What's Up With the Stupid Area Weapons?

[Harmonious Hegemony]

So I'm watching a pirate frigate attack the large space station, defensive base and small fleet at my homeworld. A suicide mission that only an AI would try. Just as he approaches, the base station lets rip with a Devastator Pulse, or some such that nukes all of the civilian ships in the vicinity and puts half my fleet in dry dock. I don't mind the civilian ships so much, since they will just purchase new ones from me ($$), but my fleet was damaged as much as if I were attacked by several cruisers. All because a stupid pirate frigate decided to suicide. Is there any good use for area weapons? It seems that they don't belong on space stations, you can't put them on ships that will be part of a fleet, and if you decide to put it on some lone wolf automated ships you are just as likely to nuke your own mining station when it attacks the pirate that is trying to do exactly that.

[Data]

Totally agreeing with you and several of us have requested that they should be refined. Even as they are, there are players like Shark for example that found good uses for them: equip them on stations that you give to your enemies or on suicide runs of your own, etc.
But overall, they are to risky as they can start diplomatic incidents from nothing.

[ehsumrell1]

If your construction tech level is where you can build capital size ships, I
like to build single, long-range capital ships armed with the Devastator Pulse.
Strategy wise, I set the ship to retreat when shields are at 50% or less. I send
the ship deep into enemy territory to ascertain system and planet strengths and
weaknesses and ship counts. Set on auto, if it's attacked, it can do quite a bit
of collateral damage before its shields drop to 50% or less and it tries to retreat.
In addition, I like to place the Devastator Pulse on all of my deep space Monitoring
Bases as well.

But I do agree that it would be a fantastic weapon if there was some
way to direct its damage to just enemy vessels only.

[J HG T]

We concur. Currently their best use, as ehsumrell pointed, is in large "suicide ships" that you can set loose on lightly defended enemy systems and fleets.

I think the area weapons should just work like Vertixes in SR2, targeting hostiles only.

[Data]

*starts to talk than realizes he ranted enough on this, then starts again and wisely decides to let it go*


but it's hard, darn it, I really want to get my rapid pirate ship out of the hangar and go check what my probes uncovered on the dominator held systems - beautiful camouflage.

[Harmonious Hegemony]

OK. I can see I'm not alone on this. I tried the lone wolf capital ship and it worked pretty well behind the lines. I could do a lot of damage in a system with it, but it seemed to require constant attention if I wanted to get maximum damage from it before it suicided.

[Data]

Yap, that's the nastiest effect of it....to have to micro it until you get bored. Really hoping for the vertixes....I mean the proper AOE weaponry.

[Harmonious Hegemony]

So I tried the strategy suggested by ehsumrell and it worked pretty well. I sent in a couple of these to soften up the victim's home planet before actually sending in my invasion fleet (with the troops). They did a really good job of generally turning the defending ships and bases into space debris. They don't always make it out though. I would feel a little better about this as a strategy if we could make them drones. The Hab Module kinda implies that they have crews . . .

[Data]

Yap, atm every ship requires hab modules and life support...it's dependent on the size of the ship not the presence of actual life. Having drones is a good idea but even now if you care about the roleplay factor you can imagine that the ship is actually unmanned and those modules are put there to fool the enemy [;)]

[Harmonious Hegemony]

I'll have to try really hard to imagine that [;)]

[Data]

you are a worthy leader of your people.....lead them well and keep them safe

[Harmonious Hegemony]

I am new to DW from playing SE5 for a long, long time. One thing that I liked about the tech tree in SE5 was that you could get to a point where you could install a Master Computer into your ships instead of Crew Quarters and Life Support. I felt a lot better sending those ships into suicide situations knowing that they were just machines.

[Data]

Sounds cool, never got into SE but it sounds similar to MOO2. Having Master Computer into your ships instead of Crew Quarters and Life Support is a great idea, maybe we should request this for DW as well.

[Kalthaniell]

ORIGINAL: Data

Sounds cool, never got into SE but it sounds similar to MOO2. Having Master Computer into your ships instead of Crew Quarters and Life Support is a great idea, maybe we should request this for DW as well.

I played SE5 a lot before DW and I must say that technology-wise a lot could be imported to DW. For example weapon mounts, ability to further increase reaserch in one weapon kind (long range, point blank etc)and improving ground troops combat abilities and effectiveness.
In regard to the main topic of the discussion - the suicide pirate frigate- I think it was very smart move on the part of the AI. Losing one ship at the cost of damaging several larger vessels. Probably it was accidental, rather than scripted event but it took advantage of flaw in most planetary bases designs. I never put area weapons in my space ports or defensive bases. They damage my own ships much more than the enemies.

[Data]

For example weapon mounts, ability to further increase reaserch in one weapon kind (long range, point blank etc)and improving ground troops combat abilities and effectiveness.

good thing you stopped there, the mooniac in me was beginning to drool. The day we'll have these things in DW I'll play it MOO2 style, six hours per session [:)]
me wants tactics

[Harmonious Hegemony]

If the AI were as smart as Kalthaniell is suggesting we would all be in trouble . . .
I think his suggestion about keeping Area Weapons out of space ports is spot on. Can you imagine a space port and 3 defensive bases, all with area weapons, letting loose on each other? What a mess!

[Data]

What a beautiful mess [:D]

[Wicky]

Have you equipped all your freighters with 1 area weapon, wait until 40 of them have docked at an alien spaceport, then declare war?

[Bingeling]

In general it seems like a good idea to stack defensive bases close to the space port, which again is on top of the planet. This makes sure the defensive base can fire at any enemy no matter which direction the enemy approaches the planet from.

Once both defensive base and space port got devastator pulses, this is not such a great idea anymore...

[Data]

Anyone wants an MD sample from Ender's Game? Also known as the little doctor [:)]