ship spammers-A Guide to Fighting Back

annoying b*tches

from Sins Forums

You all know them, and you all hate them.  You call them ship spammers.   For most of you that word probably has a meaning.  But let me explain it to those of you who have never had a game ruined by a spammer.  A ship spammer is someone who build a crapload of one type of ship (such as 150 LRMs) and attacks.  I am writing this fresh from a particularly stinging defeat at the hands of a ship spammer.  It is important to know that these people CAN be beaten, and playing a game with a ship spammer is not the end of the world.

All ship spammers are n00bs, they spam because they know that they will not win any other way.  Often, it is easy to make a ship spammer stop spamming simply by telling them that they suck and won't amount to anything.

If that doesn't work it's time to go to Plan B.  The whole idea of spamming is to start building ships (the most popular one is the torpedo frigate or it's equivalent), as soon as possible.  Therefore, spammers will sometimes not even bother to colonize other worlds.  They will build 2 research facilities, research torpedo frigates, and start building.  Often times, they will build between 3-4 more frigate facilities to speed up the process.  Their greatest weakness is that they spend ALL of their money building ships, so while you're going out there and colonizing worlds, they're sitting in their one little world building more ships.  This means that often times when a spammer attacks you, the best strategy is to simply attack his world.  They never have more that 3.  Spammers send ALL of their ships in for an assualt, leaving none behind for defense.  Go around his fleet and attack.  Just bomb his planets and he's done.

If that doesn't work, you have to give them a taste of their own medicine.  Spam a ship one level above his.  If he's spamming light frigates, build torpedo, if he's building torpedo, build flak, and so on.  When that's done, there will be nothing left of him, and you can walk all over him.

Please make replies on the Ideas for v1.03 post and tell them that there needs to be a unit cap for individual types of units.

Get admins and hosts of servers to boot spammers and let them know that their n00bey ways are not appreciated.

Beating a spammer is actually easy if you know what to do.

Good luck!

120,622 views 186 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Well this is probably something easy the devs could fix if they would like to. All they have to do is cap that no individual unit type can be more then 50% of your fleet. This would then force them to waste cash or whatever on scout ships if they still wanted to try this tactic. Maybe exclude the 2 starting frigate types and capital ships from this.

Every RTS always has some "tank rush" strategy people will try. I havent played many online games so I was wondering if people had started doing something like this yet. Guess you answered that for me.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
All ship spammers are n00bs, they spam because they know that they will not win any other way. Often, it is easy to make a ship spammer stop spamming simply by telling them that they suck and won't amount to anything.
End of quote


Or maybe they do not believe they need a more complex strategy to beat people. Personal attacks are what will not amount to anything (unless your goal is to look like a jerk). People play different ways; one way is not better then another.

There is no need for individual unit caps. While fighting a spammer isn't what I find the most fun, it is still a valid strategy. The same can be said for rushing or turtling or any other strategy - unless they are in some way cheating then whatever they decide to do is a fair strategy.

What happened to you is you made up your own "fair rules" and somehow expect random people to not only know them, but to follow them; maybe in his mind whatever you are doing is what is not fair.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Spamming to a certain degree seems almost necessary in this game (and others too). Think about it. You can't afford to research all ship types at once. So when you research one type, the next most logical and cost-effective thing is to research upgrades for that ship type. Once this occurs, you have little choice but to build that ship type.

Take vasari for instance. You drop one weapons lab and you can research the LRM frig. One or two more weapons labs and you can research phase missles for them. Funds are tight, your enemies are raiding you, and it's not like you have the luxury at this point in the game to research 10 other ship types, so you build what you have researched. If you are busy researching 10 different ship types to build a balanced fleet, you are going to get stomped on.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I agree totally with Aspartic. Spamming is just another tactic, and if it's as easy to counter as the poster says (a point i agree with him on) i don't see what all the fuss is about. Personally, i don't like turtlers, but i'm not going to ask the devs to make up arbitrary rules to keep player for turtling because i have a difficult time countering it. The game is not broken--LRM spamming is not an exploit--so something as annoying as unit caps is unnecessary. And just in case you're thinking it: no i don't spam at all, at most a unit will comprise 60% of my fleet, but that's about it.

Besides, i believe leaving the players as free as possible without limiting them by arbitrary rules results in greater tactical variety. (Assuming the game is deep and well built to begin with, which Sins seems to be.) If someone manages to obliterate me with nothing but repair cruisers, then it's time i learn to counter them, not complain their overpowered and need a cap.

But it is true that new players do have a tendency to spam, but that's because they haven't developed deeper strategy. Experienced players shouldn't have too much trouble with a spam, and given time the newbs will move beyond it. We need to help them--some of the great strat posts on this form are a good start--instead of verbally abusing them.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Yeh, I agree that spamming isn't that big of a deal and many a time, you will NEED to spam if you even want to stand a chance. Not everyone spams like the way the OT states. For example, Advent have the incredible zergling rush. They can easily expand while spamming and that spam is really difficult to counter without spamming your own light frigates in the early game (which is the whole point of the zergling rush).

TEC as well, with their supreme economic advantage and very useful light frigates can do significant damage until they reach heavy cruisers. In fact, it's viable to completely ignore every other ship and just go for the main damage dealers with not that big of a problem in your military power, as TEC.

I know for a fact (having played a 1 vs 9 hard AI match on locked teams; yes, I'm insane; yes, I'm still fighting the battle; yes, it's bloody hard) that it's impossible NOT TO SPAM when fighting more than 3 hard AI.

Spamming is a perfectly viable tactic. If you find it annoying, it just means it's effective and is doing it's job.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I look forward to playing spammers, as they're generally very easy to beat. I see no reason to impose a limit on how many of a certain ship type you build, or to 'ban' spammers - if they want to use a very limited and one-dimensional strategy, it's their funeral. ;)
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Spam spammers with more spam to beat their spam.

Uh..okay.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I don't like spam. I know some people that fry it, and eat it with rice, but I never liked it. I think it tastes too salty, and not good at all.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
If you need to spam units to beat another spam, instead of using tactics or a good combined army, the game sucks.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
one thing i have to say is capping the limit on unit types is not a good idea

and i agree with most the posters in this topic. good points
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Heavily spamming a single unit type has numerous precedents in military history and in science fiction "military history". There are economic, tactical, or backstory reasons. It's up to the other side to find a counter or win with superior intellect. Then the "spammer" needs to adapt.

However, it does sound annoying - haven't been able to connect MP yet.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
What happened to you is you made up your own "fair rules" and somehow expect random people to not only know them, but to follow them
End of quote


bull's eye !!!

in too many posts, on this whole forum, self appointed thought policemen patrol the threads, calling people « noobs », or « trolls », or « off topic », or even worse (suc as « moron »), if they judge that a poster does not conform to their petty, bossy & busy-body rulebook (of which they are the sole experts)

thanxxx a lot for nailing that arrow dead-center

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
You just said yourself "they will not colonize and just spam ships, so to counter you need to spam ships yourself until they are destroyed and then walk over them because you have more economic power"

Congratulations. you discovered strategy. Balancing your fleet size and economy is crucial. There is nothing wrong going on here. There is absolutely no "fix" needed.

If an enemy throws everything he has into building a massive initial fleet to overwhelm you he isn't "ruining the game", he is simply taking a gamble, his gamble is that he will kill you quickly so his underdeveloped economy wouldn't ruin him later.
If the gamble fails, he is toast.

This isn't "noob" behavior, its a valid strategy.

The counter is simply to build sufficient forces to defend your borders long enough for reinforcements to be built. Thus wreathing the initial push and overwhelming with superior forces later.

And flak isn't superior to anything, its a specialized ship. Flak is a support ship and will be shreded by anything except for fighters and bombers which they annihilate.

The order of ship's firepower is:
1. Heavy cruiser
2. Long range frigate
3. Standard frigate
4. Capital attack ship
5. Capital support ships
6. Frigate support ships (flak, repair, etc).

Capitals have increase survivability and special abilities that can make them invaluable, but DPS a fleet of regular ships does more damage.

I recommend you try to achive more "achievements"... you learn lots about the game.

PS. I don't know how you can even contemplate calling someone who is beating you a noob.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
These guys are the easiest to beat. They don't protect their bases. Usually it's regular frig spam, they move on your homeworld and bam you're done. This is why you have defenses. Expand only to what you can hold. Research LRM frig's and keep changing.

Game today. I got met with someone who knew the map better than I. He had the ice planet and two asteroids. I just had two asteroids. He should have beat me, his military was better and his economy was better. I met his frig spam with LRM frigs and backed out and let him hurt himself on my defense. Obviously I couldn't attack him head on, so I sent a raid of siege frigates and toasted one of his roids and dropped his homeworld to 0 pop before he could get back. Zero defenses it was a cakewalk. This is the great thing about this game. Massing one big zerg fleet often can hurt bad, when facing someone with balanced defense, ships and who only holds what he can afford to hold. BTW he moved to LRM frig's when he started seeing this, and I moved on to carriers. I'd just do ring around the rosie and he'd get torn up.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
a ship cap (you guys are obviously asking for a low one) reduces strategies and will force everyone to eventually create identical fleets in long games.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Well this is probably something easy the devs could fix if they would like to. All they have to do is cap that no individual unit type can be more then 50% of your fleet.
End of quote

This is the worst idea ever
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
um your so called ship spamming is just part of the game, it is strategy. not everyone wants to play sim city. I don't see a problem with it at all. you just need to adjust your strategy to either ship spam back or build defense drones/hangers. if you decide to build ships one level above theirs, odds are you will have less ships than them, and less money to spend on much of anything after doing all of the research. the reason why their strategy works because smaller ships are more maneuverable not to mention they cost a lot less and use small amounts of supply, which allows you to have more ships. as long as they aren't cheating resources to gain more ships, it isn't wrong. this is a game of strategy after all. the only way to beat some strategies is to employ the same strategy. building ships early on can allow you to take more worlds, hence more resources. even if one is taken, there are others to fall back on, while the sim city player will only have one or two worlds. now even if they dont have a well defended planet, which it is possible to do even when ship spamming, that doesn't mean you'll take it from them before they can arrive and crush your forces. pooling your ships together can be a good thing, and it will cause you to lose less ships in battles and win more battles, because while you have 5 ships at base, and 5 out of base for example, they could have over 10 ships fighting your 5 ships. most likely your 5 ships will lose, and you will only have 5 ships left, while they still have 8-10 ships left. they can then jump to where your fleet is at and crush the rest of them. this works on any scale whether you have 50 or 100 ships.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
I look forward to playing spammers, as they're generally very easy to beat. I see no reason to impose a limit on how many of a certain ship type you build, or to 'ban' spammers - if they want to use a very limited and one-dimensional strategy, it's their funeral.
End of quote
I completely agree with this! I don't mind playing spammers at all in Sins, particularly if they're spamming long-range frigates. Sins actually has ways to counter spammers unlike games like Starcraft. My first MP game of Sins was a 2v2 and everyone was pretty much running even. My second MP game today yielded me getting called a "cheater" because I had Flaks ripping apart LRM's and also was being particularly strategic by parking older Cobalts behind the enemy LRM's. Yes, the enemy LRM's had taken out my small group of Flak frigates (I had recently researched them), but it was sure funny to command a couple of Cobalts and give them orders that constantly put them behind the enemy LRM's and out of a firing solution. Unfortunately, the other person quit shortly afterwards because they were convinced I was cheating when all I was just outplaying them. If he would have broken up that LRM fleet then I would have had a harder time staying behind them.

Ship spamming in Sins is very easy to deal with if you know what you're doing. However, the solutions are NOT obvious like they are in other games. Sins includes a lot of chess-like elements with the way ship gun ports are positioned and how their abilities can come into play. If you play your pieces right, you get a win. This is not like Rise of Nations where the enemy hits you with MLRS, you couter with Apaches, enemy throws AAA at you, you counter with cruise missiles, enemy sends bombers, you send fighters, enemy sends tanks, you send rocket soldiers, enemy sends light tanks, you send heavy tanks, and the cycle repeats. There's a very obvious rock, paper, scissors foundation. Sins has a little of that, but positioning plays a critical, often overlooked role too.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Well look at it this way. There are "stages" of ships. Things like LRM and Skirmishers are stage 1. Illuminators are stage 3, and most of the ships are stage 4. Its only in stage for you can really begin to build a mix of ships, even then your not gonna build 20 support cruisers and 30 Heavy cruisers. Instead you build 5 support and 45 heavy. Since there isn't a whole lot of ships to choose from I don't really think you have much choice but to build a bunch of the same one. I only play short games so I never really get passed using Assiliants
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Best thread ever.

You spend 2/3 of the post whining about "spammers", how they have no skill (most do), how they have no strategy (yet they just beat you with a pretty decent/risky strategy), and then your fall back strategy is to spam yourself?

This, class, is hypocrisy, mmkay?
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Please make replies on the Ideas for v1.03 post and tell them that there needs to be a unit cap for individual types of units.Get admins and hosts of servers to boot spammers and let them know that their n00bey ways are not appreciated.
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As other posters have mentioned, I don't like this idea. Spamming is a poor strategy, but it is a legitimate one.

Do your scouting, build the counter. Like you said, it's easy, so there's no need for a hard limit to be put in.

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I happen to disagree on the question of whether spamming should be a valid strategy, regardless of whether it actually is. Flander's Fields and Gallipolli should tell us that spamming gets units killed with little or no success.
But my main question is: what is actually wrong with the idea of a percentage fleet cap? Everyone I've seen (forgive me if I've missed one) just stated that the percentage cap is a bad idea, but no one actually says why. I can't see anything wrong with it - it worked very well in Homeworld 2 (although there it's an absolute limit and not a percentage limit).
I agree that it's a bad idea if you've only got 2 ships so you can't build more of one type, but it can be mitigated by having a rule that says "if you have more than x amount of ships, from then on you can only have y% of any one ship".
If this is a bad idea, then why is it? Just because it forces combined arms? Remember that spamming didn't really work in past wars (with a few exceptions, of course).
My point is: I agree that if spamming works, it is a valid strategy - BUT it shouldn't work to begin with. That's why I think the devs should build in a feature that disallows spamming, considering that they said combined arms is necessary. I would be happy when a combined arms fleet could easily stop a single-type fleet of the same size with little or no trouble.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Fleet of Radiance Battleships.. all with Cleanse.. fire in a few spots.. spam over. At least.. this worked for me against the AI which was spamming insane amount of Frigates at me. They all went *pop*.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
But my main question is: what is actually wrong with the idea of a percentage fleet cap?
End of quote


Fleet caps are another level of artificial limition set on strategies. More variety is better then less right? (Heck, there are some people who don't even want the current total ship fleet caps in the game. Why would they want more limitations?)

Another example: Let us say I hate rushing, so I think there should be a game wide "Armistice" enforced by the game for an hour, where ships can only fire at the local malitia. That way no one can rush and we can all tech up and build lots of buildings. Good idea? Sound like fun? I should hope no one says yes.