dinosaur3

Join Date 03/2007

Ship Design Questions - Shields

What is economical for defense

I am playing around with the game and I am ready to make a serious study of ship design to optomize bang-for-the-buck. I am dividing my ships into groups with particular missions in mind. For example, my earliest ships will be called the Robin class, made from a Small hull with Miniturization tech II or better. Initially they will be used for planet defense and later they will be sent as attacking units against enemy planets. These will have a maximum maintenance cost of $5.

The second group will be called the Falcon class. These will be at least Warp 3 capable and used as interceptors to defend my stuff and as light escorts. They will be made from small hulls with miniturization tech 3 or better. Because they are early ships, they will probably not have shields/point defense/armor of any kind. These ships will probably have a maintenance cost of no more than $7.

The next group will be called the Hornet class. These will be made from small hulls with at least miniturization tech 4 or better. These will be as capable as the Falcons but will have a life support module and a single level 1 shield or point defense or armor to toughen them up a bit. Later varieties will likely have a single level 2 or 3 protection in one category.

My first question is ... a rating of 1 in any category provides 1 level protection in all three types because the root of 1 is still 1 right? Therefore, a shield of 1 provides 1 level of protection against missiles, guns or beams, right?

My second question is ... Are shields economical for small hull ships, or should I be thinking medium ships before I use space for armor and stuff?

My next ship is expected to be a high tech small hull with miniturization tech V called the Tomcat class. I haven't worked out the details too much on that.

My first medium hull with miniturization tech 3 will be called the Frigate class. A medium hull with miniturization tech 4 will be a destroyer class, and with miniturization tech level 5 they will be Light Cruisers. Each class will have a target upper level maintenance cost which along with the hull size really defines the class. I would not be surprised to learn that a Tomcat class costs as much as a Frigate class, in which case there won't be many Tomcats made because the only benefit is they would take 3 logistics points instead of 5, but they would have significantly fewer HPs.

My final question, for now, is would a ship defend better with 2 shields against beams or with 4 armor or would these be the same.

The documentation is not very clear so I would appreciate some help before I waste a significant amount of time learning the hard way. Thanks.

strategies

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!
Fist of all: WHAT game: DA or DL?

I'm asking because combat model and ship design in both games is very different. In any case I almost never used small hull ships. I don't use defenders (besided cargo-based one with cheapest single gun, beam and missile to rise my mil score). In both DL and DA my early and mid-game warship is based on small amount of medium hulls, with defenses that match my first target and can block most of attack his target can throw at it. Then I proceed to bigger hulls, most of the time defense-heavy, sometimes to the point that the ship has ultimate defense and still only harpoons. Oh, and a cargo based "raider" with single laser, lots of engines and sensors and life supports, that will be destroying anything undefended in opponent's space. And that's about all I use.

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

I don't use defenders (besided cargo-based one with cheapest single gun, beam and missile to rise my mil score).

Itzok, do you mean that you use at least one of each different weapon tech? If so, why is that superior to just cramming the cargo hull with, say, basic lasers only.

Thanks in advance.

Successfully updated karma reason!

My appologies for not being clear. I am playing DA since my brother highly recommends it over DL.

I am surprised to learn small hulls are not worthwhile. I have had much success with them and even avoided losing a planet or two by building small ships rather than wait for the technology to build medium ships. On the other hand, if skipping small ships is prudent, then I guess I would just emphasize getting to medium hulls sooner.

I guess later I would like to know what your research priorities are that support your ship choices. I tend to emphasize my economy and expansion early and don't have very advanced ship choices early. This is one reason I want to make a deliberate study of them so I may counter my neglect with some degree of effeciency in ship models.

The manual indicates a defense type provides the square root effect toward other attack types. A defense of 4 shields provides 2 against missile or gun attacks. Therefore, a single shield should provide a 1 point defense against any attack type. Likewise for 1 chaff or 1 armor. Likewise, 1 shield and 1 chaff would provide 2 defense against any of the three types of attack. This sounds more efficient than a value of 2 in a single area such as Duranthium armor. In this case you receive 2 defense against guns but only 1 defense against beams or missiles. Do any of you have a feel for this in actual practice? As I said, I'm looking to determine a set of very efficient ships that bring the most bang for the buck. Thanks for your help. Dinosaur

Successfully updated karma reason!

The manual indicates a defense type provides the square root effect toward other attack types. A defense of 4 shields provides 2 against missile or gun attacks. Therefore, a single shield should provide a 1 point defense against any attack type. Likewise for 1 chaff or 1 armor. Likewise, 1 shield and 1 chaff would provide 2 defense against any of the three types of attack. This sounds more efficient than a value of 2 in a single area such as Duranthium armor. In this case you receive 2 defense against guns but only 1 defense against beams or missiles. Do any of you have a feel for this in actual practice? As I said, I'm looking to determine a set of very efficient ships that bring the most bang for the buck. Thanks for your help. Dinosaur

I'm pretty sure your defenses don't stack. There are two possible systems I can think of. For example, lets say you have a ship with 9 shields, 4 anti-missile, and 2 armor. The computer will either A/ check for the available type defense first, or B/ automatically use the greatest defense option. The only difference between the two is that in this case, system A would grant you its standard 2 defense against mass drivers, while system B would give you an effective 3 defense against mass drivers, because shields will outweigh the armor (SQRT 9 is 3, which is greater than 2). With either system, there is no point in adding defenses of one type if its amount is lower than the SQRT of a defense in another category.

IMO this SQRT setup is to create a "diminishing returns" system which promotes a long term vs short term strategy that the player must choose. As time goes on and defenses get more advanced (meaning higher values) it become increasingly inefficient to just mass one type of defense. A value of 100 will only give 10 in another category (which nearly killed me last game when my enemy quickly changed to beam weapons to go through my armor). Intuitively, I would suggest that when weapon capability goes above 10 damage/shot is when it becomes strategically disadvantageous to mass only one type of defense, but I don't have any studies weighing the economical and tactical effects to back it up, so don't quote me on that.

Successfully updated karma reason!

In terms of Research time/costs, it is slightly more timely to research to Medium Scale Building than it is to research to Advanced Miniaturization ("level 3"), and of course it is much quicker than getting to Expert Min ("level 4").
(Depending on what preceding technologies you consider essential earlier projects for other reasons.)

drrider

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!

Itzok, do you mean that you use at least one of each different weapon tech? If so, why is that superior to just cramming the cargo hull with, say, basic lasers only

With only lasers you get from 3 lasers attack 4 or 5. With one gun, beam and missile I got 3 * attack 2 = 6, for lower costs than 4 lasers. If I have space, I put on also the cheapest armor, but so early in the game that's pretty rare.

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!

a single shield should provide a 1 point defense against any attack type. Likewise, 1 shield and 1 chaff would provide 2 defense against any of the three types of attack.

True. But that's pointless when your opponent uses fleets with 20-30 attack. And evil civs tend to go very high with warfaring techs, so in mid game a small hull with 30 attack is noting unusuall. Those numbers don't even sneeze at your 2 points of defense. That's why my ships are defense-heavy. My first medium has usually around 50 defense points, depending on the opposition.

The latest huge I built in my last game had with bonuses 490 missile defense. But it never saw an action. My large ships with 20 attack and 250 missile defense already cleared most opposition. And for killing yor's gun-armed fleets I produced a single huge with all positronic? torpedos 2 (penultimate missile).

So don't bother optimizing small hull. In this game quantity has quality of its own.

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

I play DA and a little different strategy, usually going for a tech or alliance victory. As a result, I focus my fleet on being strong enough to deter attack, but not necessarily strong enough for a military victory.

In the early game, most of my effort is focused on economy and research. Once I see someone registering on the military power graph, I focus research to get missiles and first level mini. I then build a tiny hull with one missile and pump several of those into orbit around most planets, until my military rating is #1 or #2. Then I put some effort into building up to the next level of missiles. Once I get to the missile that does 2 damage, and I see that my mil rating has dropped a bit, I do a fleet upgrade and double my military power overnight. If you also put some research time into mini. and armor, you can do this mass upgrade a couple of times and stay on top militarily through the early to mid game, without using many production resources on warships.

I usually spend my early military production on colony ships and constructors. As an extender for the tiny ship strategy, if you equip your starbases with ship support, you can substantially boost the power of a swarm of tiny ships. Of course, the best effect is in local defense, but if your military rating stays high, the AIs will fight each other until it's too late to stop you.

Once my research is really going, I'll push development of missiles and armor. An anti-matter torp on a tiny hull, plus some starbase support and a swarm of these drones will keep the AIs friendly for a while. At least long enough to build a good fleet of large hulls....

Successfully updated karma reason!

I guess our strategies are wildly different.

I don't expect to win a game with small ships. I just want my small ships to be very efficient. I also plan to build efficient medium and large ships. I haven't been in a game long enough to build a huge ship. I usually win after building two or three large ships. However, when I get into the harder difficulties, I expect to need better ships.

So is it true that defenses don't stack? If I have a defense of 1 armor and 1 shield, do I not get a defense of 2 against all forms of attack? This is just the sort of thing I need to know. Thanks for your help. Dinosaur

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!

So is it true that defenses don't stack?

Not exactly. AFAIK if a ship has 50 beam defenses and 4 armor, it doesn't defend against mass attacks as sqrt(50) + 4 , but separately sqrt(50) until depleted and 4 until depleted.

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

Not exactly. AFAIK if a ship has 50 beam defenses and 4 armor, it doesn't defend against mass attacks as sqrt(50) + 4 , but separately sqrt(50) until depleted and 4 until depleted.

Whoa, hold on a sec. Depletion? That is not how I thought defenses worked. What exactly IS the formula here? Kinda important for my ships...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!

Depletion? That is not how I thought defenses worked. What exactly IS the formula here?

Check this: DA (Beta) Combat System. A lenghty thread, at the end developers made an example of combat with new rules.

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

why do you bother. i would just get a very large hull study far into one weapon (even if your enemies have the best defence it makes no difference when you have 35 attack.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Once I get to the missile that does 2 damage

I like your strategdy which is to stay ahead of the other races in mil. rating. But which missle are you talking about b/c the first missles (forgetting for a sec. about sparrows) are stingers which do 2 dmg.

for the defences i think what dinosaur is asking is this:

Say you're being attacked by mass drivers dmg 3
you have 1 armour, 1 sheild, 1 PD

Do you block all three dmg or is there a built in penalty to the sqrt rule where if the wrong class of armour (sheild, PD) is 1, it is reduced/ignored

why do you bother. i would just get a very large hull study far into one weapon (even if your enemies have the best defence it makes no difference when you have 35 attack

this would make sense if the opponent only puts one of the best def on his ships, unfortunatly this is rarly true.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Once I get to the missile that does 2 damage

why do you bother. i would just get a very large hull study far into one weapon (even if your enemies have the best defence it makes no difference when you have 35 attack

this would make sense if the opponent only puts one of the best def on his ships, unfortunatly this is rarly true.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Sorry for not being clearer. I'll load sparrows if I need the ships earlier; if I think I can wait, I'll hold out for stingers. It really depends on what the other races are doing, where I need to focus research in order to meet other goals, etc. I usually don't try to push the missile research further until the arms race heats up. Even then, it's a balance between just building more cheap ships, or bumping the tech.

That's what I really like about this game: even if I'm planning to use a particular strategy, the actual implementation depends on so many factors that each game is different.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The first game I played I was heavy on defense (1 or 2 laser attack with a 3 or 4 sheild defense) and that worked great. I would group small fleets of 3 Tiny and 1 small (later medium when I got it) and together they'd work great... the enemy tended to go for the smaller ships while the bigger ship and it's tiny buddies took out the enemy fleet trying to get through my sheilds on one tiny fighter.

Since then I haven't had as much success. So go fig'...

Successfully updated karma reason!

When it comes to ship design the formula is simple.

Be Dynamic and use Inteligence.

Design you ships apearence and leave it blank (low tech) and save it so you can access that design from early on in any game you play.

Tip. If u add major techs to this base design you wont be able to access that design unless you have those techs!!

(I have basic Medium Hull Enterprise MK0 model and a Small Hull Raptor MK0 saved for every games to use but that cause im like total a star trek freak)

Then you equip it depending on your curent situation, stratigies and technolgical capabilites.

With each game you play comes enemies using differnt weapons and defence technolgies.

Scenario 1.

You wish to wage war on team A.
Send a ship out packed with sensors to check what ships they are using and look at there ships defensive and offensive stats.

You discover Team A ships mainly sport Laser Weapons and Sheild Defence

Spend the next few turns researching and aquiring Techs that counter there weapons and defence.

Design a ship that consists of
- Either your Small Medium or Large hulled base design ships
- Mass driver or Missle weapons as there shielding will have no effect on these
- Use ony shielding as defence as this will counter there Laser Weapons technolgy

Save this ship as what ever you called the base design and add a model number, eg MK50.
Then when u have substancial new technolgy to add to your ship make a MK75 Varient.

Or whatever, thats all up to you.

Also I find Medium Hull the best price/performce but late in the game ill mix in large hull designs as well.

All im saying is design a ship with weapons and defenise systems based on what your up agaist.

Hope this helps

Japer - www.myspace.com/myinnerhero

Successfully updated karma reason!