Perfect Weapon Fails! - MOO1

Harry Seldon · February 14, 2003, 10:51

I fired MOO1 up and was playing the other day. I had a really bad start but was managing to pull out somewhat towards the end of the game. I'm running 1.13 and in this version (can't remember if they balanced this later) once I obtain the Black Hole Generator I'm virtually unstoppable. I implemented this in a few ship designs, crushed the Mrrshans and Altairs, and turned my sights on the Meklars. They had been whupping me all game and it was time for some payback. I create two fleets and send one through the middle of his terretory and one to their largest production planet. I took both with fairly heavy losses for me but that was understandable as his fleets were enormous. I rebuild my fleets and continue on into Meklar territory. They have used this time to rebuild as well. I engage a large Meklar fleet with twenty BHG ships and some cleanup ships in my fleet. I send my BHG ships up against a huge stack, they fire, AND NOTHING HAPPENED. I start sweating. Next turn I fire again. One ship out of 100 is destroyed. I get massacred. I've never run across a situation where my BHG didn't wipe the floor with those stacks but I've never really had this bad of a start either and the Meklars are pretty advanced technologically. Does anyone know what combo they're using to defeat my ultimate weapon and what a good counter to that may be?

vmxa1 · February 14, 2003, 14:10

BHG starts with a random 26 to 100 % change to chance to destroy. This is reduced by shields. A level 35 shield drops it to 0 to 30, with avg 6.2%.
This is further reduces by Interial Stab or Nullifiers (15 or 30% if present).
So it is not unusal to see no damage in some rounds and I have seen it on base shields not do any damage for several rounds in a row.
It is not my favorite weapon, but I will use it in some situations.
For ship to ship, I prefer multple fire beams such as Auto Blaster and better yet Pulse Phasors. These are combined with HEF on large ships and will chew up fleets. They do not damage bases with good shileds, but I stick one bomb or so on each ship with the left over points. A stack with 1 Omega V or better will do the trick.

Urban Ranger · February 16, 2003, 22:47

What vmxa1 said. BHG is a vicious weapon but you need backup plans. In fact, if I have Death Ray I'd pick it over BHG, no fuss, no mess, just brutal damage.

vmxa1 · February 16, 2003, 23:48

Late in the game, if I have Maulers, I drop all planetary stuff and use them. They will crack and bases and are a beam so they can bust ships as well. I tend to not use Death ray as it is so large, unless no maulers and they have XX shileds.
BHG needs to have a Huge ship and that is another reason I do not like it.

Zed-F · February 17, 2003, 18:05

Hmm. I would tend to think that OmegaV or Neutronium bombs on small, fast ships would be better than Maulers for base-busting. They miniaturize much more nicely than Maulers do due to the lack of significant energy requirements, and speed/cloak/subspace teleporters are cheap for small ships. If you can get in there on turn 1 with a massive strike against the planet and you don't even have to worry about eating a volley of return fire from the missile bases. Still, whatever floats your boat; by the time you get to Maulers the game should be well in hand anyway.

As for what to use instead of BHGs, that depends on what techs you have, what techs the enemy has, and what size ships he prefers using. In general, though, at the high end of the tech tree beams work nicely.

vmxa1 · February 17, 2003, 20:15

Zed that is the point, the game is in hand and we are cracking planets. I use the mauler as I do not want to be bothered making specialized ships. A few maulers is enough to bust bases and they are not going to do any damage to my large ships anyway. Bombs can not be used on ships to fight other ships and that is my main interest, busting the fleets. The planets are doomed.

Harry Seldon · February 17, 2003, 23:16

Can maulers penetrate planetary shields? I've had a heck of a time capturing planets with large amounts of bases unless I have multiple ships equipped with bombs. Beam weapons don't seem to do any good.

Urban Ranger · February 18, 2003, 00:48

Maulers, stellar converters, etc. are evil, evil, beam weapons.

vmxa1 · February 18, 2003, 02:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
Can maulers penetrate planetary shields? I've had a heck of a time capturing planets with large amounts of bases unless I have multiple ships equipped with bombs. Beam weapons don't seem to do any good.

Yes maulers can bust all shields. death Rays are the only other beam that can crack XX shields for the most part. Tri Focus has a very very small chance.
The issues is two fold, what shileds/armor do they have and how many bases.
If they have 100 bases and you can only bust 5 per round, you better have very sturdy ships.
When I send in maulers the bases can not really hurt my ships.

Harry Seldon · February 18, 2003, 23:15

Quote:

Maulers, stellar converters, etc. are evil, evil, beam weapons.

A stellar converter would have been nice in this situation, but alas, it was a MOO game not 2. I would have liked the satisfaction of reducing Meklar worlds to asteroid belts.

vmxa1 · February 19, 2003, 01:58

Yeah, I love to use the Stellar to destroy planets so I do not have to defend them or conquer them repeatedly. Door opens and the planets is gone, yahoo.