Suggestions/Questions for online game play.

Share and discuss your gameplay strategies.
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posted on September 29th, 2010, 8:43 pm
First off, I would just like to say that I have not played online as of yet, regrettably, but I'm just curious about various things and have some ideas that I'd like to get feedback on from people who have been playing online for a while... or just started.

My biggest problem, is that I don't know online stats. I don't know what everyone starts with in resources. Is it like in the Instand Action mode? Like 4000/2000/500 etc or double? I also do not know the exact cost of everything.. this can be manipulated in Instant Action *which I do, make things cost more cost less, free* changes things up. So what does everything cost in online gameplay? Also, basic inexperience... I don't know how quickly ships can be built, the time from start to first battle, how long it takes cruisers to get out so some things might not be feasible.

Most important thing I'm wondering is costs, first level shipyard, first level research station, refinery, construction ship, miner ship, and the costs of a ship from first level shipyard (not the scouts, like akiras, or something with more of a punch, and even sabres) and starbase. (unless it is the same as in instant normal (then i know).

I've been watching online gameplay, and keeping in mind that I have nothing to suggest based experience, except suggesting things that I've noticed havent been tried, that could potentially work. Based on problems that seem to arise in games Ive seen.

So, my main interest is getting construction ships out to my allies. (I am assuming for these posts that I have two allies, that I can get to without crossing the enemy) I was considering increasing the number of refineries, but in other threads this was discussed, and it seemed like that wont generally work. But in any case. Increasing refineries to have multiple refineries at all allied bases was an idea to increase basic production at the cost of not producing ships, and building the stations so that later resources would be more plentiful and I could build lots of ships.

This didnt seem to realistic.

I'm still pretty focused on getting my construction ships out to my allies to build shipyards in multiple locations.  This way, if I have to I can build them to help my partner if he is in trouble.

haha, the other idea I had that I wish I could do first hand,(oh well) is still based around this concept. Ok, so lets just say we have players A B and C. Initial starting point of the game. All players build refineries at their moons to start. Then, Player A abandons his starbase and moves directly to an expansion moon where he builds his first shipyard. Player B sends out construction ship to player As point, and takes over the moons building his own refineries. and shipyards. Player C does a more regular thing, builds up everything. Research stations, shipyards, but doesnt engage enemy.

So player A is like surprise attack. Just gets some quick economy, expands, builds shipyard, *maybe with two escorts from the ships starbases can make to protect it while it constructs the shipyard. Player A does all the harassing and scouting. Also builds refineries at the expansion. But doesnt do research. Just there to be a pain to the enemy. Gets maybe one or two first level shipyards and builds as many ships as can be done. *Whatever you have with initial resources, and what a couple refineries can produce. Not spending money on other stations or research.

Player B is the ideal one to be. He gets the benefits of players A home base. So he expands there, and builds refineries. Also builds shipyards at his homebase, and Players A homebase. This is all while player A is doing what they can to harass the enemy. Player B only needs to get a lot of resources quick, so that when player A gets in trouble, Player B has the economy and number of shipyards to send in sufficient reinforcements to keep the enemy boggled down. (player A would then retreat, find some place to build and get caught up)

Player C does not produce ships (Player A job, with B for support). Just commits normal resources to a base developing all shipyards, stations, and research. Does it as efficiently as possible (probably best for feds, they only have two they need to focus on, Klingons would probably be best as Player A, they would take to long to develop) Get everything built and ready to go, and when everything is built. Ignore first level shipyard and research station. Focus on researching second level shipyard, and building those ships with special weapons.

So, player A just goes right to ship building (small vessels). player B expands economy first. Then does what player A did, just small vessels, but more. More shipyards, more vessels. Neither research a lot though, or I dont think that works best. Then Player C just waits, builds all of his stations, but ignores the small vessels, and gets to his large vessels as quickly as possible. Doesnt engage enemy until he has these. Then it goes back to player B and A. At this point, when player C is set up, they continue with small ships, but can build everything else. Player B should have everything in place to get caught up the quickest.

Anyways, that was one of my ideas. lol no idea if it will work. Player A would have to be insanely good at being aggressive to tie up the three enemies. Player A is probably most important job, with least amount of glory. Player B should be great though.. gets great economy, and is in quick to help A(quick as possible). C just builds, so maybe someone who isnt so quick to shoot?

It would just take coordination for who wants to do what. haha, otherwise there would be some problems. lol if I could... I would get armada 2 on three different computers,  download FO on all of them. And then play all three at once, to see if this would work. except it would be an insane amount of multitasking and impossible to do each players job effectively I would think. But still.

I dunno, anyone like the idea, or think something can be done to make it work a bit better if this way wouldnt work?
posted on September 29th, 2010, 8:47 pm
oh! lol!

Um... I like large maps... I dont even play the smaller ones. So yeah, this is based on the idea that just with map size, you have a bit of time to do things. Not the largest, but big enough that you arent right beside each other to start with.

Um so player A with cloak would be killer.

Player C is just instant federation. no question. (from what I'm thinking.

B is anybody, more or less.

Again would be better for you guys to decide who have a better grasp of their economies... based on online gaming. Player A would need really cheap ships.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:08 pm
I think you need to summarize a little more buddy  :blush: the giant wall o' text post is kinda off putting... im not sure if you are asking something or telling us something.

Starting Resources are configurable by the host... Normal, Double and Infinite. Except for infinite i'm not sure what the exact values are for each resource type.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:19 pm
Normal is 4000 dil, 2000 tri, and 500 supply :). The vast majority of online players play on speed 3 and normal resources.

As for the strategies that you suggested - you must remember that no player has yet been able to micromanage on such a level that they are able to control 6 fleets (assuming a normal amount of 2 again each enemy faction) and macromanage their home economy. Also, staying close by is definitely not a very wise decision, as that just means that your opponents can easily squash all your ship building capacities in one go  ^-^ . Not to mention that you will not be able to take advantage of mining around the rest of the map (nor will you have adequate map control), and also allowing your opponents to always know where you will go home to repair.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:33 pm
lol, sorry. I'll summarize.

Just wondering if its possible to give each player a job. Instead of individually creating bases, having a planned mode of playing the game beforehand. Everyone sends construction ships to their allied base to construct things there as well.

One person builds shipyards away from his base and attacks the enemy (immediate expansion).

Another takes over that abandoned base and gets more resources and also builds shipyards to attack the enemy. But neither research, or build anything beyond their shipyards and refineries. Just shipbuild and attack.

The last person doesnt engage, or build small ships except if needed for defense, just upgrades until he can build the bigger ships as quickly possible.

Then the other two catch up, building and joining in on the fight.

  - - - -

I've been watching some of the vids of games online. I don't know if I'm asking you or telling you something, maybe both. I haven't played online yet, so was just wondering if an idea like this would work.

I watched one game that was three on three, forget who it was, but yeah. I think it was set up well for something like this.

Also been reading things people have posted. Resource shortages. One player having lots of resources, the other having none. Certain races having certain advantages with ship costs. Why not just put it all to use. Klingons take a long time to build everything. So just give them the job of attacking right away, they can cloak and be a big nuisance. Federation can research quickly enough, they could stay behind and build.

There are big problems to this idea though, I was hoping to try it out myself first hand. But even to do that, it would have to be planned to some extent before the game even started. But just some of the problems I'm thinking... mainly. One, I don't know, do you choose what race you play as? or are you randomly assigned a race? Another, the two attacking players have to harass three opponents while they let the third player build up. Might be completely wrong setup. ultimately, it depends what the other team does with this plan. Could easily not work... but I like trying different things.

Maybe when I get playing online, I'll see if anyone is interested in doing something preplanned.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:40 pm
Not to mention that you will not be able to take advantage of mining around the rest of the map (nor will you have adequate map control), and also allowing your opponents to always know where you will go home to repair. - Dominus

Sorry, I'm not sure how to quote... if I did or not I dunno. I probably just copied and paste.

You're right this is a problem. They would know where you are easily I suppose if you expand right at the beginning. But the time it takes to build research stations would be saved, and that money could be used for ship production to attack any weak points, or just keep them tied down.

It is only meant for early game, this doesnt work later on of course. But just to switch up how things get started.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:47 pm
You will want to go to the bottom row of buttons, second button from the right (looks like a quote marking in a yellow speech bubble) if you want to quote. Or you can just hit the "quote button" at the bottom of a post to quote it :)

How do you figure it would save time if you have to move all your allies' production to one home base  :sweatdrop:
posted on September 29th, 2010, 10:56 pm
Well, joining to have a collective home base is more middle game, even later game, not opening.

In the opening, you just move construction ships. Certain players focus on the shipyards and attacking, another gets a really strong economy by having two home base moons, the other focuses on developing and research to get to the cruisers  and battleships.

When everyone is at a certain point in development... then find a suitable map location, build several ship yards and spam. Although on here, spamming seems to be scorned. But I just mean, there is little reason to remain at the starting point. I would say it is good idea to keep research stations and such out of reach at the starbase, but build shipyards farther out... its already been done, im pretty sure ive seen it. Just do it collectively.

If it is hard to pick on one enemy expansion, wouldnt it be harder to attack an enemy expansion with all of them there? Instead of one player taking this moon, have three players take the moon by first building the shipyard there, and getting a few ships to guard it.

Shift focus mid way through the game, forget about the home base, and refocus somewhere better collectively.

Another thing, I should watch  more games first to see certain things. Maybe I havent watched enough.

I just liked the idea of having something planned out
posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:14 pm
Here are some keys to gameplay that I think will fill in your understanding:

1. FO is a small-ship-number game, in the beginning you can only get a handful.  Starting by building a constructor is a bad idea, you need to optimize the way you use the constructors you have.

2. There is another resource involved: the players' minds.  You want each player overseeing one base, if you try to have one player control 2 bases and another control none, that's a waste of the resource.  You can trade resources if you want to do some special strategy.

3. This resource also applies to fleets.  Having 2 player fleets is better than 1 because you can hit multiple targets and do twice the micromanagement.

4. Outnumbering the enemy is a big deal.  If one team only sends one of their players out to fight in the beginning, while the other team all go together, the 3 fleets will annihilate the solo fleet without taking a single casualty.  The only "focus on one person" strategy that really works is a cube rush.

There is a massive amount of variety inside "conventional" team strategies, don't worry about creating unconventional strategies until you've had fun playing normally.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:51 pm
Yeah I think your concepts of "collective bases" and such are not really for this game.  That kind of thing sometimes works in other RTS games, but this one is heavily centered around resource placement.  Your bases should, for the most part, be constructed in a way that helps you guard your resources and strike your opponents' res.


    "Collective building" is almost never a good thing as it takes up precious space.  "sharing" mining is also a terrible idea.  Better to just mine each area alone and trade res with your human allies.



  Also, most humans do not play any maps bigger than 18k x 18k.  This only changes when the rare 4 v 4 shows up.  The Larger the map, the better cloaking races do, the worse the Borg do, and the more the Feds can hog the resources of the map.  Few people like tech races :).


    Small maps are what people play online.
posted on September 29th, 2010, 11:55 pm
The only collective mining that would even be useful would be the dominion's supply on someone elses moon.  So they have 2 tri miners, and the dominion player does 2 supply.  I have never seen that happen, but it's probably the only feasible synergy in this regard.  Also, might I suggest bullet points for some of your suggestions? :blush:
posted on September 30th, 2010, 12:56 am
I much prefer the unconventional, who wants to spend their lives doing something others have done over and over? 

But I get the point that FO might not be geared towards this.

I'll just write how my game goes against an AI normal computer.

This is Klingons vs Fed. I'm klingon... martok.

First I set my starbase to build a construction ship, and eight miners.

So, first off I have the two construction ships build the dilithium and trilithium stations. I send my scout directly to the enemy base, cloaked.

Once my first station (di) is built, and construction ship is out(built from starbase), they both go directly to the expansion moon. This is on the very first map in instant action.

Once there, one builds a shipyard, the other a di. Then when they finish, they build another ship yard, and a tri refinery. At this point, my first two refineries all have three miners on them, and the last of the miners are being moved to the expansion. I get the shipyards to build two brels, and one ktinga (platform). You can build 20 ships very fast in this setting.

Send 16 brels/ktingas to the Feds base and take out a bunch of miners and refineries. At this point, they are building the canaveral, but I outnumber them 3 to one. There sabres, monsoons, intrepids do nothing.

In 15 minutes youve pretty much won the game (or less).

In total, over the game, all you build is three construction ships, eight miners, four refinery stations, two di, two tri, two field yards, and one battle yard. The battle yard, and two field yards can unleash ships quick, a lot to.

You never run out of resources (you do get low a few times in the beginning, but over time, no worries), the Feds never  even touch my home base. They run into my expansion of three yards with ten ships sitting there. I take over three sabres and 2 intrepids easily.

This does work. Dont build research stations. Send construction ships directly to expansion after you build your initial two refineries at your home base. At the expansion, two more refineries, and three shipyards. Realistically, you can build more. And during the game you have lots of time to build research and such.

Slightly revise this for hard AIs, or merciless. Normal will never give you a problem.

You wont lose against an AI. haha, I play against multiple AIs, lots of fun.

lol just dont do this to often. It isnt to much fun. There are times when they dont even get to build there second shipyards, or research stations. AIs build two shipyards, and three refineries themselves. Very quick. Get in there right away and mess em up.

:)
posted on September 30th, 2010, 1:39 am
If you have fun vs. the AI, then great!  But you won't have fun against a human opponent with 2 stations and 6 miners on a single moon :D.  We've proven mathematically that you don't get any added bonus from more than 3 miners and 1 station per moon.


  Since you brought up your build list I'd really suggest reading a few of the build orders in the guide.  They may feel a bit unimaginative to you (as they do for many of us), but they represent the most efficient builds for multiplayer games.
posted on September 30th, 2010, 2:14 am
No, I only have three miners per moon and one station. There are four moons. The two at my home base, and the two at the expansion in the map 'the very first map'. So, four miners get built with the refineries themselves. Then I build eight more from my station. Giving each moon three miners, and one station per. On top of this, I have three construction ships. Two end up at the expansion building 3 - 5 shipyards, and two refineries. Later on, the one at the home base builds the research stations to give me access to vorcha and so on.

I simply gave you the opening I use. Three construction ships. Four refineries. Three per each. There is nothing at my home base except the starbase, and two refineries. At the expansion that I go to instantly after my third construction is built, and my first station is built, I build more refineries and start with two shipyards.  Then build more. I usually play Klingon with this particular strategy. I'm blown away (impressed). You can build three yards per one station. ... but this is just to start. Eventually I do get to building research stations and everything else (against AI hard and merciless you have to...). Normal you can beat with ktingas.

And yes, I do enjoy games against the AI. I've really gottin into 2 vs three, and the mix tech yards. Three AIs and I switch up my allies and mix tech. *Federation ally with klingon gets you that one ship yea Although I do not include borg very often.. this will probably be a weak point for me. I dont like playing as them because I have to rebuild the ship yard things constantly (lol does not work with my plans, and ever since the computer started building cubes on mass and such, they are tough opponent, genuinely). But still, nice to play against as challenge.

As for playing human opponents, id love a game when I get online if your willing. It's simply that in A1 i tried doing online.. but it never worked for me. I could get to like the load site, but it never got me in the game. But I will be on! I look forward to seeing how unconventional ways of thinking play out :). Besides, worst thing, it doesnt work, and I just learn and get better... no worries.
posted on September 30th, 2010, 2:17 am
Yikes @ wall of text :D.


    Again, I'd really take a look at the build orders in the guide.  You'll see that like 90% of them are based around di station and yard first, then tri/research or tri/di expansion. 

  A third builder is totally not needed and there's not point in spitting out 8 miners until you can use them.  Sometimes I'll pre-build miners while my builder is on it's way to set up a di expansion, but ONLY if that won't halt warship production.
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