Post by unclejoe on Jul 6, 2010 20:28:10 GMT -5
OK, so as we've continued to gain experience, we are starting to see some basic strategies to follow. In keeping with the Missile Tactics thread from a few weeks ago, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on maneuvering the fleets.
1) Initiative
This is very important to how you maneuver. If you are Aggressive, then you want to have as many of your ships in positions to exchange fire with the enemy. Conversely, if you are the Tactical player, then IMO you have no business getting close to the enemy for a shoot-out unless you have an advantage in capital ships or far superior defense etc.
Unlike many systems, the Aggressive player will resolve all of his fire first (by cap/escort classification) and there are no 'fair ups'. In some of our early games, the Tactical player would move his ship in position to exchange heavy fire and would suffer catastrophic casualties before being able to respond...game over!
IMO, the Tactical player should try and dance away as much as possible unless he can use the 2nd place movement to ensure that he can get a much larger percentage of his fleet's weapons to bear than the enemy. Which leads to the next point.
2) Concentration of Force
This is generally take for granted in games, but in practice I see players maneuvering for gains on a per-ship basis rather than on a squadron or task force level. It doesn't matter if you beautifully move all of your ships into perfect but scattered firing positions this turn if it means that you'll be dispersed next turn and killed off piecemeal.
Try and keep your task force concentrated (as much as possible) to rely on mutual defense (Screens) and to be able to overwhelm a single shield on your targets rather than dispersing your fire.
3) Weapon Match-ups
If you have mostly d10 weaponry and decent FC ratings, then you should be trying to stay at range and snipe at your opponent from afar. Up close, even d6 weaponry will pretty much hit on anything but the auto-miss (a 1) so you are paying for an advantage that you are not using by getting close (but see below for being TOO far out)
Another thing that it took a bit for us to learn is how far ships can effectively deliver their firepower. A Battleline CA with FC:3 will still be on the auto-miss only all the way to 5 hexes. And with the firepower that ships can carry, being that close is risky. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the effectiveness drops off quickly beyond FC+3. So make sure to keep you fleet in position to be able to deliver enough firepower on target to penetrate enemy shields and shred the target.
4) Protection
Sometimes the best protection against enemy Fighters and missiles is the hull of another of your ships. If you have a particular ship you don't want to be gnawed on by Fighters, you can place ships or Fighters of your own in the hexes adjacent to it to prevent the enemy from being there.
Ditto for missiles. It's pretty easy to see where the 'auto-hit' hexes are for missiles so you can keep small fry in front of your more valuable ships to 'absorb' the missile fire. Whether a ship has 10 hull points left or 100, it will still soak up all of the missiles that move into it's hex. So be sure to use your tin cans to take one for the team and save a larger, more powerful vessel from a pre-emptive crippling by missile salvos.
That's all I've got for now. Obviously there is a lot more to effectively maneuvering your task forces, but hopefully this is enough to spark some discussion about the best ways to utilize the ships you bring to the battle.
1) Initiative
This is very important to how you maneuver. If you are Aggressive, then you want to have as many of your ships in positions to exchange fire with the enemy. Conversely, if you are the Tactical player, then IMO you have no business getting close to the enemy for a shoot-out unless you have an advantage in capital ships or far superior defense etc.
Unlike many systems, the Aggressive player will resolve all of his fire first (by cap/escort classification) and there are no 'fair ups'. In some of our early games, the Tactical player would move his ship in position to exchange heavy fire and would suffer catastrophic casualties before being able to respond...game over!
IMO, the Tactical player should try and dance away as much as possible unless he can use the 2nd place movement to ensure that he can get a much larger percentage of his fleet's weapons to bear than the enemy. Which leads to the next point.
2) Concentration of Force
This is generally take for granted in games, but in practice I see players maneuvering for gains on a per-ship basis rather than on a squadron or task force level. It doesn't matter if you beautifully move all of your ships into perfect but scattered firing positions this turn if it means that you'll be dispersed next turn and killed off piecemeal.
Try and keep your task force concentrated (as much as possible) to rely on mutual defense (Screens) and to be able to overwhelm a single shield on your targets rather than dispersing your fire.
3) Weapon Match-ups
If you have mostly d10 weaponry and decent FC ratings, then you should be trying to stay at range and snipe at your opponent from afar. Up close, even d6 weaponry will pretty much hit on anything but the auto-miss (a 1) so you are paying for an advantage that you are not using by getting close (but see below for being TOO far out)
Another thing that it took a bit for us to learn is how far ships can effectively deliver their firepower. A Battleline CA with FC:3 will still be on the auto-miss only all the way to 5 hexes. And with the firepower that ships can carry, being that close is risky. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the effectiveness drops off quickly beyond FC+3. So make sure to keep you fleet in position to be able to deliver enough firepower on target to penetrate enemy shields and shred the target.
4) Protection
Sometimes the best protection against enemy Fighters and missiles is the hull of another of your ships. If you have a particular ship you don't want to be gnawed on by Fighters, you can place ships or Fighters of your own in the hexes adjacent to it to prevent the enemy from being there.
Ditto for missiles. It's pretty easy to see where the 'auto-hit' hexes are for missiles so you can keep small fry in front of your more valuable ships to 'absorb' the missile fire. Whether a ship has 10 hull points left or 100, it will still soak up all of the missiles that move into it's hex. So be sure to use your tin cans to take one for the team and save a larger, more powerful vessel from a pre-emptive crippling by missile salvos.
That's all I've got for now. Obviously there is a lot more to effectively maneuvering your task forces, but hopefully this is enough to spark some discussion about the best ways to utilize the ships you bring to the battle.
