Zik

I just had a quick glance at the Zik ship stats, and could use some advice. After loving all stealing ships after round 2(ofc stuff have changed, but when you start loveing someting...) I'll have to go with the stealing race.

So what I was wondering was:

theifs now steal more, but have less armor. Will it be worth to use them to attack/defend against xan to get their Vults(as you will steal more now), or is the CO class still to weak to support that kind of fleet.

maurauders have lost armor. Is it now to low to use as flakk, since they basically don't steal, or should I jsut find another ship to send with my FR attack

Pillagers are upgraded, what about going for some caths to get uni pods and try some ETA 9 attacks with a pirat, man O war, pillager fleet. should be hard to stop but lots of time to get def.

Not sure what ships to rush to here, or if I should just stick with my old FR style attack fleet. Also wonder on opinions on mas brig building for attacking. worked pretty well last round, as their armor is ok, but then again they got crapp initiative.

any advise would be apresiated

[Sun_Tzu]

the marauder is still useable, just not as good as last round. Main ships to use are the whole fr and de scale. If attacking xanda or cathaar you might as well send in some thiefs to take co and fi but it's not that superb a ship. the combo of vults and thieves is not as good as it used to be, mainly since both were lessend(theif lost armor, vult costs more so it takes more thiefs to steal the same ammount of vults). hard to say about capital class, I'd rather aim in on just stealing fr and de ships. hope that helps some.

[-QS-]

I`d go for Cutter/Clipper/Rogue(for demeter). But this fleet would not be too good for alliance-def ofc

[Sun_Tzu]

fi is used for alliance def, as allways. Also, I hear bucc's are worth it, though the fleet still needs to be cutter/clipper heavy. You sure about leaving out the marauder? it might be less flak but I still think it might have a job to do and could get you some bw's if nothing else.

[Mi5]

frigs:
cutter (loads)/marauder (a few)/pods

destroyers:
clipper/buc (amount in attack fleet depends on enemy fleet)/demeter/rogue

vette attack fleet:
1) brig/thief/vultures

2) corsair/cuttlass/vultures/thief

tbh the Cr and BS are a luxury that arent essential and can result in floating score that you can't really use (when min target score starts being annoying)

comments???

[SpazMonster]

Mi5 gets a gold star. I'd say stick to FR roiding fleet using mainly cutters and try to steal as many bw as possible, just use any 2ndary roiding fleet as novelty for the times when the particular target has a gaping hole in their defences, but don't focus on the novelty roiding fleet, else it'll consume you :P

[MAdnRisKy]

Zik fleet for me is cutters corsairs and marauders, with excess crystal going on clippers.

ask yourself who you could hit with de. not xan that's for sure, maybe cat but then you'd need a large percentage of yourscore in them. which leaves terran, now you CAn hit terrans but that means buccs, and LOTS of buccs, which are useless for anything else, meaning that the majority of your score ends up being in de for clippers buccs and rogues, and suddenly you cut your targets down drastically andhave built a very unbalanced fleet.

No the way to go is cutters and marauders and aim at fr roiding, either on cat , on terran who use wyverns over syrens or even on xan (drop marauders on xan)

defense ship is the clipper and the corsair, the corsair being the one you send out the clipper being your own pds. I'd chose corsair over cutlass because it'll help with balancing the costs on the cutter, plus with less arrows in the uni, they're not so fragile now. You can't send anything ati xan, but then terran can't send anything anti DE or CR, so alliance wise it'll balance out.

[Sun_Tzu]

I know atleast some friends(H_Bozz and t1k) that did very good last round using both fr and de and then having both types of fi for alliance def. This means they had a pretty wide range of targets(o/c the uni was xanda heavy so bucc's weren't much needed since terrans were investing on pegs and chims mainly) and they were able to send alliance defence with low eta's that could target anything.

[dabult]

Would be fun to be Zik for once.



Can you please please change the fricken nastyass gfx they got? I wouldnt wanna play with the current one for a single day

[Chax]

Originally posted by dabult
Would be fun to be Zik for once.



Can you please please change the fricken nastyass gfx they got? I wouldnt wanna play with the current one for a single day

What an odd statement, The onl races I want to play are zik and cathaar due to them having the least irritating gfx.

[Nat]

Which ships would you steal with zik's?

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by Nat
Which ships would you steal with zik's?

i think i would aim for a DE fleet as primary roiding fleet, and a Fr fleet as my secondary roiding fleet...

[Chax]

Originally posted by Nat
Which ships would you steal with zik's?

With a DE based primary roiding fleet
1. Demeters
2. Pegasi
3. Widowmakers
4. Black widows (side effect when target cath runs out of makers)

With a FR based Roiding fleet
1. Black widows
2. Broadswords
3. Chimeras

With a CO based roiding fleet
1. Vultures
2. Any other Xan CO, because you need to constantly hit Xan to refill those vultures.
This is not a good plan, Xan are so much better at killing you :P
Although you can ofc steal the vults while defending in C/P.

With a CR based roiding fleet
1. Mantis
2. Tarantulas
To do this, use the pirate, the pillager will just get frozen. Also flak out the tara fire with millions of corsairs. either way, using a CR roiding fleet as a zikonian is pure idiocy, pla cath instead.

[General1]

Originally posted by Chax

2. Broadswords
.

Well its not that those ships were builded very much last rd by the xan players

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by General1
Well its not that those ships were builded very much last rd by the xan players

last round is over....we are talking about r9 now. Yes xan didnt buy broadswords last round, but they didnt need to.... they had to focus on anti FI/CO since most of the uni was xan... this time we will see alot more terran(which means wyvern) , cathaar(guardian) and zik(mow) so they will have to buy more broadsword....

[MAdnRisKy]

The only point worth mentioning in reply chax, is that if a cat runs out of makers and you get wids, you also get fr pods, which if the bugs are still applicable, means you don't get any roids either :/

[Mi5]

i thought they sorted that in rnd7

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by Mi5
i thought they sorted that in rnd7

I should think so. We worked our asses off to find/fix that heh

I have discussed this with a few people now, and I have reached a conclusion:
"Zikonian ships (Thief’s etc) don't really steal ships at all; they just destroy the other ship and take its form."

The bottom line is that Stealing ships are no better than any other ships. You don’t gain ships by stealing like you did in round 2. Now I'd like other people’s opinion on this.

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by kanyon
You don’t gain ships by stealing like you did in round 2. Now I'd like other people’s opinion on this.

yes you do! you get hold of ships you cant build, which is good...but if you dont like it, then just dont go zik

[Nat]

Originally posted by MAdnRisKy
Zik fleet for me is cutters corsairs and marauders, with excess crystal going on clippers.

Why not Cutters/Clippers/marauders and excess metal or cutlass?

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by Nat
Why not Cutters/Clippers/marauders and excess metal or cutlass?

maybe add in rogue so you could get a DE fleet aswell

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by Nat
Why not Cutters/Clippers/marauders and excess metal or cutlass?

because if I have excess metal I buy cutters!

Cutters are the deciding factor, most of my fleet will be based on them, up to and including 50%

this leaves precious metal spare ;-)

plus corsairs are probably more useful to my alliance, as whilst cutlass are more effective, there is no anti cr at eta 6 available to anyone else (unless you count the sentinal which i don't plus the corsair is much better armoured and with better emp res and all the rest) and since zik are in short supply as well, that really ups the importance.

parallel differences in time travel are going to completely rule out co as primarey defence ships, those roach whore cat players are going to be in for a shock this round....... (they'll be too slow to stop an in para terran de attack) now how frightening is that? (it also advocates the use of de over fr fleets provided said de fleet can combat the incomming defence ie target fi or co (zik can't really but terran can) since that leaves only 2 ships (or 3 if you count the stupid xans) capable of being used the pulsar and the corsair both of which are now not great).

Terran will rule the round. but wait this is a zik thread, I'll stop harping on about whole grossly overpowered terran will turn out to be, not particularly because of the stats but because of the round characteristics and game mechanics, and whilst I;m on this little rant, i'd like to point out that the round 7 xan stats were simmilar in on paper power values, it was subsequent factors that boosted them to rediculous levels of force factors which for the most part are still in play or even stronger except for the random universe. No I'll stop or this will turn into a long essay, if anyone is actually interested in my opinion on the subject i'll elaborate, but probably not here.

[Nat]

Originally posted by MAdnRisKy
No I'll stop or this will turn into a long essay, if anyone is actually interested in my opinion on the subject i'll elaborate, but probably not here.

Please do

Also i wasnt thinking straight, you obvisouly buy extra cutters..

[dabult]

How come people are talking itsy bitsy tiny, rather shabby Corsair, rather than the Cutlass? Am I way off when Im slowly starting to think zik-cutlass over terran-harpy, as use of your M every now and then when you're going to be a scanwhore?
The Harpy looks better to me, but how much better really?

(hope this made sense :P)

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by dabult
How come people are talking itsy bitsy tiny, rather shabby Corsair, rather than the Cutlass? Am I way off when Im slowly starting to think zik-cutlass over terran-harpy, as use of your M every now and then when you're going to be a scanwhore?
The Harpy looks better to me, but how much better really?

(hope this made sense :P)

Cutlass > Harpy

It's like a harpy on crack.

[Teh_Necro]

I'm going Zik personally, and i'll be using my Thieves and Rouge's (in c/p) as Defence Fleet - Early on at least.

My main focus will be on Cutters/Marauders/Pods - With cutlass as my FI defence early on (too counter CO/FR) then later moving onto corsairs (Anti DE/CR).

The only problem i can think of, is my corsairs(iniative 11) being eaten up by Pegs(iniative 10).

Buccaneer/Clipper alternative is possible - however i'd be inclined to put too much resources into DE - at least not untill i have captured a significant amount.

I'm also not impressed with the EMP resistance of the Pillager. They would of made a fine ship for nicking Mantis fleets.

Oh well - admitedly i've not gone over the zik stats fully - not as much as i usually do b4 a round.

We'll see anyways.

Good luck peeps.

-Necro

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by Teh_Necro



The only problem i can think of, is my corsairs(iniative 11) being eaten up by Pegs(iniative 10).

well, the pegs doesnt kill corsair very well...or they do, but they have overkill on every singel shot.. besides corsairs kill pegs better than pegs kill corsair

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Cutlass > Harpy

It's like a harpy on crack.

oh come on devan you don't mean that...

Cutlass may have better wpsd, but it loses out on agil so that in a straight fight the harpy and the cutlass kill the same against each other, except the harpy has better init.

now i know that's not what you meant, but consider...

The harpy is armour flak, I mean against fi that shoot up to fr, it's better armour than drakes for heavens sake, which isn't something you can say about the cutlass.

it also has INSANE emp res, which the cutlass REALLY doesn't have. You're right the cutlass kills better, but it dies easier, and it doesn't have init to compensate for this./ Infact the cutlass rather blows because you can't use it in an anti fi role, beetles or vsh just muller it, in an anti co role it would always have to shoot atthe fi first so again pointless, in fact it's only real use is anti FR, which the corsair can also do all be it not as efficiently. The corsair however, has strength in numbers, as well as a much better emp res (one of the main problems for zik is going to be cat incomming, you could at least TRY to make it hard for the beetles...) plus in my opinion a better targetting solution. And all of that arguement is circumstantial, the MAIN reason for corsairs over cutlass is the extra amount of cutters it allows you to build, which quite frankly woop cutlass' behind.

[Mi5]

Need some help with zik fleet comp:

a) fr fleet will be cutter/marauder with a few pods, what ratio should i build the cutter/marauder combo in?

b) de fleet will be clipper/buc/rogue and a handful of demeter, what ratio should i build these in (i took a loook at the rogue and it steals pretty efficiently and can act as useful flak) ?

c) I intend to have a corvette class roiding fleet late rnd, however im unsure on how to do it. In rnd7 i used a cors/cuttlass/vulture combo which was pretty effective, tho it was a lot more a scare fleet than a true roiding fleet and the cap would often not be max. However in rnd9 i can see 3 options:

i)corsair/cuttlass/vulture+thief = targets almost every class but bs and has a flak ship which can steal other ships to flak the combo
ii) brig/thief/vulture combo which targets all classes but bs and as they are all the same class that reduces the ships that can hit the combo and they all act as flak to each other. However there's a possible frig weakness due to it only being a t3 and with some cr/de flak frigs could be used to emp/kill the combo without getting touched.
iii) cuttlass/brig/vulture (+ possibly the thief) which once agains targets all but bs

Which of these 3 combos would you recommend and what ~ratios would you build them in?

Constructive comments/advice on all of the above would be appreciated

thanks

[Sun Pin]

imo i wouldnt bet on getting a good DE fleet. Even though it would rock beyond imagination its hard to get enough demeter to make it work :/

a co fleet might work, but as a zik i would go with the FR fleet(just swarming the enemy with FR) but ive got no idea about what ratio you should build them in...

all the ways are possible, but you should only go for one of them, having two roiding fleets make you less capable of taking targets your size, hence making the importance of you (for your alliance) lesser...

[Mi5]

Originally posted by Sun Pin
imo i wouldnt bet on getting a good DE fleet. Even though it would rock beyond imagination its hard to get enough demeter to make it work :/

a co fleet might work, but as a zik i would go with the FR fleet(just swarming the enemy with FR) but ive got no idea about what ratio you should build them in...

all the ways are possible, but you should only go for one of them, having two roiding fleets make you less capable of taking targets your size, hence making the importance of you (for your alliance) lesser...

A pure fr fleet severely restricts a zik after a while, limits ur target options etc, if you wanna stay with the leaders you gotta adapt.

I've done the whole de fleet thing in rnd7 before when the rogue was a bit of an awkward ship eta wise and class, it isnt as hard as you suggest and should be a lot easier this round. Incidentally i also had a co attack fleet as well (cuttlass/corsair/vultures, it rocked).

tbh the importance isnt really on hitting targets your size (did you mean score?) the key is hitting easy targets that give the roids for min score loss, diversity is the key to getting these targets, often fleets have weaknesses that can be exploited, but only if you have the neccessary options. I usually aim at targets with the best ratios which is usually the lowest possible score (i can hit) and the most roids. This results in easy roids. Battling it out 1-1 isnt really my style, id rather get easy roids than fight for hard ones.

[Sun Pin]

Originally posted by Mi5
I've done the whole de fleet thing in rnd7 before when the rogue was a bit of an awkward ship eta wise and class, it isnt as hard as you suggest and should be a lot easier this round. Incidentally i also had a co attack fleet as well (cuttlass/corsair/vultures, it rocked).

well, in r7 fleet-farming was allowed(im not saying you did fleet farm, im just pointing it out) and the universe is shrinking, and since its mostly the not-so-good-ppl that fall out then r9 is a more hardcore round.... and most terran would run their demeter when their facing a rougue incomming.

tbh the importance isnt really on hitting targets your size (did you mean score?) the key is hitting easy targets that give the roids for min score loss, diversity is the key to getting these targets,

as i wrote in the brackets, i ment alliance-wise not for you personally... ofc its better for ou to pick on guys with lower score, but for your alliance its better for you to take some targets near you in score, hence freezing more enemy fleet

[Ultimate Newbie]

I think that the FR fleet will be the best since you 1) dont have to go running about for pods, and 2) there are some very good FR ships around, specificly the BW, but to a lesser extent Broadswords and Chimera, combined with your Cutters results in a very effective, FR Only fleet that targets everything.

and it has a pretty reasonable ETA Too - i dont see what's wrong with it tbh. (with exception that people build FR defence).

[at0mic.c0w]

Originally posted by Mi5
Which of these 3 combos would you recommend and what ~ratios would you build them in?

the brig is the better cover for the vults + it doesn't kill itself only to be replaced by probably worse ships. maybe include some thieves when attacking xan to stock up on vultures (or at least to force the target to run his vults which lets u shoot at the other COs)

including corsairs isn't really necessary since u have the brig. it depends on what will be shooting at the FIs and if it gets cheaper by sending the corsairs.

[black-eyed boy]

I haven't decided what race to go yet and if I go zik I'll stick with De fleet.
Lot of clippers / demeters combo sounds scary and clippers are awesome in defence too ofcourse, rogues now are really good at "killing" both De and Fr which makes them good in defence as much as in attacks where they'd steal the ships I want to have.

Zik De's weak point is that they are poor against Fi. I'd solve this by having ~15% of fleetscore in cutters. That's just enough for attacking planets 21-28% of your size whenever I find a suitable target and they are good fi-killers aswell. Another good solution is that I'll be capping plenty of pegs with rogues which will strenghten the anti-fi defence.
Oh and indeed the above fleet requires much more C than M so the rest of M is spent on cutlasses which once again provide some more anti-fi power and, more importantly, they are the ships to defend friends and alliancemates with. Depending on the M/C ratio I'd have, cutlasses will take a bit more or less than 20% of fleetscore which is a pretty big number.

So, for me it would be
cutlasses 20%
cutters 15%
clippers 25%
rogues + demeters + other stolen ships 40%


PS The main weakness I see is horrible EMP resistance of above fleet. I think it's possible to freeze it completely without spoiling the cap

[tokath]

you're right with just cutlass, cutters, clips, and rogues for your main ships being built you can be frozen totally and not ruin the cap.

my idea...


in the beginning:
Brig
Thief
Cutlass (metal sink)
+Vulture


afterwards:
skip Fr!!
Clipper (lot of! >50% of score. evul!)
Rogue
Buccaneer (very late and depending on amount of Cr/Bs in universe)
+Demeter
+Pegasus



this way i'll play this round. sure i'll get some other ships too, but those above with the "+" i aim on at my targets

Cr/Bs are senseless for Zik imho

[Bongdage]

Originally posted by g@pe

...skip Fr!!

stupid move imo, stealing de/co pods is unreliable unless your cheating + the cutter is a pwnage ship.

[Buly The Great]

So you meen that it's not worth building CR and BS zik ships at all?
I haven't actually found a good reason to build them yet.

[Sun_Tzu]

moveable pds, I guess that's about it?

[MAdnRisKy]

if Xan end up dominating build a fk load of MoW, just to put them off other than that no, unless you want a few in gal pirates to nick wyverns. The trouble of that is you have the cluipper which is HUGELY more useable and durable than the wyvern anyway