Noob question: Best use of Generix Specter Refits?
Share and discuss your gameplay strategies.
posted on March 17th, 2012, 10:13 pm
Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on March 17th, 2012, 10:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
People always whittle down their strategies to a handful, regardless if they work or not. My favorite example is during one of the previous tournaments, where all the "top players" were convinced that the fastest possible Federation warp-in would win the game. Soon, most players - in the tournament and not (because of the aforementioned copy-cat syndrome) - were doing an identical build order, with the winner being the person that could click the fastest. This continued for a period of roughly two months, before the build order was completely and totally forgotten.
I have not seen a single player use this build order since those days, and that's simply because it is a horrible (as in, bad) strategy that is worse than other available ones. Mind you, there was an incredible amount of whining at that time about how unbalanced that strategy was, how it needed to be fixed, etc.
Making the player go where you want is not about stupid mistakes, it's about having cloak or scouts and using them to their full capability. A cloaker can always make the best tactical decisions possible, due to being able to see the whole battlefield. An indecisive cloaker who is rushing back and forth to defend expansions is not doing a good tactical job and has little foresight.
Most players make the mistake of doing a pure monetary calculation in terms of expansions and bases (and not the time to recuperate and the ships that couldn't be built) - when to raid, when to fall back and defend. They also do not consider the cost of repeated raiding. Two to three Serkas is initially going to be more expensive than a single mining outpost, but you can raid again and again, while your fleet threatens action, and you will cause your opponent to lose time and resources whether he or she ignores your harassment or tries to fall back and engage it. Even harassing a miner and preventing it from docking (or forcing it into a K't'inga) is a good use of time. Denying resources is a long term strategy that pays off your initial increased investment.
The question a player should most be asking themselves is what units, build orders, and factions fit his or her own playstyle. If you don't feel comfortable micromanaging expensive single units with automatic repair capabilities and burst fire, but you find it easy to split cheaper fleets up into small groups to harass with minimal attention, you are left with very different unit compositions. An offensive and a defensive player likewise can utilize rather different fleets and abilities and will completely ignore certain units for this reason. Not all players are equal in capabilities, and not all players fight in the same manner. It is not to be expected that every person can feel that every unit is powerful or useful in every tactical situation.
I have not seen a single player use this build order since those days, and that's simply because it is a horrible (as in, bad) strategy that is worse than other available ones. Mind you, there was an incredible amount of whining at that time about how unbalanced that strategy was, how it needed to be fixed, etc.
Making the player go where you want is not about stupid mistakes, it's about having cloak or scouts and using them to their full capability. A cloaker can always make the best tactical decisions possible, due to being able to see the whole battlefield. An indecisive cloaker who is rushing back and forth to defend expansions is not doing a good tactical job and has little foresight.
Most players make the mistake of doing a pure monetary calculation in terms of expansions and bases (and not the time to recuperate and the ships that couldn't be built) - when to raid, when to fall back and defend. They also do not consider the cost of repeated raiding. Two to three Serkas is initially going to be more expensive than a single mining outpost, but you can raid again and again, while your fleet threatens action, and you will cause your opponent to lose time and resources whether he or she ignores your harassment or tries to fall back and engage it. Even harassing a miner and preventing it from docking (or forcing it into a K't'inga) is a good use of time. Denying resources is a long term strategy that pays off your initial increased investment.
The question a player should most be asking themselves is what units, build orders, and factions fit his or her own playstyle. If you don't feel comfortable micromanaging expensive single units with automatic repair capabilities and burst fire, but you find it easy to split cheaper fleets up into small groups to harass with minimal attention, you are left with very different unit compositions. An offensive and a defensive player likewise can utilize rather different fleets and abilities and will completely ignore certain units for this reason. Not all players are equal in capabilities, and not all players fight in the same manner. It is not to be expected that every person can feel that every unit is powerful or useful in every tactical situation.
posted on March 17th, 2012, 11:24 pm
Dom, don't you think that blaming the good players for not using your theoretically working strats is the way to go? I mean the strats that we see today are the ones that work best considering all relevant factors. It was an evolution that lead to this collection.
You can do as many theoretical plays as you want. As long as you are not going to show games where these Strategies (or even the mechanism you describe) work, as long noone will believe you.
The replays we have, clearly show that a strategy you describe is insufficient comparing to the dominant ones. Typically the player that experiments with ships or mixes some special ships will lose the game...that is at least my observation.
Btw. when you talk about strategy, are you talking about 1v1 or 2v2+ games? Since there is a huge difference in it unless the battle goes 1 against 1 each in a team game.
You can do as many theoretical plays as you want. As long as you are not going to show games where these Strategies (or even the mechanism you describe) work, as long noone will believe you.
The replays we have, clearly show that a strategy you describe is insufficient comparing to the dominant ones. Typically the player that experiments with ships or mixes some special ships will lose the game...that is at least my observation.
Btw. when you talk about strategy, are you talking about 1v1 or 2v2+ games? Since there is a huge difference in it unless the battle goes 1 against 1 each in a team game.
posted on March 17th, 2012, 11:56 pm
dominant strategies don't appear because these strategies are far better, they appear because people practise them more. the best leahval spammers have got things down to an exact science, so they get the most out of the strat. when people practise the same thing over and over they get good at it.
If you put a person with an exotic strat up against a player who is well practised in a dominant strat, then of course the latter will win, they know few things, but know those things well.
If you put a person with an exotic strat up against a player who is well practised in a dominant strat, then of course the latter will win, they know few things, but know those things well.
posted on March 18th, 2012, 12:37 am
Myles wrote:dominant strategies don't appear because these strategies are far better, they appear because people practise them more. the best leahval spammers have got things down to an exact science, so they get the most out of the strat. when people practise the same thing over and over they get good at it.
If you put a person with an exotic strat up against a player who is well practised in a dominant strat, then of course the latter will win, they know few things, but know those things well.
I agree that some strategies may just not be practical (ex - Dominion Bugs vs Romulans or Borg). But there may be new ideas that will work, but as Myles said would require practice. Someone may have to be willing to lose for a while until things are figured out.
posted on March 18th, 2012, 2:24 am
Now since Drr is trying to be scientific I think its important to mention that evolution doesn't always that it is an improvement or even that the evolution is useful. For instance, a hominid species called the Australopithecus Robustus was very adapt at eating a certain kind of root but as soon as the climate changed it died out. Leahvals are great now because they have repair and burst damage, but I would rather have a group of specters over leahvals any time. Just because a strat isn't used doesn't mean its bad or impractical. If you ever play online you will find that most people use the same strat because they see others using it. B8s against borg seems like a sure way to win and most people use it but it can be countered by the borg
posted on March 18th, 2012, 3:02 am
Well if everyone uses the same dominant strat and someone changes there strat to counter everyone elses strat which strat is dominant now. cause if the person with the dominant start loses then there strat cant be dominant.
There is no such thing as a dominant strat IMO. If you can see or know what your opponent is building you can counter it. Yes there are starts that indeed have advantages over all other strats but they can be countered by another good player.
There is no such thing as a dominant strat IMO. If you can see or know what your opponent is building you can counter it. Yes there are starts that indeed have advantages over all other strats but they can be countered by another good player.
posted on March 18th, 2012, 3:39 am
Last edited by godsvoice on March 18th, 2012, 3:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Well, I think it depends here, by the word dominant do use mean dominant as in the main strat used by the most people, or dominant as the strongest strat regardless of number of players using it?
The dominant 'mode' would be strategies played most often by players in general.
A dominant strategy could also mean strategies that are used at the leading edge that cut down weaker strats.
In some way, I think some degree of understanding for both of these must be made. Strats that include raiding vs not raiding ever, building ships that are good against other ships, and then changing build orders when you realize opponent is countering you, expanding often and quickly as best you can vs never expanding at all. It can be a safe guess that if a person never expands they have a pretty weak strategy and will lose based on low economy and get run over. Simple lack of knowledge of other factions can lead to lack of consideration of what the other person can do. For instance warpin, imagine a player whose never heard of warpin. He can't possibly prepare for it, and might just all of a sudden see three fed reinforcements at his expansion and kaboom, despite a fantastic forward position or excellent scouting to let him no know at all times where your fleet is.
Again, a third possible interpretation of 'dominant' may be The Dominant strategy. Meaning a strategy that is at the absolute upper echelon of all other possible strategies that could ever possibly be implemented. This interpretation being one of the more extremes, and probably much less likely to occur in a balanced game.
It just depends. I think people mean to say that if the third option ever comes into existence... we have problems. It means a faction is becoming so rigid, in that there does in fact exist 'The dominant' strategy, therefore it is the only one ever used, because everything else is deemed 'lesser. Secondly, it is so strong, that other factions fall before it, until they can respond with a corresponding ultimately powerful strat to deal with it. In which case, you need 1 dominant strat for all five factions that is equally powerful, or you'll only ever see one strat from everyone every time.
Now, even if you did get this state, that only one strat is used given that case required, i.e. a set up like fed vs borg calls for this by fed which is ultimate, but changes to this if it is fed vs klingons. It could still be the case that if there is only one strat being used, it isn't necessarily the best strat, its just the one everyones using. Which I think has been suggested.
In anycase...
Edit: so are we talking dominant, or are we talking what is safe? what is known? what is outlined and given in the guide? etc etc. its pretty wide open in my view. and because i don't really play online, can't really comment.
The dominant 'mode' would be strategies played most often by players in general.
A dominant strategy could also mean strategies that are used at the leading edge that cut down weaker strats.
In some way, I think some degree of understanding for both of these must be made. Strats that include raiding vs not raiding ever, building ships that are good against other ships, and then changing build orders when you realize opponent is countering you, expanding often and quickly as best you can vs never expanding at all. It can be a safe guess that if a person never expands they have a pretty weak strategy and will lose based on low economy and get run over. Simple lack of knowledge of other factions can lead to lack of consideration of what the other person can do. For instance warpin, imagine a player whose never heard of warpin. He can't possibly prepare for it, and might just all of a sudden see three fed reinforcements at his expansion and kaboom, despite a fantastic forward position or excellent scouting to let him no know at all times where your fleet is.
Again, a third possible interpretation of 'dominant' may be The Dominant strategy. Meaning a strategy that is at the absolute upper echelon of all other possible strategies that could ever possibly be implemented. This interpretation being one of the more extremes, and probably much less likely to occur in a balanced game.
It just depends. I think people mean to say that if the third option ever comes into existence... we have problems. It means a faction is becoming so rigid, in that there does in fact exist 'The dominant' strategy, therefore it is the only one ever used, because everything else is deemed 'lesser. Secondly, it is so strong, that other factions fall before it, until they can respond with a corresponding ultimately powerful strat to deal with it. In which case, you need 1 dominant strat for all five factions that is equally powerful, or you'll only ever see one strat from everyone every time.
Now, even if you did get this state, that only one strat is used given that case required, i.e. a set up like fed vs borg calls for this by fed which is ultimate, but changes to this if it is fed vs klingons. It could still be the case that if there is only one strat being used, it isn't necessarily the best strat, its just the one everyones using. Which I think has been suggested.
In anycase...
Edit: so are we talking dominant, or are we talking what is safe? what is known? what is outlined and given in the guide? etc etc. its pretty wide open in my view. and because i don't really play online, can't really comment.
posted on March 18th, 2012, 4:53 am
We're talking about strategies that have active counters. Meaning that once the player using the strategy has perfected its execution AND the player facing the strategy scouts it early, knows how to deal with it, and executes the counter with an equal amount of skill...
If one player consistently thrashes another player of equal skill and preparation, one of the ships involved needs a balance change.
I know it's very difficult to gauge "two players of equal skill" and would take forever to go through every matchup looking for every counter strategy on every map, but that's what it means to balance a game. Sure the players don't always produce the best strategies, but their feedback is still more dependable than the theoretical balance you guys are going on.
If one player consistently thrashes another player of equal skill and preparation, one of the ships involved needs a balance change.
I know it's very difficult to gauge "two players of equal skill" and would take forever to go through every matchup looking for every counter strategy on every map, but that's what it means to balance a game. Sure the players don't always produce the best strategies, but their feedback is still more dependable than the theoretical balance you guys are going on.
posted on March 18th, 2012, 10:24 am
Again, alot of people here blame the good players to be not good at all because they are not creative in using other strats then the dmoninant ones. Especially Dominus has a tendency of blaming the people instead of the strats and the balancing...as if the calculus behind the balancing is unfailable and perfectly captures the relevant factors of a game (1v1, 2v2+).
The real point is, as long as Dominus or other poster are not showing how the counter strats for the dominant ones are operationalized, I see no point in believing these people...there is just no evidence.
The real point is, as long as Dominus or other poster are not showing how the counter strats for the dominant ones are operationalized, I see no point in believing these people...there is just no evidence.
posted on March 21st, 2012, 1:10 pm
Last edited by machinor on March 21st, 2012, 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In my opinion, the main reason for the Specter not being used a lot is mostly its tech path.
With a Research Facility, I can already get Griffins and Leahvals in my Staryard. If I want to progress and have the choice of either a) going Tal'Shiar Facility and Specter plus Serkas, b) going Upgrade Facility and Rihenn Refit plus energy restore Generix or c) effin' Warbirdzzz most players go with the latter two because they *feel* safer when Tal'Shiar *feels* like a dead end or sidetrack in the tech tree.
It would certainly be nice to play around with option a): after Staryard+Research move into Tal'Shiar instead of Warbird Yard, using Specters as Ersatz-Warbirds. late game transition would be to ultimately build Warbird Yard with Norexan.
Sounds very much like a team game strategy though. In 1v1 this probabely ain't gonna happen in 3.2.6 since the races, with whom Specters mop the floor are mainly Fed and Dom. And against both these races, Romulans already have a really effective alternative with the Leahval, which, too, mops the floor with Fed and Dom AND is way earlier in the tech tree.
So I think it's really a thing with how the Romulan tech tree *feels*. (I emphasize "feel")
P.S.: Specters would also be quite deadly against Romulans, but somehow one does not see that many Romulan mirror matches in 1v1...
With a Research Facility, I can already get Griffins and Leahvals in my Staryard. If I want to progress and have the choice of either a) going Tal'Shiar Facility and Specter plus Serkas, b) going Upgrade Facility and Rihenn Refit plus energy restore Generix or c) effin' Warbirdzzz most players go with the latter two because they *feel* safer when Tal'Shiar *feels* like a dead end or sidetrack in the tech tree.
It would certainly be nice to play around with option a): after Staryard+Research move into Tal'Shiar instead of Warbird Yard, using Specters as Ersatz-Warbirds. late game transition would be to ultimately build Warbird Yard with Norexan.
Sounds very much like a team game strategy though. In 1v1 this probabely ain't gonna happen in 3.2.6 since the races, with whom Specters mop the floor are mainly Fed and Dom. And against both these races, Romulans already have a really effective alternative with the Leahval, which, too, mops the floor with Fed and Dom AND is way earlier in the tech tree.
So I think it's really a thing with how the Romulan tech tree *feels*. (I emphasize "feel")
P.S.: Specters would also be quite deadly against Romulans, but somehow one does not see that many Romulan mirror matches in 1v1...
posted on March 21st, 2012, 1:15 pm
you forget about the singularity gen, quite possibly my favourite romulan ship. so many uses. ever been pissed off by phase plates? imagine even MOAR PHASE PLATES because of the sing gen. leahvals spamming meta d all the time and using auto repair to basically never need a yard. turrets not needing transmitters. and it even cloaks.
talshiar is currently a little less attractive than it could, but there is another generix refit coming, and they might change the romulan tech tree anyway.
talshiar is currently a little less attractive than it could, but there is another generix refit coming, and they might change the romulan tech tree anyway.
posted on March 21st, 2012, 1:34 pm
Myles wrote:you forget about the singularity gen, quite possibly my favourite romulan ship. so many uses. ever been pissed off by phase plates? imagine even MOAR PHASE PLATES because of the sing gen. leahvals spamming meta d all the time and using auto repair to basically never need a yard. turrets not needing transmitters. and it even cloaks.
talshiar is currently a little less attractive than it could, but there is another generix refit coming, and they might change the romulan tech tree anyway.
The singularity gen only recharges ship energy not stations (turrets).
posted on March 21st, 2012, 1:58 pm
eraldo wrote:The singularity gen only recharges ship energy not stations (turrets).
sadly this proves how little people know about such a lovely unit. it's special (harmonic implosion) recharges turrets energy too. in addition to granting shield recharging. seriously this thing is basically a yard without crew.
phase plates rhienns can cloak and stay nearby, leahvals can use the energy for auto repair, and when the battle is over, the rhienns can decloak and have the special recharge their shields too. sing gens can make a raiding fleet not need a yard.
posted on March 21st, 2012, 5:29 pm
you forget about the singularity gen, quite possibly my favourite romulan ship.
Nope. Just called them "restore Generix" (in path b) because I forgot the exact name.
posted on March 21st, 2012, 5:45 pm
machinor wrote:Nope. Just called them "restore Generix" (in path b) because I forgot the exact name.
ah i see, you put the sing gen in with upgrade facility, but it's part of the talshiar tech path.
that also helps my point, talshiar gives you spec/sing refit gens, serkas and norexans.
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