Super Warrior - how good is it?

I've not tried it, but it didn't choose it since it didn't seem useful.

I don't let the AI get close enough to any fleet that matters so that it can attack. I work to keep 1 point of speed ahead of the AI, so I can sit 4 parsecs away when that can only move 3. That way I can always attack and get first shot anyway.

I do tactical withdrawals fairly often. No need to waste ships on a fight I know I can't win. So I withdraw, regroup and attack. Or I just bug out to easier targets.
If the AI gets so dominant that I can't withdraw and counter-attack to win, I've made a larger strategic error and first strike won't really help much.

Galen

No, you aren't really getting the advantage you think you are. Super Warrior gives you a free round in the beginning of battle. Just getting the "first shot" is irrelevant if the defender is guaranteed to get a shot also.

No you dont. even if you attack the enemy can fire back at any case.
Only if you got the super warrior ability you get the frist strike. In this case if you can destroy ships in the first combat round, these wont be able fire back.
As long as you do not get this ability, it does not matter who attacks, if you want to fight anyway.

If the enemy does not have any defenses, you may be able to destrroy entire flett without taking damage.

I play the ARceans a lot and find it comes in handy when I'm outgunned in a particular location, and as a means to avoid losses when I'm not. If I've got a powerful fleet I can often remove half the enemy ships before they get a chance to fire. If I've got a weaker fleet I can often still manage to get a ship or two before getting butchered. In short, I quite like it.

I assume Super Warrior isn't working so well with the new 1.50X defense.

It is my personal favrite of the abilities. Since I'm not the best at streamlinig my economy, I usually can't support a large number of ships, so I use just a few very high end expensive ones. Sicne I don't want them getting blow up all over the place I use this ability to maximize my ships survivability.

It is damn NASTY is what it is. If you use ships that have high speed and high damage (best way to do this is to have the +2 speed racial ability) and some way of keeping your sensor distance high enough (cargo hulls with sensors are a nice, cheap solution with no maintainence), you can cripple an enemy military without ever taking a loss. Just be careful with managing your fleets... if you are fighting an enemy with faster ships, you need to find some way to counter that (using a super isolationist's space to fight, or engines on your own ships) or fly very, very defensively, putting yourself far enough away from the other ship that they can't reach you in a single move, but you can hit them once they take their own turn.

Just be glad the AI doesn't manage distance the same way. If they used their superior speed to deny you that advantage (or use it themselves) by staying JUST out of range until they're ready to attack, you'd either have to stay on the run all the time, fight toe to toe, or sacrifice some ships to lure targets in.

So if I'm the attacker, I get the Super-Warrior attack. Then I get the attack round. Then my opponent gets their first attack?

Galen

Kind of. Combat is normally handled where BOTH the attacker and defender fire, tehn damage is applied, and any ships that need to blow up are blown up. It continues that way until combat ends.

With super warrior, if you attack a ship then you get one free round of shooting. So you shoot at them, damage is applied, and any enemy ships that are destroyed blow up. THEN it reverts back to normal combat, where for every time you shoot, they get to shoot.

It basically gives you one free round of shooting, in which they cannot shoot back.

Prior to DL v1.2 ever attacker enjoyed the first strike advantage. I completed the entire DL campaign in v1.0 without losing any combat ships (just constructors). Even the mighty Dread Lords were no match for me because they rarely got to fire their powerful weapons. The few times my fleets could not destroy their fleets (usually just one ship) in the first round, my ships have leveled up enough to absorb one hit.

The combat system changed in DL v1.2 but I have found that to be exploitable too.
Attacker Advantages are Exploitable!

I have not yet tried the first strike advantage in DA 1.50X with the new combat system in DA and lowered defense costs in 1.50X.

I agree.

I still build fairly balanced ships, maybe a bit heavy on offense but I also take the +30% defense racial ability, plus +10% defense for Universalist gov't. Often my defenses come out higher than my attack or are very close because of this, and I've found it very useful for surviving when I'm outgunned.

Things get a bit easier once I've got weapons (or enough miniturization) to load enough firepower to take out a similar size hull, then outgunned matters a bit less if I get first strike.

I don't think this racial ability is unbalancing. It's great for creating races that should have a super powerful military, and makes those races that much tougher to fight. I give the custom AI Mandalorians the Super Warrior ability, I use it for my race, and I also had the Arceans in the same game. I wanted to experiment and see how things would shake out in universe with 3 races with Super Warrior. So far things have been interesting: the Mandalorians have dominated, but not nearly as much as they usually do. They're also a level of intelligence higher than the other races. The Arceans have been doing well, but are far from being a major power. As for my race, while I have a pretty good military, somehow I managed my colonies right to get huge influence and managed to flip more planets from planetary influence than from military conquest. I certainly didn't plan it: I've only built military starbases to fortify my core worlds against the Mandalorians after the last game against them.

Anyway...I suppose the moral of the story is the super abilities can be turned off, I just hope the game doesn't get more nerfed for those of us that enjoy a bit of galactic chaos--even if that means super-powered pirates that wipe the galaxy clear of everyones military. While seriously annoying, it does make for an interesting game.

I've just played my first game as Arceans (DA 1.5) and I love this ability.

For some reason, none of the other races seemed to bother much researching engines or putting some of them on their ships. So what I did was simple: Medium hulls with no engine and pew pew lazers

The result was quite devastating, I rarely lost a ship. Only when standing next to a heavily defended planet some enemy fleets did manage to attack me. Could it be that Super Warrior only works if you attack, not if you get attacked?

Anyhow, I quite like this ability, I'll definitely play some more games as Arceans.

It only works when you attack. Think of it as a "surprise attack" where you can take out some of the other fleet before they can react at all.

I love superwarror ability, especially with luck, which increases minimum damage. Also there's an ability which increases your odds in ground attack as well. Can't remember it off hand since it was my last game and I didn't last very long, but I remember doing devastating planetary assualts with mass driver and constantly getting high scores because it ups the minimum odds. Now what was that called?

I tried it the way I normally play and it didn't make a lick of difference. But I've heard if you build pure offensive ships it's quite good.

That said, it only works when you attack first, so if you take out an enemy fleet and there's other enemy fleets around then you're screwed becasue your ships won't have any defence and will get owned by the computer fleets.

If you use it, the best way to maximize it is to:

1)Focus on weapons techs. Seriously, don't even THINK about putting a defense on...
2)Seriously consider putting engines on your ships... and vice versa. Ships without engines will have significantly more punch, especially early in the game, but extra speed means that you'll be able to guarantee first strike easier if you're managing your ships properly. You do not want to be fighting opponents with the same speed or better than you... you end up fighting a very defensive game very fast because in order to get your first strike, you have to retreat and let them come to you.
3)Be very careful with your ship management. Even with inferior ships or inferior speed, you can still get first strike if you're being careful with how you manage the distance between you and enemy fleets.
4)You can use the super isolationist ability of another race to your advantage, as long as you aren't fighting THEM. Simply wage your battles near the edge of isolationist space, slowing down your enemy... and pounce whenever they get close enough to the edge to get hit with your full speed.
5)Abilities should be picked accordingly. Loading up on luck is a great idea, since it'll give you more minimum damage, which guarantees that you'll do a certain amount of damage in a first strike. Also, speed should be a priority. +2 speed will let you leave engines at home and still have the speed advantage. Its the best of both worlds... you do a ton of damage while still being able to guarantee first strike!

My problem with Super Warrior is it gives you a starship bonus when what I really need is a soldiering bonus. That's why I like Korath and Super Breeder better.