The Orion Nebula

I start this blog with a view to people express their opinion on this subject.
Here is brief description of the tactics: antmatter torpedoes have the basic speed of 18 and it cannot be shot down as you know. You put 1 unit of antimatter torpedo in the first row and in the rest rows you put missiles (as you guess, some might be with emg modification). Missiles with fast mod at ion drive level have exactly the same speed of 18 and move parallel with antimatter torpedoes, which shrouds them from being shot from distance. Only point defense in automatic regime can target the aproaching missiles. Consequently if pd beams are not enough missiles go through and hit the ship, which can blow up, if the missiles had emg. This tactics is based on the fact that you can't target/shoot missiles with beams, while they move synchronously with antimatter torpedo.
So my question is: is this a game bug or a feature/good tactical finding?
You are welcome to speak out your position or just vote anonymously.

Should be banned. Everyone will do it, and anything that makes moo less predictable is a BAD thing.

Thank you for your answer, Red. I want to collect everybody's opinion here, so we unitely come to certain fixed decision.

PS. I leave this poll unaswered myself, because I don't have any position on this, but I'm inclined to agree with you that everything unpredictable is rather bad.

Guess i worded that backwards. Predictable is bad

Cheating its a game Xploit.

and if u xploit any game in a international competion like
world cyber games ... u get disqualified.

and yes the game will become silly as every1 will just do it .

It's a game bug and I would not play again with anyone who will use it.

There are many nice tactics in moo2. This is just one of it. It makes game cool. Who said the game will only go one way strategy? Its funny to discover and use something special. Not funny for guy who lost but he should deal with it instead of calling it a cheating.

USE ur brain people!

My personal best is the hand of death. Suicidal strategy to gain higher goal on the battlefield. Its like a chess thing: u loose the queen to make check mate

Cheers

Suppose a fleet consisting of ships, exploiting the trick described. Beam weapon ships would in turn be forced to rely more heavily on pd weapons, as this would be their only measure of defense vs such a fleet (besides retreating).

I think the main question here is whether we found an unbeatable tactics. Meaning that a ship design exploiting this trick, would result in an undefeatable fleet.

This is not much different than the reasons for banning a race combination of Unification/Tolerant.

Besides game modifications such as VDC, I've come to realize that the only real effective measure we have against strategies considered so powerful that if allowed would be a forced choice in order to be able to compete.

(Thats what I think at least)

Regards

Hi everyone. Quite interesting thread we have here, so my thoughts about it:

I agree with PK – everything is evolving and it is for better. So we need to adjust.
But at the same time I agree with Achiraaz: if this feature comparable in power with UniTol it is quite a disaster for original MoO2.

But I’m happy that this new tactic has been found. Why? Because I know the way how to overcome it.
I think it is not going to work in ORIGINAL MoO2 (because Original is too repetitive and inflexible) and I don’t know will it work in VDC (I have not seen its last build). But what I know for sure that going to work in EXPa modification.

Thank you very much guys! EXPa just now has achieved new edge. And it’s really feels good to know that your creation surpassed the original. Indeed!

2C'G~
We talk about original moo now, no mod is concerned. So in original moo this tactics seems to be unbeatable (on the first glance of course).
The main problem here is to acknowledge whether it is bug or not. Many people consider it a bug, that you can't target missiles normally. Hence if it is bug indeed the conclusion is clear - it should be fixed or banned.
If its not a bug, but rather a feature, then theoretically no one should be indignant if it is used by someone (unless preliminary agreed for banning it).
I want to point out adittionally that it's not necessary to have exactly the ship design I described above or ion drive speed to be able to utilize this feature (or exploit this bug if you like). It is easy to calculate where antimater torp will cross misslies and use it to your advantage. This issue in my opinion has a pure technical character. The key is to understand if it is bug or not
To all:
Thak you for your consideration.

We talk about original moo now, no mod is concered

Strange, I didn’t see any restrictions in the name of this thread. I think any MoO2 modification can be heavily influenced by that new tactic, so my concern about modifications is quite fair.

This issue in my opinion has a pure technical character. The key is to understand if it is bug or not

The key is to understand is it add to the Game or not and CAN you adjust to it (if it could be done of course).
My opinion about those questions you can find earlier in this thread.

Have a nice day.

Torpedo 'shielding' isn't unbeatable, merely annoying.

Can be defeated by the following means:

• PD weapons (as previously mentioned)
  Pulsars or Spatial Compressors fired at something nearby
  AM Rockets
  'Sacrificed' or otherwise exploding ships

List is not exhaustive nor complete in any way, your statutory rights are not affected....

Also, c'g~
Quit it with advertising your pet mod in every thread you post in.

Also, c'g~
Quit it with advertising your pet mod in every thread you post in.

Yea Tifi, you got me here.

BTW it's called EXPa Pro

This really seems to be a bug. It seems to be an interface bug, so the best thing to do could be see if AI players can target the missiles. If they can you're sure it is a bug of the interface.

Interesting question.
I found myself thinking to select all of your vote choices, at some point.
The answers above all seem right too.
To the question; Is it a bug?
Yes.
I can't believe the designers intented us not be able to choose which target, when targets overlap, we want to fire at.

To the question; Is it a good tactical finding?
Yes.
I have never tried this, and do want to as soon as my LAN is back up.
It does keep missiles in play for longer. Many people simply switch to beams at some point, and don't go back.
Also, I don't know if you have tried this tactic, or basing it on numbers in the game. I did read in the manual (not that it is always correct ) that, "The anti-matter type travels at speed 20."
So, I am not sure these two items would completely overlap the entire time they are in transient to their target.

To the question; Should it be banned?
No.
Because there are so many ways to counter this, that the game won't be lost on a single battle.

How to counter this?
Tifi named some.
Add Lightning Field, High Beam Def (vs. the torp anyway), Displac Dev,
or just using straight tactics.
Missile ships lose initative vs beam ships, and have a limited supply of ammo.
The Beam ship player needs to run his WarpDiss ship to a corner, and wait for the missiles.
Then have his Stasis ship freeze the target ship of the missles.
All go splat, missile ships are now out of ammo (if using Fast Missile Racks) and easy pickings for the Beam ships.
If the Stasis using ship is lucky enough to have phase cloak, it cannot be targeted by the missiles, so, this tactic won't be invulnrable forever.

The one thing about MOO2 is that for every tactic there is a counter measure, if one has the time...