top of that get a significant boost to bean defense.

A for timewarped-phazed ships: they are great. Add ship transporters (wrong name: the tech that moves the ships 20 spaces instantly) and what yuou have is a ship that cn instantly cross deep into the enemy battleline: open fire at point blank range, then beocmes impervious to damage, since the enm will never be able to hit it. One just has to be sure of being able to end a battle in 5 turns.

[vmxa1]

GePap I think as you mentioned that the number of ships designs for late game are numerious and all will work against the AI. Choose the ones you enjoy, itdoes not make a big difference. Sub Space Teleporters is the name you were looking for, I think.

[Ekanata]

early ship design

I've just had an interesting experience. Since other race already have R.Hull, and AM Rocket, I decide to research Interceptor, and build destroyer class Carrier (carry 2 interceptor).

In an early battle with Sakrra, to my suprise, my one destroyer kill 2 destroyer and 2 frigate. This destroyer carrier design became my favourite early defender until I have sufficient technology, industry and shipyard (starbase) to build mirv ships.

During early stage, electronic computer seems overwhelmed by those little fighter, not to mention that ships weapon are ussualy front munted while those fighter are chasing/firing from behind. And those fighters can also 'chew' missiles on their way to target ship. I think this frigate carrying massdriver/fusion interceptor might also kill a star base which doesn't have reinforced hull & shields (Too bad I got my cd broken before I test the theory ).

Edit : Corrected ship's class name.

[vmxa1]

I never really messed around with interceptors. Buy another CD and give us an update. Where you are in the tech tree and what the ship design is and what you are going up against would be of interest.

[bakalov]

Interceptors are nice vs. missile boats because they cannot be targeted by missiles. Very cool if you have warp dissipator to prohibit them from retreating ....

Actually you have to be creative to use that :-)

[Ekanata]

It was tiny galaxy, impossible, mid-tech game and I only have 2 colony (still early turn). In fact I was switching from colony base to build cheapest carrier (no computer, etc) when I saw Sakrra fleet come to my homeworld.

My carrier has 2 separate interceptor deck (I forgot whether there's basic scout escort) and have fusion beam tech. One of 4 Sakrra detroyer firing Fusion beam. No missile (iirc) and no leader on any of their electronic computer controlled ships. On the first combat turn, I launch 1 interceptor squadron on each frigate while pulling my ship(s) away. Both frigate destroyed on first sweep. Next, each interceptor squadron closing on each detroyer and causes severe hull damage on first contact (and destroy them on the next turn).

I won't be able to get another copy for the next 4 weeks, besides I hope moo3 would probably be available. I would be greatfull if someone can verify my theory/experience.

*dreaming*
telepath carrier approaching silicoid homeworld before turn 15.
*dreaming*

[Cxwf]

Speaking of carriers, I had a lot of fun last game loading Doomstars up with Heavy Fighters. 4 Doomstars with nothing but Heavy Fighters tears things up really fast. This is probably not the best combination to use, as you basically miss the first fire round, and that can be devastating in Moo2, but I enjoyed it I imagine that works well with cloaking, since you can sit there cloaked while the fighters are out destroying things. Not one battle lasted longer than the first time the fighters opened fire.

After killing the Guardian with these things, I built a fleet of CA's (or might have been BB's, but I think CA's) with Quantum Detonators and max engines and shields. No weapons. They just flew up and self destructed with the quantum detonators. Again not the most effective tactic, but Kamikaziing was very fun. My biggest complaint was that the AI had so little left to blow up at that point

[bakalov]

The carriers are good vs missile ships, missile ships are somewhat good vs beam ships and planets, and the beam ships are good vs. the carriers (they usually easily destroy the fighters).

And hey, cxwf, it is easy to kill the guardian when you have so much tech .... try to kill it only with cruisers and frigates with modded merculites (some with EMG). Some people claim that this can be done before turn 100 in prewarp :P and I agree with them :-)

[Ekanata]

Originally posted by bakalov
The carriers are good vs missile ships, missile ships are somewhat good vs beam ships and planets, and the beam ships are good vs. the carriers (they usually easily destroy the fighters).

Carriers can be a good early design, due to victim's low armor, low shield and low active defence accuracy and power.
Missiles can be a good mid design, due to battle pods and many missile mods availability and decent manufacturing power.
Beams can be a good late design, due to miniaturization, advance computer, special devices/weapon mods availability and no ammo requirement.

Originally posted by bakalov
And hey, cxwf, it is easy to kill the guardian when you have so much tech .... try to kill it only with cruisers and frigates with modded merculites (some with EMG). Some people claim that this can be done before turn 100 in prewarp :P and I agree with them :-)

It require design and manouver which makes three waves of missiles hit the guardian sequencially within the same turn.
The first wave is decoy that will waste all guardian's PD weapon and spatial compressor. Watch the timing and amount to avoid PD and spatial compressor touching the next wave.
The second wave will be mirv designed to take down the shield. Make sure you send many extra in order to compensate for guardian's ecm and lightning field.
The third wave is EMG-ed mirv that will make the killing blow.

[Urban Ranger]

Spatial compressor is not a defensive device, it is an offensive weapon. The defense is lightning shield, which doesn't get "wasted" - it is always on.

[Ekanata]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Spatial compressor is not a defensive device, it is an offensive weapon. The defense is lightning shield, which doesn't get "wasted" - it is always on.

In my experience, when guardian's PD weapon is insufficient to eliminate missile thread, it will use spatial compressor as last resort. After that the remaining missiles will be facing lighting field and ecm jammer which is always active just like you said.

[bakalov]

yes, that is the strategy ...... the guardian must be fooled to use its spatial compressor on the decoy wave of missiles (they must be fast to reach him before the second shield-clearing wave). Btw the exact strategy can be found in the guide that was posted somewhere here by vmxa ;-)

[TriMiro]

Hey guys all of you are making good ships but I think noone mentioned themost powerful special. What about
Internal Nullifier.
The defence is something very important +100% beam defence, that is with a good computer is almost unbeatable. also it is great advantage that you do not have to spend AP turning around. So all your weapons could be aimed at the front and thus save some space for more weapons.
I personally prefer many not so well modifyed beams to few well modifyed once. I do not care that much about offence, buch more about defence. Who cares how many turns is it going to take me to kill everybody if they can never kill me.
Is there no one to prefer defence or did I miss him on the threat.