Terrain
is really annoying. Once, I
attempted a planetary assault mission and smashed into an asteroid just as my
ground-attack shuttle was about to capture it.
Another time, my beautiful BCF got torn to pieces by a black hole as the
Klingons, bastards they are, sat there in their frigates laughing heartily.
So here’s some tips I learned the hard way on how to fight in the
various types of terrain.
Damn
the Rocks, Full Speed Ahead!: Not
smart at all. Really, if you move
full speed in your new ship in the middle of an asteroid field, you're going to
a) get hit by the dust clouds and b) smash into an asteroid. Both of these will happen eventually--and the evil thing with
fighting in a dense asteroid field is that you can't run from plasma races or
the Mirak when they launch their full alpha strike at range 10.
In short, you're dead before you can react.
A better way to fight in an asteroid field is to zoom in your map of the
area to max level and watch the asteroid next to your ship.
Another thing: On the 3-D
tactical display, any asteroids near you will also be shown as an ALERT in a
target box. Watch those and you'll
be relatively safe.
The
Smell of Gas Overwhelms Me: Fighting
in a nebula with a Federation ship is not healthy for the Federation ship.
Inside the cursed hellhole of ionized particles, all ships get like nine
points of natural ECM. ECM is not a
good thing when you're fighting with photons--they will almost always miss, even
on the almighty proximity mode. Plus,
one enveloping plasma-S will strip your shields completely, and another one will
do 60 points of internals at close range. Just
stay away from the nebula. Really.
But if you're forced to fight in one, immediately turn off your photons.
They are useless. Stay FAR
away and pound them with your phasers at range 15, keeping speed high to outrun
any missiles/plasmas that come your way. Also,
remember that tractors do not work in a nebula, so if you are in a missile ship,
get in close after you've stripped them with your phasers and launch all of your
missiles at once at close range. It'll kill them quite easily.
I
Feel So...Sucked In: Contrary to
popular opinion, the Federation ship can put up a decent fight in the vicinity
of a black hole, but it is
extremely hard to pull off a victory. The
best way that I can think of is go to your energy panel and change your movement
priority to 1. You really need your
engines to get all of the power. Once
you get in the grip of a black hole, you can't get out unless you jack your
speed up to 31 and run like hell. Photons
are nice on proximity mode, since you have a good chance to hit without needing
to get too close, and you can slowly draw them in near the black hole.
Dead ship.
In
general, modify your battle strategy to fit the terrain.
To sum it all up: In an asteroid field, stay away from them and blast away with
your proximities; in a nebula, run for the border or use long-range phaser
assaults; and in a black hole, use your photons on (surprising) proximity mode
and hope they fall into the hole itself.
Electronic
Warfare,
or The Math Professor’s Dream
EW
is probably the most important thing a good Federation captain can master.
Without it, you are going to have one hell of a time trying to get your
photons to hit, a heavy weapon which is most susceptible *ahem* to EW.
I am aware that what follows may sound like an arithmetic lecture, but
remember, you asked for it :) So,
without further ado, here are the basics of correct EW management:
There
are many different types of EW, and all of them pose a headache for the
Federation. The first type is
natural ECM, which is simply ECM given by terrain or some other source and is
applied to all ships and units in the area.
This is always encountered in a nebula.
The second type is generated from your ship's ECM/ECCM panel, where you
can control the amount of jamming that your sensors can make (more on this
later), and the third kind is generated by maneuvers or shuttles (like the Wild
Weasel, which generates 4 points of ECM, or the Romulan cloaking device).
Electronic
warfare works by something called an EW shift, which starts at a base of 0
(except in a nebula, where everything has a base ECM shift of 3).
To figure out the EW shift, you subtract your own total ECCM from the
opponent's total ECM (or vice versa) and apply the square root function.
Then, you round it down and the resulting number is your net EW shift.
If
the total ECM is 1-3, the EW shift is 1.
If
the total is from 4-15, the EW shift is 2.
If
the total is above 15 (which happens very rarely), the EW shift is 3.
Enough
mathematics! So, how does EW shift
affect your weapons? The greater
the EW shift you are firing into, the less your weapons will hit and they will
do a smaller amount of damage (except for one notable exception, the photon
torpedo). The loss of good to-hit
percentages is very bad for your photons. Very
bad indeed. However, there are ways
of circumventing this difficulty. First
of all, monitor your opponent’s ECM/ECCM through your own EW panel.
Your opponent’s ECCM appears on the bottom right corner of the screen;
his ECM appears on the bottom left corner of the screen.
One point of ECCM negates one point of ECM; use your ECM panel to your
advantage and take advantage of your science officer’s ability to do simple
calculations :D
Assume
he has a total ECM of 5. Unmodified,
there would be an EW shift of 2. However,
you can pump up your ECCM to 2, and lower his EW shift to 1 by expending less
than half the energy that he is spending. A
very effective way to combat ECM is just to memorize the numbers above and try
to match them. Important note here: Extra
ECCM does not increase your chances to hit.
Extra ECCM is a waste of power since it doesn’t do anything.
Try to negate your opponent’s ECM with your own ECCM, nothing more. That’s all you need to do.
One
very important power management tip: when
your photons have fired, dump all of your ECCM and put it into ECM until they
are almost finished charging. ECCM
is of no use to you while your photons, the only heavy you have that is
significantly affected by ECM, are getting prepped.
The
advantage of the photon torpedo is that the damage it does is not affected by
anything. That means that if you
fire an overloaded photon at a cloaked Romulan and by some act of God it hits,
you’ll still do the full 16 damage. Disruptors,
fusion beams, hellbore cannons, PPDs, and even the phaser have their damage
reduced—but the photon doesn’t. Use that fact to your advantage.
Against
specific races, it gets more complicated. The
Orion Pirate Cartels’ ships, as someone already stated on this thread, have
two points of “maneuverability” ECM, which stacks with other sources that
they might have. Take his advice
and jack up your ECM to two, which basically means that you have just negated
the Orion’s natural protection. Once
you have done so, start running away from its seeking weapons (typically drones
and lesser plasma, along with the ubiquitous phaser and an assortment of other
heavies that you shouldn’t worry about too much unless you decide to
close—and if you do that, review what’s come before on this thread!) until
you’ve either shot them down with your phasers or run them out of steam.
While you’re doing that, continue to toss proximity torpedoes at him
until you’ve heavily damaged some shields.
Once that’s done, close, tractor, fire your torpedoes (on normal mode
or overload if you’re feeling nasty), and follow up with a drone assault while
using your phasers to burn through his now unshielded hull, striking his systems
and stunning them. Orion ships
aren’t exactly durable.
The
Klingons will try to use his power advantage to stay fast and keep his EW
advantage to a maximum. Don’t
allow this to happen. If he tries
to do this and saber dance (and remember, this tactic only works against AI),
park your ship dead in space (speed 0) and fully reinforce your shields,
remembering to watch that EW panel and making continuous adjustments.
Keep half of your photons holding on overload while the other half is
charging as proximity torpedoes, and keep on firing those repeatedly at him.
If he closes, blast him with overloads (and kick up the speed as well,
punching through his weaker rear shields), and if he stays away from you,
whittle away his shields with your proxies.
Save your phasers for missile defense unless he’s showing you a
tantalizingly weak screen or has a shield down.
Proximity
tactics are very hard to execute against any plasma race because of the lowered
holding cost and because of the typically superior power curve on their ships
(well, maybe not the ISC), and the Romulan cloaking device is really, really
annoying. Here’s a tactic I
developed after I wrote the Romulan section that seems to work pretty well.
Charge your photons and move towards him at speed 31 while he’s cloaked
(the best time to try this is when he’s fired all of his plasma).
Watch that monitor carefully. If
he even tries to uncloak, blast him with your proxies and TURN AWAY immediately.
Otherwise, overrun him with your phasers at point blank and run before he
can do anything, saving your proxies for when they’ll actually hit (as he
uncloaks). Repeat this and you’ll
eventually win.
Nothing
can be more annoying to a plasma captain than watching his long-charging plasma
go sailing off after a weasel; and it is generally not recommended to get in a
Klingon commander’s way when he has just eaten six type-IV missiles launched
from your scatterpack. This next
section is about your shuttles and how you can use them to your advantage.
There
are five main types of shuttles:
1)
The administrative shuttle; a fancy piece of junk that mounts two
phaser-3s
2)
The Wild Weasel shuttle; a shuttle that gives your ship 4 points of ECM
while it is active and also attracts seeking weapons (plasma and missiles)
3)
The Ground Attack shuttle; which coasts over to the opponent, penetrates
his shields, drills through his hull, and begins a boarding action (costs two
marines to make)
4)
The Scatterpack shuttle; which launches six of your missiles together at
a time (costs six missiles to make)
5)
The Suicide shuttle; which impacts an opponent and deals 25 points of
damage to him (costs one mine to make)
To
create the last four (a major departure from SFC I), you need the stuff listed,
a point or two of energy, and a free administrative shuttle.
This is handled at the shuttle control panel.
Using
the shuttles requires more skill than to make the shuttles.
There are two major drawbacks to these otherwise helpful craft:
they move at a set speed of 6; and even a well-aimed phaser-2 will kill
it. This is not good, especially if
you’ve invested a bunch of your missiles on a scatterpack. Therefore, the first rule to bear in mind is to never launch
shuttles unless you are sure it will get to the target without getting shot down
and to make sure it gets to the target without getting shot down.
This is the key to good shuttle management.
Administrative
shuttles suck. The only reason
they’re there is so you can convert them into bigger, better shuttles.
However, they can be useful in a pinch when you want a few extra
phaser-3s to shoot down missiles heading towards you.
As a result, I almost never launch an admin unless I want it to soak up
AMD/plasma-D fire, which helps my missiles or fighters get to the target without
getting shot down by the afore-mentioned systems.
The
wild weasel is probably the most important shuttle you can get.
One WW can save your ship from a massive plasma volley consisting of two
Rs, three Ss, and 4 Fs—all of them will go sailing off after the weasel and
you’ve just ruined a Romulan KCN commander’s day.
The trick here is to use them wisely.
Many newbies see the WW shuttle and immediately convert one or two,
dropping them at the first sign of plasma.
This is not good. Once you
launch a weasel, you either void its protection by firing or you stay under its
protection by doing nothing. If he
has fired pseudo-torpedoes, he’s just reduced you to a dead stop and once he
picks off the WW with a phaser, you’re going to eat a lot of plasma.
Instead, launch a probe the first second he launches his plasma.
If his plasma tubes are charging once again, you know you’d better
evade (the AI almost never launches PPTs and real plasma one after another). Otherwise, use your speed to waste his torpedoes.
Speed is your best defense against plasma, so use it.
The WW is only a last-ditch way to save your ship from getting eaten by a
hungry Romulan. BTW, the weasel
also provides 4 points of ECM for your ship, which makes it harder for them to
hit you with their direct-fire weapons, like phasers.
This can be very helpful.
The
major drawback for the wild weasel is that it FORCES you to move at speeds less
than 4, and during the time that it is operational you cannot fire weapons,
launch a probe, or do any such activities without voiding its protection.
The WW forces you to starcastle, and sometimes that isn’t a very good
idea.
The
Ground Attack Shuttle is the most useful capturing tool you can get, and many a
starbase has fallen to my ship when they were overwhelmed by multiple assault
shuttles. Advantages:
you don’t need to drill through a shield before you start a capturing
operation—the GAS simply attaches itself to the ship and begins punching
through the hull. That’s the only
advantage, while there are many disadvantages.
First of all, the GAS can only go at speed 6.
This leaves it wide open to get blasted apart early on by the opponent
before it even reach his ship. It
also draws away two marines from your ship itself, rendering it a little bit
easier for opponents to conduct H&R raids against your systems.
Don’t plan on using the GAS unless the target is completely crippled or
is stationary, like a base. Otherwise,
the GAS is a very potent weapon at your disposal, and can make up for the
Federation’s lack of many transporters.
Now,
how to use the scatterpack/suicide shuttle.
Once again, these shuttles are vulnerable in one major respect—their
complete lack of speed. Now, this
isn’t really a problem with the scatterpack, as the SP uses missiles
for damage. Just pop the SP out of
the hatch, wait a while (engaging a tractor on the opponent if need be), and
watch the fireworks (very effective with fast missiles, by the way).
But the suicide shuttle needs to actually impact what it is going to hit.
This is very bad, as any good opponent will be moving QUICKLY.
Better to tractor the SS and then dump it on them as you overrun.
These
are just some basic shuttlecraft strategies to use, and I’ve found that they
actually preserve my shuttles beyond the launch. Try ‘em, and see how they work.
You might save a pilot’s life :)
Tractor
beams are probably the most misused things in the entire simulation, and woe to
the captain who misuses one. In the
right hands, they are ridiculously powerful, but when used improperly…Ouch.
Just
yesterday I witnessed a rather nasty confrontation between a Federation and a
Klingon, both flying light cruisers. What
does the Federation do? Logic
dictates that he must retreat and begin firing his photon torpedoes at the
Klingon (somebody hit me on the head again!
I’m talking like Spock :D ), but no.
Mr. Smart Fed decides to run up to the Klingon, turn on a LEVEL 4 ?!?!
tractor, and put on the brakes. NOT
SMART. From that point on, the
Klingon simply allowed the tractor to keep on working and began to pound the
Federation captain with his phasers and quick-firing disruptors while the Fed is
trying to figure out a way to maintain the tractor while charging overloaded
photons. Needless to say, the
Federation had to send out a few tugs to collect the scrap metal from the scene,
all that was left of the poor NCL.
Don’t
do this. A Federation captain uses
tractors for one purpose and one purpose only—to hold the opponent in place
while executing an overrun or a drone assault.
Once that is completed, he drops the tractor and RUNS like hell.
That is because the Federation ship rarely has the power to spare, and
needs every erg he can get for speed or weapons.
That’s it. Pure and
simple.
There
are some advanced tactics, of course, that work especially well if you’re
working with a team. Here are my
favorites in no particular order:
1)
Your wingman powers up his tractor and brings the other ship to a dead
stop, while you and the rest of your fleet start pounding on him with overloads
and Mizia-style phaser strikes. Not
very healthy for your wing, but it’ll leave the opponent gasping for breath.
I’ve used this tactic with three light cruisers against a battleship.
While it was destroying one cruiser, the other two concentrated on him
with overloads. This is referred to
in SFCShadow’s strategy guide.
2)
You power up your tractor and hope that the opponent doesn’t know how
to use F1 view. While he’s
smashing away at your ship, smile evilly and push him into a big rock or out of
the map itself. A VERY popular
tactic online, and it works even better when your wing is distracting him with
his proxims and drones.
3)
This is one I made up myself, and I’ve found it to be quite effective
against the AI. What you do is
charge up a small tractor, level 2 at the most.
Weaken him with your proximities, and when you are relatively sure he has
no weapons to fire at you, switch those torpedoes to normal and close the
distance. Launch your drones from a
scatterpack at range 10. Now, when
you’ve caught him, execute an Emergency Decelerate and bring your ships to a
dead stop, allowing the drones to catch up while you’ve just conveniently
weakened and possibly knocked down a shield.
Wait just long enough for the drones to hit and the ED to wear off, and
then hightail it out of there before he can respond.
Ouch. SIX type-IV warheads
is a total of 144 points of damage on a down shield.
Another
note about defensive tractors is that they take one point of energy per
defensive tractor to use. This is
not good, especially if you’re in a power-starved DD. Instead, when you see drones heading your way, press the
“c” hotkey and activate those defensive tractors to save you some grief.
This will also save you some power and save your ship some damage.
Scotty,
Beam Me Up!:
A Primer on Transporters
It
can really hurt when the (insert name of any race here) unleashes his full alpha
strike on a shield you’ve just lowered for him in an attempt to hit and run
his systems. Unfortunately,
that’s what many people try to do when they activate the Hit-and-Run panel of
every ship. What follows is a few
quick tips for those naughty little captains so that their bucketheads can live
to fight another day.
Transporters
can be a very, very nasty weapon when used properly. Usually used for getting those illegal cartons of Romulan ale
off your ship just as the damned customs inspector charges in, in combat the
transporter becomes a potent force to be reckoned. Sound good?
Good.
Because now, the bad news. The
Federation doesn’t have a lot of transporters.
The
Federation cruiser typically only has a few transporters to work with, and so
can’t overwhelm an opponent with marines as some other races (Klingon, Mirak,
and Lyrans in general and the Romulan KR-series ships in particular).
Instead, the Federation captain needs to use his ingenuity to use his
transporters properly, which is why Spacedock provided the GAS designs.
But
first things first. The transporter
is used in four ways:
1)
To execute hit-and-run attacks on specific systems on a ship
2)
To send marines over to another ship and begin a capturing operation
3)
To beam out/beam in “special things” like dilithium crystals or a
picture of that attractive captain in the next ship over
4)
To beam out mines
The
H&R system got a lot worse when the 2.0.0.55 patch came along, but still is
useful. Used properly, it can be
used to take a significant proportion of firepower away from the opponent or
interfere with his ability to defend against your attacks.
My targets change depending on the ship I am flying, but here is just a
basic summary:
Phaser-photon
ships. GET THAT SENSOR PANEL!!!!!
Although some people think it is a waste of marines, I feel that sending
marines to take out opponents’ ECM/ECCM is [I]very, very[/I] effective
especially when you are flying a photon boat with no seeking weapons.
You rely on your heavies for crunch power, and his ECM prevents that from
happening. In addition, it forces
your opponent to waste his spare parts trying to fix his sensors while you are
sitting there with a boatload of overloads waiting for him to do just that so he
doesn’t have enough spare parts to repair his weapons when the time comes.
Phaser-drone
ships. Make sure that he has no
defense when you launch your missiles—and that means taking out his tractor
beams. After slashing him with your
phasers, close and get those tractors with your H&R teams. When they fall, begin launching all of your missiles in
massive waves and overpower his defenses.
Phaser-drone-photon
ships. Mix in assaults on their ECM
with attacks on their tractor beams, and then gut him with your phasers and
overloads after bombarding him with proximity torpedoes/drones at long range.
In
addition, if you have the marines to spare, target these systems per race you
are fighting:
Klingon:
Get his drone racks first, and then take out the big phaser hardpoints to
remove a significant amount of firepower from him.
Follow this up with a bunch of torpedoes and you have him.
Romulan:
H&R those plasmas quickly, so you won’t need to worry about them
later. If he only has an R (like
the WB+ and the WE ships) and you’ve eliminated his torpedoes, he’s left
with only a few phasers to oppose you. In
addition, plasmas take a really, really long time to repair.
With one marine, you can tie him up for quite a while.
Gorn:
Same as Romulans, although the phaser becomes a larger threat.
Mix in attacks on his phaser batteries with assaults on his plasma tubes.
Lyran:
Take out the ESG and he becomes a sitting duck.
Hydran:
The Hydran is complicated. Against
ships with fighters, destroy the shuttlebay FIRST THING so that his fighters
can’t be launched. Then, follow
up with marines on their hellbores and big phaser mounts.
Be careful to stay out of fusion range and you have him.
Mirak:
Remove their missiles and they are dead.
Stay out of range of their typically weak phaser arrays (a lot of
phaser-3s but nothing else) and kill them with proximity torpedoes mixed in with
a few overloaded photons.
ISC:
Against a ship armed with just PPD and plasma-Is, laugh with glee and
overrun him from within range 4 with overloads and phasers.
If he fires his plasma, outrun them and repeat.
You don’t need a H&R team for that kind of ship!
Versus a ship with plasma, take out his heavy plasmas first and do the
same thing as against a ship with PPD, but this time use a lot of missiles to
tie up his phasers. Then pound him
at your leisure. Against a ship
with both PPD and plasma, eliminate his plasma and then do what you did against
a froggie with only PPD.
The
major problem with H&R raids is that they require you to close to range 5.99
and drop a shield. This is not
healthy for your ship, and when you drop a shield just as he fires his weapons,
you’ll take a lot of internal damage. NEVER
LOWER YOUR SHIELDS FOR YOUR OPPONENT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF!!!
I
can’t stress that enough. Although
H&R raids are still a potent weapon, you don’t want him to be able to do a
disproportionate amount of damage to your ship in exchange for taking a measly
weapon offline. If your opponent
does that, laugh and overload his a$$ off with your photons, also using a Mizia
strike to keep his weapons off.
In
order to prevent your ship from taking damage it shouldn’t, use the nifty
feature that Taldren installed (one of the best improvements to the game, IMHO):
the pause/unpause button for H&R raids.
When you don’t want your marines to transport over, click that button
and pause all raids until he’s either a) fired off all his weapons or b)
watching voluptuous women parade in front of him.
Then, H&R his ship by unpausing the raids.
With
practice and a little luck, you’ll be able to take advantage of your marines
in ways that haven’t been dreamed of.
Capturing
a ship is a different story. Unlike
H&R raids, when you capture a ship, your marines stay on board that ship
permanently and try to kill the crew and take command of the enemy.
This is very helpful, and sometimes is even a requirement for completion
of a mission (like “Thief in the Night”).
To do this, you’d better remember to make sure he has under 5 marines
and has no weapons to fire at your ship; the number can be adjusted depending on
the amount of transporters you have and the amount of damage he’s taken.
To kill marines, fire weapons at the enemy.
That’s all you need to do. Capturing
is useful, but the Federation suffers from a lack of many transporters.
So, you can just damage him until he’s severely crippled and then
launch a GAS and laugh.
To
beam over diplomats, infiltration teams, presidents of councils, and the
occasional Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, just get close (within range 5.99)
and toss them over. Be aware that
you sometimes need to lower a shield to get them in (as in “Cuckoo’s
Egg”). Other than that, it’s
pretty much straightforward. Just
make sure that you can’t get damaged by a stray phaser.
To beam in things, follow the same procedures and you should be
relatively safe.
The
T-bomb is one of the most annoying threats a captain has to deal with.
Not only do they arm extremely quickly, they deal a bunch of unavoidable
damage. Use your transporters to
transport a mine out the door right in front of his ship…and then
another…and then another. He
should be reeling, and if you’ve timed your transporting right, you
shouldn’t have even lost a shield. Follow
up with a massive phaser-photon-drone assault and you have him.
DRONES
and
How To Use Them
Everybody
says that drones and plasma are the two most annoying weapons in the game,
because it doesn’t take an expert to toss seeking missiles at an opponent.
If they hit, they deal a lot of damage, and they almost always hit.
As a Federation captain, you do not have as many missiles as the Mirak or
as many plasmas as the Gorn/Romulan, but you do have them and you can use them
to your full advantage.
Remember
when I said that I almost never used missiles?
Well, after a short fling with the Mirak captains, I’ve figured out how
to fly a drone ship and stay alive while doing so. They aren’t the deathtraps many people think they are,
although personally I think no missile can stand up to the photon torpedo :)
There
are three types of missiles: Slow
missiles, medium missiles, and fast missiles.
There are also two kinds of warheads:
Type-Is and Type-IVs. You’d
better know how to handle ALL of them, and I mean ALL of them, or else you
won’t stand a chance when D2 comes out. So,
without further ado…Drones and How To Use Them!
(Bows)
Your
typical slow missile moves at speed 16 and creeps up to a target like a—with
apologies to Nannerslug—well, slug. It
all depends on the warhead to see if it is worth it or not:
a type-I missile (12 points of damage) isn’t worth it, since there is
no way you’re going to catch a smart captain with that thing unless he slows
down and starts laughing at them. A
type-IV (24 points of damage) is also iffy.
It all depends on whether you know how to use it.
However,
there are advantages, and the major one is that they are free, presumably
included in the BPV cost of your ship’s missile racks.
This means that you can get a whole boatload of slow missiles for
absolutely NONE of your hard-earned prestige!
In my Mirak campaign, I simply flew around in a frigate, saving up
prestige by using slow missiles only, and in less than ten missions had a shiny
new BCH that flew around and killed things.
The problem is that your ship routinely outruns the missile, and even the
AI will make sure to fly fast when faced with a ship mounting slow-speed
missiles. So, I racked up kills by
charging at them, catching them in a tractor, slamming on the breaks, and
watching the missiles slowly but surely smash into their shields.
I tried this with a Federation NCD, and found it to be supremely
effective against the ISC, which can’t really do anything about it unless
their plasmas are charged, and I made sure that they were a nice light blue
before I closed, engaged the tractor, cut speed, and watched the big explosion.
Do
not EVER fire a slow missile at range (and that means at range 10 or greater)
unless the opponent is moving very slowly or is dropping speed.
A smart captain will just put the pedal to the metal and outrun those
missiles at a sedate speed of 17, shooting some of them down with his defensive
phasers as well. Instead, after
exchanging a few alphas (where you should come out victorious after slicing
their ship apart with proximities), drop off your missiles right next to them
when you are sure they have no weapons and no speed.
That will almost certainly kill them, and if it doesn’t, your phasers
will. I kind of feel sorry for that
Klingon captain who fought against my NCD in a D7B and came out hurting badly.
Of course, I suspect he gave the one about fighting five Federation light
cruisers to his boss…
After
watching slow missiles creep across the screen, the medium-end missiles, which
zoom around at a blazing speed 24, were a welcome relief.
Here is a dangerous missile, since all but experienced players fight at
under speed 20. They carry the same
warheads, and have a much better chance to hit, so when you’re carrying six of
these in a scatterpack and another six in those racks (with 12 missile control),
unleash them all at once and watch him take 288 points of heavy, heavy damage.
That really hurts.
Medium
missiles are a lot better at long-range bombardment than slow missiles, and that
means that you can follow up a menacing drone wave with a full phaser strike on
their down shield. What I do with
medium missiles is park the ship at about range 20 and send wave after wave of
missiles into their ship, overwhelming them while firing all phasers
simultaneously. He’ll soon be
overwhelmed and then, when you see his shields go down, follow your drones in
and smash it in with your phasers and a t-bomb or two.
He should be reeling as you pass, and motions for a cup of Romulan ale
until he sees that suicide shuttle that’s going to impact on his down
shield…Not very pretty.
The
most dangerous type of missile is the fast high-end missile, which blazes across
the screen at a astounding speed of 32. You
can’t outrun it, and you really can’t hide, so the fast missile can really
ruin a captain’s day. The fast
missile is best suited for preparatory volleys of phasers and photons.
Launch ‘em all and wait for them to hit a shield.
Then, follow them in and watch them blow up.
Now,
I’ve heard some very, very loud complaints from my friends who say that
missile ships suck because their missiles can be shot down too easily.
Apparently, they don’t know how to keep their missiles alive to get to
the target.
First
of all, NEVER fire your drones in one big volley. The opponent will pop a weasel and laugh as all of your
missiles streak towards the shuttle. Or,
he could drop a mine and watch it destroy all of the missiles.
As a last resort, his AMD/phasers would take down quite a few of them as
well. If anything got through, it
would be grabbed by a tractor or killed by an ESG.
Instead,
launch your missiles in small amounts at a time, and spread them out.
This gets around the mine trick pretty easily, and also helps offset a
WW. If the WW is destroyed, the
missiles reacquire their original target and begin heading for it once more.
In my Mirak campaign, I watched gleefully as one of my missiles killed a
weasel and the other five returned to their primary target, a bit chagrined.
The AI didn’t even react as he took 120 points of damage on a shield.
I then proceeded to smash him in with phasers.
ESG—well, wait until he fires off that ESG and then fire your missiles.
AMD can’t be avoided, but you can execute a H&R against the system.
It also helps to fire one missile at a time, wasting their AMD slowly but
surely. When its all gone, close
and blast the hell out of him. If
you use these tactics right, your opponent will learn to fear the
Federation…and sometimes that’s a good thing :D
Defending
Against Drones
First
of all, YOU MUST CHECK THIS THREAD!!!!
It’s
written by Ssazix, and is the Mirak captain’s nightmare.
Anybody who reads that thread will suddenly realize how stupid they’ve
been when they bypassed it. Secondly,
buy the strategy guide. Though
it’s a bit outdated since the patches were released, it still has some great
tactics about how to kill missiles. Read
that and the Mirak you’re fighting should be sobbing.
The stuff I’m writing is an elaboration on anti-drone tactics. So, without further ado--
Part
One of Defending Against Drones:
Know That Drone!!
Red
drones are slow drones, blue drones are medium drones, and purple drones are
fast drones. There are also two
types of warheads: Type-I, which
does 12 points of damage, and Type-IV, which does 24.
They both hurt very, very badly, and a wave of type-IVs can really ruin
your day. So, the first rule to
keep in mind is to be afraid of getting hit by drones.
To
avoid slow drones is easy enough: All
you do is keep your speed above 16 and outrun them. If he launches a LOT at you, pop a mine out the door and
watch them blow up, since most people think throwing missiles at the enemy 18 at
a time is a good idea. If they hit
the mine, all 18 go boom. It’s
fun reading the flames I get when I do that to a drone-happy captain.
A
smarter captain will launch his slow missiles one at a time in quick succession,
which means that they’ll be spread out so mines can’t do jack.
It also, BTW, wastes your AMD racks.
So, turn off those AMD racks and go to the weapons officer panel.
There, set all of your phaser-3s and -Gs to point-D.
Leave your phaser-1s alone so that they’ll be free to damage the enemy.
While the drones are being shot down, proximity him to death.
He can’t do anything against your photons (except increase ECM, which
you can counter), but you can do stuff against his missiles.
Medium
drones are a bit harder to deal with, but then again, that’s just your luck :D
They move at speed 24 and blow things a lot quicker than those slow
missiles. Against these, I would
recommend keeping your AMD rack on, just in case your defensive tractors get
overwhelmed. Anything your AMD
doesn’t get, your phaser-3s and -Gs will.
Run and let him chuck his missiles at you while you merrily shoot them
down. If he sends out a SP (and you
can bet he will), try to kill it with an AMD or a well-aimed phaser volley
before it can launch its missiles. What
you’re trying to do here is to kill off all of his missiles so that he’s
helpless before your photons.
Fast
drones can be treated in much the same way, but this time, you can’t outrun
them. Instead, you need to outthink
them. Missiles want to seek your
rear shields: If you can get
someone to fire them at range, you’ll see them start tracking your rear.
This is normally a good idea (especially if the missiles are targeting a
D7 with horrendously weak aft shields), but you can use it to your advantage
when fighting fast missiles. A
daring stunt that is referred to in the manual is to drive your ship around an
asteroid and turn around it, forcing the missiles to crash into it
rather than you. DON’T DO THIS! With
the Federation’s horrible turn mode, you’ll be space dust in less than two
seconds. Instead, drop mines out of
the back door. Remember that they
take a while to arm, but when you kill all of the missiles, it’ll be worth it.
Just drop them out earlier and you should have no trouble.
Also, try shooting down fast drones with probes.
Send out an attack probe and try to get it to kill a missile or two
(target the nearest one by pressing “Spacebar”).
And if nothing else works, turn on your AMD rack and let it do the dirty
work.
One
point here is that a Federation captain should not be afraid to take damage:
The Enterprise suffered two direct hits on the warp engines in
ST2: The Wrath of Khan and still
managed to kick some genetic engineering butt, and in the same way, don’t be
afraid to take some damage when you know you’re going to deal a
disproportionate amount of damage in return.
Take the following example: A
Federation SCS is fighting a Romulan KHK. The
Romulan fires off all his plasma, sending it smashing in the Fed’s front
shield. Instead of backing off, the
Federation ship KEEPS GOING, fires off full overloads at range 2, and follows up
with drone and phaser strikes. Add
this to the 16 pissed-off fighter pilots itching to blow up that Rommie who
accidentally beamed off their resident stripper and you have a KHK in deep
trouble. What’s more, that shield
of yours will be back up in a few minutes, and none of your systems will be
destroyed (or if they are, only one or two).
On the other hand, once you hit that Romulan, all of his weapons start
blinking madly, and if you follow up with a bunch of Mizias…the possibilities
are endless.
---------------------
Captain
S’Tasik, ISC Division, Xenocorp
ISCS
Rod and Berry, DNT