armor on ships

[Skanderbeg]

I am asking me more and more if armor on ships is worth the cost.

I think everyone has the same experience that the AI allways seems to know where your ships are. And on the ocean, You can't hide behind defense perimeters or sensors, so, if the AI ships are in range of your ship, they will kill it, if it has armor or not.

I see that res-armor can be useful as a defense against native lifeforms, but thats all.

I am thinking of building many non-armored ships instead of a few armored, and using them in teams.
If AI kills one of them, there are more around to kill the AI's ship the next turn. Or perhaps, building different types of ships: best weapon no armour, SAM-AAA-cheap weapon-best armor, empath-res6-weapon-trance-3res-armor and using them as combos.

Has anyone tried using non-armored ships and can tell about his experiences?

[Martin Schmidt]

I agree with you on that , defense for ships is extraordinary expensive and in most cases not worth much . I will upgrade only my veteran ships with armor

[cbn]

I often build minimally armored ships. It is my typical strategy when playing Dee and Cha as a complement to an IOD fleet when aiming for naval supremacy. The IODs can be great defenders but they can get to be almost useless attacking 3r trance ships. So I typically place a few best weapon, no armor ships in the fleet. The Iods defend (and are replaceable if they lose) while you get full benefit of the attacker. If you can get the Neural Amplifier the IODs can be very hard to kill.

Because of cost it is also beneficial to build more, specialized ships than fewer, more-expensive ones (depending on support issues). As you point out, the disparity between weapon and armor cannot really be remedied at sea. A best weapon, best armor unit remains very vulnerable (and was expensive) such that you almost want escorts to defend the thing. What would be the point of that?? If the thing can't defend itself why bother to heavily armor it? I mean I can see escorting transports or carriers since they have an extra strike value but here your best-best has no more offensive capability than best-worst.


All that said, most of my ships end up with some form of armor. It seems that the stuff gets cheaper as you go along and my current favorite is the 3r (and perhaps trance ability)variety to beat the native life. I do find this useful when popping pods alone although sending two low armor ships with empath weapons can also ensure surviability and net some cash to boot.

naval strategy for me seems to be a matter of specialty ships and I generally consider that they are all so vulnerable that they should be expendable. One breed of ship I do like is the AAA ship. This one seems to have a fair bit of value in covering against air attacks. I tinkered with SAM ships but don't see them as very effective (Air superiority choppers rule!!)


I see Smac as much less of a naval game than say CIV2 was. In that one it seemed that attack value almost always equalled defense value. In Smac/x naval warfare is generally determined by who gets to fire the first shot. It seems that the only way to beat back the AI is to have enough attackers around to get the one that got you.

[WhiteElephants]

I've found that best armour AAA deters the computer from swooping out of the skies and wiping out my fleet as it approaches. A specialized case, but nonetheless valuable. I also imagine that in multiplayer games people would tend to build best weapon choppers which would have the ability to anihilate an unarmoured fleet in one turn from a fairly decent distance.

[niteowl]

I usually go for best weapon, minimal armor (2 or 3 stages down from current best), add deep sea radar (knowledge is power) and the deep pressure hull - effectively making it a submarine (harder to locate by enemies).

[Mars_Col_44]

AAA and clean reactors are a must for me. I have been burned before by not having AAA. Each post above has valid points. I remember a post recommending a mix of ships: some ships with best armor and low weapons, other ships with best weapon and little armor. The armor-heavy ships can complement the weapon-heavy ships. I have noticed that Photon Gunboats (4-5 AAA) have a better chance of survival than my Tachyon Cruisers (12-4 AAA) ... against Miriam's chaos cruisers 8-3 (and her +2 morale modifier!). And photon gunboats are a lot cheaper.
[This message has been edited by Mars_Col_44 (edited January 19, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Mars_Col_44 (edited January 19, 2001).]

[Sprayber]

Has anyone ever had a decent naval opponant?
the closest I have come to was against Lal. I was the Pirates. Most of the time the computer just builds foils with the occasional larger ship thrown in. I like the thought of massive fleet battles but SMAC is more air and land orientented.

[RedFred]

I confess that I usually put armor my ships. But when I do remove the armor on some ships, I also build the minimal weapon & maximum armor ships to travel with them. I feel safer with the good armor and it comes in handy as the first unit in a newly captured city.

[Velociryx]

::sheepish grin:: I arm and armor everything to the teeth....prolly not as efficient in the long run, but like RedFred, I just feel better with that added security....

-=Vel=-

[DogberryMan]

I'm with Vel... as much armor as your tech permits combined with the best weapon. The reason I do this is that in SP there is not a need for a huge navy so the more expensive ships are not a big deal to me. Now if I had to build 30 of them I would probably reconsider...

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"Are you good men and true?" Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, Scene III

[Jasonian]

I find armor only useful on ships when you are fighting against an opponent with a much lower tech level then you (i.e. your armor is better then his best gun). Oh, and the AAA anti-needlejet thing helps too.

I once fought the pirates as the cult, and the pirates launched several devious attacks that started an all-out naval war. They actually overran a few of my settlements due to their superior numbers.

[Lord Maxwell]

Navy? Hmm, you mean you actually use the water for anything but pod-lotto?

I find that the leap from navy to air power is just too short to necessitate the building of a huge navy. I pop pods, sometimes ferry invaders over, and send out the occasional sea base when distances grow bigger. (Ie, no need for carriers, if you have a sea base every 16 tiles up to one 8 tiles from the base you want to take.)

Hmm, the pod popper gotta have protection, the sea colony pods too. Hmm, I actually build a navy come to think of it, but there have never been any early 19th century style naval battles in my games. (In SP you totally dominate the AI, and in MP you avoid building coastal bases as much as you can, as the marines always takes em otherwise.

I usually build empath cruisers, transport cruisers, best weapon cruisers, best armour cruisers. I make almost everything clean. Every time a build que runs empty it builds a rover supply crawler, if I don't have 5+ stocked up for the next Secret Project, otherwise it builds another clean former, or a clean military unit. (Usually on the biggest scale it can complete in one turn, then it gets upgraded to whatever it really should be.)

Pre-cruisers I just use empath gun foils to pop pods, and ignore the possibility for alien artifacts. (Unless I am miriam, then off course I need em.)

MP naval battles are severely hampered by the fact that the attacker wins.

[Sikander]

I don't build much navy due to the limited ability of naval forces to project power inland, and the ease with which air power can project power over land and sea. I will usually build a 'transort popper' to scout for and eliminate enemy transports heading to my continent before I get airpower. I will also build probe foils, transports and a few best/best AAA escort cruisers for those times when I cannot escort my transports with aircraft. Every so often I will build aircraft carriers to provide global reach (usually to eliminate Planet Busters). I use carriers as more or less stationary bases which allow me to ferry aircraft to the battle zone by providing refueling services for the waves of aircraft production that I send toward the enemy. I just build enough carriers to make a chain to the point of impact. I tend to use aircraft like ammunition in this instance, and attack until death. This leaves room for the next wave off attackers on the deck of the carrier.

[The Commodore]

You want big navy battles?Try Pirates/Spartans/Progenitors/Hive. They tend(depending on the start)to expand like a plage on water.(You can make a watery map.) I find that the best defence is a good ofence, so I make high attack/low defence ships. Still, later in the game, if I get the MCN,I'll put psi armor.

P.S.:Isles of the Deep are the top navy units.

[The Commodore]

oops, sorry, double posting...
[This message has been edited by The Commodore (edited March 14, 2001).]

[cbn]

I advocate a mixed fleet for the simple reason that I have seen my expensive best-best be scuttled once too often by some impact ship appearing out of nowhere. If you choose to try to control sea lanes with ships (pre air power) it is a simple fact that more is better. If IODs are available or if the weapon to armour ratio is somewhere near survivability I may build attack and defense ships.

The other method I use is the attack swarm. This accepts that every ship is vulnerable if the enemy gets the first shot so the plan is to have several cheap best weapon ships travel together. Yes, these ships get killed (but they are cheap) and they invariably then destroy the attacker.


Once Air Power comes into play there is a whole new dynamic since any non AAA ship near an enemy city can be a sitting duck. So post air power

1. add AAA and good armour to ships or
2. use air cover or
3 pull back out of enemy air range


Once I have Air Power the ships role in preventing seabourne invasion or probing is somewhat redundant. Choppers and needles do that so much better. The ships role becomes

1. taking seabases
2. Sentry duty on the quiet sides of the empire-- essentially a roving sensor to avoid suprises (what I wouldn't give for the ability to build sensors at sea)
3. Naval bombardment with air cover (preparing to take the base)

For these roles I am unlikely to put much armour on the ship at all.


The Naval aspect of this game is quite unlike CIV2. In Civ, that vet battleship was a powerhouse. One battleship could empty a city with multiple attacks and (undamaged) could defend itself with a good chance of survival against anything. I also loved suprising a group of ships with a cruiser and taking out them all but I often thought that Naval power was disproportionately strong.

In SMAC the idea of seabases gives a new role to the navy but generally I see the navy as a weak sister to air and even ground forces. Without a huge tech lead there seemes to almost no point in the game when a ship has even a 50% of surviving against even the first attack against it. I find the concept of bombarding cities (weakening defenders and destroying enhancements) to be more realistic, but the reality is that naval might has been played down in this game vs CIV.

Overall I think i like the Smac naval concept better. We all know that the design workshop was a major innovation but here I guess I like the concept of getting away from super units ( In Civ the first nation with a battleship could change the game). The vulnerability of the ships in SMAC, I think, better approximates the vulnerability of ships in real life.

[uptons]

I build ships from only the best available components . I always build a navy of some proportions as I love grabbing the Geothermal Shallows (and Mt. Planet along) for myself. Repair Carriers are good, just remember to accompany it with a fleet of support ships (AAA/SAM cruiser and several regular battleships(13/6/6)). The carrier should have bombers and interceptors on a 2/1 basis, plus a planet buster if you can manage it(jus' in case). If you have the manufacturing capability, consider bringing along Drop Troops and a sea colony pod. That way, when your task force has arrived at the hotzone (fx the Monsoon jungle), you build a base short distance away from the coast and, when you have emptied an enemy base of defenders w. your bombers, use your front-line base to airlift into the enemy city.

[cbn]

Bump

[Lord MJ]

Armored ships are actually pretty cheap, and useful onvce you get fusion and quantum reactors. It's the armored needlejets that are the budget busters though.

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MJ's Home Page.
Reviews site
Discussion Forum for Civ, college talk and general discussion.
Civilization Empire SMAC, Civ2, CTP.

[LoD]

It's not true that there is no way to shelter your navy using terrain. Sea Fungus does provide you a bonus. Carful manuvering around and in the fungus saved the rears of my cruisers more than several times.

LoD

[johndmuller]

IODs come in pretty handy if you're Green enough to get them for free and/or to make them tough enough to discourage attacking. If you park them in Fungus, they are essentially clean, and if the geography is right, you can block off some of your territory by filling up choke points with the IODs, thus keeping out those annoying "friendly" sea colony pods. Insofar as you are really invisible in the Fungus (and it seems that the AI at least can see you), you could hide a few surprises as well - either worms and other nasties and/or probe teams to subvert passersby and perhaps turn them against their former owners.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Use a large IoD as a designated defender to move with a high firepower no armor foil. You get cargo capcity, defense & high fire power of two kinds. Use the foil instead of the cruiser because it has the same movement as the IoD, assuming you have the Xeno-empathy dome. If you don't have X E D then use a cruiser to keep up with the IoD through sea fungus.

[Blake]

WARNING:

IoD's are VERY poor defenders once 6+ weapons are around. The AI doesn't do this but bombarding an IoD with a ship results in it defending with about a rating of 1 against the ships weapon rating, this is enough to cause anywhere between 0% and 100% damage, usually about 60% with missile weapon. Once Power 10+ weapons are around IoD's have very slim chances of surviving even one bombardment. The chaos gun on a land based artillary can more often than not sink an IoD in one volley.

This applies for all native lifeforms except spore launchers. Also mindworms can only be reduced to 10% health. However Isles and Locusts are killed by bombardment. Upgrade your ships & infantry artillary to SAM and laugh at planetminds puny attack of 20 locusts, 2 SAM Chaos batteries turn such a stack into 1 90% injured locust. Ditto for big piles of IoD's.

Against a (smart) human player loading your forces on a Neural Amp enchanced IoD and expecting it to provide defense is sucicide. Even if the IoD isn't sunk by bombardment it's movement is reduced AND it's contents damaged. Even worse the other guy can do this with impunity. This means you should ALWAYS escort your isle with the highest weapon foil you can build (or a big pile of cheap foils which die to protect the Isle). In the end you may be better off to use a cruiser transport and give it high armour, it can still be sunk by bombardment but should take several volleys quite easily and besides - with the higher movement hopefully it wont be attacked at all.

IMO Sam, Bombard is invaluable for defense against locusts. Better still a standard Bombard unit CAN be upgraded to SAM using the workshop, and attack in the same turn. Magtubes are great for shuttling them around, and bombard attacks don't suffer "hasty" penalty.

[knowhow2]

quote: (what I wouldn't give for the ability to build sensors at sea)

I actually managed (well not me but my seaformer at auto) to build a sensor array at sea once. Don't know how or why. It was next to a real seabase (not one of them landbases who sunk).

[optimus2861]

quote: Originally posted by johndmuller on 03-20-2001 05:18 PM If you park them in Fungus, they are essentially clean,

Another thing about IODs in fungus that I stumbled across the other night: if your IOD is sitting in fungus when it attacks another vessel, you get the 3:2 psi combat advantage! This really stunned me and I had to do it a couple more times to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Anyone else ever come across this? Is this normal behaviour or another "undocumented feature"?

[Blake]

That is very normal behaivour, all native lifeforms get a +50% attack bonus when they attack a unit which is in fungus. Not sure about documented but it always works that way.

Pholus Mutagen passes that ability onto your conventional units too.

edit: Spelling, good idea not to post at 6:30am.
[This message has been edited by Blake (edited March 21, 2001).]

[Lefty Scaevola]

In the above IoD + foil combination, note the the foil would fight an artilery duel, since the IoD is not artillery.

[Ned]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I noticed my cruisers often disengage at about 50% damage. This permits the cruiser to attack in its own turn to take out the enemy boat. This implies that no armor, best weapon cruisers are the way to go for naval supremacy.

As well, if I have it, I also equip all my boats with marines.

One additional hint: protect your coasts with naval units on full automatic. They see the enemy approaching and attack first. (This contrasts with naval units on alert, which does not seem to work.)

Another hint: When approaching a naval superpower like the Pirates, also keep most of your ships on full automatic. Take them off automatic when you have defeated the enemy fleet and are ready to attack his sea bases.

When you do approach the enemies land bases protected with airpower, upgrade some of the ships to AAA and best armor to cover the rest. This is similar to using Aegis Cruisers to protect carriers in Civ II.

All-in-all, I like the naval aspects of SMACX.

[buster]

For naval warfare what works in my experience is wolfpack type of strategies. Depending on stage of game you will usually want ships which are both efficient against other ships, IoDs and planes.

For escort service of transports you will want a cover that means that some by chance appearing IoD or enemy ship or plane will not take out your transports.

Unless you are in a situation where support is a major problem I find it most efficient to have large numbers of cheap specialized ships rather than a few heavily armoured ones. No matter what you fit on a ship it will still be weak against certain types of attack. A heavily armoured cruiser with AAA and marine is not as good against an IoD as a cheap unit with trance.

So I usually try to have a bunch - some cheap units out front for cannon fodder with empath abilty to hit IodS and which are no great loss if I am found first. Then some strong weapon with marine and sam ability. If you have a carrier you should have some interceptors and some empaths too.

Probe ships can also be used for "advance spotters" they are cheap and require no support. IoDs are good too though a bit slow moving.
You keep the more powerfull ships about half movement behind spotters and advance about half movement per turn. This way if you find them you can hit and if they find you they can kill one of your cheap ships and then you hit back.

For the same energy a fleet put toghether like this will take out your heavily armored expensive but few in numbers all in one package fleet any time. They may be comforting but they won't win and success in escort duty mainly relies on having enough around.

Even if you construct your fleet as clean to not have the support penalty of large numbers and it still does a much better job at keeping the vessels you are escorting much safer by pretty much eliminating the chance that the enemy or some wild IoD stumbles into your transport loaded with units.

Subs are also excellent as your avance guard once you get them (pretty much the only thing they are good for).

[This message has been edited by buster (edited March 21, 2001).]

[NorthSwordsman]

*bump* for reference