Topic: Anyone care to talk tactics?  (Read 38339 times)

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Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2007, 05:40:24 pm »
Last I knew the SFB rules only allowed fighters to fire their weapons in standard mode.   A squadron of 9 fighters firing their fusion beams (18 total) at long range was actually quite effective.  By the time the target ship closed their forward shield was mostly down leaving them very vulnerable to the H-RN that carried them. 

In SFC2 there used to be a Hydran Lancer variant with 4 fusions on one hardpoint.  Suicide overload on those 4 fusions was enough at point blank range to destroy or cripple a D6/7 hull.  The damage done to the lancer was insignificant in comparison.  I shocked a few people flying that Lancer, then they moved the Fusions to separate hardpoints making it more expensive to repair them all.  :)
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #21 on: August 21, 2007, 07:53:40 pm »
I remember my first SFB game, back in the early 1980's, where I was invited to take over the command of an F5B because the original commander had been executed for cowardice in theface of the enemy and incompedence.

Anyhow, the rules were new and alien to me and complex when compared to naval warfare games, but I knew many classic naval tactics.

The Klingon mission was to blow the crap out of a Fed BC but the pair of DD escorts were holding us away as a combined force. We had a D7D with us and I came up witha plan, based on the naval tactic called "Fleet baiting", as used successfully by Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada. Basically the tactic involves making a dummy attack run, maybe firing a few shots and legging it away. You can guarantee that some idot will go impetupus and come out after you. This breaks up the enemy fleet formation, compromised there fire plan and weakens their overall firepower.

So I suggest this and we run with it by going in with my F5B and another F5B and then legging it away in a chosen pre-planned direction. The Feds fell for it better than expected and came after us with both DDs. When they were two turns away the D7D when in and engaged the BC. In the meantime we had managed to position the F5Bs between the stricken BC and the DD escort and I actually managed to fire a torpedo at extreme range, my only shot in the game, which duly missed. The DDs didn't want to mix it with us for some reason after the other F5B player somehow managed to make them believe he was running an F5D, which he wasn't. I wasn't in complete understanding of the rules then but now know it was something to do with fooling enemy sensor scans at long range. It made them keep at extreme range and not engage us anyway.

The BC was destroyed and the Fed DDs left the map before we could catch them.

For the next cam,paign game invite, at a wargames club, I was given guest command of a D7D after the comander was executed, etc. but that's another story.

Klingons just have the best warships in SFB and SFC!!

The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #22 on: August 21, 2007, 08:47:30 pm »
Way back a couple of friends wanted to play an SFB Captains Game between the 3 of us to rank are relative skill levels.  I didn't yet have a chosen race so I told them I'd play whatever race they wanted me to play.  They said pick whatever you like.  Since one of them was a Fed and the other a Kzinti I said I'd play  Klingon as those 3 races border.  They decided that Klingons were too flexible and wanted me to play something different.  I went through every race and for each one they found a reason to fear my playing it.  They ultimately chose Klingon as being weakest.  That is when as a psychological ploy I named my D7 the IKV Nemesis and is of course where my forum name comes from.  Given practice as Klingon I found it suited my style and they have regretted the choice ever since.  :)

The Captains game was never completed due to a question I was asked.  Namely how I thought the three of us would be ranked.  The Kzinti I said would be "promoted to a desk job" the Fed kicked out of Starfleet for incompetence and myself as continued in command, a Legendary Captain too valuable to promote.  When he questioned how I would get the points to rate that high I explained that in the Surprised Reverse I was going to capture all 5 ships.  He said it was impossible but the 2 of them gave up without completing the Captains game.  I had noticed a "bug" in the Surprise Reversed that allowed the captures (fixed in a later edition by the way).   Eventually I told them my plan and they conceeded that it would have worked. 

We had planned after the Captains game to play a 3 way battle each of us with our ship and any captured vessels.  I had already captured a Gorn CA and they knew I was planning on capturing the 5 Kzin and was planning to make a stab at the Orion CR (a long shot but possible).  They didn't want to face me commanding 7 or 8 ships to their 2.  I wonder why?  ;)

The funniest moment for m in SFC was in an on line battlefest.  Myself in an K-FWK chasing a Romulan BCH and being chased by TWO Federation BCHs.  The Feds were texting back and forth about how the three of them needed to team up to take me down as I was still in my "Frigate".  They ignored my corrections that the FWK qualified as my destroyer as my E4 had been destroyed already.  What none of them knew was that the Romulan was running at speed 31 directly at the border and would be able to turn in only if he reacted immediately and was using the "Towards the enemy" view so he was looking backwards.  The Feds saw me fire followed by the Romulan exploding.  They were too far back to see the border itself.  Then they saw me HET straight at them (to avoid going off side myself).  The Romulan had my E4 destroy both his FF and DD as well as cripple his Sparrowhawk and had taken significant damage on his CA from the FWK and was unwilling to fight me no matter what the ship advantage he had, which explains why he was running.  When the game crashed the Romulan had left the game and both Fed DNs were crippled while my K-D7D was still in prime shape with missiles still available.

The quickest defeat I ever had was when I fired my alpha on a Fed CA and he dropped his shield (which I only damaged).  At which point my preprogrammed Hit and Runs went off, dropping MY shield and allowing him to put HIS alpha strike on my bare hull.  That only ever worked the once.  Sneaky S.O.B. :).
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #23 on: August 22, 2007, 08:19:35 pm »
I've played Baconfest with my son and we both played the Gornand teamed up.

Now a good two ship team tactic is the fly by shoot plasma up.

What we would do is stay clear of battle until we'd charged up the Plasmas, select a victim and pass by either side of the victim's ships and fire Plasmas at point blank into eith side. We'd then do a U turn and fly by again firing the other side Plasmas into the sides once more. Anothet U turn and attack usually finished the victim off.

Tis tactic takes some synchronised formation flying and it helps if the victim is dumb enough to head towards the Gorn ships. I've been on the receiving end of the same tactic in an SFB game and once seen, never forgotten.

Today my 17 year old son wanted to see what the Kzinti are like to play against in SFc1 and to practice for the future Kilingon - kzinti LAN campaign we have planned witha few friends.

feeMy son has never played against Kzinti ever before, so this was a new experience for him. He is a verteran at blowing the crap out of the stock game races though. He usually likes to play as Gorn with Klingon second choice.

The sides:

My son: 1 x D6DB with 2 x  D15 "Javelin" fast destroyers for escort. This is his favourite formation in skirmish games.

Allied AI: 2 x K-FOL ore carrier, 1 x K-OPS ore processing station.

AI Kzinti: 1 x CC+ and 2 x DW

Map: Large Planets.

Period: Middle.

The game starts and my son doesn't bother to scan the enemy. (Big mistake as he's no idea what a Kzinti ship is armed with!!)

The Kzinti head straight for the K-FOLs, which are headig for the Kzinti.

My son set the speed of the D6DB to 14 and charges weapons. He orders the two D15s to go and chase the first Kzinti ship he clicks on. He drops behind the D15s at speed 14 to their speed 31 and locks onto a target.

The Kzinti CC+ dumps out a massive drone salvo and kills a K-FOL first hit!! My son eclaims, "Whoah!!" ,and  realises that he's now in big trouble here. He looses off at the CC+ and sees all his drones PDed,

The D6DB does a U turn and heads away. A passing Kzinti DW drone dumps into him and takes out the aft shield. D6DB starts to head away still at speed 14 as the Disrupters are still being charged for overload.

My son decides to tell the tow D15 fast destroyers to protect the remaining K-FOL. Under a minute later the Kzinti CC+ dumps into it and it goes Nova. Cue son deciding to run for it. However he's still at speed 14 as he's forgotten that the Disrupters are on overload. Yep, even now he's optomistic that he can manage a good blast at the enemy.

The CC+ does a fly by drone dump into the D6DB inflicting serious damage and all aft shields are out. He issues orders for the for the D15s to attack the CC+. The DWs take out both D15s within a minute.

The Kzinti close in on the D6DB. He decides to head straight for the K-OPS in the hope that it will give protection/act as a decoy target. The DWs start duming drones at him from behind. Out of WW he starts dumping mines. The D6DB takes another massive drone dump form the CC+ and one of the DWs. The D6DB goes to Brown Alert as the speed drops to 2.

The D6DB dies. The K-OPS dies 2 minutes later under a massive drone dump.

There endith my son's frst encounter with the Kzinti!!

I have a feeling that a big lesson was learn here and this was, "Don't ever go in close to a big Kzinti ship until it is out of drones!!" and, not forgetting the golden rule, "Always scan unknown hostile warships!!"

That was against AI and in a few weeks he'll be playing on LAN with human players!! He does have a few weeks to prcatice tactics on the AI Kzinti before we start the LAN campaign so I'm hoping that'll he'll improve before then.

The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #24 on: August 24, 2007, 09:41:24 pm »
That was against AI and in a few weeks he'll be playing on LAN with human players!! He does have a few weeks to prcatice tactics on the AI Kzinti before we start the LAN campaign so I'm hoping that'll he'll improve before then.

The switch to playing against people is a big one.  People don't (most of us anyhow) always react the same way in the same circumstance - especially if it failed the last time.

My first SFC1 games against real people were against 2 friends in a Battlefest.  The first one I lost the next 2 I won.  I needed time to adapt to real people and they didn't know I'd been playing against the AI for 2 weeks - they didn't know I'd bought the game while on vacation.  They had been playing each other for a couple of months and knew each others style well.  My style (once adapted to playing people) was different and they then needed time to adapt to me.

In one of those early battle fests I was playing Fed as was one of my friends, the other was playing Lyran.  We were all in CAs, I was the last to lose my CL.  The Lyran decided to charge towards me to get me into the battle sooner counting on my seeing the other Fed as the bigger threat.  I turned and ran for the Saturn class planet and ran around the curve.  The Lyran chased me and once he was around the curve he yelled out "WHO DROPPED these &*^% fighters?".  They were my shuttles not fighters and in those days the SFC1 ships were over equipped with shuttles.  While the other Fed was laughing and the Lyran was stuggling not to lose his shields to either the Fed or the Shuttles I quietly completed orbiting the planet.  From the other Feds viewpoint I was UNDER the rings and not visible.  The first he knew what I had done was when I hit him with 2 volleys of overloaded photons and miziad my phasers through his #4.  The Lyran was right - the other Fed was the threat. 
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #25 on: August 24, 2007, 10:27:51 pm »
A trick my son's developed against Human and AI Lyran ships is the " Stagered Drone Volley", where he holds all but one drone rack on his D6DB / AD5 /D6Z, fires this rack and then fires the other quickly afterwards. The leading drone take out the ESG and the following drones do the damage.

So far nobody has come up for a defence for this tactic. He always excutes it at close range, hence why he was surprised to find that Kzinti ships are Drione Boats and that his standard "never fail" tactic was useless!!

I always deploy all my shuttles as they increase my firepower some what. We've modified our SFC 1 allow other races to carry fighters.

Losing fighters and suttles is easy, just fly into the star's radiation field.

I also use the shuttles to scout and extend my sensor range. If you have shuttles in play, then scans and tactical intelligence of the enemy's ships are more detailed at range.

I some times let the shuttles form up first, into a large group, either around my ship or an ally, or around a planet. I then let them loose against some crippled enemy just t add to their missery.

My first target for hit and run is always the enemy ship's transpoter system. It leaves me free to hit and run without the hastle of return raids or mines. Taking out the ECM unit makes the ship an easier target and cripples the enemy's targetting systems. The icon represents the sensors, scanners and ECM of the ship, so hitting this blinds the target ship.

Am I the only one who's figured this tactical advantage out yet??!!

So my H&R target priority list is always:

Transporter

ECM

Weapons

 
The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #26 on: August 25, 2007, 07:23:38 am »
Am I the only one who's figured this tactical advantage out yet??!!

So my H&R target priority list is always:

Transporter

ECM

Weapons

In one battlefest in SFC1 I started with a E4G commando ship.  My 2 opponents (1 Klingon) thought that funny as the ship is almost unarmed.  My second ship was a F5G commando ship also almost unarmed, the other Klingon thought that hillarious while the 3rd player was concerned with fairness as they were both getting combat ships.  My 3rd ship was the D5G another Commando ship.  The Klingon was laughing so hard that when he lost his ship and had it replaced with a D5G it took him time to understand what it was.  I knew immediately.  My first pass took out his transporters, neutering his ship.  The 2nd and 3rd destroyed his sensors.  Then the 3rd players CL approached and I maneuvered so he would hit the other Klingon first followed by my knocking out HIS sensors.  Running with 6 ECM and intermittant erratic maneuvers they couldn't touch my ship. 

I was unware at that time that sensors could not be fixed.  Many players (including myself) came to feel that hitting sensors in SFC1 was a "cheese" tactic due to the unrepairable nature.  In SFC2 they became repairable.

Are you using the final SFC1 patch?  The so-called 1/2 shield patch?  It makes the game more interesting.
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #27 on: August 25, 2007, 11:11:05 pm »
Yep, running the SFC 1 V1.03 patch so that Romulans don't become sitting ducks when cloaked (AW!!!!!!) and other corrections to bring it in line with SFC rules.

I've seen the Lyran tactic of ESG ramming used a lot in the current LAN campaign we are running. They use this tactic to take out the shileds and then deliver a hammer blow with the direct fire weapons combined with ht and run raids. As Lyran ships are either equal or less maneuverable than Klingon warships, then it is possible to avoid this tactic. However, in the thick of battle, it is still possible to have some sneaky furball manage one ESG ramming on you.

This is a very, very old SFB Lyran "dirty" tactic that still works well in SFC.

It is devestating and we've had a Lyran CA ESG ram a K-C8 leaving it a shambles in a recent LAN game. You can pretty much figure what happens to a frigate when this happens to it.

The tactic we use, as Klingons,  to deal with the fleabags using ESG is to shut down all but one Drine rack on a D6DB / AD5 / D6Z and fire this at the Lyran ship, then quickly activeate and fire the rest. The first Drones take out the ESG and the others do the damage.

If in a formation we try to coordinate a group firing of Drones for a similar effect.

A fly by and well timed Suicide Shuttle drop followed closely by a Drone salvo can also have a similar effect.

It is possible to target Drones with Drones in SFC 1.

I'm lucky in that I have a repair cost  table to hand when I play and plan out my repair order as some things are power hungry to fix compared to other systems. A Plasma launcher is the most costly thing to fix.

How one manages Damage Control does affect the outcome of the battle.

In campaign games and skirmish my son likes to beam off the enemy's spare parts at th beginning. I prefer to collect them from planets.

The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #28 on: August 26, 2007, 04:24:17 pm »
I've seen the Lyran tactic of ESG ramming used a lot in the current LAN campaign we are running. They use this tactic to take out the shileds and then deliver a hammer blow with the direct fire weapons combined with ht and run raids. As Lyran ships are either equal or less maneuverable than Klingon warships, then it is possible to avoid this tactic. However, in the thick of battle, it is still possible to have some sneaky furball manage one ESG ramming on you.

This is a very, very old SFB Lyran "dirty" tactic that still works well in SFC.

It is devestating and we've had a Lyran CA ESG ram a K-C8 leaving it a shambles in a recent LAN game. You can pretty much figure what happens to a frigate when this happens to it.

The Kzinbane Onion takes advantage of the Mizia principle.  With the Onion you set each ESG for a different diameter and as you "ram" each one impacts separately.  Once the shield is down you are at close range to fire all your other weapons one mount at a time to enhance the Mizia effect.  It can quite effectively strip a ship of weapons and power.

The early Battlefest I mentioned where I used a D7 hull to push a Romulan BCH near a black hole thinking that it was a CA had me use a technique I call "The Hammer" against the Romulan DN.  I came from behind (#5 shield) and fired all my forward weapons, but not my missiles.  This knocked down his #5 and stunned some of his weapons.  Then the overrun put me able to fire backwards with my aft weapons (again not the missiles) onto his #2 shield.  Due to how close I was his plasmas could not yet fire.  He was just reaching for the Z key to fire when WHAM! he is hit hard through the #5 and can't see a thing to cause it.  Damage was substantial and more weapons were stunned or destroyed but he still had a chance when WHAM! again through the #2 shield and again he couldn't see anything.  His ship is now in terrible shape and he had no clue.  Then I single fired my missiles and he understood.  As I did the over run I dropped 1 scatterpack behind him and another ahead.  They were too close for point defence to automatically take them down and so close as to be under the ship image and therefore unseen.  My shields were not even scratched and he was hopelessly crippled.

The current patch level to SCF2:OP allows the point defense to stop this from working with scatterpacks.  It still works with suicide shuttles though.
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #29 on: August 26, 2007, 08:13:54 pm »
I do like dropping point blank Suicide Shuttles.

OK there are two tactics for dealing with a Kzinti ship. One is to make full speed feignt attack runs to make them loose off Drones and then run away and drop a well placed mine to take the Drones out. Kzinti ships are poorly armed once the Drone Racks are empty.

The second method is to sit on top of the Kzinti ship at under range 1 and pelt it with everything you can. This does mean that you do have a Tiger by the tail and omce you move over range 1 you'll be Droned. I've seen this done but its extremely risky.

My son subscribes to the tractor push out of the map method of winning tornaments. I've found that turning 45 degrees to the pusher and applying full power to movement and setting tractor repulse to 5 whilst keeping all hit and runs targetted onto the enemy's tractor system sometimes pays off.

I have tractored and pushed PFs and smalller ships into asteroids and the occasional planet as they fly by. It does takke split second timing and good positioning. It only takes a few seconds to perform and aways surprises the enemy. It is also how you're supposed to win the spy missions in SFC 1 campaign. Grab the spy ship and ram it into the nearest asteroid!! There, dead in 10 seconds flat!!

Also sitting in a dust cloud counts as an extra +2 ECM points, deals with fighters or shuttles and affects intelligence scans.

My son played an online X-Box 360 games of Legacy yesterday. God, it was boring to watch as the battle dragged on and on. The Klingon D7s he was using had been stripped of more than half their Phaser armament, leaving only the wing Phasers. The Constellation Class cruiser he was up against fired aft torpedoes form top and bottom engine pylon tubes which do not actually exist if you look at a physical model or diagram. It was also missing the under saucer front single Phaser mounts as seen firing in TNG "Peak Performance" and none of the torpedoes actually fired from the correct under saucer front launcher tubes.

Some of the ship's weapons choices seem pointless. Why would scouts be armed with a point defence Gatling Phaser only??

The game seemed to consist, mainly, of jumping about the map at Warp Speed, blasting away at each other in a shoot em up fashion and retreating to lick wounds. Tactical possibilities were lacking. It seemed to be a 3D starship dog fighting game.

Perhaps if I hadn't played SFC I'd think that it was fantastic, but I realise that it isn't.

SFC sets the standard measure for Star Trek starship combat games.

We've had Legacy for months and I've no incling of bothering to play it as, from what I've seen, Its lame.


 
The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Roychipoqua_Mace

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #30 on: August 27, 2007, 11:57:42 am »
Panzer, I think it's cool that you and your son are playing Starfleet Command. I've tried getting my dad to play, but he is too into his flight simulators.

By the way, when you're fighting the Kzinti, are they using Fast drones?

Offline Tus-XC

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #31 on: August 27, 2007, 03:26:47 pm »
I'm lucky, i got my dad to play... its fun kicking the old guy's arse :).

And i just remembered my all time favorite tatic (until it was killed).  As i said, i like KE's and KVL's, ask anyone who has ever flown against me and they would attest to that fact (to give you an idear, i'll take those two ships over a KHK or a KCR).  One of my more prefered tatics was to fire a psuedo R at my enemy, watch them ww, and then promply fly over them (cloaked) and drop a nuc.  Back in the day, ww used to fly pretty fast so w/ the nuc on his front sheild i would drop my ww, and watch the fire works.  I think i annoyed several of me fleet mates in OPS w/ that stunt ;).  Boy do i miss the good ole days.
Rob

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Offline Roychipoqua_Mace

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #32 on: August 27, 2007, 03:51:48 pm »
Nice to hear from an Old series captain! I can't fly them to save my life, but they are more interesting than KHK cheeze. The 3v3 gamespy fights with 6 killerhawks can be fun though, there's nothing like shooting down Gorn.

Offline FPF-DieHard

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #33 on: August 28, 2007, 10:43:05 am »
Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.
Who'd thunk that Star-castling was the root of all evil . . .


Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #34 on: August 28, 2007, 02:25:36 pm »
This tactic I use is a little difficult/impossible  to try out if flying a Klingon warship due to lack of rear firing weapons. Why would a Klingon warship be moving away from battle anyway??

This tactic works well with any warship with decent rear firing weapons (Federation, Gorn, etc.) and deals with enemy warships heading towards you head on.

Steps are as follows.:-

1.     Approach target ship headon.

2 .    Hold fire until at point blank range.

3 .    At range 2 or under drop Suicide Shuttles using the Q key.

4.     Immediately on passing over the victim fire all aft firing weapons into his aft shield.

5.     Slow ship for a tight turn and fire remaining forward weapons as they come to bare on the victim's damaged shield just compound the damage.

6.     Throttle up and either move in for the kill or head away for a recharge and repair any minor damage received.

This tactic usually works because the enemy will reinforce his forward shields an not his rear shields. However the sneaky bastard may infllict the same tactic on you during the maneuver so it is a gamble.

Federation F-FH Miranda Class heavy frigates or Mk.II. F-CL Hunt Class work very well with this tactic, die to seperate forward and aft firing tordedoes. The Hunt Class has equal forward and aft Phaser capability so is particularily effective.

If planning to use this tactic then choice of ship is key. Also, before trying this out do evaluate the intended victim for aft firing weapons just in case he has similar plans for you.

I also run the ECCM at 6 because I want my torpedoes to hit home. Don't forget to target hit and run on the enemy transporter and ECM either .

The AI is always a sucker for this tactic.

 
The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Clark Kent

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2007, 07:34:29 pm »
Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

yeah, I wouldn't mind checking a few out.
CK

But tell me, can you heal what father's done?
Or fix this hole in a mother's son?
Can you heal the broken worlds within?
Can you strip away so we may start again?
Tell me, can you heal what father's done?
Or cut this rope and let us run?
Just when all seems fine, and I'm pain free, you jab another pin,
Jab another pin in me
-Metallica

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #36 on: August 28, 2007, 08:58:37 pm »
This tactic I use is a little difficult/impossible  to try out if flying a Klingon warship due to lack of rear firing weapons. Why would a Klingon warship be moving away from battle anyway??

Part of the saber dance involves moving away at times.  Also the Klingon "fire hose" is straight backward.  On the D6/7 ALL phasers fire straight backward.   One use of the fire hose is missile defense.  As you out run (or try to) the missiles your firehose can flush away the missile swarm following you.  It can also dissuade an enemy from following you with weak shields as the only thing you can't fire aft are your disruptors. 

An ideally performed sabre dance has your enemy fireing on the exact ine between either your #1 and #2 shields or between #1 and #6.  That way to penetrate your shield he has to do double the damage of the weaker shield and that only allows half the damage in the other half goes against the stronger shield until it falls.  On that exact line all disruptors and all but 2 aft phasers can fire as well.  Having caused your enemey to split damage on your effectively doubled shield while fireing a higher percentag of your weapons than he was of his you can then turn rapidly to bring the remaining 2 phasers to be used either offensively or defensively as needed.

This was of course much easier in SFB but a credible attempt can be made in SFC.
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Offline Panzergranate

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #37 on: August 30, 2007, 12:46:03 am »
The Kzinti, my son had his first experience of, were firing fast drones, lots and lots of them. He's more used to dishing them out rather than dodging them, and so, didn't have a tactic in mind. His learning curve, regarding anti-Kzinti tactics, is steepening up a bit. I'm still  preparing a SFCSPB13.txt list with models and SSDs for an upcoming LAN campaign. Somehow I don't think it'll be a walkover like the current Klingon - Lyran one we're currently engrossed in. It's gonna be a late period campaign so the Kzinti will have just about everything in SFB.

I could discuss the tactics/strategies used in this campaign like the feline fleabags using Survey Cruisers carrying Troop Landing Pallets for their hit and run raids. The L-SC can see our scouts and patrols before we see it and so infiltrates easily into our lines. And if a scout, skiff or corvette does spot it, the L-SC outguns it.  This caused us to field more frigates than we wanted to during this campaign, just to plug the scanner and defence gaps in our front line. This affected our overall replacement ship budget and we had to reduce other capital ship numbers, etc.

Apparently the Lyran L-SC can be used in a similar role to a Klingon D5G, except with a scout/ECM/steathl facility as well.

Anyone have any tactics for tackling Kzinti Dreadnaughts with Klingon warships and surviving?? OK what ship type(s) iis best suited to the task?? Remember it'll have a human player and, the chances are, a lot of support. The maximum number of ships any side in our LAN campaign can field is 9 x ships. That means that only 3 x ships will have direct human control and the others will have AI captains.

Suppose a hypothetical game scenario where the Kzinti players have a 1 x DN, 2 x CW and 6 x DW in late period, how would anyone suggest this battle group be taken out, and how. You can use up to any 9 ships from SFB and FASA in the Klingon force. The goal is to take out the DN mainly, as these are expensive to replace in a campaign.

The Klingons have many ways to fry a cat. I prefer to use an L7 Fast Battlecruiser!!

Offline Soreyes

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #38 on: August 31, 2007, 05:14:45 am »
Would this be a good place to post some films?   I've got a whole library of PvP kills from vairous D2 severs that demonstrate tactics in a live environment.   The only issue is some of them may not load to to the modded shiplists but most SHOULD work.

I think I have the film where I took out t00ls Lord Biship with my DF ;D


[img width=600 height=150]

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Anyone care to talk tactics?
« Reply #39 on: August 31, 2007, 07:32:52 am »
Anyone have any tactics for tackling Kzinti Dreadnaughts with Klingon warships and surviving?? OK what ship type(s) iis best suited to the task?? Remember it'll have a human player and, the chances are, a lot of support. The maximum number of ships any side in our LAN campaign can field is 9 x ships. That means that only 3 x ships will have direct human control and the others will have AI captains.

Suppose a hypothetical game scenario where the Kzinti players have a 1 x DN, 2 x CW and 6 x DW in late period, how would anyone suggest this battle group be taken out, and how. You can use up to any 9 ships from SFB and FASA in the Klingon force. The goal is to take out the DN mainly, as these are expensive to replace in a campaign.

Without looking up the Kzin designs I would say that they are heavy on the missile loads so you want missile defense.  The AEGIS equipped ships were designed specifically for missile defense of fleets so one of them would be a natural.  I'd also say that they have suffient anti missile ability that it would be useless to try and use missiles against them and would go for ships which though they have missile defense are optimized for direct fire. 

I wouldn't go for a DN of my own which would allow the use of ships that used D series hulls rather than using some of the F series which are a little small for such a battle.  There are a couple of good AEGIS equipped D5 variants to look at.  Depending on the BPV you have to go for I'd be looking a D hull based Wolfpacks each with one command or specialty ship. 

You might need to use one F squadron depending on how the BPVs work out and they might best be used by following a D series wolfpack and finishing off opponents left vulnerable without loaded weapons.  The F Wolfpack would need a good human pilot in the command ship tightly controlling the other 2 ships to keep them from suicide runs.  They could also use their maneuverability to "swoop in" and act as a missile interception unit should one of the other ships be in danger of being overwhelmed.  They would need to keep their speed up and avoid close contact with enemies capable of substantial firepower.  They can also be effective mine layers to destroy a missile swarm.  Remember if they use a "sweeper missile" for setting off mines you can lay 2 mines in a row, the sweeper missile gets the first and the 2nd gets the swarm.  The F hull in that case can also try to destroy the sweeper missile rather than wasting the 2nd mine.

You will need to watch the Phaser load outs of the Kzin ships.  The Phaser 3 forest that some of them carry can be devastating at close range.  Don't close within 3 of any ship so equipped and you greatly reduce the effectiveness of their Phaser suite. 

To lower your BPV costs consider minimum load outs of mid speed missiles.  The Kzin is likely to use maximum load outs of high speed and that is costly.  If you don't waste the BPV on missiles that are not going to get through aynow  you can buy more of the larger hulls and have an advantage.  The AEGIS ship is only there as a defender, you  might even consider giving it maximum loadouts of the free slow missiles to make it cheaper. 

One thing I have noted with fleet battles is you can often tell which ships are AI controlled.  When you can identify them - target them preferentially.  The AI is more vulnerable and easier to take down so if you can identify them hit them first leaving the tougher human controlled ship unsupported when you go after it. 
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
Seti Team    Free Software
I believe truth and principle do matter. If you have to sacrifice them to get the results you want, then the results aren't worth it.
 FoaS_XC : "Take great pains to distinguish a criticism vs. an attack. A person reading a post should never be able to confuse the two."