Rapture Battlecruiser Anti-LRM Strat.
Good Anti-LRM Cap ship? Theorycraft inside
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Before I start, the Concentration ability of the Rapture BC says it increases the damage of "nearby friendly fighters" by x%. Does this mean it affects all nearby forces, or just nearby strikecraft?
I was trying to think of a good counter to LRMs as advent. None of the usual stuff seems to be working efficiently, so I'm thinking the Rapture BC would make an excellent choice of a starting cap ship, simply because one of the problems I have against LRMs is that once I pop out some Defense vessels or Drone carriers they target my cap ship instead. I think it might be possible to have the Rapture up to level 3 by the time any significant fighting occurs by investing in buying level 3 rather early. Then I could have the Rapture target itself with Vengeance, giving it a pretty decent 80% thorn aura, which should certainly help out. Hopefully I could also toss the rapture by a repair platform or two to hold off the LRMs until I can get a decent counter.
I'm thinking the strat would go something like this:
The opening should always be the same:
Buy a unit of crystal. (Maybe two.)
Upgrade Home Planet.
Build Crystal extractor, cap ship, metal extractor x2 in that order.
Build 2-4 scouts, depending on map size (almost always 2 in my experience.)
Build a missionary, possibly two if the map is large enough and there are enough neutrals to take. If you decide to build two missionaries you'll need to buy two units of crystal initially, the extra 50 crystal hurts too much otherwise.
Build a Rapture BC, then scuttle the cap ship factory.
The Rapture BC should clear out a nearby astroid. The scouts should hopefully find your opponent soon, keep one scout around and harass his workers if he's already expanded to an asteroid. If things get hot, just keep jumping your scout around, but be sure to keep a prescence on his homeworld. If the scout dies, send another! It's very important to know if the opponent is going for LRMs or not. If he doesn't, you can relax and play a more normal game, whatever that means.
Now, the strategic thinking is that if the opponent is building LRMs, that means he will produce them heavily early in the game and will almost certainly attack you early in the game. This means that we can play more heavily defensively and try and punish his early attack so that we can come back in the middle-late game.
Fortunately, due to the way Sins is played, especially due to the separated tech trees, a powerful early military force does not necessarily imply more map control. The goal in the beginning stage of the game, then, is to try and punish your opponents over-agressiveness by spending less on military on him and still beating his attacking fleet. Unfortunately, especially since LRMs do fine against structures, even in the prescence of your tactical structures you won't have that much of an advantage. The nature of a map can also make it far more difficult to defend using tactical structures, particularly if the opponent can get into a system from which he can jump to several of your planets. There's not much you can do about this. If this happens, try and mantain a prescence in these systems and bait him into your more heavily defended planets, but it might just invalidate this strategy on those maps.
Continuing, if the opponent is building LRMs:
Research Hangar Defense, put one where you think you will be attacked. Fill it with three fighter squads.
You'll need a second military lab, get it when you can.
Take out a nearby small garrison or buy level three for your Rapture.
Research Repair Platforms, drop two where you think you will be attacked. Make sure to target these manually! If your opponent focuses fire on your Rapture or one of your structures, use these to fix the target up. Try not to waste the antimatter on fixing frigates. If he does attack your frigates, however, you should be ok, because:
Research Defense Vessels, build as many as you think are appropriate - a more specific number will go here later. Note that you need lots of these guys, because while their DPS is pretty good against LRMs it is spread out on four targets, so focus firing will not yield much help. Fortunately, they have excellent survivability against LRMs, and if LRMs focus on your cap ship or structures they'll get burned by a decent DoT due to Vengeance.
At some point, try and research refined frameworks (hull upgrades).
This early-middle game is quite crystal heavy, especially the initial setup of defenses. You may not have enough crystal to put out a sizable Defense Vessel fleet. If this is the case, don't be afraid to build disciples. They die fast, but they are cheap; run them behind your opponents LRMs to make them waste time turning to retarget you, while your Defense Vessels and fighters beat them down. Note that disciples, if ignored, can do at least some damage to LRMs, or more importantly, cap ships and the eventual flak frigates.
Middle Game:
Hopefully you've fought off one or two attacks by your opponent, which is all good, except that he's about to diversify his fleet and make your defense vessels into liabilities. Nothing much we can do about that but try and diversify ourselves to counter his counters, while beginning to improve our economy. The goal of this middle game is to build up two civilian labs so that you can expand to nearby ice planets, at which point you should be able to turn the tables on your opponent.
So, if you're still alive:
Time to augment our defenses some more. Research Drone Carriers and make several, drop a few beam turrets to protect them. If things look bad, add another Repair Platform and Hangar defense.
Make some more disciples. Illuminators suck, and other than them disciples are your only real answer to flak frigates. You'll take losses to the lrms, but that's acceptable so long as the flaks go down. Worst comes to worst, at least your opponent made flaks instead of more LRMs.
Build two civilian labs and research Ice colonization. Either send down some small part of your fleet to clear out the ice planet or make a smaller force of 4-8 disciples to do it for you. Your opponent has hopefully been taking more losses than you, and has been pumping so much more of his economy into military that he won't have any colonization techs; this should allow your economy to become much more powerful than his.
If you've survived to this point, you're probably set. Just a few general points left:
1. Keep making scouts when they die! If an attack goes particularly badly, scouts will let you know when to counter-attack. Plus the chance to blow up a 0% structure is always nice.
2. This is worth repeating. If your opponent weakens his fleet to the point where you can attack him, do not simply sit in your base. Either clear out nearby planets or follow him home and wreak some minor havoc.
3. If your opponent falls back and begins teching more, whether in the military or civilian trees, the same rule applies. Either match his expanding economy or try and launch some attacks of your own.
4. Keep your capital ship alive! The Rapture is incredibly important, as using its vengeance can cause some serious damage to your opponents whole fleet, and will turn repair bays into a powerful offensive weaon. Hopefully your multiple repair bays will keep it alive; if you do have to run, make sure to keep on running, as lrms will often chase you. Don't run to a friendly planet that does not have defenses! You might as well go to a neutral zone, or even deeper into your opponents territory.
5. This goes without saying, but make sure your fleet size is close to your opponents. Also, if your opponent has a large amount of frigate factories, you may want to build some more yourself.
So that's it. I've used this strat myself several times to good effect, but I admit I haven't played any LRM spammers that I thought were experts. Even then, it's important to note that this strategy is map dependent to a fairly large degree, and that the strategy is difficult to pull of because if you ever lose your defensive emplacement, you're screwed. This strategy does not make LRM spamming any less overpowered, and it should probably be addressed, but hopefully it will help you cope.
Thoughts?
I was trying to think of a good counter to LRMs as advent. None of the usual stuff seems to be working efficiently, so I'm thinking the Rapture BC would make an excellent choice of a starting cap ship, simply because one of the problems I have against LRMs is that once I pop out some Defense vessels or Drone carriers they target my cap ship instead. I think it might be possible to have the Rapture up to level 3 by the time any significant fighting occurs by investing in buying level 3 rather early. Then I could have the Rapture target itself with Vengeance, giving it a pretty decent 80% thorn aura, which should certainly help out. Hopefully I could also toss the rapture by a repair platform or two to hold off the LRMs until I can get a decent counter.
I'm thinking the strat would go something like this:
The opening should always be the same:
Buy a unit of crystal. (Maybe two.)
Upgrade Home Planet.
Build Crystal extractor, cap ship, metal extractor x2 in that order.
Build 2-4 scouts, depending on map size (almost always 2 in my experience.)
Build a missionary, possibly two if the map is large enough and there are enough neutrals to take. If you decide to build two missionaries you'll need to buy two units of crystal initially, the extra 50 crystal hurts too much otherwise.
Build a Rapture BC, then scuttle the cap ship factory.
The Rapture BC should clear out a nearby astroid. The scouts should hopefully find your opponent soon, keep one scout around and harass his workers if he's already expanded to an asteroid. If things get hot, just keep jumping your scout around, but be sure to keep a prescence on his homeworld. If the scout dies, send another! It's very important to know if the opponent is going for LRMs or not. If he doesn't, you can relax and play a more normal game, whatever that means.
Now, the strategic thinking is that if the opponent is building LRMs, that means he will produce them heavily early in the game and will almost certainly attack you early in the game. This means that we can play more heavily defensively and try and punish his early attack so that we can come back in the middle-late game.
Fortunately, due to the way Sins is played, especially due to the separated tech trees, a powerful early military force does not necessarily imply more map control. The goal in the beginning stage of the game, then, is to try and punish your opponents over-agressiveness by spending less on military on him and still beating his attacking fleet. Unfortunately, especially since LRMs do fine against structures, even in the prescence of your tactical structures you won't have that much of an advantage. The nature of a map can also make it far more difficult to defend using tactical structures, particularly if the opponent can get into a system from which he can jump to several of your planets. There's not much you can do about this. If this happens, try and mantain a prescence in these systems and bait him into your more heavily defended planets, but it might just invalidate this strategy on those maps.
Continuing, if the opponent is building LRMs:
Research Hangar Defense, put one where you think you will be attacked. Fill it with three fighter squads.
You'll need a second military lab, get it when you can.
Take out a nearby small garrison or buy level three for your Rapture.
Research Repair Platforms, drop two where you think you will be attacked. Make sure to target these manually! If your opponent focuses fire on your Rapture or one of your structures, use these to fix the target up. Try not to waste the antimatter on fixing frigates. If he does attack your frigates, however, you should be ok, because:
Research Defense Vessels, build as many as you think are appropriate - a more specific number will go here later. Note that you need lots of these guys, because while their DPS is pretty good against LRMs it is spread out on four targets, so focus firing will not yield much help. Fortunately, they have excellent survivability against LRMs, and if LRMs focus on your cap ship or structures they'll get burned by a decent DoT due to Vengeance.
At some point, try and research refined frameworks (hull upgrades).
This early-middle game is quite crystal heavy, especially the initial setup of defenses. You may not have enough crystal to put out a sizable Defense Vessel fleet. If this is the case, don't be afraid to build disciples. They die fast, but they are cheap; run them behind your opponents LRMs to make them waste time turning to retarget you, while your Defense Vessels and fighters beat them down. Note that disciples, if ignored, can do at least some damage to LRMs, or more importantly, cap ships and the eventual flak frigates.
Middle Game:
Hopefully you've fought off one or two attacks by your opponent, which is all good, except that he's about to diversify his fleet and make your defense vessels into liabilities. Nothing much we can do about that but try and diversify ourselves to counter his counters, while beginning to improve our economy. The goal of this middle game is to build up two civilian labs so that you can expand to nearby ice planets, at which point you should be able to turn the tables on your opponent.
So, if you're still alive:
Time to augment our defenses some more. Research Drone Carriers and make several, drop a few beam turrets to protect them. If things look bad, add another Repair Platform and Hangar defense.
Make some more disciples. Illuminators suck, and other than them disciples are your only real answer to flak frigates. You'll take losses to the lrms, but that's acceptable so long as the flaks go down. Worst comes to worst, at least your opponent made flaks instead of more LRMs.
Build two civilian labs and research Ice colonization. Either send down some small part of your fleet to clear out the ice planet or make a smaller force of 4-8 disciples to do it for you. Your opponent has hopefully been taking more losses than you, and has been pumping so much more of his economy into military that he won't have any colonization techs; this should allow your economy to become much more powerful than his.
If you've survived to this point, you're probably set. Just a few general points left:
1. Keep making scouts when they die! If an attack goes particularly badly, scouts will let you know when to counter-attack. Plus the chance to blow up a 0% structure is always nice.
2. This is worth repeating. If your opponent weakens his fleet to the point where you can attack him, do not simply sit in your base. Either clear out nearby planets or follow him home and wreak some minor havoc.
3. If your opponent falls back and begins teching more, whether in the military or civilian trees, the same rule applies. Either match his expanding economy or try and launch some attacks of your own.
4. Keep your capital ship alive! The Rapture is incredibly important, as using its vengeance can cause some serious damage to your opponents whole fleet, and will turn repair bays into a powerful offensive weaon. Hopefully your multiple repair bays will keep it alive; if you do have to run, make sure to keep on running, as lrms will often chase you. Don't run to a friendly planet that does not have defenses! You might as well go to a neutral zone, or even deeper into your opponents territory.
5. This goes without saying, but make sure your fleet size is close to your opponents. Also, if your opponent has a large amount of frigate factories, you may want to build some more yourself.
So that's it. I've used this strat myself several times to good effect, but I admit I haven't played any LRM spammers that I thought were experts. Even then, it's important to note that this strategy is map dependent to a fairly large degree, and that the strategy is difficult to pull of because if you ever lose your defensive emplacement, you're screwed. This strategy does not make LRM spamming any less overpowered, and it should probably be addressed, but hopefully it will help you cope.
Thoughts?
