Hypothetical Defensive Strategy

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:15 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on September 29th, 2010, 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hey,

I haven't played anything online yet, so I'm not sure if this suggestion is realistic at all... but I've been watching some of the games online with commentary, and I was just wondering if there was a reason why players don't expand to their allies moons (starting point). (.. if I'm wrong and you do, apologies, just so far I haven't seen any yet)

When you play against the AI and give it multiple teams on the same side, they always share expansion moons (although AI allies don't generally share their home base from what I've seen).

But why wouldn't you?

I can't really speak from experience, I don't have internet connection with my PC at the moment... although if I were playing online at the moment, with allies, the first thing I would do is send a pair of construction ships to all of my allies. Although, I use a similar strategy in how I play.

Because of lack of experience, I'll just write through what I might do... either it can be done or it can't (I'm not sure how long you have or how long it takes for battles to get going, maybe this wouldn't work and you would just lose).

But, so lets say smack start of the game (with two allies, assuming they are in convenient locations where you dont have to cross an enemys base to reach their home base), have two construction ships for your base, and build 4 more construction ships, two for each ally. (All three players would be doing this). Have your construction ships build a dil and tri refinery at your own  base. Build dil and tri refineries at each of your allies moons as well (three and three) and a shipyard. Each player builds one shipyard at each homebase. Collectively, you get nine shipyards, three at each. Each shipyard builds a couple ships, and these ships always stay at the base they are constructed at. So everyone will always have about half dozen to dozen ships guarding their base. (set alert status so they do not leave)

Having six refineries going should increase resources, and get some research going, but mainly work on workable fleets of smaller class vessels to start. I can't say how long this will take. But get it to the point where everything is built, except do not build the bigger ship yards or the stations that require them. Stick with the smaller vessels at first, and wait for a resource boon. 

Build a sizeable fleet of small vessels collectively. Once you have a fleet of about 15-30 ships, 5-10 each. Send this force to an expansion moon with all three players sending their own construction ship. Each player builds a starbase, make it a wall, in a place that will slow down enemy advance. The only purpose of the 15+ fleet is to make sure the starbases get built and the construction ships are not destroyed.

Once starbases are built at the expansion moon, each player builds their larger shipyard at the expansion. The construction ships left behind are deconstructed, or now build the secondary research stations at the original base. Get everything built now.  Do not use expansion location for refineries. You would already have three.  Build the starbase. Build the shipyard. Each player now focuses on the collective base, building the larger ships. The smaller shipyards are behind at the original bases, with reserve fleets to guard them along with all the research stations etc. (Have maybe 5-10 ships built by each player at each base, and just let them sit there).

At the new expansion, you should be closer to the enemy, with a stronger base, and stronger attack force. Build multiple shipyards even, and attack!

untested.. so I don't know if three refineries per moon works (I generally built three miners per moon, but having nine miners per moon... could be a problem not sure) The main question, lol, is what do you start with in resources? Is it possible to build six refineries, and three shipyards or not? Even if some of it is from the two your first build.. can it be done? Keeping in mind you would still need a few ships to be built by starbase so you arent defenseless. haha... if there isnt enough pay for at least over half of it... (It will take time for your construction ships to get to your allies, so you will collect some resources while waiting) Maybe it wouldnt work. Also, will always depend on map. Timing, is there time to send two construction ships, with making additional refineries and shipyards  type thing. It just needs to get the six refineries up and running, to increase resources from the beginning. As long as you can do that and get the shipyards up then you should be good. Starbases can be used to build smaller vessels for defense in case of an early attack.

Research will take a hit. Does this matter? You won't be researchig quickly at all. But it should be an effective way of supporting your partners. Especially at the expansion. (The starbase will be expensive for each player, but hopefully by that time the moons are mined enough to have it work) You can research along the way, but until the expansion base is made with your teammates... I wouldnt waste money on it. get those starbases up.

I realize ships are better in the long run, but initially nothing goes up against a starbase, and three will buy you time. Eventually, starbases wont matter, your shipyards and refineries will be in multiple locations, and you will be able to focus on ship production. But like at the beginning, you have your starbase, and three ships... but the starbase at ThaT point.. is practically speaking... god.

Just wondering, even if this way doesnt work... at the very least, send a construction to your allies, build refineries to increase resource so that you are not drained. When you do expand... if my thinking is correct, dont expand for the resources, get the resources from your homebases collectively, use the expansion for launching area of the big guns. Dont build the big shipyards at home... what do you want them there for, thats the furthest point from your enemy. Just get the smaller shipyards up so you can build a fleet. 

Anyways, I dunno, I dont play online yet, and Im sure the games Ive watched dont stack up at all to all the games that have been played... but just thought Id ask if it was a good idea.

lol even if its clear that it isnt, think someone could play it like that, and maybe have it posted on utube so I could watch? maybe just worth a try.

Dom EDIT: I moved your topic to its own thread. It should get better attention this way

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:23 pm

the main problem in your plan is that only 1 ship can mine a moon at the same time.

so 1 refinery with 3 miners will keep a mining beam on the moon at all times.

so putting multiple refineries and more than 3 miners around a moon wont increase how much resources u get per second.

i guess the only mix of this could be 2 dominion allies putting ketracel stations at 1 moon. as these do stack up to 4 at a moon. as supply is mined really fast but deposited really slowly.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:37 pm

I guess that post belongs really in the strategy section in its own thread.

My take is that while you and your allies were busy building additional constructors and mining stations the enemy would be busy building ships and raiding that mining.  Certainly as Myles said you wouldn't actually get more resources, and I would suggest overall slower due to the initial setup time.

The only plus side I can see is that each allied player has a vested interest in protecting every expansion rather than leaving their allies to fend for themselves.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:49 pm

oh! I never knew that. Well... I mean, just that a moon can only have one beam on it at a time. I guess I should take a closer look at how my miners mine. Explains a lot.

Is that how it was in A1 and A2? hmm. dont remember that, but quite possible. Never focused to much on mining. 

So there is no reason to send construction ships to your allies? Not even to build shipyards or something? I did have some other ideas about meshing teams together, anyways. 


Well, when I do get to playing online, there are still some similar things to this I was thinking of, even without the refineries. I just thought this might help things with resources. But there should be other good reasons for sharing home bases. 

But still. Maybe alterations could be added to even the refinery problem. What about instead of having three stations per moon, with nine miners, you get two players on the same moon with two miners each instead of three.  So each player would only have four refineries, but instead of three miners, collectively you would have four. Would this increase resources at all? Or try having three refineries at each moon, but only one miner each. At some point there will be an opening. You wil stil have to go back to the station to unload the dilithium.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:49 pm

the main problem in your plan is that only 1 ship can mine a moon at the same time.

so 1 refinery with 3 miners will keep a mining beam on the moon at all times.

so putting multiple refineries and more than 3 miners around a moon wont increase how much resources u get per second.

i guess the only mix of this could be 2 dominion allies putting ketracel stations at 1 moon. as these do stack up to 4 at a moon. as supply is mined really fast but deposited really slowly.

I was making same mistake when I started playing FO,the truth is that you need only two miners for non-stop mining

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:53 pm

I think you need to check the guide dob... that topic has been covered a lot.

Economy - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:53 pm

So there is no reason to send construction ships to your allies? Not even to build shipyards or something? I did have some other ideas about meshing teams together, anyways. 

You don't need a reason to not send Constructors; you can't send them to other players. They're not tranferable.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:56 pm

I think he ment send it to their base.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 6:57 pm

there was no plus side to that plan. try it in any game and the money you spend on miners/stations the enemy will spend on ships and will crush u before mid game.

remember:

3 miners per moon is optimum. with only 2 there will be a small gap where no beam is on the moon. this adds up after many minutes.

if u want to build that extra early game ship u can make only 2 miners per moon. make your extra early ship. then build the 3rd miners as soon as possible.

for borg its 2. the only time u start with 1 miner per moon is for a rushing strat where u need the money early.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 7:22 pm

lol. well there was a plus side to the plan. I just didnt know the plan had no chance of working because of mining issues. haha, but that is fine. and I would say there are still bonuses to having construction ships at your opponents home base, regardless of everything I said.  other things could make it worthwhile. 

But, yes, temporarily you would be letting your opponent out build you in ships. in my mind, it wouldnt have mattered. They wouldnt be building a big enough fleet fast enough to take out a starbase and maybe a few spare ships you could build in between. In the mean time, you would be setting up an economy capable of out producing them very quickly shortly after.

You are right. It would cost to build refineries, miners, and construction ships (this doesn't make it a bad plan by the way, i stated this as being a potential problem didnt I? so if it was a problem that couldnt be solved, then dont do the plan - but at least consider it first and try to find ways out of it). But there are so many variables to consider as well. You don't have to build two construction ships per ally, you can just build one.. and take longer to build the stations. Also, I've heard that different races rely on different resources, some like tri, other di. So maybe sometimes you dont need all the stations, you could just build two and one. Lots of variations to what Im saying. *I don't want to transfer my construction ship to the other players control. Just get it to their base so I can build stuff there.*

Honestly never paid close attention to maximum yield for miners per refineries and everything.

But it is a team game... so you would think realistically there would be a practical reason for sending a construction ship to your starbase.

I only suggest all this because I have noticed  in some of the games where some one runs out of resources. So initially, trying to increase the rate of production. The other thing, is there are times when one player seems to have lots of resources and the other doesnt. But if both players took the time to build shipyards in both locations early, then in moments of crisis, the person with lots of resources can assist the other in just building a ship at the location instantly, and not need to take the time to travel  from base to base. And can help out defensely, if the other player gets tied up.

The simple fact is it is a team game. If this is true, then there should be ways of sharing location and resources to some extent.

The main idea was for ship yards and resources to be split everywhere from the beginning, which requires moving construction ships.

Also, joint expansion, to the same moon. instead of each player going to a separate moon alone.

anyways, like I said untested. might just wait a bit and try  it out myself when I can get online

posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:44 pm

Topic Split from Awesome Screenies! Official Screenshot thread!

posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:47 pm

thanks for creating the thread :-)

posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:02 pm

The key issue with Fleet Ops is, it uses different varieties between races than other games.  Very few strategy games today actually give different races different-strength turrets, but FO does.

As a result, the "Starbase Conquest Strategy" can never be allowed to be viable.  Besides the fact that it takes too long and isn't much fun, a strategy that depends on static defenses is unfair to certain races (like Romulans)

I pay close attention to this when I'm making maps (although I only have a few so far).  Whenever I give a player's starting base good natural defenses, I also place a lot of moons directly between the two players.  This way, if a player tries to build up his defenses instead of his fleet, his opponent can gain access to the extra income by taking over more of the map.  We want to discourage Starbase Conquest Strategy here, to make for a faster and more fun game.

As for helping out friends, the only reason people don't defend their allies is because it's bad to leave your fleet in one place.  I'm hoping to make some maps that make it easier to defend your side of the map, but having a standing defense fleet is generally a bad idea in this game.  Also, the beautiful gem called "Allied Repair" renders building staryards at allies' bases obsolete, since your allies can repair their ships at your yard.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:12 pm

Ah, fair enough.

Yes repairing ships at ally yards is good.

But being able to build, not just repair, at your allies base would be interesting too.

If we are avoiding this though, no worries, haha, I'm not even online yet. Just curious.

posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:38 pm

Assuming you have 2 basic yards at your main base (or 1 there and 1 at the expansion), there's no point to build ships at your ally's base, except that you could build ships there if it was under attack.  Generally speaking,though, your ally will try to defend his own base, though  More yards doesn't necessarily mean more ships - you still have to have enough resources for them.  The best strategy right now (in general) seems ti be to build one yard at the base, and one at your first expansion so you can repair directly when that expansion is attacked.  It just would take too long to set up a yard at your ally's base, and since they can research ally repair cheaply it wouldn't add much.