ship designs in mid and late game

[Aqa]

As I said in the another thread I just started playing again and it has been years since I last played Moo2 but back then my favorite ship design(and almost only one I ever used) was "indestructible" titan class ship:
Loads of plasma cannons(>10)
Automated repair(or the advanced version)
All possible shield boosters(except maybe heavy or strong or whatever it was called)
Heavy armor
It was always, and I really mean always as I played quite a bit those days, that if enemy couldn't take it out in one turn (meaning over 1000 damage) it was in full
condition on the next turn or at least shields were back to max. And plasma cannons packed quite a punch taking out every enemy ship on one shot(except DS of course)

[vmxa1]

A ship of that type is fine for ship to ship combat, but planets with all the defences including Barrier Shield would be impervious to it. If you are talking about a 1.2 version of Moo it is a better ship than 1.31 which increased the size of plasma cannons. Disrupters are a better all around choice as they can bust planets as well and do not have a range penalty. For ship to ship try phasors with mods and see if they do no work better. Plasma in 1.31 is so large and has a huge range penalty. You get phasors first so I use them until I get disrupters.

[Garth Vader]

If the AI doesn't have much for shields then Plasma cannon rules. If they have class 5 or higher it gets better to use phasors.

[vmxa1]

Yup, that is why I switch to disrupters as cannon & phasors will not handle a maxed out palnetary defence. When I use to only use plasma cannons in the late game, I would do auto combat as nothing was bothering my ships. I would run into a planet that my BB's with only cannons would just sit there and twitch and not fire as they could do no damage. I would have to bring in a DS with a Stellar Convertor for that job. Now I have some titans with disrupters and no problem, back to auto combat. My BB's will have phasors for ships or maybe plasma cannons. Usually phasors as I already have that tech before plasma and I can select the plasma rifle instead (if not tele).

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Aqa

Loads of plasma cannons(>10)
Automated repair(or the advanced version)
All possible shield boosters(except maybe heavy or strong or whatever it was called)
Heavy armor
It was always, and I really mean always as I played quite a bit those days, that if enemy couldn't take it out in one turn (meaning over 1000 damage) it was in full
condition on the next turn or at least shields were back to max. And plasma cannons packed quite a punch taking out every enemy ship on one shot(except DS of course)

Some advice?
Dump the shields and boosters for the reinforced hull and the dampers. Shields only pad your ability to absorb hits whereas the damper quarters the total damage you take and amounts to much much more - especially with your auto-repair able to fix 30% of your hull each round.
Hence if you have 1000 combined hull/armour points you can absorb 1200 damage points in a round (before the damper effect) and still regenerate to full hull/armour by the next round. To take your ship out the AI would need to inflict a massive 4000 damage in a single round.
Against this sort of damage capacity shields just don't cut it.


Vmxa, what sort of range were your plasma ships attacking from? I've used plasma canons (actually they might have been heavy) against planets with barrier shields before and still inflicted damage. The range diffusion aspect hurts them more than most other weapons but up close they can still pack a punch.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ravagon
Vmxa, what sort of range were your plasma ships attacking from? I've used plasma canons (actually they might have been heavy) against planets with barrier shields before and still inflicted damage. The range diffusion aspect hurts them more than most other weapons but up close they can still pack a punch.

They had HV and the AI would not move them in. I used to run them in myself, but they still did no real damage.
Barrier Shield stop 20 points of damage from every weapon every round. Stop all invasion and bio weapons.
Add in Class X shields they can stop all damage from Plasma Cannons 6-30. AI is weak, but when it does not move a ship up for an attack, it is because it will not do any good. Just like Moo when they used to jump to the back of the screen when the weapons they had did not impact the planets shields.

[ravagon]

AI is weak, but when it does not move a ship up for an attack, it is because it will not do any good.

I guess this must be a version number issue. I've never bothered to patch mine so the AI combat always just closed to the maximum weapon range and let loose, regardless of weapon type or shielding, hence did very little damage ergo I never used it. The only time ships ever closed to point blank was when they carried a bomb payload.
I didn't think the (ship) shield class had any effect on planets in Moo2 - beyond rad/planetary/barrier shields of course?

[Aqa]

Well, plasma cannon and class X shields are not very near each other in the tech tree Plasma cannons rock very hard in the earlier phase of game, even more so because I focus my research to get them. The built in enveloping effect is very nice.

Ravagon, as it has been quite some time since I last played MOO2, I just can't remember everything, so how high are the dampers in the tech tree? I mean I focused my research to first getting plasma cannons and then titans(before getting titan hulls I usually already had couple battleships with plasma cannons, not so indestructible tough) and after that I usually walked over every AI. Most often I didn't even have DS:s before the game was more or less over.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by ravagon


I guess this must be a version number issue. I've never bothered to patch mine so the AI combat always just closed to the maximum weapon range and let loose, regardless of weapon type or shielding, hence did very little damage ergo I never used it. The only time ships ever closed to point blank was when they carried a bomb payload.
I didn't think the (ship) shield class had any effect on planets in Moo2 - beyond rad/planetary/barrier shields of course?

Shields on ships have no effect you are correct. Shields and armour have effect for planetary defences.
Version 1.2 and early are really bogus. So many bugs that could crash the game. Creative cost only 6. Ai would surrender and give away systems at the drop of a hat. In fact they gave me systems for peace after they declared war and no attacks took place. Defenders went first on and on. It is almost not the same game. Oh, Plasma cannons were so powerful in those versions, they have to make them larger so you could not fit as many in a given ship.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Aqa
Well, plasma cannon and class X shields are not very near each other in the tech tree Plasma cannons rock very hard in the earlier phase of game, even more so because I focus my research to get them. The built in enveloping effect is very nice.

Dampers are not in the tech tree and you get it from Orion or capture Antie ships.
We were talking about the end game were you have all the tech discovered.
You may want to reconsider racing for plasma cannons as phasors are earlier in the tree and you really do not need the cannons, especially early in the game when you can not fit more than 4 in a BB as a non creative race as you will not have the tech that makes more room. Size 50 for 1 gun is very painful for the damage. Try a fight were you have a BB with 5 cannons or so and the same ship with as many modded phasors as fits. The phasors will take the ships down much sooner as they will bypass armor. Look at the ship as ir bluish armor bar stay full and the pinkish bar drops and the ship explodes doing collateral damage. I use to be in love with cannons, but the plain truth is they are not worth it. Of course once you get disrupters switch to using them. Probably the best gun in the game.

[Aqa]

I have to admit, that I used to play as a creative race Beginning was usually very slow and hard(bribe, bribe, bribe, wish that neighbours aren't repulsive) but after that.. Armour piercing phasors are nice, except if AI uses HA(happened to me once, I was happily bashing everyone with ap weapons(can't remember what) until AI put HA on ships, auch). True tough, that before 1.31 patch plasma cannons were much more powerful and as I played many games before 1.31 I kind of stuck with the plasma cannons(they were good before, they have to be still good). Don't know why, but masses of plasma cannons seem to cause more damage than they should(might be a version issue too).

I know you have played a lot vmxa1, but have you tried to use plasma cannons? I once used phasors on battleships and they were worse than battleships with plasma cannons even tough there was twice(?) the amount of phasors than plasma.

Yeah, I'm talking about ancient history, but if I get my games going again, I might change my mind about plasma cannons. Haven't had much time to play lately but weekend is coming...

Talking about end game, I had once (imp, huge) DS with 5(or 6, can't remember correctly) stellar converters, just because it really didin't matter anymore what I put in those things. Had a huge battle against psilons, both had >20 DS and >40 titans, meaning more ships than tactical combat supports. Was there any sense? No. It was just fun. BTW, I was "friends" with psilons troughout the game and psilons were not war with anyone ever.

[vmxa1]

Don't miss understand me, I do not mean to say that PC are no good they are and as I said I used them exclusively for years, but just like phasors there are jobs they can not do. I use to love the sounds they made. I still find myself everting back to them at times. What allows humans to win is we can adapt. When one does not work, we try another.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Aqa
Talking about end game, I had once (imp, huge) DS with 5(or 6, can't remember correctly) stellar converters, just because it really didin't matter anymore what I put in those things. Had a huge battle against psilons, both had >20 DS and >40 titans, meaning more ships than tactical combat supports. Was there any sense? No. It was just fun. BTW, I was "friends" with psilons troughout the game and psilons were not war with anyone ever.

You can have 100 ships oppose you that is the limit. It is possible and has been done to make one DS that can beat all 100 ships by itself. This is due to the AI not knowing ho to make invulnerable ships and dealing with one. It involves TWF and Phase Cloaks. I do not use them myself, just over kill normally. Good battling.

[Aqa]

I remeber psilons had smaller ships(battleships...) in that fleet but in battle there were only titans and DS:s so I guess I didn't remember numbers correctly.. But that was the only battle I ever had with DS against DS, usually game has ended before even I have had that tech.

So is it possible to make a ship that stays invisible all the time? I cannot imagine any other way to do it. How else can one ship absorb the damage of 300 stellar converters(psilons had at least one stelcon in every ship)?

[Aqa]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Don't miss understand me, I do not mean to say that PC are no good they are and as I said I used them exclusively for years, but just like phasors there are jobs they can not do. I use to love the sounds they made. I still find myself everting back to them at times. What allows humans to win is we can adapt. When one does not work, we try another.

Sorry, I just hate phasors So Star Trek but not nearly as effective

Just tested that for fun, made simultaneously battle ship with graviton beams and a battle ship with plasma cannons(same amount of space used on both, can't remember numbers). Attacked a planet with missile base and fighter garrison. Closed in to same range and fired. Grav beams made 148 damage. Plasma cannons made 320 damage...

BTW Just came to my mind, someone somewhere once told me about "adaptive" AI in MOO2. So does the AI adapt? I mean fighters are much more useless unless I close in, which I do to get most use of plasma cannons. Does the AI "learn" how I play?

[vmxa1]

Well the AI does change tactics based on the perception of the best ship you have. It seems it gears towards that ship even if you never build it. Anyway it is not real effective.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Aqa
But that was the only battle I ever had with DS against DS, usually game has ended before even I have had that tech.

So is it possible to make a ship that stays invisible all the time? I cannot imagine any other way to do it. How else can one ship absorb the damage of 300 stellar converters(psilons had at least one stelcon in every ship)?

If you play on Huge/Imp maps you will see DS often.

The way it works is with the phased cloak you can uncloak and fire and then recloak so that you are not under fire. I do not use this tactic. It requires TWF as well. Here is The Orion Globe:

Achilles Targeting Unit
Battle pod
High Enegy Focus
Hyper-X Capacitor
Phasing Cloak
Structural Analyzer
Time Warp Facilitator
* One optional System


- Has 900% increase in weapon power by using the AutoFire mod, the High Energy Focus, and the Structural Analyzer! Allows less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel.

- Allows 100% effectiveness of the Structural Analyzer (except against hard shields) by adding the Shield Piercing mod to the Phasor weapons to bypass the shields. Allows even less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel.

- Cuts weapon usage to destroying enemy ships in HALF by using the Achilles Targeting Unit to completely bypass their armor. This effect is accumulative with other systems!!

- Has double the weapon shots by using the Hyper-X Capacitor and Time Warp Facilitator Combination! If the Orion Globe has 200 weapons, that's 400 shots every turn an enemy takes! No ship can fit that many weapons! This effect is accumulative with other systems!!

- Avoids enemy fires by using the combined effect of the Time Warp Facilitator and the Phasing Cloak. Decloak, fire weapons, next turn, take weapons offline, recloak.

- Has room for an extra System for increased mobility or defense! Recommend Subspace Teleporter for Maximum added mobility.

The result is a ship that is so deadly, one of its kind can take on the entire universe, no matter how big, and it won't suffer any direct damage.


(11/12/98) After many other trial designs, I have refitted a new Orion Globe. It now contains many other new options. See for yourself. This is now the official Orion Globe configuration.

(01) Stellar Coverter
(**) Phasors ( f ) sp,af
(**) Phasors (360) sp,af
(**) Phasors (fx ) hv,sp,af
(01) Plasma Torp. NR,env,eccm,ovr
(01) Disruptor (360) hv,af
(01) Ion Pulse (360) af

Achilles Targetting Unit
Battle Pods
High Energy Focus
Hyper-X Capacitor
Phasing Cloak
Structural Analyzer
Subspace Teleporter
Time Warp Facilitator

My very last version, after many, of Orion Globes, Has a Stellar Converter on Board. I know I said that it takes up too much room, but it still kicks. Besides, It's awesome for planetary sieges. If the Enemy has Barrier Shields on their planet, none of the phasors on-board will work, even if you fire all of them at once (yes, even the heavy mounted Phasors can't penetrate a Barrier Shield). The Converter can take out 2 of the planetary defenses every time you fire it.

But why would you want a Torpedo' you ask? 'cause it's FUN! The old ship had power, but it's no fun just making enemies disappear. Target little ships with the Torpedo, and watch it do it's job; you can even savor the moment as the shields disappear on Star Fortresses and raid them. It's not very powerful at all, it wastes space, but it's fun.

For fun, I also added a Hv. Disruptor and an Ion Cannon on the Globe. Ion Cannons disable ship drives, and causes immobility in enemy ships or even Warp Core Breaches. But in order for it to work on the enemy, their shield has to be down first, and that's where the disruptor comes in handy. Watch them as they can't handle being disabled and chooses the honorable death of committing suicide and self-distructs the ship instead of being captured. It's just fun to watch.

The Subspace Teleporter is there to increase mobility. There's no need for an Inertial Stablizer because the phasors are already 360' capable.

Although a lot of space is used for 'fun' equipments, The original Globe had too much power itself, and lots of phasors were wasted anyways. Having the extra stuff there means that I won't be bored with the Globe and just press Auto and let it do it's job, but rather take some time to torture the enemy ships.

(07/31/99) A good ratio of Phasors, Phasors(360') and Hv Phasors(fx) is 8-5-2, for a good and even coverage of areas. I used to have a 1-1-1 ratio, but that wasted room on heavy phasors that did the job a regular phasor could have done. So here's a new ratio to fit the max amount of weapons, and being efficient at the same time.

The time warp facilitator turns(version 1.31) works like this:

In each round,
_________________________________________
You start enemy start

Turn 1: you Turn 1: enemy
Turn 2: enemy Turn 2: you
---- ----
Turn 3: you Turn 3: you
----
go back to turn 1 go back to turn 1
_________________________________________

After both sides have taken a turn, the final turn (3rd turn) goes to the ships that have a time warp facilitator on. Know your turns so that you can shut off all your un-used weapons and allow the ship to recloak.

Therefore, if you are using the Orion Globe, and you are attacking first, SKIP THE TURN!!! Let the enemy go first. If the Orion Globe is the only ship standing up against the enemy (highly recommended), then when you skip your turn, the enemy will have nothing to shoot at because you have NOT decloaked yet. THEN you attack, and the Phasing Cloak and T.W.F combo will work. And if the enemy attacks first, then all is well, as long as your ships in that fight are cloaked.

If you do it right, you can sustain up to 10 rounds undiscovered, 10 turns to do whatever you want. Unless the enemy runs before they're all destroyed, but through my experiences, I doubt that they'll run before you finish mowing them down. Besides, you'll only have like 20-30 ships to worry about if they launch an attack anyways. There's PLEANTY of firepower for that.

A ship of this time has taken down all 100 ships by itself.

[The Mad Monk]

It's been a while since I built one, but I had a very high tech design that I called the Ballista First-Strike Battleship; all it had was the advanced thrusters, the phase cloak and/or the time warp facilitator (if there was room), and a miniaturized stellar converter.

The build made it faster than any AI battleship, and many cruisers, so it would be able to take the first shot. That shot would be used to strip the shielding off the larger enemy ships, and give fast boarding ships a decent chance to make the capture. It could not stand on its own in battle, but had its place in a large fleet.

[moomin]

I use to call my late game stellar-converter titan "Traktor", to celebrate the Soviet custom of demociding population when I turn their planets into so much rubble.

It fearful how fun it is to play really, really evil.

[Aqa]

vmxa1, I just had a sudden flashback, actually I designed once same kind of ship which was invisible all the time. Wasn't much of a fun tough...

[vmxa1]

Yeah, I do not use them. I found that you can take out anything you are likely to encounter with just the standard specials and lots of guns. One DS with the normal items is beyond most fleets I have encountered to destroy, while it can flaten anything it sees.

[moomin]

Yup. Against the AI, firepower is everything. No need to do anything tricky.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by moomin
Yup. Against the AI, firepower is everything. No need to do anything tricky.

True, it is just for fun that I try some unique things or "tricks". Not that you need them. You can (and I do) win at imp level with only battleships using disrupters.

[moomin]

I really hope they get Moo3 MP right. It would be so much fun going up against opposition that actually requires some serious trickery. Or imagine if they could get the AI up to that deviousness level...

[vmxa1]

I can not think of any games that don't rely on "bonus" items to make the game hard to beat. None seem to use a real clever AI. They tend to "know" the world or what you are doing and have more resources or start with extra units or the like to win. If you want a challenge to over come then play AoW2 at higher settings and suffer. I would like an AI that plays with what ever legal uses of the game it can come with, but no help from cheats or extra stuff. Make the AI play better as you go up the ladder, but that takes more code and time, so it is unlikely. It would require nore horse power than otherwise needed.

[moomin]

Well, I can live with a cheatin' AI, but I'd love to see a competently cheatin' AI for a change. Still, if they could solve that, why do games? That kind of talent can take way more well-paid and prestigeous work elsewhere.

[vmxa1]

It is not hard to do, it just takes more time and that is not allowed as it means money. I also suspect that it would make the games too hard to beat. It could be handled, given the resources.

[moomin]

I think writing up an AI that might counter human ingenuity is neigh-on impossible. Consider the time and effort spent to do decent chess...

[vmxa1]

I do not know about beating good players, but it could be improved enough to make normal not require any cheating or boost and maybe hard as well. At hard or impossible, it may become too large of a job. I would think a good player (designer of game) could anticipate most tactics. Like I said it would require more horsepower, look at the boxes that are used in beating top chess players. I do not think they need to beat the best players at normal setting, only normal players. At easy level you could choose a less aggressive path. I think easy should mean only brain dead players can lose. Currently that is not the case, look at AoW2, needed to add Beginners level as Easy was killing good players.

[Aqa]

Problem is that it's not the enough to anticipate most tactics, game designer should anticipate every tactic. As sooner or later, usually sooner, someone comes up with a tactic that can beat the AI every time. Good AI in games like MOO2 should be adaptive. How hard it is to make the game log what the player does("hmm, vmxa1 uses BS with disrupters and kills me, what if I make DS with disrupters and see what happens" or "hmm, this player likes to rush, maybe I should build up defences fast" or "hmm, this player techs up until it attacks and kills all, maybe I should attack first(with force)")? If you get what I mean. Like that super indestructible DS. What would you think if suddenly Psilons attacked you with it...

I think there's slight difference between 'Kasparov beating' chess and 'normal' games

BTW is AoW2 good?(off-topic, but...)