Well, its been a while since i've done a review of ship stats like this, so please forgive my rustyness
.
I figured that everyone who is playing in the PA World Cup might be interested in any advice with regards to building their fleets as many of you havent experienced only two races before (pah, youngins!
).
Anyway, Appoco and i (and briefly Marv, be he died \o/) fought eachother using the
World Cup Ship Stats* to test them and to try some various strategies. The lessons i learnt will be the major focus of this discussion.
*These have now been updated to the final version with less than an hour to signups...
There are two "races" or tech branches in the World Cup - "War" and "Science". War is alot like Terran since R6, and Science is a mixture of Cath EMP and Xan Cloaking - however most importantly Cloaking now fires last - ie Xan without their initiative advantage. In the testing, Appoco went War and i went Science.
Attacking
Initially, players might choose to run Corvette raids at eachother - neither race is particularly fantastic at it, however attacking War planets would probably be easier as their major (early-game) counter is the Spider which only stuns CO, whilst Science planets will kill your corvettes. Science players who escort their CO pods with Spider 2's will have a much easier time as they will stun War's Spiders before they fire. This is a viable couse of action in the early stages, and it worked often enough against Appoco
- at least untill he built his WF
.
Frigates are the next type of fleet that players can choose to attack with. The Black Widow (BW) is very effective at attacking other Science players as their EMP stuns many poor-init Phantoms before they can fire; however Science players might have more CO to stun than War planets as their CO fleet is more viable (see Spider 2
). Similarly, War Frigates (WF) will be more effective against other War players, as the WF have the initiative advantage over Ints, however WF dont target Phantoms and Marv fell victim to my sneaky Phantom defence often
, and Appoco soon gave up attacking with FR. However, be very careful when attacking a War planet with Torpedoes - you will loose unless you send Spiders along with your WF. WF have been improved slightly since we tested the stats. Similarly, is possible for a War planet to stun defending Phantoms with their Spiders, however Spider 2 >>> Spiders, so a Science player defending themselves with Phantoms & Spider 2 will usually win. Spider 2's are actually pretty good ships.
The next attacking combo are Cruisers for Science. Tarantula escorts will be absolutely crucial to the success of this fleet - War Devastators are well, devastating. The Devs have been nerfed a bit (well, a lot
) since i was playing against them (and having the Tarant fire its EMP before initiative level 7 helps :\ - Appoco claims that to be a typo
), but flakked by WF etc stunning enough Devs can be hard. You will need to spend alot of money on Tarants to keep losses down, however if you can stay ahead of the power curve then you'll be fine and picking up free roids
. Tarantulas have been nerfed a little bit since i played with them, so keeping ahead will be a little harder. Attacking Science players with CR might actually be more difficult, as Wraithes are untargeted by CR/BA (indeed, you'll need BW or Interceptor escorts to kill them), however Wraithes are probably the worst ship in the game (armour/firepower wise). Without any Science players against me, i didnt really build any of them (i did once, but they died horribly
).
Battleships are War's top attacking class, and they are exceptionally effective. During the test, Battleships had the initiative advantage on Ghosts, and regularly annhiliated them
. Now the two units have the same initiative level, however the Ghosts are a tad more powerful on a 1:1 resource basis (assuming the defender wants to loose their Ghosts and not save them for following waves...), however if the War player escorts their BA with War Cruisers (WC), then its all over red rover for the Science player. Once appoco worked out that sending WC would help, i couldnt afford to engage in battle and the
only course of action was to run - War Battleships + WC were simply untouchable. Since our testing, the Phoenix has been re-targeted as an Anti Battleship unit - however its not massively fantastic at killing War's battleships - particularly Dreadnoughts - especially due to lacking the initiative.
The fight between Appoco and i revolved around Appoco sending BA + WC at me, and i would flee, and then attack him with CR right back, hoping that i had sufficient Tarants to stun his Devs and WF (which didnt happen untill after we reaslied that the Tarant initiative was actually after that of the Dev - once it was Fixed i won more often
).
I kept trying to use my Cloaked ships to the most advantage - sending Spectres along with my CR** to kill his massed FI, so i could follow up with a BW/FR attack for example, and using my Phantoms to try and kill his Devs whilst his Dreadnaughts were out so i didnt have to stun as many, and choosing to use my Ghosts only when WC were not present (Appoco liked trying to Fake alot, however i had Mil scans and more amps so win for soveh
). Alas, eventually, Appoco caught all my cloaked ships and killed them utterly which really ended my chances of beating him. Appoco won (!!!!).
**Following the change to the Phoenix now targeting Battleships, this might not be a fantastic idea unless you are more careful than i was...
.
Defence
For defensive ships, War will
need Devestators - as many as they can reasonably afford - to keep Science CR at bay. Torpedoes are better at keeping WF away, but Ints are prolly better at keeping BW away - indeed, it might be best for War players just amass Fighters for CO/FR defence as together they are hard to stop, plus might serve as escorts for other attacking combos. Appoco, do you want to comment on that? War's Destroyers are better than Ghosts in all regards (particularly initiative), however they will still fall victim to escorted Battleships with WC - however attacking WC will fall victim to Devestators (though after they have fired). Bit risky - depends on the situation. Once War planets have Dreadnaughts, you can forget being attacked by Science CO unless the Science player knows that your Battleships are out - and even then stunning War's massed Fighters will be challenging for the Science player.
Overall, War is usually pretty good at defending themselves as most of their ships are mutually supportive - unless its against highly specialised attacks; ie the enemy fleet is designed especially to take out whatever you have at the time. Even if you are attacked, the use of EMP means that often you wont loose much or anything except roids (lo Tarantula).
As for Science players defending themselves, success will be much harder for them. Phantoms/Spider2's will be fantastic at stopping WF raids, and leaving your Tarantulas home against a BW raid will mean that your Phantoms will blast massive holes in FR. Ints & BW should be fine against CO (Appoco wasnt a fan of attacking with CO). Tbh i am not sure if its worth building Ghosts at all due to the power of WC - Wraithes just get trashed before they can fire at the WC by Dreadnaughts, and Ghosts get killed by WC before they can fire at the Dreadnaughts to stop them firing on Wraithes. Its just a nasty circle that Science cannot win. Science players can build *some* Wraithes to pick holes in (now weakened) Tarantulas, and they have the great adavantage of needing to out-build EMP like the Devestators - but for God's sake,
run them when War attacks! The use of Recluses to stun battleships is questionable at best, however feel free to try it
.
Overall, Science will find it challenging to defend themselves against War's Battleships and Cruisers, but
should be fine against Corvettes and Frigates
.
Quick Summary
War:
CO Fleet (Astropod, Torpedo, Interceptor 2) : Attack War
FR Fleet (Astropod 2, WF) : Attack War (include Spiders), Attack Science (include Spiders, Devs late game against Tarants)
BA Fleet (Leviathon, Battleships, Dreadnaughts, War Cruisers) : Attack Science (Guarenteed Victory), Attack War (Beware Devs, else Victory).
Science:
CO Fleet (Astropod, Phantom, Spider 2) : Attack War (Spider 2 important), Attack Science (Spider 2 important)
FR Fleet (Astropod 2, BW) : Attack War (include Spider 2), Attack Science (Beware Phantoms).
CR Fleet (Mantis, Tarantula) : Attack War (Provided Tarant > Dev + WF), Attack Science (Beware Wraithes).
Tbh, i forsee that the races will degenerate into War attacking Science with BA + WC, and Science attacking War with CR, and sending it back and forth alot. At least, that's what happened with Appoco and i
.
If i had to pick a winner, i would have to say that War is stronger than Science - provided War can survive during the very early initial stages of the round.
Anyway, that should give you a general outline. Thoughts?
PS: Oh, keep in mind that Science ships *really* suck on the fuel - you cant afford to skimp on E. I had to exchange 5 mil metal to E in order to dodge an Appoco fleetcatch that would have killed me outright. As a science player, you'll be launch/recalling alot more often due to War's Battleship/WC Combo as well.
PPS: Also, at the start when initiating, for the love of God please remember that your ships cost AN ABSOLUTE BUCKETLOAD OF CRYSTAL and thus to initiatite your roids appropriately. I traded M for C to init more C roids (appoco was laughing at me thinking he was way ahead, but then i fieled more Spider 2's and ended up winning more at the start - that plus Science having better CO helped).
Thus.
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