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Moo2 Ion pulse cannons ?

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Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/20/97
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Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from
AI in a massive battle (100+ Titans ..) although I had much better ships
overall..

No matter, long as they get shields down, hv+con+af ion cannons will tear
any non-antaran ship apart - I've seen doom star go down from one shot with
8*ion cannon :-\

After a quick refit with surviving fleet (ditch couple of death rays and
install secondary ion cannon batteries) combat deteriorates into a
slug-fest, anybody can kill anybody..

--
/ OS/2 & Linux -- The freedom of choice! \
|-----------Another day in paradise.. And then I came down.-------------|
\ oll...@evitech.fi | Finger for PGP-key. /

RICHARD KENAN

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Jan 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/20/97
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Olli T T Mannisto (oll...@evitech.fi) wrote:
: Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from

: AI in a massive battle (100+ Titans ..) although I had much better ships
: overall..

Better shields.
: No matter, long as they get shields down, hv+con+af ion cannons will tear


: any non-antaran ship apart - I've seen doom star go down from one shot with
: 8*ion cannon :-\

Yep. IOn cannons are gross. You should see emissions guided missiles!

: After a quick refit with surviving fleet (ditch couple of death rays and


: install secondary ion cannon batteries) combat deteriorates into a
: slug-fest, anybody can kill anybody..

Pretty much. If the computer gets stuck on building lots of ships with
loads of ion cannons, you need to rush ahead and get the best shields
you can get. Also, hope an eel comes in and blockades a bunch of the
CP colonies. Or a huge Antaran fleet targets the CP colonies.

Just me.

--
Richard Kenan
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!eefacdk
Internet: eef...@prism.gatech.edu

David Ramsey

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Jan 20, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/20/97
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Olli T T Mannisto (oll...@evitech.fi) wrote:
: Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from
: AI in a massive battle (100+ Titans ..) although I had much better ships
: overall..
:
: No matter, long as they get shields down, hv+con+af ion cannons will tear
: any non-antaran ship apart - I've seen doom star go down from one shot with
: 8*ion cannon :-\
:
: After a quick refit with surviving fleet (ditch couple of death rays and
: install secondary ion cannon batteries) combat deteriorates into a
: slug-fest, anybody can kill anybody..
:

Why, oh why, are you using death rays anyway? Death rays are poor
values given their hit point to space ratio. Go read some of the posts
that have done analysis of MOO2 weapon. Next time, ditch the ion pulse
cannons too and load up those titans and doom stars with plasmas
(preferably heavy plasmas and structural analyzers). Your opponent
won't get a chance to shoot those shiny new mean ion pulse cannons if
his entire fleet has been reduced to cosmic dust and plasmas are the
fastest, most efficient way to do this.

: --

: / OS/2 & Linux -- The freedom of choice! \
: |-----------Another day in paradise.. And then I came down.-------------|
: \ oll...@evitech.fi | Finger for PGP-key. /

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John Lansford

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Jan 21, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/21/97
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oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto) wrote:

>Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from
>AI in a massive battle (100+ Titans ..) although I had much better ships
>overall..

Shooting first works wonders against those Ion Cannon armed alien
fleets.

>No matter, long as they get shields down, hv+con+af ion cannons will tear
>any non-antaran ship apart - I've seen doom star go down from one shot with
>8*ion cannon :-\

Not mine. I found that a combination of reflector and damper fields
reduces Ion Cannon damage to minimal results, such that I could have
battleships slug it out with Titans and come out the winner.

>After a quick refit with surviving fleet (ditch couple of death rays and
>install secondary ion cannon batteries) combat deteriorates into a
>slug-fest, anybody can kill anybody..

The Gnolam had a HUGE fleet made up of Titans and battleships, all
armed with Ion cannon and Phasors. I had the Death Ray, Ion Cannon,
and Plasma Cannon on my ships.

Using the DR and PC to knock down the Type VII shields they had, the
Ion Cannon proceeded to destroy a Titan with two cannon per each.
Their explosions knocked down the shield of the ship behind the
exploding one, so all I had to do was use two more IC's to kill that
one, etc, etc.

My ships ended up destroying between 3-10 ships each that way. POOF!
No more huge Gnolam fleet. Getting to fire first in every battle is
way too much of an advantage, IMO. It takes all the agonizing over
whether you can take out that big fleet or not, since with good ships
you can destroy a pile of them with your first shots.

John Lansford

Paul

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Jan 21, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/21/97
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You think going first with Ion cannons is bad?!?!?

What about stasis fields!?!? The weapon is BROKEN!!

Once a ship is put into stasis it can be destroyed without
any retaliatory(sp?) strikes. this is how:
Put ship 'A' into stasis. At beginning of next turn release it
from stasis and shoot everything you have at it. Before that
turn is over, put the same ship back into stasis so it's useless
during it's next turn, AND ALL TURNS thereafter.

Now you say to yourself, so what?, just kill the ship with stasis.
Wrong! A stasis ship built by a skillful human player is vile.
The ultimate incarnation is a big hull with a Sub-Space teleporter
and as many Stasis fields as you can fit onto it. Put one high
damaging weapon on it (Gauss, Disruptor, Phaser) and this sucker
will cause a great disruption in play balance. Two or more in a small
fleet and the fleet is unstoppable. The stasis ship teleport in front
of the opposing fleets best group of ships and put them in stasis
forever!

SOLUTION: Once released from stasis, that ship shouldn't be aloud
to be put into stasis until the following turn.

John Lansford <jo...@vnet.net> wrote in article
<32e4a1c8...@news.vnet.net>...

John Lansford

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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dra...@neosoft.com (David Ramsey) wrote:


>Why, oh why, are you using death rays anyway? Death rays are poor
>values given their hit point to space ratio. Go read some of the posts
>that have done analysis of MOO2 weapon. Next time, ditch the ion pulse
>cannons too and load up those titans and doom stars with plasmas
>(preferably heavy plasmas and structural analyzers). Your opponent
>won't get a chance to shoot those shiny new mean ion pulse cannons if
>his entire fleet has been reduced to cosmic dust and plasmas are the
>fastest, most efficient way to do this.

You think plasma cannon alone could defeat any opponent? Not the ones
I was fighting. The Gnolams had stolen Xentronium armor from me and
had refitted all their ships with it, and also had Type VII shields on
their Titans. Plasma cannon just did not destroy them fast enough;
even with Structural Analyzer on my Doom Stars it took five PC's to
destroy one of their Titans.

Once I refitted a bank of 10 Ion cannon on each of my Doom Stars,
though, the odds went over to my favor. Once their shields were down
through either Death Ray or PC attack, only two Ion Cannon were needed
to destroy their ships from drive overload. My Doom Stars went from
killing perhaps two ships per turn to killing nearly 8, mainly because
of the advantage of the Ion Cannon ignoring armor.

Plasma Cannon just took too much effort destroying the shields and
armor before the ship was killed compared to the Ion Cannon. In fact,
I found the Death Rays were unsurpassed in their ability to blast down
the facing shield, allowing the Ion Cannon to do their dirty work. The
PC's I used to crush damaged ships or ones that had more than one
shield down.

John Lansford

Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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John Lansford (jo...@vnet.net) wrote:
> Shooting first works wonders against those Ion Cannon armed alien
> fleets.

That's what I've found out, too.

The game is on it's best early on when you have to agonize over whether to
put in five five mass drivers in with an ecm-jammer instead of putting in
couple more without one, rather than in then end when you just put in all
your tools into a titan and whip AI's butt ..

> Not mine. I found that a combination of reflector and damper fields
> reduces Ion Cannon damage to minimal results, such that I could have

Only you can't research damper fields!

One thing I never understood is why you won't get tech from captured ships,
it *would* stand to reason, no ?

Would make suicide-tactics to get antaran ships national sport, too..

> No more huge Gnolam fleet. Getting to fire first in every battle is
> way too much of an advantage, IMO. It takes all the agonizing over
> whether you can take out that big fleet or not, since with good ships
> you can destroy a pile of them with your first shots.

That's my thought on this one, too.. Imho, the combat should be rethought,
taking into account the gravitational pull of the planet would be a plus
as well as the MOO method of "initiative for better computers" method..

Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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RICHARD KENAN (eef...@acmex.gatech.edu) wrote:
> : Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from
> Better shields.

Won't work, in later stage they can easily get class X shields down and the
first ship to blow will take shields down from couple others, etc..

> Yep. IOn cannons are gross. You should see emissions guided missiles!

Those at least you can shoot down, but it seems the only viable defence
against ion-cannon armed foe is to kill them all before they get to shoot ..
(so you need ion-cannons of your own..)

This game *needs* modified turn system for combat!

Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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David Ramsey (dra...@neosoft.com) wrote:
> that have done analysis of MOO2 weapon. Next time, ditch the ion pulse
> cannons too and load up those titans and doom stars with plasmas
> (preferably heavy plasmas and structural analyzers). Your opponent

Death ray works better in knocking down the shield facing your side than
plasma so the secondary barrage of ion cannons will take the ship out
despite any heavy xentorium armored reinforced structure the other guy might
have ..

That's what I've found out anyway - On my fourth game to moo2 now and
I've already won the game although I've not even got the plasma .. It seems
that the good old tactic of colonizing like crazy works as well as ever.
- Huge/hard/8 players is pretty easy if you don't get totally unreasonable
beginning..

Far as early-game designs go, AF+AP mass drivers give you gross firepower,
pair of destroyers can take out a battleship..

Btw, is there separate ending for assimilating everyone ?

Craig Wood

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto) wrote:

<snip>


>One thing I never understood is why you won't get tech from captured ships,
>it *would* stand to reason, no ?

>Would make suicide-tactics to get antaran ships national sport, too..

It is a national sport - lots of people love to capture antarans.

What you need to do to get tech from captured ships is scrap them,
while they are in orbit around one of your colonies. Scrapping an
Antaran at a colony may yield damper fields.

Craig Wood
burcity1@ix*netcom*com


Brandon

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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Olli T T Mannisto <oll...@evitech.fi> wrote in article
<5c56k0$c...@evitech.evitech.fi>...


> John Lansford (jo...@vnet.net) wrote:
> > Shooting first works wonders against those Ion Cannon armed alien
> > fleets.
>
> That's what I've found out, too.
>
> The game is on it's best early on when you have to agonize over whether
to
> put in five five mass drivers in with an ecm-jammer instead of putting in

> couple more without one, rather than in then end when you just put in all
> your tools into a titan and whip AI's butt ..

I agree. Unfortunatly, the way I play, I don't "get" to get in any scraps
early on, (shucks), my scraps come at the end, after the other really
strong guy has loped off everybody else. The game I just finished,
(Huge/8) had the Trilarians just go nuts. All of a sudden, they were
running around and destroying everybodies stuff. I was in a position I had
never been before. I started in the middle of the map, but there were a
TON of wormholes, and they all seemed to be near me, so spread in an "x"
pattern. I was within range of almost every planet fairly early. O
course, the reason I wasn't getting inot any fights COULD have been because
i was allied to everybody and had them all on ignore, unless I wanted to
trade tech...



> > Not mine. I found that a combination of reflector and damper fields
> > reduces Ion Cannon damage to minimal results, such that I could have
>
> Only you can't research damper fields!
>

> One thing I never understood is why you won't get tech from captured
ships,
> it *would* stand to reason, no ?

You do, if you scrap them at one of your planets.

> Would make suicide-tactics to get antaran ships national sport, too..

I try to do this, but the damn things blow up before I can get a crew
aboard...

> > No more huge Gnolam fleet. Getting to fire first in every battle is
> > way too much of an advantage, IMO. It takes all the agonizing over
> > whether you can take out that big fleet or not, since with good ships
> > you can destroy a pile of them with your first shots.
>
> That's my thought on this one, too.. Imho, the combat should be
rethought,
> taking into account the gravitational pull of the planet would be a plus
> as well as the MOO method of "initiative for better computers" method..

Then various techs, like the inertial stabilizer, could negate the
gravitational effect. I also think that Leaders hould count for initiative
purposes...

Brandon


Brandon

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
to


Paul <pa...@buffnet.net> wrote in article
<01bc07e0$38074300$6c7cf7cd@paul>...


> You think going first with Ion cannons is bad?!?!?
>
> What about stasis fields!?!? The weapon is BROKEN!!
>
> Once a ship is put into stasis it can be destroyed without
> any retaliatory(sp?) strikes. this is how:
> Put ship 'A' into stasis. At beginning of next turn release it
> from stasis and shoot everything you have at it. Before that
> turn is over, put the same ship back into stasis so it's useless
> during it's next turn, AND ALL TURNS thereafter.
>
> Now you say to yourself, so what?, just kill the ship with stasis.
> Wrong! A stasis ship built by a skillful human player is vile.
> The ultimate incarnation is a big hull with a Sub-Space teleporter
> and as many Stasis fields as you can fit onto it. Put one high
> damaging weapon on it (Gauss, Disruptor, Phaser) and this sucker
> will cause a great disruption in play balance. Two or more in a small
> fleet and the fleet is unstoppable. The stasis ship teleport in front
> of the opposing fleets best group of ships and put them in stasis
> forever!
>
> SOLUTION: Once released from stasis, that ship shouldn't be aloud
> to be put into stasis until the following turn.

Another solution would be a 2 turn limit on the amount of time any one
Stasis Field would function. That still leaves room for the people who
want to build a Titan or something with Stasis Fields and do just what you
described, but makes them utilize a little bit more space to do it. There
isn't much difference from that or using the Phasing Cloak/Timewarp
Facilitator/Black Hole Gen strategy...

Brandon


David Ramsey

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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Craig Wood (burc...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

: oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto) wrote:
:
: <snip>
: >One thing I never understood is why you won't get tech from captured ships,

: >it *would* stand to reason, no ?
:
: >Would make suicide-tactics to get antaran ships national sport, too..
:
: It is a national sport - lots of people love to capture antarans.

:
: What you need to do to get tech from captured ships is scrap them,
: while they are in orbit around one of your colonies. Scrapping an
: Antaran at a colony may yield damper fields.


So true! In my last game I had just got neutron blasters when the
Antarans decided to attack my homeworld. I rallied my ENTIRE fleet
(wasn't much this early in the game) to try to destroy the little SOBs
when lo and behold I *immobilized* one of the little buggers!
Everything I had went into boarding and capturing that guy and I got
it! Then I scrapped it and it turned into the best Antaran scrap haul
that I ever got - damper fields, xentronium armor, and moleculartronic
computers. Now this is when everyone else is using electronic or
optronic computers, titanium or tritanium armor and MAYBE class I
shields. Needless to say, I started refitting and I went on a serious
conquering roll. It ended up being one of the shorted games I've
played in a huge galaxy on hard.


:
: Craig Wood
: burcity1@ix*netcom*com
:

--
----------------------------------------------------------
"Where the choice is set between cowardice and violence,
I would advise violence. ...I would a thousand times
prefer violence than the emasculation of a whole race.
I prefer the use of arms in defense of honor rather than
remain the vile witness of dishonor." -- Gandhi
----------------------------------------------------------
dra...@neosoft.com


Timo Pietila

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
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John Lansford <jo...@vnet.net> wrote:

>You think plasma cannon alone could defeat any opponent? Not the ones
>I was fighting. The Gnolams had stolen Xentronium armor from me and
>had refitted all their ships with it, and also had Type VII shields on
>their Titans. Plasma cannon just did not destroy them fast enough;
>even with Structural Analyzer on my Doom Stars it took five PC's to
>destroy one of their Titans.

After you have achilles targetting unit ALL weapons ignore armor so you
will kill them *MUCH* faster with plasmas. Use DR/ion cannons until you
get achilles then switch to plasmas.

--
Timo Pietila
Email: tpie...@ratol.ratol.fi
or
Email: timo.p...@ratol.fi

Chris Brown

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Jan 22, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/22/97
to

On 20 Jan 1997 03:57:03 +0200, oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto)
wrote:

>Is there *any* viable defence against these beasts ? I got a kicking from


>AI in a massive battle (100+ Titans ..) although I had much better ships
>overall..
>

>No matter, long as they get shields down, hv+con+af ion cannons will tear
>any non-antaran ship apart - I've seen doom star go down from one shot with
>8*ion cannon :-\
>

>After a quick refit with surviving fleet (ditch couple of death rays and
>install secondary ion cannon batteries) combat deteriorates into a
>slug-fest, anybody can kill anybody..

Um...I've always found that destroying the enemy before they get a
shot off works for me. Take your battleship/titan/doom star, throw on
some heavy plasma (LOTS of HP), add the time-warper and the hyper-x,
and *BAM*, you've got a winner! They can do an obscene amount of
damage, and with the extra shots you get, can totally destroy AI
fleets...provided you get the first shot. I call this the "First
Strike" tactic...smash them so hard that they'll never find the
pieces, before they know that they're gonna be smashed. A few doom
stars like this will easily destroy 5 or even 10x their number in
enemy titans. Now *THAT*'s a defence. :)

Jonathan Hoof

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Jan 25, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/25/97
to

Reminds me of another combo:

Phasing cloak device
Time warp facilitator
Warp Disippitator

From what I understand, the 10 turn time limit of the phase cloak gets
reset every time it turns off. The Time Warp facilitator allows you to
recloak after you fire before the other guy goes. The Warp Disippitator
prevents him from leaving. A single frigate with these guys could destroy
a screenfull of Death Stars (assuming he could inflict more damage than
was repaired/turn). And they could *not* do anything about it!

The guy on the net who posted this idea also suggested Hyper-X Capacitors.
Since they fire twice in one turn (and you don't fire in the 2nd turn
while recloaking), you retain the firepower the time warp facilitator
gives ya.

-Jonathan Hoof
ho...@agora.rdrop.com
in WB: hoof

Paul (pa...@buffnet.net) wrote:
: You think going first with Ion cannons is bad?!?!?

Jonathan Hoof

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Jan 25, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/25/97
to

Add these to your plasma cannon ships:
Achilles targetting system
High Energy Focus

That should help!

I've played games where after hitting Physics IV, I could mount 180 hvy
plasma cannon on a doom star, and demolish 100 titans in a first strike
(xentronium armor, not hvy, nor reinforced hull) with only 7 doom stars..
They averaged about 10-20 plasma cannon/ship to kill.

Of course, they had all kinds of mods to beef up the firepower of those
cannon + the armor-bypassing capability of the Achilles Targetting System.

I use this when the computer gets huge (in ship size) and I don't feel
like restarting the game (I consider these ships overkill in a fair fight,
especially with 1st shot).

One game I played recently had the cat dudes carry Cloaking devices.
Their beam defense while cloaked was so effective that I could hardly hit
them. Basically allowed them to fire first, made for a more interesting
battle!

-Jonathan Hoof
ho...@agora.rdrop.com


John Lansford (jo...@vnet.net) wrote:
: dra...@neosoft.com (David Ramsey) wrote:


: >Why, oh why, are you using death rays anyway? Death rays are poor
: >values given their hit point to space ratio. Go read some of the posts

: >that have done analysis of MOO2 weapon. Next time, ditch the ion pulse


: >cannons too and load up those titans and doom stars with plasmas
: >(preferably heavy plasmas and structural analyzers). Your opponent

: >won't get a chance to shoot those shiny new mean ion pulse cannons if


: >his entire fleet has been reduced to cosmic dust and plasmas are the
: >fastest, most efficient way to do this.

: You think plasma cannon alone could defeat any opponent? Not the ones


: I was fighting. The Gnolams had stolen Xentronium armor from me and
: had refitted all their ships with it, and also had Type VII shields on
: their Titans. Plasma cannon just did not destroy them fast enough;
: even with Structural Analyzer on my Doom Stars it took five PC's to
: destroy one of their Titans.

: Once I refitted a bank of 10 Ion cannon on each of my Doom Stars,

Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 26, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/26/97
to

Craig Wood (burc...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> It is a national sport - lots of people love to capture antarans.
> What you need to do to get tech from captured ships is scrap them,
> while they are in orbit around one of your colonies. Scrapping an
> Antaran at a colony may yield damper fields.

So I have learned. I *did* read the doorstopper of a manual, but didn't
get this little tidbit..

I quess you need obscene numerical superiority to capture antarans as
they've got completely unreasonable advantage in personal combat..

So those neutron blasters are good for something after all :-)

Btw, have you ever got the AI to surrender ? I usually leave the other guy
one small and poor colony as a sort of reservate until I've managed to
steal all their tech and then I'll finish 'em for good .. But never once
they'll even consider peace. Weird, huh ?

Olli T T Mannisto

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Jan 26, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/26/97
to

Brandon (nav...@prodigy.net) wrote:

> > The game is on it's best early on when you have to agonize over whether
> to
> > put in five five mass drivers in with an ecm-jammer instead of putting in
> > couple more without one, rather than in then end when you just put in all
> > your tools into a titan and whip AI's butt ..
> I agree. Unfortunatly, the way I play, I don't "get" to get in any scraps
> early on, (shucks), my scraps come at the end, after the other really

Picking on your weakest neighbours is a straightforward way to win against
an AI opponents, but never, ever try that against human opponents - Those
buggers just seem to know when your grand fleet is away liberating the
gnolams ;-)

Anyway, Elerians make an interesting game, the feudalism tech dis-advantage
will *really* hurt you later on, so you'll have to go militaristic with
the cheap warships .. Also the defence/attack bonuses allow you to take out
battleships with destroyers.

Modified elerians with dictatoriship traded for low-g homeworld made for a
complete pushover of a game, as you don't need any troop transports with
telepathy. Quess I'm ready for Impossible now.

> Then various techs, like the inertial stabilizer, could negate the
> gravitational effect. I also think that Leaders hould count for initiative
> purposes...

I read that the initiative is being modified in the next update, but *not*
for ship-by-ship basis, which would be for the best..

John Dent

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Jan 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/30/97
to

On 26 Jan 1997 14:35:33 +0200, oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto)
wrote:

>Craig Wood (burc...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:


>> It is a national sport - lots of people love to capture antarans.
>> What you need to do to get tech from captured ships is scrap them,
>> while they are in orbit around one of your colonies. Scrapping an
>> Antaran at a colony may yield damper fields.
>
>So I have learned. I *did* read the doorstopper of a manual, but didn't
>get this little tidbit..
>
>I quess you need obscene numerical superiority to capture antarans as
>they've got completely unreasonable advantage in personal combat..
>
>So those neutron blasters are good for something after all :-)
>

I tried to perform a little experiment the other day where I
continuously blasted the little Antaran frigates that were attacking
my colonies with neutron blasters from my battleships. I continuously
did damage and when I scanned one of the ships that was about to blow,
the crew complement had not changed! Are Antarans immune to neutron
blasters? I know Death Rays will kill their crew. Any ideas?

-John

leo...@alw.nih.gov

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Jan 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/30/97
to comp#sys#ibm#pc...@newsgate.cisco.com

>I tried to perform a little experiment the other day where I
>continuously blasted the little Antaran frigates that were attacking
>my colonies with neutron blasters from my battleships. I continuously
>did damage and when I scanned one of the ships that was about to blow,
>the crew complement had not changed! Are Antarans immune to neutron
>blasters? I know Death Rays will kill their crew. Any ideas?

Yes. All Antaran ships have damper fields instead of shields. Damper
fields (IIRC) block three-quarters of all damage that their ship would
otherwise take. Neutron blasters each do, what, 4-12? or something
like that, so the maximum getting through should be 3 points of damage
per blaster. Each 5 points damage kills a crew, but I suspect that in
this case, the fraction must be rounded down.

You might try experimenting with heavy neutron blasters. Depending on
how the rounding goes when the 6-18 gets quartered, you might or might
not be able to get 5 points and see a crew member die. Let me know if
this works, so I know whether to use it for early Antaran capture
ships.

-Leonard


Alan Kohler

unread,
Jan 30, 1997, 3:00:00 AM1/30/97
to

In article <32f0bf0...@news.widomaker.com>, dm...@widomaker.com says...

>
>On 26 Jan 1997 14:35:33 +0200, oll...@evitech.fi (Olli T T Mannisto)
>wrote:
>
>>Craig Wood (burc...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>>> It is a national sport - lots of people love to capture antarans.
>>> What you need to do to get tech from captured ships is scrap them,
>>> while they are in orbit around one of your colonies. Scrapping an
>>> Antaran at a colony may yield damper fields.
>>
>>So I have learned. I *did* read the doorstopper of a manual, but didn't
>>get this little tidbit..
>>
>>I quess you need obscene numerical superiority to capture antarans as
>>they've got completely unreasonable advantage in personal combat..
>>
>>So those neutron blasters are good for something after all :-)
>>
>
>I tried to perform a little experiment the other day where I
>continuously blasted the little Antaran frigates that were attacking
>my colonies with neutron blasters from my battleships. I continuously
>did damage and when I scanned one of the ships that was about to blow,
>the crew complement had not changed! Are Antarans immune to neutron
>blasters? I know Death Rays will kill their crew. Any ideas?

I don't think so, but it's damned hard to use them against antarans. IIRC ,
NBs do 3-15 points, and kill one marine for every 5 points that get through
the shield. Dampers cut this to 1/4, so, if I'm correct in assuming that the
accounting for how many marines dies does not keep and fractions (which seems
to be the case), you'll need heavy mounts at close range to even have a CHANCE
of toasting marines on an antaran ship (do the math - you need to do 20 points
in one shot to kill a marine on a ship with a damper field, which you MIGHT be
able to do with a heavy mount). Your best bet (and this works) is to make
titan class ships dedicated to the capture role. A large squad of Heavy NBs
(or once you have them, death reays, hv optional - it's a interesting
challenge balancing your firepower so you scrag the marines and leave the ship
intact) and assault shuttles (much better than tranporters and troop pods,
IMO, since you typically get more marines aboard that way and damper fields
don't kill the boarding marines.)
--
Alan D Kohler
hwk...@poky.srv.net
"Villains, I say to you now, knock off all that evil!" - the Tick


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