Pds

It's quite some time since last I played planetarion, but back then I'm pretty sure the PDS fired first. I looked at the ship stats fore round 9, and saw that PDS had the last initiative. I wondered, is PDS still effective, or do they shoot too slow ?

[TheSeeker]

Heya

You are right, PDS used to shoot first, now its changed to last. In my opinion, and most / all people in here, PDS is not a best buy, it never was, but it only got worse. Maybe a few if you want to scare off Cathaar players, but i suggest you spend you money on ships.

So, almost all PDS is useless, or do they still have uses?

I thank you for the advice though

[TheSeeker]

Well, they do kill, if they are still alive..... but i wouldnt advise PDS to anyone, as you cant use it in offense, and you cant run with it.

just dont use it.

[Prince]

its moderetley effective vs emp or Stealing ships
as they can't effect it in any way

apart from that, no its not

[Knight Theamion]

apart from it being the best armourflak in the game.


a terran with a few tachyons is basically unroidable early on.

[Prince]

thats also a great point, Pulse being the ideal flak for terrans
1k Pulse adds plenty of armour flak to your Pegs and dems

[K-W]

PDS are definately worth building for smaller players who get attacked alot. THey scare off cathaar, and the armor is v nice. If you are small people will rarely bother sending a bashing fleet to kill your pds. Alliance players cant afford to buy much, except maybe at the start, because there is always the chance of a kill fleet.

[Chax]

Originally posted by Prince
its moderetley effective vs emp or Stealing ships
as they can't effect it in any way

apart from that, no its not

For a Cath attacker it's easier to freeze all your ships if you have PDS, then they can decide where to take the losses, wether to send FR or CR pods or possibly flak out the random fire with FI

For a Zikonian attacker your PDS allows him to distribute fire from steal ships onto his preferred target while the killships after killing their primary will spread the fire on PDS and ships, leaving more ships to be stolen rather than killed.

Just a little twist

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by K-W
PDS are definately worth building for smaller players who get attacked alot. THey scare off cathaar, and the armor is v nice. If you are small people will rarely bother sending a bashing fleet to kill your pds. Alliance players cant afford to buy much, except maybe at the start, because there is always the chance of a kill fleet.

I disagree. As a small player, your PDS is no deterrant at all, even for Cathaar. It is very easy to eliminate (as with all small fleets vs a large fleet) and it is so much more important as a small player to keep your fleet - ie flee - which PDS sadl cannot do.

[K-W]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
I disagree. As a small player, your PDS is no deterrant at all, even for Cathaar. It is very easy to eliminate (as with all small fleets vs a large fleet) and it is so much more important as a small player to keep your fleet - ie flee - which PDS sadl cannot do.

If a small player has alot of roids, they will get taken and pds will get killed. If the player is playing smart and keeping his ratio on that fine line between worth it and not worth it, pds can be a key to keeping it not worth it for certain races.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by K-W
If a small player has alot of roids, they will get taken and pds will get killed. If the player is playing smart and keeping his ratio on that fine line between worth it and not worth it, pds can be a key to keeping it not worth it for certain races.

previous rounds have shown that if a small player HAS roids, s/he will be attacked regardless. i've defended enough small people to know that their fleet and PDS are irrelevent in a battle, as it is simply too small.

thus, my original point still stands - fleeing will be better for a small planet to keep the score - having PDS will generally make the person have to stay which just results in roids being stolen AND fleet killed, and then that makes them an even BETTER target for another player.

[Prince]

true in big vs small can't hope to win

in a 500k Vs 500k PDS would effect the cathaar attacker

[Sun_Tzu]

the best sort of pds is the sort they call "capital class ships" ;-)
Dragon/syren for terran.
Guardians for cathaar.
Man o War for zikos(I guess).
Xanda is left with-out :P

[Chax]

Originally posted by Sun_Tzu
the best sort of pds is the sort they call "capital class ships" ;-)
Dragon/syren for terran.
Guardians for cathaar.
Man o War for zikos(I guess).
Xanda is left with-out :P

Naah, Xandathrii have a great mobile PDS in what for Xan is their capital class - the broadsword

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally posted by Chax
Naah, Xandathrii have a great mobile PDS in what for Xan is their capital class - the broadsword

indeed, was too fixated on cr-bs ships ;(

[Telest]

Well, pds does have a few uses, all of which rely on preventing an attack rather than actually -really- helping while in combat.

1) Building PDS to inflict losses on enemy. PDS cannot be frozen and it has fair firepower, so people might think twice.

You can also use pds to patch up weak spots in your defence, or to try to avoid attacks by certain race. Lots of anti-xandathrii defence might make you vulnerable to bigger attacks, but if getting defence to those is easier, then it might be worth it.

2) Building PDS to act as armor. Tachyons, for example, are cheap armor sitting between pulsar and pegasus. Correctly deployed pds, just enough to act as armor against most attackers, can make especially xandathrii's shun you.

Whereas it might be argued that chimera (for example) is better because you can actively use it, it has random fire and can flee when facing with overwhelming odds, PDS does have it's advantages, one of the biggest being that it simply can NOT flee.

If your enemy has enough pulsars to shred all your chimera in one tick and hurt the pegasus the second, he knows that a reasonable target might flee to flee. If, however, you have PDS, you can not save them by fleeing, hence you'll probably stay and have your pegs inflict heavy casualties on him.

It's psychological.

[Prince]

very nicely wrote Telest
and valid points, I could bet money on someone providing equal reaons about why pds is no good, in the end you either love it or hate it

[Domin]

Originally posted by Prince
very nicely wrote Telest
and valid points, I could bet money on someone providing equal reaons about why pds is no good, in the end you either love it or hate it

The only one who seem to love it is creators...

[K-W]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
previous rounds have shown that if a small player HAS roids, s/he will be attacked regardless. i've defended enough small people to know that their fleet and PDS are irrelevent in a battle, as it is simply too small.

thus, my original point still stands - fleeing will be better for a small planet to keep the score - having PDS will generally make the person have to stay which just results in roids being stolen AND fleet killed, and then that makes them an even BETTER target for another player.

Anyone who sends a kill fleet at a very small planet with not many roids is an idiot. But i suppose there are idiots playing PA. But generally a planet that keeps its ratio unapatizing can grow at a slow rate and avoid serious incoming, of course it cant avoid all incoming, but if you have no def source whatsoever whats the point of playing this game anyway?

Originally posted by K-W
If a small player has alot of roids, they will get taken and pds will get killed. If the player is playing smart and keeping his ratio on that fine line between worth it and not worth it, pds can be a key to keeping it not worth it for certain races.

I agree full with K-W here, the targets with PDS will be picked last in an attack and there is a high chance that this PDS target will be faked at the begining of a round but NOT in a war.

However many PDS isn´t a good choice just build them to close you fleet gaps to have more armour and firepower on rarly targeted shipclasses from your fleet.

PDS is usefull the first 2-3 weeks after that the amount of ships reached the critical mass and it is more likely that a kill fleet will visit you.
There are some ppl´s out there which don´t care about ratio´s who just hate other ppl with pds and going to kill them.

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally posted by Domin
The only one who seem to love it is creators...

[Soron]

I say PDS are usefull only for bigger players and/or players in gig alliance, for the others it is not so important.

[marmor]

I've always found PDS worth building, small or big. I'll prolly go Terr this round and will start to build some Taches as I did when I went Terr in Rn7. Later on I'll build some Puls and Hadron to flak my pegs. Their fire is also good to have so I aviod Cath-attacks.

[K-W]

Originally posted by Soron
I say PDS are usefull only for bigger players and/or players in gig alliance, for the others it is not so important.

big players should never build pds, its as sure a way as any to garuntee you will lose alot of score at some point.

[spectrum]

pds is also a score-increase which doesnt help you attacking smaller planets.
to the extreme: if you are at 3mil score and invested much into pds, you wont be able to attack any1, as you have to few ships to compete with ppl your size (or even 20% of you) effective and capping prevents you from attacking smaller ones.
so you will sit around, waiting for some1 to kill your pds so that you can go out for roids again..

[Soron]

Originally posted by K-W
big players should never build pds, its as sure a way as any to garuntee you will lose alot of score at some point.

that also goes for small players... they will loose even sooner I guess

[wakka]

this depends on your race if your a cathaar frozen ships are sitting ducks for your PDS.... freeze and kill baby freeze and kill!
this is a sure way for you to be a killer cathaar. who says cathaars can't kill ya. heh heh

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by wakka
this depends on your race if your a cathaar frozen ships are sitting ducks for your PDS.... freeze and kill baby freeze and kill!
this is a sure way for you to be a killer cathaar. who says cathaars can't kill ya. heh heh

Guardians - CAthaar's mobile PDS that is actually good for attacking as well.

i reccomend it