The Orion Nebula

The thing is to take a monster as early as possible. Teching to mirv nukes and building a bb is not a big deal . But try to kill it in t 50, 40, or even 25 !!!

Cab, if you wish to kill a hydra as early as possible, how do you go about it?

6 ffs with battlepods and interceptors turn 25-30...I do this quite often with demo lith arti when I find a hydra at start.

He he ...listen to Masta Siron. I know that tactics from him ...4 ff kill amoeba, 6 - hydra, 8 (better 9)- crystal. Rest is out of range of fighters. So with demolith arti it is possible to settle a monster with your 1 st cship before t 30

I faild vs crystal with 8 FFs and I think it´s even possible to fail with 9 ... !

But now I use 9 FFs, in hope never need to go up to 10 !

Ok I used warlord racepick in this and it may be required

this is a very exact battle order needed to guarantee kill I am going to use destroyers numbered 1-4 with 1 being the furthest to top of screen and 4 closest to bottom as they appear at beginning of combat.

4 destroyers (starting average tech) w/ 6x2 nukes kills amoeba

first turn amoeba moves towards you but doesn't fire
#1 moves to the corner at the front top of the amoeba and fires nukes
#2 moves to the rear top corner of amoeba and fires nukes then
continues as far as possible to rear of amoeba
#3 fires nukes then moves to the lowest square allowed such that the
ship has moved exactly its length towards the amoeba
#4 moves to lower rear corner of amoeba fires nukes and continues as
far as possible to the rear of the amoeba

second turn the amoeba should move and attack destroyer #3 and get hit by its missiles with warlord this destroyer survived 1/2 the time
#3 if alive fires missiles then selfdestructs
#1,2,4 fire missiles and move within 1 turn range of amoeba

amoeba will almost certainly show its combat speed to be 2 at this point

self destruct remaining ships as neccesary till it dies

6 of 6 tries this killed amoeba 4 times i had 1 ship remaining, other 2 last ship killed amoeba with its self destruct.


Secondly if you chose the transdimensional race pick (+4 combat speed),
warlord, and +50 defense, and +50 attack. (exactly 20 picks you get nothing else) you can kill an amoeba, or space crystal with a single frigate equipped with a heavy mount laser cannon (rear extended mount) i think. I tested it long enough that you can run away and snipe them forever, the only question is does the combat automatically end before you finish destroying them. You may need a destroyer for a couple extra lasers. I doubt this will ever be used do to the extreme of race picks, but augmented engines could replace transdimensional and space academy replace warlord or augment it. Just reqires a bit more tech then.

Look at the first post (by Alex) Jaded Tortoise.His methode is far more effective and no extra warpicks are needed. But thanks for posting.

The laser-amoeba tactic wasnt mentioned here so far IIRC but of course it also well known and popular. But I think most players are still unaware of the 20shot nukes tactic.

Laser seems no good choice when u want to settle asap. But it is useful to know this tactic. When you gonna attack with WL and you "heard" by gnn reports that your opponent had only scouted an amoeba you can move the DDs without any scouts in front. Actually you dont need hv beam. Normal beam works too when you hit wait the first round...and you can shoot backwards...a few dds should kill the amoeba easily then.

Ah your right his is better less ships (via command points) still no tech.

I had just remembered his saying after some tech by the time I gotdone reading the thread but they were afacs and bios which are unrelated to combat. I sometimes try for colonies on monster planets by turn 15 if I find an amoeba I think I might even be able to pull off a space crystal that early, if I used my colony ship to make a seperate colony first and had warlord for the extra 2 command points otherwise I'd run out of cash too fast. I think the best I've pulled on one of them so far is turn 25ish. Unfortunately with some race picks its hard to get early fast teching (Fuedalism) so grabbing one with no tech can be important.