FreeOrion

Those of you involved in the multiplayer games and facing other human players, what hulls and weapons do you find the most effective? Obviously, there are going to be differences than when going against the AIs in single-player games.

I'll give this a bump in case someone as input and missed it.

Playing my first multiplayer game now (24 hr turns, it's turn 7 now). Should have some preliminary feedback for you when it's finished (probably 2-3 months or so).

alleryn wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2019 7:10 am Playing my first multiplayer game now (24 hr turns, it's turn 7 now). Should have some preliminary feedback for you when it's finished (probably 2-3 months or so).

Ok, thanks.

I'm in a similar spot, I have not enough multiplayer experience to be sure. But so far, early game robotic hull is my preference, and self-grav would be next hull to research (but in all games I've participated, when I get to them I'm already losing).

Oberlus wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2019 11:41 am I'm in a similar spot, I have not enough multiplayer experience to be sure. But so far, early game robotic hull is my preference, and self-grav would be next hull to research (but in all games I've participated, when I get to them I'm already losing).

That's the way I go in AI games, but robotic hulls aren't good for fighters. I've seen some people saying that fighters are more important early against human players, but I might not understand what they meant.

Self-Gravs are ok for carriers.

Unfortunately, I don't want to commit to multi-player games at this time.

I posted in another thread that I think robotic hulls are overpowered and not superseded fast enough, compared with the organic hull line.

In the last MP game I went for cloaked organics with lasers and solar concentrators, but this strategy has three problems:

1. organic hulls are incredibly flimsy, taking only one or two shots to destroy, and they have few external slots for armour plating

2. solar concentrators are way too expensive. I get that they are like robotic interface shields in that the flat cost is high because the benefit scales with numbers, but in both cases my view is that the cost is too high to make them competitive with later weapons and shields respectively.

3. stealth still isn't quite sorted. There seems to have a been a change to the first strike advantage - I found that even when my opponent could not detect my ships for the first round, he could still shoot them. This seems like a slight over-nerf of stealth

My opponent in the last game (Oberlus) was able to keep me at bay for many turns because of the cost efficiency and strength of robotic hulls

Magnate wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:11 pm 3. stealth still isn't quite sorted. There seems to have a been a change to the first strike advantage - I found that even when my opponent could not detect my ships for the first round, he could still shoot them. This seems like a slight over-nerf of stealth

Could this be related to the bug here (which is hopefully resolved)?: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... 2690173065

Magnate wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:11 pm I posted in another thread that I think robotic hulls are overpowered and not superseded fast enough, compared with the organic hull line.

In the last MP game I went for cloaked organics with lasers and solar concentrators, but this strategy has three problems:

1. organic hulls are incredibly flimsy, taking only one or two shots to destroy, and they have few external slots for armour plating

Yes, you need to take care of that. Never go into a battle where you loose ships . If you have the stealth advantage you still need to spam the enemy - that might be impossible as soon as your enemy has robo with zortrium and lasers.
Still I think robustness is not enough reflected in our main metric.

Magnate wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:11 pm 2. solar concentrators are way too expensive. I get that they are like robotic interface shields in that the flat cost is high because the benefit scales with numbers, but in both cases my view is that the cost is too high to make them competitive with later weapons and shields respectively.

I also think so.

Magnate wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:11 pm 3. stealth still isn't quite sorted. There seems to have a been a change to the first strike advantage - I found that even when my opponent could not detect my ships for the first round, he could still shoot them. This seems like a slight over-nerf of stealth

That sounds wrong and should not occur in current builds. There was a huge but necessary nerf for hidden carriers: launching fighters uncloaks the carrier. Stealth will probably change a lot (if i can help it) in 0.5 (or 0.6).
If ships were shooting at undetected ships please file an issue.

One "oddity" with stealth is that adding unstealthed ships to a stealthed fleet is counterproductive as you give your oppenent something to shoot down in turn one so there is another either/or thingy with stealth which does not mix well with having to spam your opponent if your ships are flimsy.

Magnate wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 6:11 pm My opponent in the last game (Oberlus) was able to keep me at bay for many turns because of the cost efficiency and strength of robotic hulls

I think you have to have massive research advantage to pull of stealth against human players and if you have the research advantage you probably do not have possibility to spam your opponent.

I love that you went organics. Also if you were close to oberlus rushing in with organic hulls with 1 mass driver and 2 zortrium before your enemy deploys shields would have been interesting. I guess you went in with symbiotics with 1 laser 1 zortrium?
Those have a great cost efficiency but only if they have time to grow (which is probably too late then).

If we wanted to buff the living organics i would probably would speed up growth to e.g. one point of structure every three turns (or some more organic growth curves - initially fast growing but slowing down).

Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 9:56 amThat sounds wrong and should not occur in current builds. There was a huge but necessary nerf for hidden carriers: launching fighters uncloaks the carrier. Stealth will probably change a lot (if i can help it) in 0.5 (or 0.6).
If ships were shooting at undetected ships please file an issue.

I think this is the one alleryn linked to, but I will certainly open a new issue if I see it again.

I love that you went organics. Also if you were close to oberlus rushing in with organic hulls with 1 mass driver and 2 zortrium before your enemy deploys shields would have been interesting. I guess you went in with symbiotics with 1 laser 1 zortrium?
Those have a great cost efficiency but only if they have time to grow (which is probably too late then).

If we wanted to buff the living organics i would probably would speed up growth to e.g. one point of structure every three turns (or some more organic growth curves - initially fast growing but slowing down).

Yes I too would support speeding up the hull structure growth, at least 0.2 per turn if not 0.3. I'm also glad you agree on solar concentrators - I think they're a lovely idea but they need to be about half the cost to be worth basing a strategy on.

No, I went with two lasers and no armour. I'm a big big believer in what stellaris players call "alpha" - the first-round firepower that can win an otherwise unwinnable fight by taking out enemy weapons for rounds two and three. With many small ships, enemy shots are wasted duplicating hits - adding zortrium armour doesn't absorb many more enemy shots (maybe only one, max two - and later on none), but it would halve my firepower. Even with the higher cost of the second laser over the zortrium (which I think is well balanced btw), it's still worth it.

So the fifth MP game yet again sees nobody building anything beyond robotic hulls by turn 100. The only other hulls on the map are organic and static multicellular.

I really think the best thing is to remove the fourth external slot from robotic hulls. It's then an upgraded large basic hull - 66% more structure, 25% more speed, plus regeneration - well worth the research.

In this game I thought about building energy frigates, but they need a ton of tech and an extra building for what - 33% more speed and 40% less hull than a robotic. If the robotic didn't have its fourth external slot, the energy frigate would be a worthwhile upgrade.

I have never tried the static multi hull. If I go organics I always go stealth. But it's cheap and fast so I should check it out. Thanks to alleryn for drawing it to my attention!