Playing on Strategic?

Discussion on how to play against other humans.
xThomas
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Playing on Strategic?

Postby xThomas » Thu Mar 26, 2015 12:05 am

Tactical is tedious and the AI just dies. Everything dies. I've switched to playing on Strategic but I clearly don't know what I'm doing on the military side. I've read that beams, shields and ecm jammers are more important, and bb's are best here. Missiles suck, unlike tactical, computers less important (maybe?). Starbases are better and Antarans are more dangerous.

Mind you that's what I've read on the civ forums that are also on different versions than whatever im on.
moooooooooo!!!!!

xThomas
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby xThomas » Fri Apr 03, 2015 3:47 am

Image

my armament

Trit armor, neutron blasters, nukes, interceptors inert stabilizers, ecm jammers

3 enemy frigates roast my whole fleet. Out of curiosity i decided to get Anti Matter Torps from the Psilons who are in this game on the auto save, and this time 2 Titans 1 Cruiser and 1 Frigate survived (along with the planetary stuff)

earlier a single frigate was sent, and I stopped it with 9 frigates, missile base, fighter garrison, and a battle station! I never get to build those but Psilons are in the game, plus it's Strategic! Funny, because i would stomp Antarans in tactical combat :D
moooooooooo!!!!!

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Rocco
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Rocco » Fri Apr 03, 2015 4:18 am

I play strategic rarely coz I like the shipbuilding so much, although perhaps strategic play is more 'fair'. I thought in strategic game interceptors are not nearly as great as in tactical games. Also at T192 you really should be a Zortium armor minimum and a shield would be nice :)

xThomas
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby xThomas » Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:47 am

i play on strategic because tactical combat is far too tedious when you have a lot of ships.
moooooooooo!!!!!

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Darza
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Darza » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:50 pm

Play battles on auto, its more fair to AI than strategic (optionally skip ship design entirely to make it even more fair).

As far i got Interceptors are not used in strategic at all, just another honeypot tech pick from many there.

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Rocco
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Rocco » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:21 am

Have been studying non-tactical game mode over the last few days.
Some interesting facts:

Tech Tree:
Some technologies that are in the tech tree are not used at all:
Anti-Missile Rockets
Energy Absorber
Security Stations (no boarding/raiding)
Transporters (no boarding/raiding)
Warp Dissipator (ships never retreat from combat)

Warp Interdictor should have been IN the tech tree, but it is not.
I think they have probably mixed this tech up with the Warp Dissipator.

Ship Design - Weapons
Every Ship class has a set design:
Frigate (FF): 1 beam weapon of your best type
Destroyer (DD): 2 beam weapons of your best type
Cruiser (CA): 2 beams, 1 missile/torpedo, 2 bombs
Battleship (BB): 4 beams, 2 missiles/torpedoes, 5 bombs and 1 special weapon
Titan (TT): 6 beams, 4 missiles/torps, 10 bombs, 3 specials
Doom Star (DS): 10 beams, 10 missiles/torps, 25 bombs, 5 specials.

The concept of miniaturization does not exist in strategic.
Megafluxers (contrary to description which is for tactical games) will increase only the number of beams by 50% and FF will stay at 1 beam.

Ship Design - Specials
Each ship can have 5-6 specials fitted. There will be no more specials used even if in your ship info sometimes more are shown! (bugs). A higher special will replace the previous one from the group.

Special Groups:
1. battle scanner - rangemaster unit - achilles targeting unit
2. high energy focus - hyper-x capacitator - structural analyzer - time warp facilitator
3. ecm-jammer - multi-wave jammer - lightning field - wide area jammer
4. inertial stabilizer - displacement device - inertial nullifier
5. hard shields (I am not sure why multi-phased shields is not in the game)
6. fast missile racks (sometimes i see them on #6 and sometimes i don't)

Keep this in mind with your research. Example: If you invent a multi-wave ecm jammer while you already have the lightning field, the jammer will not be used and it was a waste of research. In this specific example, I think the placement of MW Jammer and Lighning Field should have been swapped.

The addition of Shields does not reduce the # weapons or specials on your ship as 'ship space' as it is used in tactical does not exist. There are only fixed design sets.

Ships Armor & Structure:
When you invent new armor, like Tritanium or Zortium, only the ARMOR will increase and Structure stays the same. Initially I thought this must be a bug, but it might just be a balance desicion.

Base structure/armor:
FF 4/4
DD 15/10
CA 25/30
BB 40/50
TT 80/80
DS 300/150
SB 100/60
BS 200/90
SF 500/120

What is in your ships? / Ship Info:
This is one confusing area in strategic game mode.
You can see your ship design in a number of places:
- In the right hand column of the colony build screen (the ship classes)
- In the colony build queue
- by right clicking on a ship you get the ship info window
ALL these informations can be incorrect and inconsistent with each other.
Sometimes they are correct, it depends. The game is bugged here.
Sometimes you will see different ship stats for each ship of 1 ship class. But in combat there are no 'different ships': There is only 1 design per ship class. so if you have 6 cruisers in combat, these will all be of the same design.

As far as I have been able to test, these bugs do not influence the actual combat resolve. I also would not expect this to have influence as in MOO2 exe the info and actual combat data is seperated. The most accurate / reliable information you get, is when you right click on a ship to see the ship info in the turn that the new ship is completed and goes into orbit.

Ships' Cost
Ships have a fixed cost, no matter what is their design and even if you have more beams thanks to megafluxers. The cost is 1.5x the cost of the tactical base ship cost. For unmodded MOO2:
FF: 30
DD: 105
CA: 375
BB: 900
TT: 2250
DS: 5000-6000*
* Doom Star has variation in its cost, I don't know why that is but assume it is a bug.

Ship Combat (edited)
In strategic combat, there is no 'flight time', so missiles hit when they are fired.
Capturing ships is not possible in strategic games and neither is raiding.
This is why Assault Shuttles are not in the strategic tech tree.
There are no Point Defense or Heavy Mount weapons, only standard mounts.
Ships have no combat speed, it is 0.
Ships get a base beam defense that is different from tactical:
(in tactical it is 5x combat speed)
FF: 50
DD: 40
CA: 30
BB: 25
TT: 20
DS: 15
Platforms: -10
Last edited by Rocco on Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:02 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Rocco
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Rocco » Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:28 am

Upon closer look at the OCL file, it seems that the last two columns of the Specials section give a clue that Special Systems for Strategic Ship Design might yet be organized somewhat differently:

Special Groups:
1. battle scanner - rangemaster unit - achilles targeting unit
2. high energy focus - hyper-x capacitator - structural analyzer
3. inertial stabilizer - inertial nullifier
4. ecm-jammer - multi-wave jammer - lightning field - wide area jammer
5. fast missile racks
6. displacement device
7. time warp facilitator

The list confirms the absence of Energy Absorber, Security Stations and Transporters.
Surprisingly, Hard Shields are not used in this list at all.

Edit: I think devs have kept hard shields in the tree to prevent an empty research field...

Edit2: I just finished a few test battles in a Nebula. Ships did not have Hard Shields and Shields still functioned in the Nebula. A higher class shield caused less ships to be lost in battle but the presence of Hard Shields did not change anything. This just confirms once more that ship info screens are bugged; Hard Shields are visible as a special but are not used at all in combat resolve.

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Dukinson
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Dukinson » Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:59 pm

Ah finally strategic brothers! Amen to the tedium and ease of obliterating entire fleets of ships with my 2 well designed battleships.

One thing to keep in mind is the value of modules in strategic. They don't take up space. Also, the longer you keep a ship alive, the more modules its veteran crew will add to the vessel! It's kinda silly but you can have so many they scroll off the info box. Although if you ask Rocco he believes there is a 7 module limit.

Another point worth mentioning is there is no miniaturization so the newest technology is always the best. I like that. Before I would keep my silly heavy mount mass drivers until I had disruptors or something ridiculous because I could have so many more.

Also in tactical, no missile ship abuse! You must win "fair and square" with ships of a similar design template. Be sure to analyze your enemies tech before large or close battles to see where they are, you can loose a fleet in the blink of an eye if they sneak in a new armor tech, which is the most impactful tech in strategic. Rush for them fast. There's a lot more to strategic, I'll add on later.
Last edited by Dukinson on Sat Aug 15, 2015 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A cob of corn in every pot, an outpost ship with fuel tanks in every garage, and two command points for every colony!

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Dukinson
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Dukinson » Sat Aug 15, 2015 1:10 pm

Play battles on auto, its more fair to AI than strategic (optionally skip ship design entirely to make it even more fair).

As far i got Interceptors are not used in strategic at all, just another honeypot tech pick from many there.
Fighters are used, but it depends on what other secondary weapons you have. The autodesign will pick the most powerful tech you have for influencing the battle. Ofcourse if you have some kind of leader like the Legendary Fighter Pilot, you may miss fighters. Heavy fighters will stay awhile though.
A cob of corn in every pot, an outpost ship with fuel tanks in every garage, and two command points for every colony!

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Darza
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Darza » Sat Aug 15, 2015 5:26 pm

Yes, i got it wrong, they are indeed appear on a ships. But i never had dug strategic much, and have no idea if they are doing something worthy there or no.

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Rocco
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Rocco » Sun Aug 16, 2015 8:20 am

...if they are doing something worthy there or no.
Just run a hotseat to look more closely at fighters;

1. First created two equal fleets, consisting of 3 FF, 3 DD, 3 CA and pitch them against each other with only the basic average game technology to observe / get a feel for the randomness involved in strategic. Note that in such a fleet no ship will have a special weapon (only from BB up). As expected either party could win sometimes and at the winner's side usually 1 or 2 ships remained. If in this fleet Fast Missile Racks is present at one side, it is virtually indetectable in combat results. (only the Cruiser has 1 missile on board)

2. Enlarging fleet by adding 3 BB on each side. A BB has 2 missiles and 1 special. If one side has FMR, the effect is still not clearly visible. If one side has Merculite missile, it has a very clear effect with win % increasing and more vessels survive the fight. The first combat where I gave one side the interceptor, the outcome was that nobody won the fight :) Even with Bomber and Heavy Fighter, I could not observe a clear advantage for the fleet with this special, casting some doubts about its use.

3. Adding 3 Titans on each side changes the story. A Titan has 3 specials. Thus the side that has Interceptors in his fleet will have a total of 12 fighters (3 from BB and 9 from TT). In this case win chance becomes ~80-90% and regularly 2 Titans (or even more ships) survive the fight.
Last edited by Rocco on Sun Aug 16, 2015 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Darza
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Darza » Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:28 am

5. hard shields (I am not sure why multi-phased shields is not in the game)
Most likely there is no such thing as "Shield HP".

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Rocco
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Blitzing in Strategic

Postby Rocco » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:50 am

So what if you want to blitz in Strategic mode. (I have never done it)
What fleet do you need to take down a lone Star Base?
Run some fun test combats:
* Only starting techs of laser, nuke, and nuke bomb + standard tit armor.
* Green crew unless stated otherwise.

Remember ships stats:
FF - 1 beam - 4 structure /4 armor - 30 PP
DD - 2 beams - 15/12 - 105 PP
CA - 2 beams, 1 missile, 2 bombs - 25/30 - 375 PP
BB - 4 beams, 2 missiles, 5 bombs - 40/50 - 900 PP

Started safely with 2 Battleships (green crew) vs 1 Star Base (assume it is reg crew like in tactical):
Mostly this is a win, whereby 1 BB is lost.
I did have 1 'draw' in 10 attacks. where 2 BB's are lost and the SB too is lost.
However, if the SB reaches 1 higher crew level of veteran, I also observed some cases of losing both BB while SB survives.

Replacing 1 BB for 2 CA gives same good chances to win.
Going to the fight with 1 BB + 1 CA + 1 DD is a hopeless scenario :)
1 BB + 1 CA + 2 DD + 2 FF is a good fleet to win against the Star Base, but some ships will be lost.
1 BB + 0 CA + 3 DD + 2 FF is not enough and very frequent losses with this fleet.

Then, I am interested if you can win the fight with a "2 CA + something" fleet:
I did get some wins with 2 CA + 3 DD + 2 FF, but chance is low and there a frequently losses or draws.
As soon as SB gets a higher level crew experience, you can forget it all together.
If however SB is still reg. and your fleet is reg. too, then it is a somewhat more reliable win with 2 CA + 3 DD + 3 FF.
But in a real game, I doubt I would play this, coz it is high risk of losing many ships, and you can forget about a decent blitz time altogether.

To have less dependence on SB crew experience level, a good fleet is:
3 CA + 3 DD + 3 FF. Cost of this fleet is 1530 PP, which compares favourably to the 1800 PP of two BB's
Offcourse command points are 18 versus 8 from 2 BB, so money will be an issue with this fleet.
As said, with 2 BB fight it is common to lose 1 BB, which costs 900 PP.
The 3x CA,DD,FF fleet can lose between 240 - 1125 PP, and on average losses seem to be somewhat lower than 900 PP.

Strategic puts some interesting challenge for a Blitz, mainly the absence of retreat option.
In tactical if you arrive with some minimum nuke-boats, if defender suddenly has ECM or some other new tech, you can just retreat and come back with an extra CA. In Strategic, if an opponent completes a tech upon your arrival or his crew level goes up by one, suddenly you can lose much more ships, or worse even the whole fleet can be lost.

Also, as a zero-loss combat does not happen often at all, throughout the entire game you must keep spending resources on building ships to keep the minimum fleet in tact.

Note that I haven't tested exhaustively, could be some inaccuracy due to low number test runs, but I think this gives some first indication of fleet value in strategic.

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Darza
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Re: Blitzing in Strategic

Postby Darza » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:16 am

.
Image

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Rocco
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Re: Playing on Strategic?

Postby Rocco » Tue Aug 18, 2015 10:24 am

hehehh beautiful pic ... 2 BB = 18 spies


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