Re: Game Tactics
 

Something i saw happern the other night, and whether it was intentional or not it works damn well, apologies if it's been mentioned before.

It involves intentionally not completing the travel time researchs. Basically, one fleet launchs a fleet (BS in this instance) at eta 11, this is generally covered. Next tick however another,fleet is launched to land on the same tick at eta 10, this again can be generally covered. On the eta 9 several big fleets are then lauched, which means additional defense has to be found. Generally speaking though due to the now size of the wave and the nature of anti bs this round this is difficult to get hold of. Additionally, any anti bs that had been sent would probably have to be recalled as losses mount up, meaning that defence fleets have been pulled out for several ticks, depending on whether or not the defenders are online to pull their fleets.

This therefore is a great way to tie up defence fleets for the night, though at the cost of TT research. Obviously the target would have to be big enough to warrent the use of so many fleets, but it can be a real pain for defenders :)

Edit: i suppose similar to this but with the travel times completed would be to send differant eta ships that lnd on the same tick but launch at differant ticks :)

Re: Game Tactics
 

Well I don't see this as a very viable tactic, at least compared to the alternative. Better I think to launch ALL BS eta 10 and make them scramble for defense then to string things out over an addition couple of hours and actually increase the chance of defense. As a general rule when an attacker shows up at a funny eta the first step always taken is to get a tech scan and so quickly figure out what was sent. This is an interesting tactic, but not one that I feel should generally be used and therefor unless there is strong disagreement I will leave it out of the list of suggested tactics.

Re: Game Tactics
 

Admittedly it's slightly unusual, and yes it does allow for more time to get defense. But if the final wave is not covered then other previous defence fleets are lost for several ticks, essentially wasting them.

But it's your show, just thought i'd share :)

Re: Game Tactics
 

I used this tactic early round. The aim was to confuse DC’s into thinking that the incs were BS when infact they were DE :). This worked very well when coupled with lots of dists. Although a bit of a bugger when you find out you are shour of 1 dist to block an allies top scanner, as i sadly found out in the end :(

Re: Game Tactics
 

Stockpiling;)

Re: Game Tactics
 

Now that multiclass targeting has been brought back into the game, does anyone have any new tactics they would like to add? For one fake attacks and fake defense have both become significantly more powerful as there are more possible fake options. I have seen a significant increase in the number of FI faked as FR attacks, or CO faked as DE attacks this round. Has anyone else noticed any changes to the strategies employed?

Re: Game Tactics
 

Well, as i'm not actually playing this round (who works four jobs?! :(), i would imagine that there would be more people trying to take advantage of second class targeting; ie, sending Syren? to take the hits rather than the pod class Destroyers (or cruisers) or whatever.

Whilst i'm not overly convinced that sending a ship's T1 in place of its T2 (which fires at reduced firepower) is especially brilliant generally, i'm sure that there are plenty of instances where it could be made beneficial to the attacker with some planning. Plus, those Syren (or whatever) can now also shoot at two defending classes themselves...

Re: Game Tactics
 

I use Syren/Wyvern all the time myself, although I didn't notice its awesomeness until halfway through the round. Syrens first take a small hit from Shadows (T2), then smother to death any spectres present, allowing comfortable cap.

As for Syren/Pegasus/Drake, I dislike the higher eta, and including the Syrens makes faking it as bs rather useless.

Re: Game Tactics
 

syrens don't really "utterly rape" anything, more like they smother to death at the efficiency of taking a qebab to a fat people market

Re: Game Tactics
 

Fine. Fits better with the "comfortable cap" part anyway.

Re: Game Tactics
 

New tactic in R29 which I am calling "Stupid Defense." With the advent of landing scans sending any defense at all is getting people to recall sometimes. Especially if the target has distorters and is hard to scan. Folks would rather not risk landing at all rather then land on what could just be one harpy or spider. It doesn't work if they can get a jumpgate scan, but for attackers who are lazy I have seen it be quite effective. Anyone else notice this trend?

Re: Game Tactics
 

i had forgotten about landing scans. guess that explains all the 1 visible ship defense fleets i've been seeing lately..

Re: Game Tactics
 

Also people xp whoring with 1 def ship

Re: Game Tactics
 

True.

Gives you 300xp if you're the only def landing + the travel xp.

Re: Game Tactics
 

Great heads up, this has been alot of help thanks.

Re: Game Tactics
 

I've noticed people using a new tactic, so I wanted to post it here for comment. Some may not like it being posted, but I think it's an interesting tactic so I thought I'd get it out there for everyone to discuss.

Working Title: Graduated ship building defense
Difficulty: Advanced
Description: With the introduction of production units coupled with a scan (planet scan) that shows resources in production people have gotten sloppy attacking planets with stored resources. Typically attackers will scan a target before launch, and perhaps a tick after launch but not again until right before landing to see what they have in production. The basic premise is that if the defender does not quickly put resources into production he cannot get them out in time for defense. This is not in fact true. The explanation of why is complex, and I will refer readers to the section of the manual on production for the complete explanation, but the short story is because factories add cost to an order, a player can put just one ship into production using all of his factories, and the order still takes 3 ticks to complete. However, after the first two ticks the costs of the factories are mostly paid off, so if at this point the user adds a bunch of ships to the order, the ships will not take as long to complete as calculators would tell you because the calculators factor in the factory costs, which are basically 0 at this point. If the defender gradually adds ships to the order he can time it so that a large number of ships come out of production at that last minute, even though for the first 4 or 5 ticks it appeared that the defender only had a very small amount of resources in production. This is especially useful for zik players who can pump out a large number of stealing ships unexpectedly in this way.
Counter: The counter is very simple, always plan for the defender's stockpile when planning the attack. If you have enough attack ships to overwhelm the defender, in most cases he won't bother to try and build out of the attack. Additionally if the attackers planet scan each tick they should see a gradual buildup of ships in production, indicating that this tactic is being used.

For the record, in case anyone asks, this is NOT a bug. This is in fact a clever use of how factories are designed. So the tactic is perfectly legal, and frankly quite clever.

Re: Game Tactics
 

usually whenever i play xan and cover an inc, ill send along one pod so only 1 ship shows up as def

that way when people see the jumpgate, they're slightly more inclined to land on my defence

its gotten me some pretty good salvage, maybe that should be a new strat!

Re: Game Tactics
 

Addition to Monroe:

It's good to always be prepared. Even if you don't think your gal is gonna get inc, before you go to bed, order 1 ship. Set factories to maximum, and reset them to the right number so that the 1 ship will arrive the tick after you wake up.

If you have incomings, then all your factory production cost is done and you can build far more to get out of incs.

Re: Game Tactics
 

I've pretty much survived the round with only 3/2/3 factories this way, along with my whole gal. "Burning prod time" can lead to some pretty good crashes if people aren't wary of it. Contrary to what monroe says you don't have to have a gradual buildup of ships in prod though. You can prod quite a bit in just a few ticks on max pop+feud/dict if you get rid of all the factory cost.


Another tactic specific to this round which should be noted is suicide harpy def. Against pure xan incs you literally cannot lose value after salvage and in fact if you're low ranked plus feud you make quite a profit even with your whole fleet wiped out.

Re: Game Tactics
 

I don't see you're point as contradictory to mine, it more compliments it. If you're goal is to maximize the amount of ships then yes gradual is better, but if you're goal is to hide as long as possible then waiting as long as possible is better. I'll add that to the tactic.

Can you expand your explanation of the suicide defense? I would like to add it to the list in a more documented way. Thanks.

Re: Game Tactics
 

The key I was pointing out, and yes you're right it's more complimentary than contradictory, is that you can "trap" people into believing you can't get your prod out on time. People are suspicious of a slow steady buildup in prod but a sudden drop only 4 ticks before landing with say 3 factories and people think "no way can he get that out in time".


As for the other http://game.planetarion.com/bcalc.pl?id=nr6y6dov3bop4sk is a break even for a middle ranked player even though he loses all his harpies. If you're feud you obviously make a good profit there. If you're feud you can still break even as seen here http://game.planetarion.com/bcalc.pl?id=ual5hjol3m2p02g up to a respectable lower t100 slot.

Re: Game Tactics
 

Perhaps I should change the name of the tactic to something more along the lines of "Last minute production defense" and then use both methods as suggestions to how to do it. Against a vigilant attacker the method you suggest is definitely better, and is easier to explain, so I think I will just simplify it to the methodology you suggest with a footnote about the other method.

Re: Game Tactics
 

I managed a number of gentleman's agreements and apologies followed by recalls in R71 - does genuinely work.

Re: Game Tactics
 

Well, this is possibly the best strategical thread I've ever read, so thanks Monroe!!!!

Re: Game Tactics
 

lol those days when attacking a member of LCH missing those days<3