Planetarion Forums

Shiprex · 14 Jun 2006, 21:49

CAn someone stop the XAN invisible fleet scan since it is a waste of time trying to defend against it. Xan players dont have to think about it when they are attacking and it gives an unfair advantage especially as their FI class hulls target ALL TER defence and the current strategy of hitting terrans half your value by is probably 100% successful with no effect on attacking fleet.

Demoralising when this kind of advantage is regularly on show in the gal status screen.

furball · 14 Jun 2006, 21:55

No. Xan's invunerability to fleet analysis scans is part of their makeup, just as Cathaar can EMP and Ziks can steal.

Monroe · 14 Jun 2006, 23:53

I agree with Furball. In addition an experianced player can make a pretty good guess as to what is coming, meaning the invisibility can be somewhat countered with experiance. Your real complaint seems to be more with the stats balance and the xan ability to own terran this round. This is a constant battle for the stats people, and the general consensous the last couple of rounds is that the best strategy is to make each race totally vunerable to at least one other race. Personally I agree the Xan advantage over terrans is bigger then it should be, but this has nothing to do with cloaking.

Ultimate Newbie · 15 Jun 2006, 00:13

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Monroe again. - i dunno mate, i think you'll have to be less helpful in the future

anyway, to answer your concerns, Monroe is right insofar as cloaking has nothing to do with your problem. Xans are still vulnerable to Unit scans, and through looking at the ETA of the attacking fleet and the number of ships inbound, its generally pretty obvious as to what is coming at you. for example, a fleet that shows up at ETA 7 cannot have Frigates or higher in it, and thus its likely to be a FI raid only. Similarly, a fleet that shows up at ETA 8 can be either FR or FI (plus one FR to get the ETA right), however usually the Number of inbounds can be enlighening; 2000 Fighters are very easy to stop, whilst 2000 Frigates are far more difficult. If you could kill 2000 Fighters without taking any losses, then its almost certainly FR that is attacking you. Having said that, the attacker might choose to bluff you by sending FI only, but that's moving into the realm of advanced fleet strategy

. Anyway, if you Unit scan your attacker and tally up all their Fighters (say 10k), and all their Frigates (say 2k) and you have 2k Incs at ETA 8 then its a fair bet its a FR raid. If its 10k at ETA 7 then its almost certainly a FI raid. If its 12k at ETA then its prolly both, etc. Xan players will typcially send their whole fleet of a certain class in order to inflict maximum damage on you, because it reduces their own losses significantly as their armour is paper-thin. Also, it looks scary

.

Attackers attack to win - generally they wont attack unless they think they have a good chance of winning; whether this is because they are gambling that part of your fleet is out, or through sneaky composition, or whatever isnt really hte point. If you apply some common sense to your incoming you can determine what a Xan has sent at you without the need for an expensive Fleet Scan - Unit scans are usually sufficient. In that regard, being Cloaked is no advantage at all for Xan players - indeed i would imagine it helps Ziks who have stolen Xan ships more than it helps Xans :\.

As for Xans always trashing terran, well that works both ways; Terran is usually pretty good at attacking Cath, and Cath is good at attacking Xan. Depending on the Zik, all races (or no races) can be good at attacking Ziks. Its just a round-robin type thing.

Veedeejem! · 1 Jul 2006, 13:43

The xan cloak has allready been downsized enough, it used to show 0 ships incoming and now it shows the numbers so it's alot easier to figure out what the xan is sending (most experienced dc's will have no problem with figuring out unless the fake is vry good)
If xan would lose the cloak completly you could just rename them to "terrans with weak ass ships"
So no, xan keep their cloak plz

Shiprex · 25 Jul 2006, 01:20

Perhaps setting the init the same for defendind ships targetting would make it worth defending against

Kargool · 25 Jul 2006, 08:28

Heh, Xans can get roided quite easy by terrans this round, its the Terran payback round!

gzambo · 25 Jul 2006, 13:05

beetles from ingal or alliance can freeze a lot of xan fi so its not always that depressing to get 10k xan incomin when 800 beetles will freeze them

Gio2k · 6 Aug 2006, 20:54

I actually think xan got the worst part when doing terran vs. xan comparisons.
Of course, terran are also vulnerable to other attacks.

jian_yee · 6 Aug 2006, 21:02

heh, if u wanna complain against the xan fa, just mass up lots of dists, and be unscannanble, as a terran, U can do that and prevent lots of incomings...

And the terrans can own xan with de so all in all it does make up

Pilgrim · 19 Aug 2006, 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by jian_yee

heh, if u wanna complain against the xan fa, just mass up lots of dists, and be unscannanble, as a terran, U can do that and prevent lots of incomings...

And the terrans can own xan with de so all in all it does make up

Md can still scan you though. 149 distorters or not hell ensure ND wave you stupid with your one class fleet helpless to defend yourself

Gate · 19 Aug 2006, 10:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by jian_yee

heh, if u wanna complain against the xan fa, just mass up lots of dists, and be unscannanble, as a terran, U can do that and prevent lots of incomings...

I built 147 distorters in r16 and I'm pretty sure I was still well inside the T100 for roids lost, was t20 at one point

[quote=Monroe This is a constant battle for the stats people, and the general consensous the last couple of rounds is that the best strategy is to make each race totally vunerable to at least one other race. [/QUOTE]

The main problem IMO is when various issues (eg. race balance and stats design) lead to one race always hitting another race. In my stats, I tried to make up a matrix whereby every race would be able to hit 2 other races with each fleet. The problem is (IMO) a cumulative effect of one fleet being utterly superior to the other (This round, frigates are crap, FI are good. So most xands will just spam FI), and only being able to hit one target (beetle is an attack ship so caths have a lot of them, whilst ziks can use brigands or massed thief with help from stolen beetles).

This means that this round, xands will always look specifically for terrans and will generally have a lot more FI available.

So yeah, it's a stats problem more than a cloaking one IMO.

bwtmc · 20 Aug 2006, 15:56

Interestingly, as more Ziks have moved into the t100, I'd say Xan FR has become quite useful and even appealing for some. As ever, galaxy defence falls off a bit too towards the end, making it even better (Cat/ZIk have no ally eta def).. what you build is always going to depend on the targets you expect to have on offer at this point. FR can be quite nice as it's potentially lossless on Cats/Ziks.

Ultimate Newbie · 21 Aug 2006, 02:24

The problem is, of course, is that you have to find the resources in order to build a sufficient number of frigates to attack those top 100 planets + their defence. That means diverting resources away from your Fighter fleet, which makes it less effective - and if you fall behind the "power curve" where you have just enough fighters massed to make it highly undesireable/impossible to defend against you - then you'll be able to land fewer and fewer attacks and the ones that you do result in more and more fleet beind lost.

So, i'm saying it might be a little too late to switch production - and even if it isnt, there is such a terribly large risk for those who do, because you mightnt be able to attack with either fleet properly.

Yes, i am pretty conservative.