Favorite weapon families?

[RepoMan]

Well, I'm still in crunch mode at work, and can't take the time to play the living hell out of STUN : DG the way I want to. But I *can* take a couple of minutes to post some questions to this forum, so I can come back later & read a bunch of responses & time-lapse entertain myself that way

So: what are your favorite weapon families? Why? How do your preferred tactics interact with the weapon family or families you choose in the game? What are your least favorite weapon families, and why?

Clearly choosing the weapon family you focus on is one of the (possibly *the*) most long-lasting choices to make in any given game. I'm also sure there are a variety of viable options, but I'd like to hear from everyone about what they focus on and why it works (or doesn't work) for them.

Have at it, tacticians!
Cheers!
Rob

[kenobi]

I'd be interested to hear some of the STUN vets comment on this too. I'm just a noobie, but I have a tendency to jump right into wave weps and generally I won't build so much as a single freighter before I've got a couple of radiation waves on my starting scouts. Once my scouts have picked up a couple of specialist artifacts and enough experience to maneuver well enough, I'll choose any subsequent families based on the specialist types they found and usually abandon waves altogether in the Fusion age. This pretty much guarantees that no two games I play will ever be alike, and I enjoy molding an early game strategy around the randomness of the game as opposed to sticking with any set strategy as far as weapon research is concerned.

[phat_hamster]

I am new to STUN: DG as well, but so far I am partial to the standoffs and fighters. I had a starship I thought was pretty powerful get crushed by this combo before it could even get in range to fire. Ever since then I equip all my ships bigger than fighters w/ standoffs, defensive weapons (haven't decided which I like best yet), and fighters.

My question is how do you handle defense? Shields or armor? How many, if any, defensive weapons?

[Unknown_Enemy]

I would say stand-off weapons and beam weapons. That should do it nicely.
Then shield or armor :
for ships, both.
for cities, it depends on which stage are you. In late game, both, in early game I would say just city shields.

But other people may disagree.....

[RepoMan]

Does anyone like fighters? They seem pretty useless to me -- they fly around kind of inefficiently (they can't shoot as often as weapons on the ship itself), they take a bunch of slots, and they get blown up by point defense. Am I missing something? Does anyone like to make a go of them?

In my current game I got Fighter Specialist and Torpedo Specialist, but I couldn't bring myself to actually build either -- they both look pretty useless next to beams, standoffs, guns, etc. What am I missing?

Cheers!
Rob

[Unknown_Enemy]

Humm just finished my first game.

At the singularity age, my stand off weapons were completely useless.

So in thez last part of the war, I reverted to Beams and guns.

Did anyone worked with wave weapons ?

[madmax88]

I personally love to work with beam weapons, they can proove very powerful plus they can't be stopped by point-defense weapons.

The one downside is their slow recharge rate. You'd basically need two generators per beam so that you could fire to full power every turn.

I guess that's the beauty of it though, watching your ship struggle in combat... <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

[nweaver]

My personal preference is for wave weapons: Both waves and beams require NO ammo, which allows my ships to stay out longer, especially during the initial exploration phases.

Wave weapons don't have quite the crunch power (single shot damage) of beams, but the energy conversion is effectively the same. And since I always let the computer take care of the combat, waves tend to work very well because less maneuvering is required.

Secondarily, I like beams, and research the defensive lasers before I start spying (so it is the second cost weapon). Beams are GREAT on planets, the number 1 planetary defense weapon because of the incredible range.