Combat: Do you control or do you watch?

[Don K Hotay]

Originally posted by kalbear
On ship design - I find that the computer does not do a perfectly optimal means of designing ships...

Yeah, even from the go, you've got to take control of ship design. As others have posted, you have to mark obselete all the designs accept colony and syscolony, and proceed with design from there. Then, every 10-20 turns, as technology flows in, I find myself merrily customizing my fleets-to-be, to the point. On any given turn, I'll have no more than 12 total designs ready to be produced.

Quixote

[Eric S]

I don't think fighters are overpowering, and once the PD bug is fixed, I don't think missiles will be either. Then again, I tend to make sure my fleets have decent levels of point defense, and I've pretty much standardized on the Lightning Field Generator for that, even when higher techs are available. It's nothing unusual for me to see the first missile volley wipe out half my fleet, but the second volley to get obliterated by the remaining partial fleet without even making contact. Fighters just die fast against my decent fleets.

Also, what do you mean, can't be modded? If you feel that missiles/fighters are too effective, reduce the amount of damage they do. It can be done, as the files are there, unless the files are ignored and the data is hardcoded.

[Harry Seldon]

Don't forget to create new colony starships or you'll end up with thirty ships cluttering your screen as they putt away on retros. Took me about three hundred turns to figure that one out.

[Pallidyne]

Originally posted by Eric S

Some of the other reasons I watch rather than fight is because my better TFs seem to know more than is shown on the screen. Perfect example: I've got a LR Armada composed of Titans, with SD scouts (with the best ECCM/scanning I've got) in the picket. The first step of watching them is always to zoom out all the way, otherwise they can see and shoot off the screen if you've got them centered. Then, I watch them take off in what seems to be no particular direction, since the enemy isn't visible. Then, all of a sudden, they'll start firing off into what appears to be empty space, and those big red numbers will magically appear, followed shortly by either by an explosion, or a TF fading into visibility.

I don't know if the AI is cheating here chasing or firing at something that it shouldn't be able to see or if I should be able to see it but can't, but watching this happen, and remembering how well my first combat against a gardian went when I couldn't see what was shooting at me, there's no way I'm going to take charge of combat.

This is also why I watch more often. I'd actually control more if this 'cheating' wasn't there.

-P