How to board antaran ships?

squigg007 · August 10, 2003, 16:58

Just got MOO2 from ebay for 3$.

Right now I play on easy, I've only had it for 1 week.

I heard that when you scrap ships, you get technology from them, so I tried boarding the antaran ships but usually I get destroyed before I get a chance to go!!! (I thought the defender went first.)

I went for mirv nukes because I heard they were good against antarans. My tech goes like this,
research lab, r. hull, automated factory, space academy, then up to pollution processor (getting merculite on the way)

My race was unification, tolerant, +1 production, -10 spying, -10 ground combat, and the -ship abilities.

made about 6 frigates with 2 mirv 2 shot nukes each and a cruiser (large) with 2 mir 2 shot nukes and the rest in assualt shuttles. Hoping that I would get the cool Xentronum armor... However, they attacked with 3 frigates (they went first) took out 3 of mine. My mirv nukes destroyed one, but my assault shuttles had no chance!

How do i board there ships effectively??

And, is lithovore race pick any good? It sounds cool but i don't know what goes well with it

Whoha · August 10, 2003, 17:41

ok, Antaran ship capture. This takes some infrastructure and research.

First off you will need one of the following components:

1)Tractor beams

2)Assault Shuttles

3)transporter

4)black hole generator.

black hole generators can sometimes be obtained from orion, with initiative they will merely imobilize a target allowing your ship to go up and land troops on it.

with tractor beams, transporters, and black hole generators troop pods are a must.

Since in your story you got assault shuttles I'll detail an assault shuttle capture.

Second is to have a number of ships ready to go, preferable battleships, 2-4 loaded with only assault shuttles, and a battlepod, and reinforced hull if you still have tritanium.

third is the consideration of ground combat technology and race picks. If you just have laser rifles,tritanium armor, AND you picked -10 ground combat, forget about capturing antarans, they start with normal race combat picks, and all ground combat technology, so their troops have Xentronium armor(+30),plasma rifles(+30),Agrav Harnesses(+10),Powered armor(+10 attack,+1 hp),personal shielding(+20), so they have +100 to attack and can withstand 2 hits, while you will AT best considering your race picks be able to get +85 and be able to withstand 1 hit. This is no problem except to say that you will be needing a great many troops, as between the hits and combat techs their guys will be about 3 times better then yours.

Another consideration is to have a good combat leader on the ship. Grum appears early, and he is my favorite for this mission, he also helps with taking planets after you have all the antaran tech.

Ok, you have your ships, 4 battleships loaded with assault shuttles, and possessing good armor,reinforced hull,etc, next you go into battle.

direct each ship to launch all of its shuttles at 1 of the enemy antaran craft, and direct any other ships/system defenses to stand down and not attack at all.

When the troops land, provided your tech is good enough, and you have enough troops, you may win the fight on the enemy ships, next comes the calculation on whether or not the ship will detonate, as all Antaran ships have a device which foils capture about 50% of the time. This is not to say that 1/2 will be captured, some times all will, some times none will.

If you want you can reload before the antarans attack, and contact another race diplomatically, to foil the random number generator, or during the fight have pd weapons on the star fort/base/ships fire ineffectively at the ships "wasting" the roles that would have had the ships detonate. If you don't know what i'm talking about here don't worry about it, antarans attack frequently enough when you are in the lead that there will be many opportunities to capture them, and you won't have to worry about the random number roles.

So, then after the fight, you have 1 or more antaran ships, which you may use to fight others, or you can scrap them on the fleet screen. Make sure that they are above a system with atleast a starbase somewhere in it when you scrap them or they will not reveal tech.

From here on out, you have a 100% of discovering 1 unknown tech, and a 25% chance to discover each of 3 other techs, meaning you can discover 1, or discover 4. As with the fight, you can "waste" bad roles with the diplomatic screen if you know how(for instance I don't want the detonators I want damper fields, well I just contact the meklar for instance, and try to get them to accept a deal,demand,or just talking with them can be enough, and I keep this up until I get damper fields from the random number generator).

so in conclusion, lose the -10gc pick, try -pop,-money,-ship def for instance, I find this very good. and just keep trying to capture ships until the random number generator gives them to you.

as for lithovore, there are 2 great races that go with it,
democracy,lithovore,artifact homeworld(on a small galaxy)/+1 research(large galaxy),-whatever you want,
and lithovore/tolerant/-whatever.

the demo/lith race makes the best researchers in the game, and the lith/tol race makes very decent researchers/excellent producers,and in general a great late game powerhouse due to lith/tol being excellent early on and imperium with 100% morale AND lith/tol being great later on.

I also tried feudal,lith,creative,+4 picks for whater you want,-whatever and find it to be fairly decent.

squigg007 · August 10, 2003, 19:00

So is it basically impossible to take enemy ships early on? Could I equip that weapon (can't....remember....name) that kills marines then board it?

And second, do you get the same techs from orion? but HOW do people capture orion in 100 turns??? it takes me forever.

Whoha · August 10, 2003, 19:24

yep its impossible early on, damper fields protect marines far better then shields do from neutron blasters and death rays, now if you could get a lucky break and kill the damper field system then it could work. But at the very least you want zortium armor, personal shields, agrav harness, fusion rifles, and lots and lots of assault shuttles + leader.

Orion gives you 4 of the orion/antaran techs, one of which is always the death ray on pcs. The techs you get are:

Death ray: Best marine killer,best shield piercer/planet buster, best weapon until miniaturized phasors/disruptors/plasma cannons with mods.

Damper field: Far superior to shields except against ion cannons.

Xentronium armor: Best armor

Reflection Field: blocks with a 10/10+beam atkstr % chance, in other words: good at blocking ion cannons.

Spatial Compressor: Great at killing fighters and missiles.

Quantum detonator: Prevents ship capture some of the time, worthless to you.

Particle Beams: Best point defense gun until fully modded pd phasors arrive, decent heavy mount until hard shields appear.

Black Hole generator: imobilizes target, and in 3 turns with initiative off the ship targeted is destroyed.

Some times you get deathrays,damper fields,Xentronium armor,particle beams, other times you get death rays, spatial compressors,reflection fields,quantum detonators.

In the case of both orion and the antarans you also can get other high tech tree items, orion gives additional techs that you don't have(one game I got gaia transform, though you are equally likely to get death spores...), and antarans all have the best computer, some have the best ecm jammer, some have bomber bays,all have the "best" bombs(all bombs are just poor choices in both the tech tree and to equip on your ships).

As for capturing orion early there is one very reliable way that vmxa will post if I don't, so here it is:

"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. When I get around to updating my races page, I'll fill in the details. The Guardian-kill can obviously be done more quickly in an advanced game given the proper parameters. In particular, a subterranean creative race in a 2-player huge universe can often finish off the Guardian before turn 20.

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."

Whoha · August 10, 2003, 19:27

1 last consideration from the above, you need 1 miniaturization tech from construction or chemistry to be able to fit everything on the cruisers.

vmxa1 · August 10, 2003, 23:41

You may want to consider that there is no need to capture ships. It is just something to do for a change, not required.

bakalov · August 11, 2003, 04:09

IMO the easiest way to capture antarians early on is to board them with a lot of assult shuttles simultaneously. You need to close them and launch the shuttles from the shortest distance possible. There is a high chance for them to detonate, though (they have quantum detonators).

Harry Seldon · August 11, 2003, 08:30

It's tough, though. If you do manage to take a ship without it self destructing all the other Antaran ships will attack it. I've taken it using massive amounts of Assault shuttles and transporters. Usually by the time I take Orion or have miniturization tech I'm not getting attacked anymore.

bakalov · August 11, 2003, 09:18

If the others are attacking the captured one, kill most of them first, and capture the last. It is easiest to capture the smallest ones since their marine count is smallest ....
Even the smallest ones carry 4 of the 8 antarian techs (xentronium, particle beam, quantum detonator, damper field) and the good normal techs moleculartronic computer and neutronium bomb (actually the best computer and the best bomb).

Harry Seldon · August 11, 2003, 10:51

Good call. If you can catch one early enough they're a great prize.

Urban Ranger · August 14, 2003, 02:13

The only question is, are their women cute?

Harry Seldon · August 14, 2003, 10:14

Well, beats a klackon babe.

matthead · August 17, 2003, 02:53

Hi, I've been lurking for a couple weeks. Decided to finally register, so I could ask if anyone else has noticed this:

I dunno if it's due to the higher number of marines on shuttles or something weird in the game mechanics, or if it's just a coincidence, but I've noticed that I have a lot better chance of capturing Antaran ships when I use teleporters to board, rather than assault shuttles.

Whoha · August 17, 2003, 10:29

i've never noticed any difference between tractor beams,bhgs,assault shuttles, and transporters in terms of capturing ships, now then you can't really send loads of troops over with transporters since damper fields will block most of the boarders,you generally have to wait until far later to capture a ship with transporters then with assault shuttles.

If it really gets you down that the ship you tried to grab blew up you can foil the random number generator by firing some point defense weapons during the fight, or talking with a diplomat right before to use up that roll.

bakalov · September 5, 2003, 04:21

Whoha, your suggestion about the random generator supposes reloading and won't work in a straight game ;-). Anyway with reloading it works ....