Newbie Quesion about Orion

[Alphard]

It does not just matter how many ships u have... it comes down to how much firepower u have in combat.. and how accurate it is.. The computer might just have better ships than you. As far as i know the computer dows not cheat in tactical combat, i have no idea about strategical combat as i never play with that option.

hints:
it is very hard to kill guardian with missiles if u r trying to do it.. it can only be done with emissive guidance.. then it becomes relatively easy..

or if u have beam weapons on your battleships- perhaps you have lousy targeting computers? look at your attack ratio when u 'scan' your ships and then at the guardian's defence ratio.. i think its defence is over 100. if your attack is 25-75 no wonder u fail where the AI is successful.

good luck

[vmxa1]

With 12 BB's you should not be having problems. Questions - what is the game level?, when do you go for Orion?, what is the ships design.

At hard, I go with 4-6 BB using plasma cannons.
At impossible I go with 6 BB's and may use a) plasmas b) phasors with mods c) disrupters. The reason it may be either is I may be preoccupied when I get the phasors or not even know where Orion is located. I do not want to wait too long as I do not want the AI to there before me.

Ships will have Zortium armor (usually), I may have a primitive comp, depends (if I am not creative, I will skip most of the early ones). If I have shields it will be class III (likely). I will have reinforced hulls and fit 5 or 6 plasma cannons at best. I may or may not lose a ship.
I tend to go as soon as I get most of the 3500 RP research done. I have yet to encounter the AI going that early. If I wait till much later, it may be too late.

Orion can be beat with missiles, but that is not my style. Once I go to BB, I only use beams. Basically at Hard you need to be able to dish out 8000 points and at Impossible it is 10,000. AP phasors can make it so you do not need to bust the armor.

[vmxa1]

I did not notice the part about the AI coming after your attempt. That suggest it is much later in the game. Did you redesign and refit your ships close to the attack? I would think not, and that could be like having twice as many ships. Load the game at that point and redo the ships and see how much stronger they are. I like to redesign when I get new stuff or have more space. I may not actually refit at that time, but I want to be sure not to build a ship that needs it already. Also if you are using weapons that are not very effective and do not do much damage such as still having lasers with little or no mods instead of phasors/pc/disrupters or at least grav beams.

[vmxa1]

Ok, here is a detail run down I have culled from somewhere for your entertainment, enjoy.

The Guardian is a well-beweaponed monster that attacks any fleet arriving at the Orion system. The player who kills it receives 4 technologies which are mostly inaccessible through conventional research (listed at the bottom), gets first dibs at a rather nice planet, and gets a free battleship.
In the first versions of MoO2, the Gyro destabilizer was a cost-effective weapon. Back then, the fastest way to kill the Guardian was to use a few battleships or 30 frigates (!) filled with gyro destabilizers to spin the Guardian to death. Then, the folks at Microprose changed things. So now gyro destabilizers take up more space and do less damage. You can still kill the Guardian with them, but there are much
better ways now.

THE MINIMAL GUARDIAN FLEET

In this sense, the considerations for "minimal" are with respect to research and production time. This allows some deviation depending on your research/production situation. As it turns out, the Guardian can be killed with two frigates and two cruisers, and no research beyond fast missile racks, zortrium armor, and emissions guidance system.

First cruiser has:

1 2-shot ECCM ARM FST merculites
4 2-shot ARM merculites
6 2-shot MIRV ECCM merculites
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull

Second cruiser has:

2 2-shot ARM merculites
6 2-shot MIRV ECCM merculites
1 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merculite
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull

Frigates have:
1 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merculite
battle pods

How this works: On the first turn, the Guardian will fire on one of the cruisers with both death rays and target it with both of its torpedoes. Regardless of which cruiser is hit, the frigates should fire and move forward eight to ten spaces. The EMG cruiser should move forward one space, fire both racks of ARM missiles, then both racks of non-EMG, then both racks of EMG, and sit still. The other cruiser should move forward one space, fire the ARM then the MIRV missiles, move forward two more spaces, fire the ECCM ARM FST missiles, and sit still. The Guardian will react by moving forward, killing the wounded cruiser with one death ray, a frigate with another, and about seven of the ARM missiles with its Point defense particle beams. The remaining frigate should then move about 6 more spaces toward the Guardian, and fire its remaining missile. The Guardian will charge, trigger its spatial compressor on the ECCM ARM FST missiles, leaving the non-fast missiles unharmed, and continue to plow into the pile of missiles. The MIRV missiles will usually clear the shield, and most likely, the EMG will blow the engine. If you want to be sure about the kill, add another frigate into the mix and do the same. Given the appropriate race and universe conditions, such a fleet can be assembled and sent close to turn 100 in a pre-warp game. Several races can pull this off by turn 120. The Guardian-kill can obviously be done more quickly in an advanced game given the proper parameters.

Other Considerations:
If you have good scanner technology (i.e. Neutron), you should be able to clear the shields with fewer missiles, so if you're the gambling type, you can drop the frigates from the fleet and put another EMG missile into the second cruiser. If you have serious command point difficulties, you can kill the Guardian with a single kamikaze battleship with the following:

2 2-shot ECCM ARM FST merculites
4 2-shot ECCM ARM merculites
11 2-shot MIRV ECCM merculites
2 2-shot MIRV ECCM EMG merculites
battle pods
fast missile racks
reinforced hull

Unfortunately, this fleet is strictly inferior to the cruiser fleet above in terms of probability of killing the Guardian for two reasons: only 4 MIRV ECCM EMG missiles are fired, and at least 4 warheads need to make it through the lightning field and ECM to blow the engine, and only 22 MIRV merculites are fired, so the shield might not be cleared. Without neutron scanner technology, your chances are slightly less than 50%. Furthermore, if you do decide to add some frigates to the mix, the Guardian will fire on those first, so you need at least three to make any kind of difference in outcome. In addition, this fleet will generally lose all of its ships, while the cruiser fleet will not. Of course, the cruiser fleet will be relatively out of date once Orion is taken, anyway.

Loknar's Tech:

Damper field - Quarters all damage, but eliminates shields (Watch for EMG)
Xentronium armor - Very cool - 10x armor and structure, resistance to armor-piercing beams, +30 ground combat
Death ray - Very cool - Good in general, unrivaled damage in EMG time frame
Black hole generator - Implodes ships, but takes space
Particle beam - Cool - Ignores shields, kicks butt with fighter garrison
Reflection field - Pretty cool - Random chance for a beam weapon return-to-sender
Spatial compressor - Sort of Cool - whacks incoming missiles, fighters, and stupid ships
Quantum detonator - Not so cool - Decent protection against capture
Neutronium bomb - Not so cool - Ground Bombardment

Players on Intel-compatible machines will receive death ray technology every time and three random techs, while Macintosh users will receive a random selection of four. In addition to the technology listed above, you can get some unannounced "freebie" techs which range from useless to insanely cool (I've received Sub Space Teleporter more than once).

[Urban Ranger]

IIRC, the Guardian has Lightning Shield, making it pratically invunerable to low tech missiles.

[Garth Vader]

I usually hit Orion once I have plasma cannon, then it usually takes a Titian and maybe 3 battleships.

If I am war mongering and have a lot of phasor or graviton ships I will use those too.

But then I don't use missle ships, or concentrate on that branch of the tech tree.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
IIRC, the Guardian has Lightning Shield, making it pratically invunerable to low tech missiles.

Are Mirv/ECCM/EMG mercs low tech?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
I usually hit Orion once I have plasma cannon, then it usually takes a Titian and maybe 3 battleships.

If I am war mongering and have a lot of phasor or graviton ships I will use those too.

But then I don't use missle ships, or concentrate on that branch of the tech tree.

Cannons are my pick, but I do it befire Titans are available and in fact I will probably not get that tech or use it if I do. Four to six BB's are plenty.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
IIRC, the Guardian has Lightning Shield, making it pratically invunerable to low tech missiles.

Ok, I tested the advice that was given. It is crap, at least for 1.31 at impossible. I sent those ships and they did no damage as you correctly noted. If I had been on the forum when that was posted, I would have tested and then reported what I found. I will stick with my beams. BTW it does have Lighting, 125% missile evasion. Maybe my test was not well done, but I got no were, so I will not go back.
Note I only said I found it and it was for your entertainment.

[Urban Ranger]

I thought it was kinda suspicious since the Guardian has something like 6000 HP at the lowest level.

[vmxa1]

I have seen many claims of killing the guardian with misiles. I do not know if the patches stop it, or I did a poor job of execution or it can't be done at impossible with 1.31. I suspect the last one. I will admit I did not time my missile to the optimal spacing, but since do damage was done at all........... I should say with the fleet listed, more ships with more than two shots, who knows. By the time you could make those ship, you could have beam ships.