Cathaar, what fleet do i want?

[vampire_lestat]

Used to be a xand, but clicked on the wrong name. What fleet do i want to build? Tarantula's etc or Spiders?

[Shaithess]

Are you in an alliance, or in a good gal?

If so, as cat, I would ignore scarabs (Relying on gal/alliance for anti CR), black widows and beetles, and go for spiders, scorpions, tarantulas, vipers and roach in decent numbers; perhaps putting some defenders in to kill stunned FR.

With plenty of vips/CR you can roid xans, your CR can roid other cats and ziks... Terr prove a problem but they're unlikely to attack you with CO (They lose lots to tarants), and hopefully your roach (excellent ships) will EMP enough destroyers to dissuade them from hitting you anyway.

I'm a zik, so I don't really know that much, sorry

[General1]

Originally Posted by Shaithess

With plenty of vips/CR you can roid xans

U ever heard of a ship called Boltthrower. They have the nasty habbit of eating vipers as a lil snack. Viper cost 11mil recources for every 100. If you have 500 bolt, U kill around 180 viper.
THAT"S expensive!!!!!!!!

[vampire_lestat]

so what fleet would you recommend then (or at least what webbeh would give me a good idea as to what to build)?

[Phant]

Well, you have 2 choices for attacks really.
You cant attack any terran with a decent built fleet for no losses so you are better off aiming for either attacking Caths/Ziks with plenty of cruisers, or attacking Xans with a massive bs fleet

Attacking with cruisers would be quite easy. Just build plenty of hornets and other cruisers (tulas to scare away scarabs ) and attack ziks/caths since their anti cr only subvert or freeze. Im sure someone can recommend a decent composition.
Pro: very easy
Con: caths/ziks are small in numbers and heavily targeted by most of the universe already.

Now attacking Xans is also pretty easy.
Pro: You pretty much have the xans by yourself since noone else really wants to attack them.
Con: You have to use a massive fleet normally, also a lot of your defending ships

To attack a xan you would need lots of vipers to stun their heavy fr fleet (but vipers pwn frigs ). Now if we are talking about decent up-to-date xans they will also have boltthrowers in their fleet to def against this, meaning you need roaches to stun them and the lancers. They also have broadswords so you have to throw in some scarabs to take them out too. And enough scorpions to cover their vsharraks. If you have those ships: scarabs, roaches, scorpions, vipers and hornets in a decent ratio you can attack xans for no losses.

As for the rest of the fleet... it depends a bit if your ally has specific needs for ships (if you have an ally that is, cath without an ally is doomed though). You should have a lot of roaches though. You will get a lot of terran DE inc as you dont kill their DE, so a lot of those will mean you dont need that many ally ships to cover those incs. Also, with almost half the universe beeing terran there is a lot of DE incs, meaning your roaches will be worth a lot to your ally. The other ships... well, maybe some DCs around here can tell what they prefer?

Edit: Myself I have some spiders (to keep xan fi away, and help those eta 7 fi def calls), some beetles (only for ally def, not useful elsewise) and some scarabs (i attack with them and def with them as well). I dont have many defenders at all, feeling that as I already have all those vipers its a bad idea to use more on anti fr. Though a cath with a lot of roaches and defenders will be popular as anti xan. i guess.

[vampire_lestat]

cheers.

[Phant]

Np.

Hopefully more people will post their view as people have more than 1 point of view on things. I canf offer you a more precise suggestion than this either. You will learn by your mistakes, so I have done myself

[General Martok]

Phant: about your scarabs, roaches, scorpions, vipers and hornets attackfleet:

That fleet contains 4 shipclasses, is eta 9 and doesn't kill. The scarabs are killed by default by vsarrakhs too. Just forget any xan with broadswords..

[Melesse]

General - Yea, but it should be kept in mind, cause it sometimes works. Rarely, but sometimes.

I don't use my frigate fleet hardly at all anymore, it's just targeted by too damned many things. And I can't afford to generalize, so I've been concentrating on cruisers and battleships right now as Cath. The Bottom line is still make friends. Otherwise your ratio is just going to constantly be so low so as to cripple you. I've managed to stay in the 600's in rank barely, it's rough with the constant incoming.

Melesse

[Phant]

Gerneral... yes, if he gets any def you're screwed (though thats always a prob with attacking as cath). So it works when you're small/midsized, but when you grow bigger and targets are likely to get def you might have to go with for a simpler composition but be willing to take the ship losses for it.

Forget any xan with broadswords? Myself I've had no problem getting roids attacking xans this round for no losses (if it was vsharraks you were afraid of, scorpions deal with them like I said). It is a lot easier to just go attack caths/ziks but someone's gotta pester the xans too
Problem is that its impossible to keep those roids as a cath unless you got naps with most top 5 alliances....

[Shaithess]

You really need a good gal and/or alliance to survive as a cat... I'm a zik, and getting constant incs. Without my gal (we're not particularly big, but we have some good actives and our newer players have grown a lot since they've joined and got themselves alliances etc), and my alliance, I would be absolutely screwed

Currently ranked 8th in my alliance in roidcount, the only zik in there amongst 2 terrans and 7 xans, and I can be a huge strain on the defships as I've had constant, large incs (5 waved attacks, 4 5 wavers and a 7 waver over the last week and a half-2 weeks or so)... So really, my alliance are kinda carrying me in a way.

[Gerbie]

PM Kal ask if he can delete your account and sign up a new one.

[Phant]

That would unfortunately be the best idea, yes...

[vampire_lestat]

nah, i'm up for a challenge .

[Melesse]

Yea, it's all about a challenge. Most people are happy to see you defend though, since you have init 2 for EMP, so it's still all about joining an Alliance and defending the shit out of them, then they'll be happy to defend you back

Melesse

[Sizzla]

but there are no cathaar ships called viper, are there?

[MAdnRisKy]

I *think* viper seems to equal guardian.

[Sizzla]

ah.. i'm cathaar also and my problem with the guardian is that if i build guardians i can't have a cruiser frigate destroyer fleet, but the guardian does seem really effective. another problem i have with cathaar is the defender (kills destroyers), a ship that just doesn't have what it takes. the defender is the biggest problem involving cathaar i think.

[Colt]

seeing as it shoots after the destroyers that target it (drakes) it is a bit of a problem for cath yes...

(assuming stats are similar to beta1 stats - havent looked since )