*VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 1 * HINTS by Gary Grothman . begun by Roger Burton-West as part of the alt.games.vga-planets FAQ. This is a collection of submissions & strategy hints nabbed off Usenet. It is posted to alt.games.vga-planets approximately biweekly. Its main purpose is to help novice players avoid common pitfalls & allow them to play competently in games with more experienced players. It may also contain some tips of value to relatively advanced players. Sources are attributed, and I make few changes, other than to correct spelling, improve readability, or insert my infrequent two-bits worth. Accuracy & value of the submissions is not guaranteed, and we are not responsible for loss of Empires resulting from advice taken...8-) Each section begins with "Subject:"; pressing ^G in some newsreaders (trn) will advance to the next section. Also, each section is preceded by a line of exclamation points (!) for those of us stuck scanning through the postings "manually". Players/hosts are also directed to the alt.games.vga-planets FAQ, also posted approximately weekly. Newcomers to Usenet may wish to peruse the bulletins available in news.announce.newusers (& other "news." groups...) for information on netiquette, as well as explanations of such net.critters as IMHO, FYI, 8), RTFM, and so on. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Administrivia Input is invited, send mail to grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu Please tell me if you think something should be added, removed, or if you have any corrections. I'm not a wizard, I just maintain this collection. I rely largely on others to keep it relevant, current, & correct. Note on attributions: sources for hints are in brackets "[...]". If the name is at the start of a line, it corresponds to all preceding information in that section (or up to a previous attribution). If the name is at the end of a paragraph, it applies to that paragraph only. Now you know who to blame when that suggestion to "build only Eros class ships" leads to your downfall...8-) Changes since version of 1994-05-01: Added to Playing specific races: Fascists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this HINTS posting PART 1: Hosting Alchemy ships Planetary defense Starbases General hints (subdivided by author): Roger Burton-West (ubte30e@ccs.bbk.ac.uk) PART 2: General hints (subdivided by author): Svein Gunnar Tjoenndal (sveint@colargol.edb.tih.no) kv07@EDU.IASTATE Andrew Jones (lrpr@unb.ca) machteme@acpub.duke.edu (Mark Achtemeier) moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz): spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt) Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Federation Lizards PART 3: Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Fascists Privateers PART 4: Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Cyborg Crystals (see also part.5) PART 5: Playing specific races: Crystals (continued) Empire Robots PART 6: Playing specific races: Rebels Dealing with cloaking PART 7: Opposing specific races: Privateers Crystals !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Hosting 1) DON'T!! I.e. don't be a newbie and try to host a game at the same time. Play in at least one game to the end before you decide to host a game. 2) KEEP BACKUPS AT LEAST 3 DEEP. Keeping backups that are more than 7 turns old isn't very helpful because most people aren't going to want to back up that far if something goes wrong with the game. However backing up and redoing 1 or 2 turns will be ok. (And things do go wrong.) 3) Convince everybody to do their UUENCODE/DECODE on the PC using the same version of the program (recommendation: Richard Marks' v5.21, available on SIMTEL {if you don't know what that means you are crazy to even consider hosting a game.}) Having some people doing UU on the PC and others on various mainframes is a recipe for trouble. [Love that "standard" uuencoding... I believe the encoder/decoder is also available at ftp.ucsc.edu. Personally I've only seen one UNIX uuencode cause trouble, it didn't like my VMS system, or v.v. Also, doing the encoding on the PC's means longer modem transfer times for us poor people...oh well. You can always tell the players that turns mucked up in the encoding will be skipped, and let them exercise free will 8-) ...Editor's 2-bits' worth] 4) DON'T PLAY IN YOUR OWN GAME. This has several advantages: a) I play to win. I don't want some less skillful player saying that the only reason I won was because I used my special advantages as host. I assume that you feel the same way. b) If necessary it allows you to look at players' files without feeling guilty. c) If someone drops out, you can play their empire for a couple of turns while you arrange a replacement. d) There are plenty of games on the net for you to play in. I would recommend that all net hosts give other hosts special consideration when it comes to getting into a game (but not necessarily first choice of race.) [Dr. Dorn Peterson (DORN@Dirac.physics.jmu.edu)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Alchemy ships One alchemy ship should be constructed early in the game. No need to use extra cash/minerals on engines/weapons. Have it as a stationary builder. If anyone can grab something at your home world they can surely beat the shit out of you anyway. [sveint@colargol.edb.tih.no (Svein Gunnar Tjoenndal)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Planetary defense Defense posts have critical values, where you get more fighters/ beams/tech, and increases are only valuable at these points. So buying D from (say) 7->12 is worth nothing, but 12->13 gets you an extra fighter (4, now) and tech 2 beams. So, build factories and save until you go 7->13 in one hit. [moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz)] Planetary Defense has wildly varying effectiveness. 1 DP can keep a planet from being taken over by starting ships with only 1 or 2 lasers or x-ray lasers. (1 DP means the planet has shields, at 0 DP it has no shields). But the value of planet defense above one is highly questionable. Unless the defense is VERY high, any half-decent ship with 4 or more beams and either some decent torps or a goodly number of fighters, will be able to take it with little trouble. Adding a starbase (with 60 fighters) makes a planet MUCH more difficult to capture. For testing purposes I used an Empire SSD with 8 x-ray lasers and 68 fighters, not until I cranked the planet defense up to 271 did the planet win consistantly. Adding a starbase and 60 fighters, the planet won consistantly with only 20 DPs. Keeping this in mind, below are the 'breakpoints' for planetary DPs. Raising DPs to a number not on this list increases shield strength, which is of fairly minor significance; it also increases the Ground Combat Defense multiplier, which can often be more useful. Formulas: # of planet fighter: SQR(DP) + .5 # of beams: SQR((DP + base defense) / 3) + .5 Beam Type (not TL): SQR(DP / 2) + .5 Shield strength (untested): (DP + base defense + 100) gives ship Kt equiv. (defense posts, Fighters, Beams, Beam Type) DP F B Type DP F B Type 1 1 1 laser 85 9 5 heavy blaster 3 2 1 91 10 6 5 2 1 x-ray laser 111 11 6 7 3 1 113 11 6 phaser 13 4 2 plasma bolt 127 11 7 19 4 3 133 12 7 21 5 3 145 12 7 heavy disruptor 25 5 3 blaster 157 13 7 31 6 3 169 13 8 37 6 4 181 13 8 heavy phaser 41 6 4 positron beam 183 14 8 43 7 4 211 15 8 57 8 4 217 15 9 61 8 5 disruptor 241 16 9 73 9 5 271 16 10 In short, if you REALLY want to defend a planet, put a stocked starbase in orbit above it! If that's too expensive you can always post a picket ship or two at the planet. Of course, picket ships can be robbed, or towed away, while starbases can't... [schang@eng.umd.edu "Steven Chang", thorston@dojo.ruhr.de (Thorsten Frigger)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Starbases [Re: choosing suitable planets for starbase construction...Ed.] IMHO, mineral content is more important than a large population; you can always ship the cash there from a cash-cow, cheaply with a scout ship, as long as it's not too far away. You will want lots of colonists at the base though, in case those sneaky cloaked types try to capture the base by beaming down colonists for a ground attack (esp. lizards!). The one tech worth building at a base even if you don't need it for ships is beams; they may boost the starbases beams used in its own defense, if the SQR(.5 * (starbase defense + planetary defense posts)) is less then the starbase beam tech. [Andrew Jones (lrpr@unb.ca)] Another good justification for my strategy of building as many starbases as you can [is the 500 ship limit...see FAQ]. One of 'em is bound to be a relatively low ID. Of course, you could PLAN from the BEGINNING of the game to build a starbase on a very low ID planet... or would that be too much work? Seems like sound long-term strategy to me. Build at least one starbase on a very-low-ID planet. It'll pay off in spades if you survive to the endgame and reach the 500 ship limit. [kestrel@selway.umt.edu (Christopher J Dewey)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From: Roger Burton-West READ THE DOCUMENTATION! When I first started to play, I thought the only way to colonize planets was by building ships and setting them to "colonize". Naturally enough, I fell pretty far behind in those first few games. -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6211 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (2 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulh9i$78v@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:33:06 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 275 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 2 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: General hints (subdivided by author): Svein Gunnar Tjoenndal kv07@EDU.IASTATE Andrew Jones (lrpr@unb.ca) machteme@acpub.duke.edu (Mark Achtemeier) moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz): spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt) Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Federation Lizards !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From: Svein Gunnar Tjoenndal Many senior players may be reluctant (no wonder) to give up their favorite strategy. I will give some minor spoilers for new players anyway. There are two secrets to success. The first one is really no secret. Fighters! "But I play the Feds", you might say. Fear not. Rescue is here. Mines. (not the ones you build on planets, stupid). As noted earlier I will not say anything of tactics with space mines, but just dropping some in enemy territory is NOT the best idea. Like the Cyborgs you say. No way. I've played them once (barely), and no more. They have the worst ships until the CUBES, and cubes are always few, never being more than one place at a time (strange?!?), thereby covering only a small part of your presumably large empire. Cloaking. Give me the Bird Men, fair start, and I'll take out anyone, any day. Teams. Try teaming up with someone. Exchange ships. Think of it. Privateers avec Cyborgs. Unstoppable. Even though you cannot cloak, you can semi-cloak. Stay behind planets as often as possible. Always defend planets so they can't be surveyed. Be extremely careful what ships you construct. Be even more careful to only use your ships to what they were meant to do. Hurling small escorts with many beams against large carriers, is the absolutely WORST tactic I've ever heard of! Gorbie Class BattleCarrier. Largest in the universe. Unstoppable. NOT! I've discovered tactics that can take out a Gorbie (or Biocide or . . .), with loss of less money/materials than it costs to construct a Gorbie. With any race. PS! Hurl 100 Escorts at it and MAYBE you'll get it. What one ship can't do, maybe two or three can. You only need lasers to shoot down fighters. (even on battleships). Small mass ships don't stand a chance against torpedoes. Flee to fight another day. Planetary defense can be a bitch. (And I think it's cheap!). Two good ships won't do. Five intermediate and one good will. Ships with less than Transwarp Drive ain't worth diddley. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From: kv07@EDU.IASTATE If you want to overload a ships engines for part of a trip, do it at the very end. This way the engines are running inefficiently when the ship is lighter so less fuel is wasted. It also gives you the opportunity to change your mind. Watch the scores. They often tell you more than the deep space scan. Don't just watch you neighbors, watch your neighbor's neighbors. What's going on on the other side of their empire can impact your side. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From: "Andrew Jones (lrpr@unb.ca)" Don't forget that the Lizards, and Reptilian natives, mine double. Feds mine 1/2 (normal with reptilian natives) and always get 25 KT of each remaining mineral with >= 100 mines, no matter how scattered the minerals are. This last is undocumented; it makes it useless for the Fed to build mines on homeworld, unless you can get to about 250-300. It does make them the best miners for badly scattered planets, however. Remember the abilities of Ghipsoids, Humanoids, Siliconoids and Amphibians (In that order of importance) to get a starbase with tech 10 starting in one attribute. Reptilian double mining comes in handy, too. Amorphous natives are a bitch. You can do gather missions off "blob worlds" and get the loose minerals. If there's a lot of minerals in the ground, it may be worth mining. You'll have to drop about 100 colonists to keep them breeding faster than the blobs; don't tax either blobs or colonists. To discover the climate of a blob world, you'll have to drop 11 clans; It seems they get to eat 5 people twice before you get to look. If it's desert or arctic you'll need to bring people in constantly; only the richest mineral deposits are worth that (just another damn bug hunt...). Mines: They are great for discouraging said sneaky cloaking types from paying you a smashing surprise visit; but you need LOTS to make the trip hazardous enough to feel "safe". Note they are VERY slow to sweep; this makes the colonies' ability to sweep with fighters (and from outside the minefield, I believe) a bigger deal than it first appears. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints: From: machteme@acpub.duke.edu (Mark Achtemeier) Your number one goal in the opening phases (assuming your neighbors leave you a little bit of breathing room) is MAXIMIZE PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY. This means (1) exploring new planets quickly, and (2) develop enough shipping capacity to get reasonable numbers of colonists onto the planets and regular shipments of minerals and cash back to your starbase. IMHO this calls for the highest engine tech you can afford and hull tech sufficient to build the larger freighters. Obviously, if your neighbors are hostile, local defense becomes a top priority and economic development takes a back seat. [Re: Should you be building a ship per turn?] This is not a bad idea in the beginning, provided the ships are useful in accomplishing the goals described above. Later in the game you are much better off building the highest quality ships you possibly can (though small, cheap gunships also have their uses, especially against fighter-based races). I like to think of the overall goal of the game as converting as many minerals and resources as you can obtain into the most powerful battle fleet possible. It's a simple idea, but it helps you to keep your strategic focus. Cash is probably most scarce at the beginning of the game when you are trying to get your tech levels cranked up and keep your manufacturing going. The next thing to go, in my experience, is neutronium. After that, if you haven't paid attention to your mining and supply networks, everything starts to get scarce and you can find yourself in real trouble. Combat only takes place if both ships end their turn in the same location. In practice, this generally means you only have combat when at least one of the players *wants* a battle to take place. But don't worry--this will happen soon enough! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz): Build factories first and always. I try to have maximum factories on all planets all the time. Exception is bovinoids, where I will aim for maximum defense and spend the change on factories. Build 1 defense to deter freighters and small scouts. I usually put only 10 or less mines on a planet, unless it has lots of scattered minerals that I want or something. Planets with 5000kT or more I go to maybe 40 mines, or 50 if there's 5MT or more of several minerals. With a starbase on one of these worlds (as there usually is quite quickly), I go for maybe 300 000 colonists or more, and 100 mines. Unregistered players better hunt out (1) Ghipsoids for tech ten engines, and then (2) humans for tech 10 hulls. Engines are vital, and give you a big advantage over slower people. The FAQ thing on alchemy ships is useful [hear, hear! ...Ed.], but note that you need 625kT Deut. to make one, so don't get too excited until you have the minerals to make the ship. And, unless you are really rich, only put tech 4 or 5 engines in it. Tow it if it has to be moved. And, it's cheaper to move minerals than supplies, so put it over a bovinoid planet not a starbase (unless you have both...), and then build a starbase there if you feel like it (or someone attacks you). Watch the mineral content of ships - low tech ones are heavy and expensive, with low cargo capacity. For scouts you want light, cheap, lots of cargo. They don't fight except against planets. Leave that to ships with torps and fighters who follow once you have a few good planets. Find planets by sending a light, fast ship full of colonists out to put 1-10 colonist clans on each planet, without stopping. This tells you what's there, and you can follow it up with a bigger ship to fix the colony. The idea is to make 4 or 5 good colony planets with minerals or natives, rather than 20, half of which are arctic or mineral-poor. Aim for 1000 clans and a strong defense on good planets. Probably a ship with disruptors, to capture enemies, backed by a planetary defense around 60-100 to trash anything big enough to kill the defender ship. I usually have my colonizer tow this out as I only put low tech engines in it. Little pests and little joes are great for this-cheap, lots of beams, but one hit and they're history. Usually they capture two or three other ships before they go though, so are worth the extra cost. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: General hints From: spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt) Concentrate on building large ships. All races (except the Privateers) have a ship that will defeat all your small ships. This applies also for freighters. Always use large freighters, the medium ones are just too small to do anything good. If you have a war, try to be always offensive (maybe except the Crystals). It's always more difficult to defend space compared to attacking, especially if you have the 'right' enemy with a lot of nice, medium sized ships (Emerald, Diplomacy). !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Federation Build neutronic refinery ship(s) early. You have no fuel carriers, so your supply will be limited. Build an alchemy ship early - preferably before the N. refinery. Keep it at your home world until you can build a Nebula or Missouri to escort it to a Bovine (supply-producing) planet. You are going to have to trade to get fuel carriers, fighter ships, and respect. Form a stable alliance with a stronger race. Offer them use of your Super Refit capabilities. Despite the lack of fuel carriers, you have a good balance of ships, mostly leaning toward torp-based weapons. Crank up your torp tech level, and concentrate on tech 7 and higher torps. Nebula - carries 350 torps. Good for torp transport, or can use on long treks through enemy space dropping 50 mines 7 times to form a wall. Sweet ship to offer in trades, but be careful who you give it to. Missouri - good torp & beam ship, high mass, can take some hits. Kitty Hawk - holds 65 fighters, reasonably priced. You can build a couple of these, and send them out with other ships in a fleet. Nova - Not bad for a tech 10 ship. I haven't had the chance to battle test mine yet, so I can't give good advice on Nova vs T.Rex, etc. Nocturne - Don't overlook these! They hold 50 torps - not much in a battle, but can be loaded with torps and distributed across your territory. In times of emergency, they can cover your planets with small minefields (beware cloakers!), and be used to trigger planet defenses if/when attacked. A previous hint said that Feds lose in the long run. Without fuel carriers, you will lose quickly. [dwhite@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov" "Douglas White"] The best ship may be the Diplomacy. Cheaper than a Nebula and very effective, even with Mk4. Especially if the engine shield bonus is on. [spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Lizards Go out, find enemy planets you want, and land 1000's of clans to take them over and defend them. You'll probably want 2 or 3 warm planets to grow lizards on, and remember not to build more mines than you need. Use that defense bonus on ships by using small, cloaking ships to steal ships off other people. [moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz)] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6212 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (3 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulhb1$7dv@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:33:53 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 287 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 3 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Fascists Privateers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Fascists Sell D7 Coldpains to the Privateers for their Meteor class Gravitic ships. You get good ships while they get something with a 425+ fuel tank to rob other people with. [gosik@groupw.cns.vt.edu (Scott Gosik)] The Fascists' biggest advantage is Pillaging -- against yourself! Your lead colonization vessels should be lightweight, and minimally armed, carrying colonists only! Cloakers are much better! When you arrive at a planet, check for natives. They are critical to your success. If you find them, beam down one clan, and in the same turn, PIllage the planet. Your one clan will be gone, but for every 1,000,000 natives the planet will now have 100 supplies and 100 MCr -- even Amorphous! If the planet has Amorphous or Anarchy government, you might want to Pillage twice, or more. Don't get bogged down, though -- keep moving. It's OK to leave a planet will supplies and MCr with no clans -- they won't disappear (unless someone else takes the planet) and you won't tip off your opponents on the score table by running up the planet count. Your follow-up should be large freighters, dropping 300 or more clans at each planet that looks worth it -- keep notes about where to go. With the supplies and credits, these planets will instantly have all the mines, factories, and defense you could want. The objective is to get a jump on the competition; build up a large fleet based on your volumes of supplies and minerals, and take on the galaxy before it gets going! [cjsmith@io.org (Chris Smith)] The Fascists are a great race to play. To start off, They have quite a collection of useful ships. The best ships are the D7 Coldpain, Ill Wind Battle cruiser, Valiant Class Carrier, and the Victorious Class Battleship. The D7 Coldpain's Cloaking ability, 4 Beam / 2 Torp, 100 Cargo, and 430 fuel tank make it an excellent invisible scout/terrorist/bandit ship. I would sit a few of these ships in enemy territory and wait for FAT enemy freighters to pass within striking range. Appear, attack, and disappear tactics can be rather effective. After doing Recon with the D7, you can send in the big gun - The Ill Wind. With 10 beam and 2 torp weapons, this is a deadly ship. It is a big ship with large fuel and cargo areas perfectly suited for planetary takeovers or taking over other ships. This ship costs a lot of $$$ to make, but is very reasonable on the minerals. Similar situation for the Tech 10 Victorious Battleship. With 10 beam and 6 torps, this is also a very dangerous ship. All Fascist ships have large crews which make them almost impossible to take over... true Fascist battle to the death. The Fascists can stand toe to toe with most Torpedo based attacks, but their one weakness is fighter based attacks. The only fighter ship is the Valiant Class Carrier. With 7 beam / 3 fighter bays and 80 unit cargo hold, this ship can take out most light carriers without much stress. It doesn't have enough bays to fight the larger carrier ships effectively. Even though there are 10 beam weapon ships in their arsenal, they don't preform well against fighter attacks as they will usually take out 20-25 fighters before being blown up (except the big Battleship) (an example being the Patriot carrier with low tech weapons and 30 fighters usually can take out an Ill Wind or do enough damage that the ship is useless). I have had several Ill Winds destroyed in a single battle against a RUSH carrier without damaging the the RUSH carrier. So, what does this all mean for strategy. Well, I like to build D7s at first to do scouting/colonizing and also to use them as invisible escorts (I have taken out many light enemy ships looking to steal a freighter and finding themselves captured by disrupters and gamma bombs. ;-> As your empire expands, build Ill Winds for defense and long range attacks. When possible (i.e. when base tech levels are built up), start pumping out the Victorious battleships for major attacking/battle ready action. If you have a bovine planet near a base, or fighter based enemy neighbors, you may want to build a few Valiant carriers for light ship/carrier enemy attacks. If you can make a bargain with a friendly Colonies or Rebel neighbor to build you cheap fighters in exchange for D7 or other ships, this could be of great advantage to you. A fully loaded Valiant class carrier is difficult to stop by all but the bigger ships around. [sean.smith@WPCUsrGrp.MB.CA (Sean Smith)] The following is not applicable in all cases, but it has saved a major starbase in the past. Coldpains have a *very* large fuel tank, and if you are being threatened by a large carrier (remember, Fascists are susceptible to fighter attacks!) then try and get lined up with the attackeing vessel WHILE CLOAKED! If you succeed, then you have a shot at towing him away from his destination. Obviously, this only works if the attacker is running less than Warp 9, but I have found that the number of engines on the large carriers can make top of the line engines prohibitively expensive for many players. [cjsmith@io.org] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Privateers Meteors are for towing, and attacking far off planets. BR4's explore, and BR5's steal ships in the early stages, Meteors steal them later, until both are redundant. Build little pests to wear down carriers, and use one with tech 5 engines to tow another with tech 1 engines into battle. These take out 10 or so fighters, and provided you follow up in the same turn with a solid capital ship you can expect to trash most other newbies. (like me!) A meteor can tow a large deep space freighter at warp 9, whilst a BR4 can't as the fuel tank is too small. [moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz)] I. Limitations. A. A ship can perform only one mission at a time. This means that you can choose to cloak, rob, tow, or intercept; but, for example, you can't intercept a ship and arrive there cloaked. B. The 3 cloakable and accelerated ships are low mass. This means that they should not fight anything but scouts and freighters. C. Even your "big" carrier is useless against anything with 8 or 10 beams and 2 tubes. II. Advantages. A. Cloaking and the grav. accel. are obvious advantages. B. The low mass of the accelerated ships, the extra speed itself, and the fact that you use only half as much fuel/LY when you are towing with an accelerated ship make these ships perfect for towing. C. An MBR equipped with just x-rays is capable of doing everything except planet raiding. This means that new SBs only have to be tech 10 in engines (and even tech 7 is useful) and tech 5 in hulls. This means that productive starbases are much cheaper for Privateers than for anybody else. III. General strategy. A. STAY OUT OF SIGHT If the rest of the empires find out where you are early they might just decide to eliminate a pest. A 100 LY radius mine field dropped near you home world can put a crimp in your expansion. B. Don't ignore the necessity to expand. Your first 3 ships should probably be MBRs with x-rays and either 0 or 1 mark 4 torp. For these exploration ships warp 7 engines are probably good enough. After that you will mostly want to build MBRs with warp 9 engines. After the first 3 MBRs you should build ships in pairs of an MBR with good engines and a large freighter with poor engines. Use these to develop other SBs as quickly as possible. You may not be the first empire to get 2 SBs but you should be the first to 3 and should have 5 or 6 before anybody else has 3. IV. Tactics. A. Don't fight - ROB. We will see occasions when a ship will be used as a Sacrificial Lamb (SL) but other than that you should never fight anything even close to your size. A cloaked, undamaged MBR is much more useful than the benefit from eliminating an enemy's medium size capital ship. B. Play the fuel game. You will always need less fuel than they do. Strip unowned planets of fuel with "gather" and whenever you can't steal a ship at least steal its fuel. C. Steal ships. (Now we get down to the meat of the problem.) The following tactics are all based on the problem that in order to steal a ship's fuel, so that we can tow it to a SB, we MUST be at exactly the same coordinates as the enemy ship. We can't use intercept to get there because the turn order is steal - move - combat. If the enemy capital ship has enemy set to Privateer (if he doesn't have it set to Privateer the first time he will from then on), you will die at the end of movement and before you get a chance to steal. You have to be cloaked when you arrive at the same place as the enemy ship. 1) Wait at a planet (yours or unowned) from which you have removed the fuel. If you are sure that you have more fuel capacity than he has fuel then just set ROB SHIP and wait until the next turn to begin towing him back to your SB. You can't do this at his planet because he might transfer fuel up from the planet and that happens AFTER you rob. Lo and behold, you end up with a very angry capital ship on your hands, he has fuel, you are not cloaked, and you get blown away. 2) Use a sacrificial lamb (SL) at one of his planets to capture capital ships. Get a cloaked ship to one of his planets where you know ships to be. Pick the ship you want and tow it out to a waypoint where you have one or more MBRs waiting. Make sure you pick a waypoint position so that if one of his other ships is set to intercept the one you are stealing, the other one won't be able to make it that far (also see tactic #5.) This is called the SL gambit because the ship doing the towing gets pasted at the end of movement (you haven't stolen the enemy's fuel yet, that's what the other, cloaked MBRs are there to do.) You can try to set it up so that your ship just runs out of fuel at the end of the tow but this is a little dangerous. What happens if the ship takes on cargo and is heavier than you thought? 3) Projecting a ship's course. (Your opponent has to be very inexperienced for this to work.) If you see a ship moving toward a planet that is more than 1 jump away, you can try to project where he will be on his next jump if he continues to move at the same speed. If you try to do this much, you will start to appreciate the Pythagorean Theorem. 4) Bait and switch. Send a nice target, a full large freighter or uncloaked captured capital ship, toward enemy space. Unfortunately, for the enemy, it is accompanied by a couple of cloaked MBRs. Make sure that the freighter is out of fuel at the end of each jump. That way you don't loose it when some capital ship arrives with weapons cocked. 5) The intercepted freighter gambit. If your enemy is "protecting" his freighter by having a capital ship continually intercept it, you can easily get both. Have a cloaked ship waiting at a planet when they arrive. Tow the freighter with your ship but tow it in a known direction and tow it further than the jump range of the enemy capital ship. Have a second MBR waiting at the position where the capital ship will end up. Example: Both freighter and capital ship have been moving at warp 9. Tow the freighter 90 LY north. Have the 2nd MBR waiting, cloaked, 81 LY north. The capital ship will try to follow the freighter but won't keep up. You capture the freighter with guns (You DO put only x-rays or disruptors on your MBRs, don't you? After all, MBRs are NEVER supposed to fight anything but freighters.) The enemy capital ship is in deep space, at a known position, where it is easy to ROB and then TOW. 6) The pirates nest. Privateers have real trouble defending a specific planet against a large fleet. The best defense is that they shouldn't know were the SB or rich planet is. Second, you can spread cheap ships (they don't have to cloak) around your empire that always have ROB set. These will rob enemy cloakers that are exploring your empire (this can be disabled by the host in ver. 3.1). But assume the worst. Your enemy knows where to do you damage and has a fleet on the way. Don't fight back. Set up a pirates nest at a planet they are likely to pass through. This is a collection of cheap BR4s with warp 5 engines and some MBRS. The BR4s wait at the planet until the fleet arrives. Each one then tows a ship out to waiting MBRs, to deep space, and maybe one to the SB (if the SB is capable of handling that one.) This breaks up the fleet and gives you a chance to handle the ships one at a time. [DORN@Dirac.physics.jmu.edu (Dr. Dorn Peterson)] - P's can use 'packs' of MBRs more effectively than described above, for example, to rob fuel before towing ships in the same turn, very often preventing counterattack. Nevertheless, it is good to tow to a remote point where other MBRs can ROB, if only to prevent a towing P-ship from being captured in a counterattack. - Note that P-ships can also drag alien ships to be destroyed by more powerful allied ships. This is a good way to dismantle massive opposition in parts with little risk. - Note that Robbing proceeds from low ID to higher and act accordingly. - As noted by D.P. above, you can tow ships to known locations, where you will end up without fuel. But you should be careful about this, and use simulations or an exact formula for fuel consumption (because there are program bugs). - P's can 'intercept' alien ships which move predictably, shuttling to the same location between worlds, or to locations which can be predicted exactly by simulation. (In the first case, a cloaked P ship simply waits in deep space to ambush.) - MBR's can tow massive allied super-carriers with devastating effects. This combination is virtually unstoppable if played correctly even if there are large minefields (if there are several cheap MBRs as there usually are). The super-ships should have their own Transwarp engines, though; and sometimes they should tow the MBR's (for their 'air-lift' capabilities). [harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood)] Just a few more things to note. With Mark IV (or higher) torps a MBR can kill most planets easily and in version 3.11 you can disable torpedoes with a friendly code. This means you can now put Mark IV torps on the MBR's and use them to intercept freighters with out blowing them to itty-bity-bits and capture planets that don't have a capital ship defending them. If you start taking planets this way and will not be able to keep the planet beam up all the fuel, money, AND YOUR ONE CLAN. If you beam up the clan when your enemy's capital ship comes back seeking revenge you will deny him a VCR and delay him a turn since he will now have to beam down colonists. Or if the planet has a native race you can up the taxes to 100%, the native race will riot for many turns. [mrh0631@Rigel.tamu.edu (Mark Hesidence)] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6213 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (4 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulhca$7eo@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:34:34 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 210 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 4 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Cyborg Crystals !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Cyborg Well, as far as the Cyborgs go, their ships are garbage. The best solution I have found is to build one or two good ships, and lots of B41s. They cost almost nothing to make, and even if they are outarmed by anything with torpedoes, you can literally saturate an area with them. They make good cannonfodder to soften up large ships or planets too. [kv07@EDU.IASTATE] Fireclouds can't fight enemy ships. Sure they can take out an all beam ship, but they will fail against much lighter ships. So what do you do when that Cygnus is following you? Lay mines and stop at the far edge. Most of the lightweight ships that can beat a Firecloud are in the <100 KT range. If your opponent has his ship set to intercept he will be traveling through the full diameter of the minefield. Even if he makes it, it isn't like you could have survived. You can scoop the mines and move again next turn. What if his ship is >100 KTs? Well, either hope he hits two mines or is damaged enough to be taken out. Usually these ships don't beat the Firecloud though, they totally annihilate it. So unless you can beat the ship fair and square, your better off facing it with just beams and (hopefully) damaged than with lots of torps you never get to fire. [Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub (kv07@iastate.edu)] The Borg can expand like crazy, even the hyperdrive ship (B200) is good for expansion. This gives you the ability to build a lot of Annihilations and a bunch of Fireclouds. Use your Annihilations against large ships, and attack the planets of your enemy with Fireclouds. Your own planets are well defended, use a Firecloud to soften up medium sized ships if they attack your planet. [spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt)] Playing the Cyborgs is not that bad. Depending on what scenario you are playing, it can be quite a good race to choose. An example would be the 'ASHES OF THE EMPIRE' scenario now available where it is everybody against the Evil Empire. You have the ability to make allies with your next door neighbours to swap ships/supplies. If your HOST.EXE program is 3.1X or higher, my favorite tactic is to build lots of B200 probes with Tech 6 (or higher) engines, put 50 MC, 9 colonies, and 6 supplies on it. You can use the special HYPERDRIVE feature to expand your realm very quickly. All you need to do is set the course towards a cluster of planets (or at least 2 planets) and HYP jump to it. You can quickly set up a powerful new 'HOME' planet from any planet with native life on it. Put Colonist taxes up to about 12% (still not angry at you) and usually can get native taxes up to 8 or 10%. In 2 turns you can refill the B200 and send it to the next close planet or for another HYP jump. The planet (especially if it has BOVINE native) will come to life in about 5 turns. If you do this for the first few turns producing several B200 from your initial starbase, your realm can expand quite quickly. It is true that there are not many types of (good) ships available to the Cyborg, but I have found nothing scarier that a fully loaded Biocide Carrier. And again, if you use proper diplomacy, you can arrange a trade with your neighbour for ships. (Can arrange to get quite a few other ships for one Biocide or Annihilation ship.) ... I am Smorgus of Borg...prepare to be marinated. [sean.smith@WPCUsrGrp.MB.CA (Sean Smith)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Crystals Your problem is money. I use a Ruby for colonizing, Opals at 1 colonist per planet for scouting. Get an Avian or Bovinoid planet as a first step, and a couple Opals for scouting then capture. All effort goes into the ruby with tech 10 torps that is laying a web mine or four around your homeworld. The idea is that by turn 4 or 5 it is 100LY across, and everyone in the game has seen one of your ships. Use cloaking (captured) ships to lay-and-run webs around nearby home worlds, but concentrate on 'mining' your web minefield. Let them come to you mostly. Ideally you want to have your minefield(s) totally enclosing all your planets, so that it is tricky to attack you, and harder still to hold on to a captured planet. (oh, tech 2 torps are most economical if you have minerals but no money (1/2MC per mine), tech 10 are cheapest if minerals are included as supplies per mine). [moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz)] Key strategic points (some obvious, others not so): - Lay numerous small fields as opposed to Huge ones. This helps deter mine detection. - Make use of the Opals defensively. 19 torps of tech 4 or above can produce an effective web. - You can only sweep the lowest ID mine field, so multiple mine fields of differing types can be helpful. - Emerald Class is best armed freighter in game. Build these in force. - Crystal Thunder Carrier is actually a strong ship. Ftr capacity is it's drawback. All of this is for version 3.0. Version 3.1 will make BIG changes and make most of this obsolete since mine sweeping changed to allow sweeping outside of the field. The Ruby and Emerald Class ships are great armed cargo/invasion ships. Sounds strange, but with 370/510 cargo with weapons you can do alot of damage on the borders before the enemy races can set up defenses. Especially by putting up web fields after you move in. In unregistered games, the Emerald Class is one of the most powerful capital ships in the game (some fighter ships with large mass can still take this out since you don't have the tech 10 torps). Build small freighters to tow your captured ships. They have the smallest mass and 1 Transwarp engine can pull a battleship 81 ly for about 50 tons of fuel a turn. I am currently waging war with the Rebels. The Emerald with 8 beams and 3 Photon 8 torpedoes can't be beat. The beams can hold off any fighter ship (except the big one) while the torps do their damage. None of the other Crystal ships can survive the Rebel Patriot Carrier (excluding the Diamond Flame of course). Don't send any Topez ships after fighter ships as cannonfodder. The crew is too small and the fighters will capture the ship! You will have to destroy it later. A good use for the Topez is as a mine sweeper. Put small engines and tech 10 beams on it and tow it with your Emerald carrier killer with 8 low tech beams. If the enemy puts up minefields to slow your progress, the 400 mines destroyed by the Topez make up for the fuel cost to tow it. Web mines are the best defense against cloaked enemies. I have acquired a few cloaked ships coming up unsuspecting on web mine fields. I place 30 ly radius webs around some of my populated planets on the border with a web tender ship near by. As soon as a ship is caught, I will keep increasing the size of the web to prevent their leaving. Best tactic is to lay a small field away from the planet with a large field around the planet. Their mine sweeps will detect the closer field (version 3.0) and not the bigger. They either bypass the first or get lucky and pass thru to be caught by the second. Cloaked torpedo ships allow you to put web mines in enemy territory, especially over their planets. With fuel usually in shortage, it can significantly reduce their offense capabilities. Great method for catching enemy ships that the player allocates just enough fuel to reach its destination, only to find out it runs out of fuel before reaching its target and is now in deep space defensless. Placed over their base planets this is a real pain in their a*&. All ships coming, going and in orbit lose the 25 tons of fuel. So they sweep it, but I figure sometimes I am causing him over 100 tons of fuel or more a turn. Best advantage of web fields is to break up attack fleets. When an enemy is sending a fleet stacked together in space, webs can cause the ships to be caught in different spots in space and if the gap is big enough, it makes for easy picking. Even small fields may prevent all of the attackers from arriving at their destination, making the attack fleet not as dangerous. Nice tactic for advancing visible ships is to not increase the size of your web mine field, but to suddenly put an explosive mine field in the same place (or vice versa). In version 3.0, the enemy can only sweep the lower mine id field. The other field is invisible and unsweepable. As you probably know, the strength of the crystals is there ability to lay web mine fields. This strength appears to be completely negated in the most recent versions of the host by the Colonies' ability to sweep 40 mines per fighter and the Robots' ability to lay 4x anti-mines. While this is, in part, true, the crystals are still formidable. Did you know -- web mine fields drain fuel even from ships that aren't moving? PE> This does not appear to be true. I laid a web field in the PE> Facists ID, and was consequently stuck. I hit 1 mine and was PE> dropped to 7 kt fuel. I proceeded at warp 2 for 3 more turns PE> without losing any additional fuel. Therefore, I think this is PE> non-functional. -- web mine fields can be overlapped to produce even greater fuel draining? PE> Because of the above experience, I doubt this will actually work. -- the Crystal Thunder carrier is roughly on par with the Colonies' Virgo battlestar? PE> Indeed it seems so. I managed to wipe out a Biocide's fighter PE> compliment with 1 Crystal Thundar, and kill it with a Diamond PE> Flame. The second battle took ALOT of Tech 10 torps though! PE> PE> A tactic I am employing, but haven't gotten to battle test yet is PE> the use of CT Carriers in tandem. I build 1 with Tech 10 PE> engines, and the other with something cheap. I load them both PE> with fuel, and use the first to tow the second around. I set the PE> towee to Kill, and the enemy code of the tower to the PE> appropriate race. This should be enough to take out most any PE> opponent save a STOCK LOADED carrier race tech 10 ship (Rush, PE> Biocide, etc.) [...continued in next segment...] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6214 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (5 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulhdj$7ia@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:35:15 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 233 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 5 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: Playing specific races: (subdivided by race): Crystals (continued from previous section) Empire Robots !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Crystals Here is the general procedure I follow when starting a game with the crystals. 1. Up the engine tech to 10. 2. If there are planets within 40ly send the default ships there to begin colonization. If not, recycle the default ships or overdrive them to the nearest planet with the mission set to COLONIZE. 3. Depending on the starting funds, build either a Large Freighter or Medium Freighter with transwarp engines. 4. Alternately build opals and freighters while colonizing planets as fast as possible. When you find either a bovinoid or insectoid planet, divert significant resources there to capitalize on the money making capabilities of the natives. 5. Build opals with tech 5 [Mark IV] torps since they are the best [short of tech 10 torps] in the mines/mc ratio. Mark 2's are the very best but are very expensive mineral wise and not effective at all in battles. If you have the $$ for Mark VIII torps, go for it. 6. The first time you catch sight of a potentially hostile race in the area, start mining planets on the perimeter along with direct flight paths between perimeter planets and core planets. The opals work *great* for this. An opal with 16 mark IV torps lays a beautiful 20 ly mine field that will catch a cloaker 90% of the time. Once you snag a cloaker, you're set. The one weakness of the crystals is their lack of information gathering capability. Some don'ts : 1. Don't show the location of your home world. [More later] 2. Don't piss off a cloaking race early in the game. 3. Don't build any Onyx or Sky Garnet's. I've never found a use for them that couldn't be filled by the Emerald. 4. Don't try to take out a race by attacking them. Make them come to you. When hostilities begin in earnest, create squadrons of 4 Opals w/Mark IV photons and 1 Ruby Light Cruiser w/Mark IV or Mark VIII. This configuration will allow you to quickly build complex minefields without continual trips to a base. The Ruby has great fuel capacity and torp carrying capabilities. The Opals are cheap and sip fuel lightly and can be refueled by the Ruby many times. Also, the best method I've found is to station the Ruby in a central location and, if there's no danger of it being swept, drop its entire load of torps as mines. The Opals then can re-arm without approaching closer than the permeter of the large mine field. When the mines are all laid, the Ruby can sweep the remaining mines up. Note : mines are turned into whatever torp the sweeper has. That is, if the Ruby has tech 10 torps, and lays a large field, the Opals w/Mark IV's will sweep up Mark IV torps from that field. Emeralds with Heavy Blasters and Mark VIII torps make *great* planet takers. If you have the resources, the squadrons can become 4 Ruby's and an Emerald but these resources can probably be better utilized elsewhere. When confronted with large, fighter toting ships try this approach. A Diamond Flame with x-ray lasers and Mark VIII torps. Even the nastiest ship will shudder when met with 24 high energy fish headed its way. Also, don't underestimate the power of the Crystal Thunder carrier. It's hampered by its low cargo capacity but does well against even the toughest opponents. It's also relatively cheap to build and should never have beams of > x-ray lasers if it's going up against the large capital ships. A Diamond / Thunder team will destroy a robotic golem 80% of the time and critically wound it the rest of the time. Try to beg, borrow or steal a cloaking, mine layer from one of the cloaking races. In order of preference : -- Meteor Class Blockade runner -- BR4 Kaye Class Torpedo Boat [at least Mark IV torps] -- Fearless Wing Cruiser -- Lizard Class Cruiser -- Deth Specula Class Frigate any torp ship with cloaking capabilities will do but the Privateers' ships really fit the bill due to their speed. The Meteor is fantastic since it can effectively cloak *and* lay mines since it can always warp to a nearby planet the same turn it lays the mines. Alliances (as we ALL know) are very key to the CP as well. I'm currently allied with the Robots, which make a GREAT combo. With an Emerald and a Cat's Paw working in conjuction, we can mass produce mines quickly. He lays them in my code, I scoop them up with the Emerald, unload half the load at my starbase (1 turn away), send the ship to his base to be captured, and he unloads the other half. Making use of their ftr production is also nice. One thing that I've noted (not positive on this) is that once a web field is laid in another races ID, it doesn't seem to be able to be scooped up. Cloak ships are necessary if you want to be offensive with the CP. Sending one with high-tech torps into the area you plan on attacking, and laying a web before would be quite effective. Just be sure to come in with a second wave quickly to lay that alternate mine field as well. [submitted by "paulen@microsoft.com" (Paul Enfield), including contributions from Brad Andrews , Paul J. Hinker , & Dave Kluch ] A Crystal Thunder is only on par with a Virgo if the Virgo has 80 fighters or less. The CT runs out out of fighters very soon and is eventually destroyed. Use a Diamond Flame to drop the shields of a big carrier and kill it with a Crystal Thunder. It seems to depend on the host version if a ship which is caught in a web loses fuel. With host313e it loses fuel every turn, regardless if it moves or not. A ship seems also to lose at least 73 kt's of fuel if it hits a web mine. [spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Empire My favorite strategy for playing the empire: build starbases indiscriminately. You simply can't have too many starbases and there's not a bad place to put one. You only have one torpedo capable ship, the rest are carriers, so you need to make fighters like there's no tomorrow. 5 ships per turn isn't very much, but if you've got 10 starbases, you're saving a bundle of money. In two turns, you've paid off your starbase, and have improved that planets defenses markedly. If you have enough minerals on the planet to build larger ships, that's the icing on the cake. I imagine that many starbases would be helpful for the other races as well, but for the Empire, they are necessary, especially if you're up against a real fighter race. Each starbase ought to have one H-Ross light carrier for transporting those fighters to your front lines. Use the Superstar carrier and Superstar cruiser as your working carriers. Gorbies are too big and too expensive to be everywhere at once, but they're great for invasions. Superstar destroyers just don't have enough fighter bays to be really effective. I wouldn't even put one up against an Instrumentality unless I had 80 fighters in the destroyer. Don't neglect your Superstar frigate, either. Build a fleet of those with high tech torps for laying mines and taking out patriots and other ships which might otherwise cost you several fighters in battle. General strategies: build fuel dumps on strategic planets. Neutronic fuel refineries and fuel carriers are a must for those deep, sustained invasions. Heavy phasers, and lots of 'em. Sure, heavy blasters give you more bang for the buck, but when it comes to sweeping mines, there's nothing to compare with tech 10 beams. Don't shy away from amorph planets just because they require a monthly ritual sacrifice of 5 clans. Build alchemy ships for your homeworld, but don't give 'em tech 10 engines and beams. Tech one engines and beams will do nicely, since you don't necessarily need to move them. I heard one great bit of advice about alchemy ships... use them for ground attack ships. They're just big, armed freighters, which means you can transport lots of colonists for those ground-attack campaigns. Some people will claim that if it doesn't have Transwarp drive, it's not worth s***. Not so. Don't waste all your resources putting tech 10 hardware on support ships. Build your ships for specific purposes... perhaps a few medium freighters to transport goods within this star cluster. And build escorts that the freighters might possibly tow along, thus obviating the need for Transwarp engines on those escorts. Oh, and don't waste your money trying to mine the Colonies heavily. By all means mine around your planets so that they might at least lose the initiative if they attack you, but don't mine your space indiscriminately. [kestrel@selway.umt.edu (Christopher J Dewey)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Robots They have 2 main advantages: 1. lay 4 times as much mines per torp as the other races 2. build fighter in space I think the second is clear. Just use it as often as possible. Concerning the first there is something to say. The main disadvantage of the Robots is, that they don't own any medium ships. So, if you are attacked before you can build Instrumetalities you have only mine laying as weapon (use it). Even if you are able to build your big Carriers you don't have an escorting ship (You can't escort freighters with an Instrumentality). So, you need mines to defend yourself. And last if the shiplimit is reached and everybody is able to build ships whenever he can then your mine laying ability is also great, cause you can lay millions of mines (money isn't really a problem at this time). Concerning your ships there is to say that 5 are worth the building costs (expect freighters) - Cat's Paw ( Mine layer) - Q-Tanker ( Fighter builder, build at least 3 per base) - Instrumentality (If you are playing unreg this is the best ship of all, otherwise you should only build 1 or 2 'til you are able to build Automas) - Automa (Much better than an Instrumentality and only slightly more expensive, someone told me that it is even more effective than a Golem so it should be your main ship in the midgame) - Golem (If you ever played against a Fighter race then you know what a 10 bay Carrier is worth) BTW another advantage of the Robots is, that there are all minerals worth the same for them and they don't depend on 1 like the Colonies or Crystals. They need Du for their ships and Tri and Moly for the fighters. [matt@cs.tu-berlin.de "Matthias Mueller"] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6215 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (6 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulhds$7l3@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:35:24 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 312 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 6 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: Playing specific races: Rebels Dealing with Cloakers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Rebels Probably best for newbies. The deep space scout is your preferred starting ship, low minerals and 4 beams, also cheap. Next Gemini with a fighter bay and 400 cargo room. Patriots are good, but only 30 fighters so don't take on a base until its been well fried by the sabotage planet mission. Concentrate on expanding with DSS's, and using a Gemini to bulk up whilst building fighters in space. Leave 100 cargo free, and fill that space with 10 fighters (50S, 30T, 20M) to be built en voyage. [moselecw@elec.Canterbury.ac.nz (moz)] (The following are for both Rebels & Colnies): Forget about the Deep Space Scout and your Geminies. Have a Gemini on every starbase to build fighters, but NEVER use them to fight. Expand with Large Freighters escorted by Patriots. The Patriot is GREAT against all smaller ships, and there are few cloaking ships that can beat a Patriot. At the time where your neighbour can afford Mk7 torps you should be able to build Rushs/Virgos and knock him out of the game. Build some large carriers early in the game, you should have your first at turn 20 (unless you have bad luck and you can't get the money to upgrade your hulls to 10). Attack your non-fighter neighbours early, throw 2 Rushs/Virgos at each of his bases and attack with some Patriots/Cygnus/Guardians. The Iron Lady is also nice ship because it can tow big carriers and shoot down some fighters when it comes to fighting. Use some Tranquilities with Mk7 for mine laying. I never build one of the crappy other ships in my games as Rebel/ Colonial (ships like the Little Joe, Deep Space Scout etc.). You need no ship to shoot down fighters, your fighters on a Rush/Virgo will do the Job. [spock@dobag.in-berlin.de (Thomas Voigt)] Regarding Hyperdrive ships (Falcons): The Rebels should build a reasonable fleet of Falcons. There are several reasons for this. They include colonization, exploration, spying, mine sweeping and attacking. In the colonization/exploration mode the Falcons can be sent out 350ly with a full load of colonists and supplies. Once out there they hunt for decent planets, and plant colonies. If you are playing in a game with Very Long ranges this is really useful for establishing borders far from your homeworld, so that other players will be kept well back and away from the heart of your empire. If the ranges are shorter the Falcons can guarantee the continuance of your race by spreading Rebel colonies all through space, giving you a chance to recover from many potential disasters. In the case of a game where you can successfully establish a perimeter of planets 350 ly out from your homeworld you should fill in the rest of the circle as quickly as possible with large and even Super freighters. Hopefully building escorts for the freighter will not become necessary until turn 15-40. This technique also works very well for the Cyborgs, but not for the Empire, because their probe cannot carry enough cargo. For spying build a Falcon with no beams (or really poor ones) and a really poor engine (you want this dirt cheap). Tow the Falcon to its jump point, and Hyperspace yourself into orbit of an enemy planet. The jump should be initiated with exactly 50kt of fuel, so that when you arrive the Falcon will not be attacked. This will allow you to watch all the ship movements in the area, and if the enemy captures the ship it will not be important, because it is so poorly equiped, and most other races have much less use for Hyperspace than the three who can build these ships. For mine sweeping equip a group of Falcons with heavy phasers, and hyperspace the group into a minefield. In Hyperspace you cannot hit a mine, and if you do not move once you've entered the minefield you do not have to worry about hitting either a web or mine. To prevent the enemy from easily destroying all your Hyperspace ships make sure that they do not come out of hyperspace at the same point. This will force the enemy to send several ships after you, and five two beam ships can destroy enough mines per turn that the enemy will have to replenish/ replace the minefield in a few turns. This tactic is not very effective vs the Robots unless they are very cash poor, but vs the other races it can make it impossible for them to keep up their minefields. And finally their is the usefulness of the Falcon in a major assault. Establish "jumpoints" to every known enemy world within a reasonable range. When you are ready to launch an attack with Rushes move all of the Falcons to their jumppoints, so that they all reach the points simultaneously. Send the Falcons into hyperspace with mission set to Rebel Ground Assault. If there are no ships in orbit the enemy planets will be hurt. At the same time as you do this send your other ships forward (Rushes, Patriots, Guardians, etc.). This tactic will force the enemy to have most of their capital ships arrayed against your carriers, and will wipe out the economy in the region. For this the more Falcons you have the better. Most players will not have the resources to chase more than a few Falcons down, and if it is part of a surprise attack any ships in orbit on the first turn of the attack probably will not have primary enemy set to Rebel or mission set to kill, so even planets with starbases, and many capital ships in orbit will likely be vulnerable on your first round. If you do find any capital ships in orbit after a single groundattack, simply hyperspace back towards home. The enemy cannot capture or destroy your Falcon when you hyperspace away, unless they iniate a tow against the Falcon. Be careful about chasing freighters when doing this, because if you're not careful the Falcon could end up fighting a planet, which is generally a waste of its capabilities (it can kill planets with 7 fighters or less if it has decent beams). Note that for most of these missions the Falcon (or other hyperspace ship) needs to be mobile, so putting decent engines on the ships is essential. Also it is best to jump on straight vertical or straight horizontal courses, because then you don't have to worry about rounding errors on the 350ly. [poll3975@mach1.wlu.ca (Chris Pollitt)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Dealing with cloakers The Situation is fairly common. You are less experienced in planets, and you get attacked by one of the cloaking races. How to react now? 1. General problems In most cases you first have to define your general strategy. It is a fairly good assumption that the your first step is re-gaining control about your territory and ensure your expansion. If you can sufficiently ensure those conditions, then you can start attacking the enemy actively. Your main strategy against cloaking intruders is therefore mining. By that I don't mean one huge minefield covering your whole territory, but several small to medium minefields placed strategically. Your territory is not simply a place but is defined by supply points and transport ways. Therefore mine important planets and waypoints. Your second strategy is to secure transports. You effectively have to make it that expensive for your enemy to conquer or destroy your transports that you win more than he does. The usual way of doing this is Freighter Escorts. The necessary strength of escorting ships there depends on your enemy - Birdmen cloakers are slightly more dangerous than those of other races. Good escorts are light and very offensive. They should at least have Mark 4 (TL5) Torps, later I would use Mark 7 or 8. An alternative can, in rare cases, be heavy armed freighters. Examples are the Nebula, Tranquility, Firecloud, Emerald, Cat's Paw and, perhaps, the Gemini. Your third strategy is selective territory protection. Find out the important stars in your empire and place ships and mines there. Never try panicly to protect everything you own. Said empire for example tried to hunt a tiny Serpent escort which broke into his domain by a Super Star Destroyer. He burnt enormous amounts of fuel and bound a major ship he needed elsewhere urgently in order to hunt down a ship that couldn't cause much real damage. A rule of thumb I made with respect to intruders is: They won't be allowed to cause more damage than they are worth, and they may get in but they won't get out. And they are never, Never, NEVER allowed to keep planets they conquer. Their lack of fuel supply points inside your territory is one of your best weapons. 2. Privateer attacks The main problem with Privateer attacks is that they can rob ship's fuel and thus immobilize them. The only available counterstrategy is movement and superiority. Robbing occurs before movement and fighting. Therefore P ships have to join your place in Space. This only works by Intercept mission (in which case you can defeat them the round before) or by waiting for you on known target points. This means: Stop only on safe planets, and keep moving. Also traveling by one-planet-hops is always a good idea, as long as you can make those planets sure. The main disadvantage of the Privateers is their lack of heavy ships. This means that, more than with other races, that time works for you. This means also that you do suffer damage than usual if you lose those big ships to them. 3. Lizard Attacks Normally the Lizards are lousy cloakers. The Reptile isn't heavily enough armed, and the Lizard Cruiser is too massive - it needs too much fuel. But they have their Lizard Ground attack, which can cause horrific damage to your planets. Additionally this can be used while cloaking. Two countermeasures: Develop Planet defenses to max, and place well armed ships around endangered planets. If the Lizard conquers the planet, you will take it back immediately. And that Planet Defense reduces his ground combat ratio. Once one of these Lizard Cruisers lost its Colonist load, it has lost most of its destructive potential. 4. Bird Men Attacks Birdmen are monstrous cloakers. They can cloak nearly all, one occasionally wonders that one can still see their planets. Also they can, via the super spy mission, find out your friendly code in order to steal fuel and other stuff from your planets. Two strategy hints: change your friendly codes on endangered planets each round, and mine, mine, mine. 5. Fascist Attacks Never saw one. Can someone add details here ? 6. I am %%% and get attacked by a sneakin' race, any hints ? 6.1 Fed You are the poor guy who probably will not win by the course of time and simple surviving. Use your money advantages to outrun your enemy early - they will loose much of their value later. You can use your Refit mission to overcome temporary supply shortages - simply build the ship and refit it later when money or minerals are plentiful available. Your Escort of Choice is the Loki. You can equip it with slow drives and tow it by the freighter, if money is rare. The Vendetta does it as well but it is a little short on Crew and tends to get conquered by the Enemy. 6.2 Lizard Counter-Attack. (See above) Your Escort is the Vendetta. Since you have the 150% advantage, it is more impressive in your hands than with the Fed. 6.3 Bird Men Counter-Attack. Your Escort is the Bright Heart. If you want more power, use the Deth Specula. 6.4 Fascist Counter-Attack. Your Escort of Choice is the Thorn, or the Deth Specula (see above). 6.5 Privateer You are the problem - do you really need solutions ? Counter-Attack... 6.6 Cyborg You are quite lost. Use your money advantages from assimilated Natives, and maximize your planet defenses. Secure your space with mining, and if you absolutely must, use Fireclouds with good torps as Transports. 6.7 Crystalline Oh well - nothing better can happen to you than getting attacked by the Privateers. They are ideal targets for your webs. Use caught cloaking ships to mine your enemy's space. Use the Emerald for endangered transports. 6.8 Empire You might have the impression that you can base your defense solely on Fighters. Well, you can't. The Super Star Frigate is necessary for your survival. It is your only mining ship, and it's is simultaneously THE ship to hunt down intruders, since it is not too heavy. Also use it for escorts, the smaller ships aren't worth the minerals to build, when it comes to battle. Consider purchasing escorts from an ally. 6.9 Robots I don't need to tell you about mining, do I? Use the Cat's Paw for escorts if you need one. It's not optimal but the only thing you have - all others are either too weak or too heavy. 6.10 Rebels Stay away from the armed freighters for transport purposes. They aren't worth it. You have plenty of fantastic escort ships. You are the best equipped conventional power when it comes to dealing with cloakers. Escorts: Patriot (cheap and heavy), Guardian, and also Cygnus. 6.11 Colonies ditto. Unfortunately you miss the Guardian, but the Cygnus does nearly as well. Use the Patriots for sweeping away all minefields within your range... [weber@rhrk.uni-kl.de (Christoph Weber-Fahr)] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488  X-NEWS: nbivax alt.games.vga-planets: 6216 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site nbivax.nbi.dk Path: nbivax.nbi.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bz334 Newsgroups: alt.games.vga-planets Subject: HINTS: periodic strategy posting (7 of 7) Message-ID: <2ulhej$7l8@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> From: bz334@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Date: 27 Jun 1994 03:35:47 GMT Reply-To: grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu (Gary Thomas Grothman) Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Keywords: a.g.v-p, FAQ, hints NNTP-Posting-Host: nextsun.ins.cwru.edu Lines: 202 *VGA Planets - HINTS - version 1994 06 26* * Part 7 * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Sections in this segment: Opposing specific races: Privateers Crystals !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Anti-Privateers A. Mine. Lots of little mine fields are better than one or two big ones. It really slows Privateers down to have to be continually looking for mine fields. And he HAS to look because even one hit destroys his most useful ships. He is much more likely to go look for an unmined empire and that is just what you want him to do. B. Use cloaked ships if you have or can buy them. In addition to using cloaked ships as freighters you can use them to accompany freighters or capital ships you think Privateers might want to steal. C. Mine Fields. Lots of little ones. D. Don't move in a straight line and don't go to the obvious destination. E. Mine Fields. Lots of little ones. F. Use ships with more than 285 fuel and keep them topped up. Obviously this gets very expensive in neutronium. G. Mine Fields. Lots of little ones. H. Having an escort for your freighters keeps him from using INTERCEPT to catch your freighter. But don't think that it will keep him from stealing it at a planet. I. Mine Fields. Lots of ... well, maybe you get the idea. J. You might try your own bait and switch trap if you know that there are Privateer ships in the area. Send a freighter on a path with an obvious destination 2 or 3 jumps away. Have a capital ship intercept on the 2nd or 3rd jump. Maybe you will catch an MBR trying to take the freighter. Mainly just concentrate on counter tactics A, C, E, G, and I. :) It may help you against other empires too. [DORN@Dirac.physics.jmu.edu (Dr. Dorn Peterson)] - Ally the Crystal People, and supply them with cloaking mine-laying ships with large fuel and cargo capacities. - Have cloaking mine-layers lead convoys - lay mines and scoop them as the convoy 'puddle hops'. - Use overlapping minefields to increase hit rates. - Do not allow noncloaking ships to 'touch down' at planets - constantly move them (if only a few LY's) unpredictably in deep space, and refuel and resupply them with cloaking ships in deep space wherever possible. - If ships 'touch down' at planets, they should unload their fuel (except possibly for one unit for operations). And they should, as appropriate, be set to be transferred fuel (or grab it) every turn. This shuffling of fuel every turn will make it risky for a P-ship to try to rob and tow ships in orbit. [harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood)] A PRIVATEER CAPTAIN'S NIGHTMARE I played the Privateers in an extended game earlier in the year, and while I was able to overrun some empires very easily, the tactics of others pretty well rendered the Privateer advantages ineffective (or nearly so). Here are some of the counter-tactics which made life difficult: 1) Escort your freighters with capital ships (or tow capital ships with your freighters). This makes it impossible for cloaked Privateers to intercept your freighters in deep space and blast them. 2) Vary your courses slightly from turn to turn. This keeps cloaked ships from being able to project your course and perform a "manual" intercept--which is the only way a Rob Ship mission in deep space is possible. This means the only place you have to worry about being robbed is around planets. 3) If you are orbiting a planet, beam up one kt of fuel from the surface every turn. This means "Rob Ship" missions carried out in orbit will not render your weapons useless--and the robbing ship will have to move out of orbit (uncloaked) on the same turn or get toasted. 4) Keep capital ships scattered around your empire and follow two rules: Whenever you see a Privateer ship, have the nearest capital ship lay down a small minefield. Whenever you see a Privateer ship, set a nearby capital ship to intercept it. The combined effect here is to make movement extremely dangerous, and to shut down his ability to sweep mines. 5) If he does manage to steal one of your ships, make a note of the location of the starbase where it surrenders and go after it. The Privateers do not have the ability to stop a large assault in a head-to-head encounter with their "native" ships. If you locate his choke points--starbases and important planets--you can neutralize him early. [machteme@acpub.duke.edu (Mark Achtemeier)] 1) If your ship has a high ID number, set it on enemy Privateer and Gather fuel at your planet, with 1 KT of fuel. If he robs you with a lower ID # ship, you'll gather fuel afterwards and if towed, you have a BR at your mercy - and all he got was 1 KT of fuel for his trouble (and your mines got a crack at him). 2) Hire the Crystals to lay web mines in your name. Since webs are just as good against cloaked as uncloaked ships, it works very well - you might even capture a Privateer. ship or 2. 3) When laying minefields in 3.x, be careful about merging; and in 3.11, try to overlap on important planets. 4) If you can't have enough gas to stay unrobbed (maybe an option for B-wagons stopped at gas planets, where you're not using the fuel to move fuel), load up with junk - minerals you have too much of, or supply points. He may think you have a lot of gas on board; then when he robs you, he gets junk and no fuel - if his waypoint is far enough away, the extra ship mass and low fuel might leave him stranded. He's unlikely to do so if you have minefields, however, as he won't want to run through them uncloaked for any great distance. 5) Keep your big ships in space, and moving at least a few LY per turn; use freighters and fuel tankers to visit planets - planetary defense and minefields may be enough to discourage planet busting by the Pirates. 6) If he's trying to tow a ship out of the heart of your empire, he might be catchable by a fast ship on the periphery, "ahead" of him. 7) Theft is most likely for this reason near the frontier. Don't leave him options like amorphous worlds to hide at - either colonize them or plant a small DSF with warp 1's there to see if he shows up uncloaked (to gather fuel). In fact, keep the freighter on gather fuel, in case he's tried to establish a secret base (by dumping gas and supplies from cloaked ships, to be gathered by empty and/or damaged ships later). 8) Move minefields from the far rear by scooping them, up to the front. 9) Planets don't move, and they don't cloak! Hit his worlds, with a battle fleet that stays in space as much as possible. [Andrew Jones (lrpr@unb.ca)] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Subject: Anti-Crystals Warning: this is not what I have done, this is what I wish I had done. While it is sound in principle, I've only had small amounts of testing done. If the Crystalline player is worth his salt there should be a big web mine field around the homeworld. This is good and bad. It is good because you know where the homeworld is. If the Crystalline player is worth his low sodium salt substitute he laid the field to cover, but not center on, the homeworld, but you still get a pretty good idea where the homeworld is. Remember, mine sweeping (in default settings) has better range than sensor sweep. The bad news is, nobody, especially not the host program, is going to tell you it's a web mine. Don't be fooled into thinking the Crystalline player goofed up. So you want to sweep a web minefield, huh? Depending on who you ask, the field will pull 25KTs of N (unless that bug isn't fixed) a turn whenever you are in it. My own experience has been this only happens after you actually hit a mine, but different hosts may act differently. Regardless, hang around in a web minefield long enough and you are going to be trapped. The solution? Sweep mines with a torp ship. If you suddenly find yourself in the position where you will probably not be getting out of the minefield, lay mines. Why? Because unless the host disables it, you can move a leeetle beet each turn, even when you are out of fuel. The minefield will keep him off your back until you get to a planet with fuel (hopefully). In the newer hosts you can sweep from outside the field, so you don't need those mines, right? Not exactly. No matter how many beams your ship has, when you first start sweeping the Crystalline player is going to dump alot of mines into the minefield. The ship will be inside for a few turns until resources get scarce. Even if not, you may want to lay mines as a cover when the war fleet starts heading your way. What if he gets you fair and square, and starts dragging your ship to his nearest base? Well, you could give up, or you could play the "from Hell's heart I spit my last breath at thee" gambit. Eject all cargo. If you have any colonists on board, wait until you are in orbit around his planet (if he stops off at an outpost, all the better) and drop off the colonists. If it's the homeworld you aren't going to do much damage, but it is somehow satisfying to know you pounded some of his people before surrendering the ship. [Warren Kurt vonRoeschlaub (kv07@iastate.edu)] It depends on which race you're playing. A number of races have ships that can simply overwhelm anything the CP can build. The Fascist Ill Wind, for example, can not only destroy the CP Emerald Class Battlecruiser, but it makes an excellent minesweeper. If you can't afford the fuel loss of jumping deep into a minefield, just sweep until you know the boundaries, and then move one light-year in, or something similar. The CP have the Emerald as their strong-arm ship, which a number of races can better. And their only other advantage is their web mines, which only serve to slow down an attack by a turn, not stop the attack altogether. Probably the key thing if you're going to attack is to carry a lot of fuel and supplies, to counter drainage and damage. [Submitted by "paulen@microsoft.com" (Paul Enfield), includes hints from John Bickers ] -- Gary Grothman # grothmag@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu # grothmag@snysyrv1.bitnet last resort: # bz334@freenet.cleveland.edu even worse: # (315) 652-5488