What ships R better suited 4 what mission?

[Jamazz]

I am currently trying to decide what ship missions are suited for a specific duty.

i.e.

Are Indirect Fire ships suited for defense/offense? System or Travel(Star)

Same goes for SR, LR, C, PD, Etc.

Need some advice.

[Kloreep]

Everything except colony, outpost, troop, recon, and point defense are meant to be used for offensive combat. Recon ships go in the "Picket" ring of TFs and are meant to be used to locate the enemy. Putting your longest-ranged beam on recon ships is your best bet; this seems to extend your visual detection range, whereas some tests have been run showing scanners, ECM, ECCM, and cloaking does zip.

Point defense ships go in the "Escort" ring. They are meant to protect the rest of the TF from fighters and missiles, and should have short-ranged beam weapons in order to do this. Don't leave your TF without some good PD protection; just one or two waves of missiles can rip your TF apart if you don't shoot at least some of them down.

Colonies and outposts are for colonizing planets. Which you use depneds on your style; outposts will never be a colony upon settlement, as they carry less than 1 pop point, but that can be made up for by setting immigration encouragement on, and outposts start with a military DEA built once they become a colony. Colony ships carry more pop and so become a colony immediately after landing on a green, sweet spot, or paradise planet. (Yellow and red reduce the amount of pop that lands.)

Troop ships are for carrying troops. Only build them if you plan to invade some planets; if you're planning on peace for a while or if you prefer to just bomb everything off a planet and start over with your own colonists, they won't be any use to you.

All other ship types are for different types of offensive TFs. Carriers carry fighters to launch, Long Range carries long-range beam weapons, Short Range is the same with shorter range, IF is for missiles. You can still mix the weapons on a ship and have beams on carriers or missiles on LF. You are also allowed to mix the types of ships in some TF cores, but I don't remember the details on that.

System vs. Star Ship depends on what you want. If you want a border system to build some ships to defend itself, system ships are a good idea; up to 18 system ships can enter a combat as a System Ship TF. System colonies are also convenient for settling planets in the same system if you have an already settled planet with decent production. However, by and large, you'll want to make Star Ships; they're the only type that can go on the attack, the only way to colonize outside your controlled systems, and remember, only 18 system ships can defend in a combat.

Hope that helps.

[Jamazz]

Wow that was a lot to take in. Let me see... Here's what I got from your advice:

Hows this:
Attack TF
6 Carriers in mission ring
5 LR ships in escort ring
5 PD ships in escort ring
2 Recon detect/scramble in picket

Since you need a minimum of 6 mission ships in an Armada... I built it this way. And after getting snuck by the Silicoids with a Carrier armada... I saw the potential or a large carrier fleet.

Now for defense:

Defense TF (system ships)
6 SR ships in mission ring
5 PD ships in escort ring
5 IF ships in escort ring
2 Recon as stated above in picket

Now I know making PD your mission would be inefficient for an Armada especially Defending a system... because that is where you would build your Orbital base usually consisting of IF, PD, and Fighters.

What I'm really trying to spit out is which ships are more suited for a specific role.

i.e. Making an attacking TF with a core of SR would be impractical. You really could do it if you wanted to. But making an attaking TF with a core of Carriers, LR or something else just as efficient would be more practical.

I hate to be all technical about all this, afterall it is just a game but I'm sure when it comes down to it... 2 identical sized opposing fleets fighting it out is nothing to laugh at especially if 1 of the fleets was built with practicality in mind.

Thanks for the advice It's coming to me.......slowly

[Grumbold]

Personally I find it a bit more versatile to keep TF's either LR, IF or CV orientated rather than mixing both. If its set up as a carrier or missile TF then it wants to release its payload and back off. The LR ships in the escort (or mission) ring won't be proactive about targetting enemy ships or try to stay inside their beam range. You can end up having to manually tell them to move closer then manually tell them to attack, at which point they will fire while scooting away as fast as they can. Easier just to keep them in LR TF's which will aggressively close to within their attack range and stay there.

[Proteus_MST]

btw.
Kloreeps mentions that the System-Ship Taskforce consists only of 18 Warships.

Ater all I know that isn´t correct and the Systemship Taskforce can consist of many more Systemships (all that are available I think).

The only thing I don´t know is, if i is consistend over all patches.
At least pre Patch and after the first Patch your System Ship Taskforce involved a lot more Systemships than just 18 (which was the reason, I often had fights with more than 10*18 = 180 Ships involved on one Side [I remember Fights with 200 Ships and more, so I had a Systemship Taskforce of more than 40 Ships]).

btw. re Systemshps:
Always use the same speed for all Types of Systemships.
As all Systemships, regardless of wether they are IF, PD, LR and so on are thrown into the same Taskforce, the Standard Tactic of using slower Speeds in your IF-Ships will slow down the whole Taskforce (as the speed of the Taskforce is always the sped of the slowest Ship).

As for Tactics regarding othr Taskforces:
I always build them around he Mision Ships, ust as rmbold mentions, therefore having IF-Taskforces for Artillery Suport, LR Taskforces which attack the enemy via Direct Fire and so on.

Normally I build Armadas which have:
Core:
5-10 Mission Ships
Escort:
5-8 Point Defence Ships
Picket:
1-2 Scoutships with ECCM and Sensors
and optional often also
1 Scoutship with strong ECM

Normally all of my Ships also carry at least one medium sized Direct Fire weapon, regardless of wether their Mission involves such weapons (i.e. also IF-Ships and Scoutships carry one) just to be not totally epless, if for example an enemy suddenly breaks through my lines and appears before my IF Taskforces (although this seldom happens )

Oh and my (non System) IF Ships often are somewhat slower than my other Ships. But not very much, for example if the Tp Speed which I could use is 2000 then my IF-Ships will get a speed of maybe 1500. So they have more Space for weapons because of their smaller Engines, but still aren´t sitting ducks who just can flee into Hyperspace if an enemy approaches their Position and they have run out of Missiles (what would be the case if you wuld just give them a speed of 500).
They even can still outrun many of my Lower Tech Opponents

[Jamazz]

Originally posted by Jamazz
Now for defense:

Defense TF (system ships)
6 SR ships in mission ring
5 PD ships in escort ring
5 IF ships in escort ring
2 Recon as stated above in picket

I realized this was wrong. All system ships made are launched and defend at once right? There is no limit to this defending force's # right?

That said(or asked) I just Tried to fight the Ithkul... To no Avail sadly. I know I'm doing many things wrong. I honestly gave this game a 2nd chance and have found it to be a little on the boring side IMHO. The one portion, that would make this game awsome, seems to elude me.

Anyway... I guess large numbers is the only way to do battle here. And playing the Psilons makes it a tad difficult to accuire large numbers early in the game. Hell I can't even not play... Just see me out. Played as the Silicoids... set the Auto turn to 500 and went to sleep. 2hrs later the whole entire galaxy decided to declare a joint war effort against me. So direct and indirect play for me has been rough.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
btw.
Kloreeps mentions that the System-Ship Taskforce consists only of 18 Warships.

Ater all I know that isn´t correct and the Systemship Taskforce can consist of many more Systemships (all that are available I think).

Interesting, I didn't know that. I've seen people complaining on the Atari forums about only getting 18 system ships in a battle, but perhaps that was under a different patch. Must build more sys def ships at chokepoints now.

Originally posted by Jamazz
Anyway... I guess large numbers is the only way to do battle here. And playing the Psilons makes it a tad difficult to accuire large numbers early in the game. Hell I can't even not play... Just see me out. Played as the Silicoids... set the Auto turn to 500 and went to sleep. 2hrs later the whole entire galaxy decided to declare a joint war effort against me. So direct and indirect play for me has been rough.

The AI simply cannot match a human player. Also, the Silicoids not only have a Poor diplomacy pick, but many species dislike them by default, so it makes sense they would have more wars.

I'd suggest trying another race besides the Psilons; they really aren't that good a race IMO, and they definitely are slow starters since they're bad at pretty much everything except research. I've heard the Tachidi are nice, due to their huge population growth which keeps DEA well-staffed. The Ethereans are a good species too, to the point of being over powered; both races get the same hardcode research bonus as the Psilons, while also getting the same manufacturing bonus as the Cybernetiks! (The research & creativity race picks are lower than the Psilons, but that can be customized if you wish.) Ethereans also prefer huge gas giants, which lends itself to highly populated regions (good for an Industry DEA), and all the open space on those huge planets also promotes pop growth.

[ChaotikVisions]

The main part of my fleet is LR ships, I make IF for when planet defenses become prominent. So I can bombard their beam batteries from afar. LR ships are nice because ammo can't run out, and it can't be blocked by point defense weapons.

[Vince278]

I try to be versatile in construction. There is a certain rock-paper-scissor quality to fleets. You could form a fleet for one type of mission which can be countered by another type of fleet which in turn can be countered by yet another.

[WhiteCrow]

I build only one type of capital ship and that is:

LR ship - armor/system speed as low as possible, a few beam weapons, huge arsenal of big nasty one-shot missiles (what an irony)

Insteads of armadas, I manage my fleets in squadrons or flotillas without any escort or packet ship.

LR(missile) ship is awesome for space control. they wipe out planetary defense and any defending fleet. I just hit retreat after they empty missile racks if the defense is strong.

LR ships are strong in fleet combat but weak in defending planet and useless in planetary bombardment.

I used to build SR ships with mainly beam weapons to cover those weaknesses, but now I conquer planets by ground force and attack more aggressively so that I don't have to go defensive. :-)

Maintaining as few production type as you can means military queue automation, easier fleet replacement, and easier reinforcement. Thanks QS that AI cannot exploit your weakness... :-)

[Jamazz]

Thanks for everyones help. Thanks Kloreep for your race pick advice. I will definetly use it. And thanks White Crow, your ideas of TF arrangement seem to be the best way I've heard so far. I will take your ideas very seriously. Makes alot of sense.

[Jamazz]

I have been playing the Tichidi for almost 100 turns now. They can put out colony ships like they were going out of style too. I am content with them so far proving to be better at producing TF's at a faster pace.

There's only one thing that pisses me off...

Anytime you play with just one other opponent... It's either the silicoids or the Ithkul. What a crappy randomizer... any way to fix that? I'm hella tired of playing with them. Bout to get a saved game editor, And save on the 1st turn and change the opponent to something a little more not so down your friggin' throat!

[Grumbold]

I've never noticed that ... but then again I always play with 8+ players. The game works better with a decent council and plenty of players to ally/trade with.