Robotic shields

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Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Robotic shields

#16 Post by Jaumito »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 3:48 pm
Jaumito wrote: Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:40 amTry playing against human players for a change. If you still don't use flak then, either you're a tactical genius or you're dead.
Hmmm... That intrigues me. I've never played against other human players.
Two words: supply lines. Human players know how to defend theirs and how to cut yours, the AI does not. I'd bet that most of your battles against the AI take place at most 1 jump away from supply?

Fighters are awesome in defense or for border skirmishes, but sometimes, if you want to avoid a stalemate or long drawn-out war against a human player, you'll have to raid deeper in their territory to disrupt their economy. So, obviously no hangars. But since you'll meet fighters yourself, obviously you'll need flak, preferably with a good+ pilot species as flak is the weapon that benefits the most from pilot ability (the Misiorla gets 2x more shots, i.e. 6.) If all you've got is Gysache pilots, then just forget it :lol:
If I change in my Titanic Carrier (3 hangars, 4 launch bays, 4 death rays, 8 armour) an armour slot for a flak, the ship is a bit more expensive and I get some extra enemy fighters down after they shoot on round 2, that should imply some less damage taken (on round 3). But also I'm a bit less protected against the enemy short range weapons. So I can endurance one less DR hit but avoid around two fighter hits (so I'd say the ship should have similar survivability). However, assuming sheer numbers of enemy fighters (battle against full carriers, with 8-12 fighters per ship), the flaks may be hitting 3 fighters and be better than the extra armour.
Now considering to sacrifice a death ray for a flak. One less DR is -25% anti-planet strength ('cause fighters don't shoot planets) and some extra anti-fighter strength (my ships already have 9 interceptors, 8 out on round 1, so that flak increases the possible hits to fighters from 8 to 11 on round 2). I guess that would be advisable against full-fighter fleets.
A launch bay less for a flak would be bad in any case (less anti-ship strength but similar anti-fighter strength.
This is not a ship design issue, this is a fleet design issue. One can have as many ship designs as one wants in FO, so when I need a raider fleet, I'll just design ships with lots of flak for that fleet and keep my carriers on the border or near stargates.

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EricF
Space Dragon
Posts: 357
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:12 am

Re: Robotic shields

#17 Post by EricF »

All good points I had not considered before. I have found myself sending ships back into supply to reload Fighters so I should have thought of that aspect, but I had no idea Pilot quality affected number of shots for FlAK. Looking now I do see that it is documented.
I still think that FlAK should only fire at Fighters with the ability to kill them before they attack is essential to keep a "Guns Only" strategy viable. Currently it is not.

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