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Topic: Tactics and strategy of SC ships (Read 40265 times)
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Holocat
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You seem to have overlooked the fact that, according to the timeline, the Thraddash would not have afterburner equipped ships during the Alliance-Hierarchy war. This is pretty much why the Ur-Quan let them rot in permanent rear-guard positions: Without its afterburners, the Torch is a slow moving target with light weaponry and a small crew complement. Their vessels have little benefit to them, save the fact that the main gun has semi-decent range. However, every ship in the old alliance has the capability of outranging them with their weapons, or the ability to close distance quickly enough to negate their long-range abilities (especially with the dismal damage and above-average power consumption of the Torch main gun). In fact, the X-Forms that you are disparaging in the same comment can both outrange and quickly close distance with the Torch sans afterburners. Amazing how reliant those little buggers are on that special, isn't it?
I'm not bad with the torch, and yes the afterburner is your primary form of movement. Use your thrusters if you want to slow down. ;3
I grant that timeline wise this sort of setup is impossible, the traddash not having afterburners, then knocked back to the stone age. Now that the X-form is gone as well since they're all Chmmr now, it's highly moot.
Despite this, maneauverablity of the Y-form still makes it vulnerable to massed, guided firepower. At best it forces the Y-form to maneauver farther and farther out of the primary engagement zone, and done enough eventually looks suspiciously like supermelee, since it's way out in left-field with just a single or maybe a couple ships keeping it out there. It can probably cut through massed firepower with the X-Form lasers, but is then vulnerable to limpets, large barrages of fast projectiles, etc.
In massed combat, though with careful used of transformations it can be murderously hard to hit, offensively it is very weak; The lasers may be very powerful, but it has neither the crew nor the battery to sustain a short range attack with the effectiveness of, say, the Ur-Quan or Umgah. Missle sniping may work in supermelee, but massed fire (again the podhome comes to mind) will both serve as a screen against fire and a counter.
I would say that the X-Form was my second most used ship in SC1 (behind the Penetrator, or instead OF the penetrator for maps with no enemey colonies), so despite disparaging the thing don't think I don't know it's strengths either. Despite all that, I classify the X-Form, generally, as a sniper/harassment unit rather than a front line ship; Thus, using them in massed combat in a role other than support/defense would not be to my liking.
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« Last Edit: November 27, 2006, 12:02:37 am by Holocat »
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Holocat
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What would hierarchy strategies be?
VUX and/or Mycon can disperse to make their curtain of limpets and plasmoids as unavoidable as possible. Have an Umgah stationed every few along the line; if skirmishers close on one of them, it can zip in to assist. With the limpets coming in from all directions, it should not be able to avoid the cone for long, nor get around it.
Alternately, VUX could use the square I described for the Chenjesu; only if they're that bottled up, any ship with any kind of range at all will tear them to bits (unlike the chenjesu, which can afford to stay still against nearly any foe). Perhaps it would be better for their square to orbit, so they can drift in some preferred direction. This may be what ZEX was referring to.
Alternately, one could bunch up your Mycon and VUX, and keep some Androsynth nearby for defense: when the enemy come close, the Mycon stop firing, the androsynth start. The bubble cloud will keep the enemies at bay. This will be less effective as artillery, though.
I see the main role of the various skirmishers against this combination as being to force the enemy into tighter formation, which both reduces their effectiveness as artillery and increases their vulnerability to it.
The straight-fire long-range units such as dreadnaughts would not follow this.
I wonder how Umgah would be used in combat; Though their main weapon makes it an excellent def-ship and assault ship, is the Umgah mindset really going to take centurion-like march forward orders like this with grace?
Though I am a strong advocate of a Mycon firing line, and I am in favor of using Vux and umgah as close-range screens/counter assaults, the maneauverablity of all of them are going to make them vulnerable to harrassment tactics away from their firing face; The X-Form or even the Penetrator would be effective at this. Yehat would be as well, but they're too valuable as defence/line ships.
Of course, any relatively difficult to maneauver formation without full coverage would be ripe for a Shofixiti bomb. The Shofixiti in general make massed combat for the heirachy problematic to say the least, since they don't have nice defence ships like the Earthling's PD or the Yehat's shield of invulnerablity. Hell, the Syreen call could be an effective defense as well, in close quarters.
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Death 999
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Note that I didn't tell the Umgah to lock cones and forward march. I told them to wait until the joke is best played.
The VUX are, with their limpets, essentially artillery. While the limpets from one VUX would be easy to dodge, when the sky is full of them coming from different directions, it's a different story.
Shofixti could be dealt with by rotating a screen of Mycon. Let them soak up damage; and force the shofixti to blow up rather than dance it out by putting VUX behind, limpeting. Or you can use a screen of fighters.
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Holocat
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I see value in the VUX as assault ships and harassment units; Though limpets can spell a ship's doom, they don't actually damage a ship and therefore I don't consider them arty.
Massed limpets on multiple vectors would be a good effective strategy, yes. However, VUX speed and maneauverablity would state to me that if the alliance found themselves in that position, they'd already done something disasterously wrong; I tend to think their use would be close-range counter attack, harrassment and line ships because the power of their lasers can sweep enemy fire and they're too darn slow and porky to do fancy maneauvering.
On the other hand, I agree that there's little a reasonably ordered Mycon group couldn't do; Long range blasts, large size, difficult to take down, can battlefield repair. Absolutely monsterous. Alliance counter strategies I would think would have to revolve around either breaking up the formation (causing plasmoids to be dangerous friendly fire) or out-maneauvering the plasmoid waves. I suppose you could also use Yehat to sweep, but that shield will only stay up for so long... a sufficiently staggered plasmoid wave would spell doom for the Terminator.
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AngusThermopyle
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Ok, I’ll play devil’s advocate and argue the Hierarchy side.
I think the Avenger would be far, far deadlier in fleet-type engagements. Especially if, unlike Super Melee, they weren't always directly opposite of your ship on the screen.
Instead, in true 3D space, I could see them maneuvering around in packs of 4-6, and cloaked. Each Avenger would approach a specific target from different directions and pick off a few enemy ships before re-cloaking. This sort of U-Boat tactic would be far more menacing than attempting to face an Avenger 1-on-1 in a Melee type setting.
Cruisers, Skiffs, and Penetrators would be easy targets. X-Forms, Terminators, and Broodhomes have enough firepower to repulse the Avengers, but with heavy losses. Scouts would have to have their paws on the detonate command at all times or risk being incinerated.
In a coordinated effort, a Hierarchy fleet of Guardians and Intruders could herd a fleet of Alliance ships into a pre-arranged spot with bubble fields and Limpets. Of course, waiting in this spot, would be a group of Avengers, waiting to unleash a nasty surprise on their foes. The Guardians could then Blaze in to clean up any leftovers. 
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« Last Edit: November 29, 2006, 05:03:10 pm by AngusThermopyle »
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Razorback
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Ok, I’ll play devil’s advocate and argue the Hierarchy side. I think the Avenger would be far, far deadlier in fleet-type engagements. Especially if, unlike Super Melee, they weren't always directly opposite of your ship on the screen. Instead, in true 3D space, I could see them maneuvering around in packs of 4-6, and cloaked. Each Avenger would approach a specific target from different directions and pick off a few enemy ships before re-cloaking. This sort of U-Boat tactic would be far more menacing than attempting to face an Avenger 1-on-1 in a Melee type setting. Cruisers, Skiffs, and Penetrators would be easy targets. X-Forms, Terminators, and Broodhomes have enough firepower to repulse the Avengers, but with heavy losses. Scouts would have to have their paws on the detonate command at all times or risk being incinerated. In a coordinated effort, a Hierarchy fleet of Guardians and Intruders could herd a fleet of Alliance ships into a pre-arranged spot with bubble fields and Limpets. Of course, waiting in this spot, would be a group of Avengers, waiting to unleash a nasty surprise on their foes. The Guardians could then Blaze in to clean up any leftovers.
I think the best Ilwrath could do though would be 3-ship packs. More than that and they start running the risk of colliding into each other, unless they could see where each other are. This would drastically change matters.
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C. Bob
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From how I can see, the Alliance has a slight overall advantage, and I'll explain why I think that.
In my opinion, there are four absolutely critical parts of an Alliance battlegroup. You need heavy artillery, light artillery, flank/side raiders, and rearguard.
The Chenjesu fill the niche of heavy artillery perfectly. In addition to possessing the most individually-damaging main gun in the entire Alliance armada, they have virtually infinite range compared to the guns used by other friendly and enemy assets, and thus Broodhomes could plausibly bombard the enemy fleet at a range where they are helpless to respond. If the Alliance can decide the terms of battle, they have an undeniable advantage, and one that can really only be circumvented by a flank hyperspace attack or general trickery. Even if you *can* get into fighting position, Broodhomes are still not easy prey, and their escorts can help fight off the intrusion.
Light artillery is perfectly served by the Earthling Cruiser. With a solid bombardment of missiles, and a general low cost, great numbers of these ships can be thrown into each battle, with amazing results. They are virtually immune to enemy ranged counterattacks due to the natural phalanx effect provided by their PD lasers. Their only true weakness is at close-range, and though it is a serious one, it can be eliminated by the combined efforts of the rearguard and the abilities of the artillery themselves.
The Alliance needs a raider force to press any weaknesses in enemy formations, and to perform flank assaults as necessary, and for this task there are two ships best-suited to the job -- the Mmrnmhrm X-Form and the Arilou Skiff. The Skiff's (as of SC1) unequalled speed and teleportation make it a viable craft for the raiding force, but the abilities of the Mmrnmhrm are perhaps even better suited -- their high speeds when in missile form allow them to hit the sides of the enemy ships without taking serious return fire, and their gun form enables them to perform a deadly flank attack if they can reach the enemy's rear.
The Alliance rearguard as I see it would be composed of essentially all the other ships, and in some cases even some of the ones deployed in other areas -- Yehat Terminators, Syreen Penetrators, and Shofixti Scouts, primarily.
Yehat Terminators are needed for their high firing power and protection, such as that might give them a good chance against the type of foes that would pose a threat to them in a flank attack.
Penetrators and Scouts are needed for the general confusion and damage they could cause to such a force.
Now, the reason why I believe you would need these groups to start with.
Heavy artillery's goal is fairly obvious. They need to fire upon the enemy fleet, doing enough damage to any Umgah phalanx that might arise, to generally destroy them. They can do this at a long enough range so as to completely tilt the tide of the battle in favor of the Alliance, in the event of the battle taking place on favorable grounds.
The light artillery is required to take out the ships heavy artillery can't, and to additionally provide some protection to the main body as a whole. PD lasers are able defense systems, and en masse, I believe their effects would be truly amazing.
A raider force supplements the job of the artillery, providing some weakness in the otherwise well-defended parts of the enemy fleet. They also make some use out of ships that would otherwise be largely ineffective -- even if they don't do much damage, they're still better than being left back home.
The rearguard's primary function is to deal with ZEX's VUX, and any potential other threats to the backbone of the Alliance artillery. If the VUX fleet left hyperspace with the same precision that they usually do, and attacked the Alliance armada from behind without the presence of a rearguard, the effects would be devastating. The rearguard is completely *essential* to any battle involving VUX forces, and still extremely useful even without them. While it is true that we do not see VUX Intruders teleport in during supermelee directly behind their targets, with the overall precision of a VUX fleet, and that they generally wouldn't be incredibly useful in their home formation anyway, they can cough up the time to do it right -- and strike at the enemy's otherwise exposed position.
I perceive that the main goal of the Alliance is to splinter up the entirety of the Hierarchy fleet into small enough numbers to take full advantage of their one-on-one bonuses, while the Hierarchy is best-suited preserving formation and attempting to defeat the Alliance's intrusions. Spathi, Androsynth, and (some) VUX would be extremely useful in this regard, and with the relatively agile Spathi craft, the Hierarchy forces could attempt a few raid attacks on the Alliance fleet to keep them off-guard, and generally stall their operations. A variation of an Umgah phalanx, with appropriate Dreadnought and Guardian support, could be devastating against the Alliance armada, as they have only one effective ship suited to destroying the Umgah. The destruction of *all* Chenjesu Broodhomes would likely turn the battle into a rout, due to otherwise general ineffectiveness against Umgah cones and, more minorly, the leadership skills of the enlightened Chenjesu. An elite squadron of Androsynth would be ideal to attempt to destroy the Broodhome force, though only if the Alliance is distracted adequately. Ilwrath Avengers would be excellent at destroying Alliance raider craft, and potentially useful for flank assault as well, if used properly alongside the other ships.
In the times of the New Alliance, things turn completely against the Hierarchy.
In addition to being heavily outnumbered, they lose the support of the Ilwrath, and the VUX's combat effectiveness, with the death of the late Admiral ZEX, is almost entirely gone. The Androsynth are no more to be found. While the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za have their brethren, the Kohr-Ah, to aid them, it is not necessarily the case that they would.
In a best-case scenario, with all of their remaining thralls still with them and the aid of the Kohr-Ah, the Ur-Quan still have a few things going for them. Marauders have all the right traits to be completely amazing in fleet combat. They still possess their Drones, which now have no direct counter the way the Old Alliance did -- they could be outflanked, but not simply overwhelmed. The Mycon are still loyal to them to provide general artillery support, and the VUX limpets would be effective at holding off raiders.
Unfortunately, the New Alliance is still vastly more powerful in fleet combat. They now have shielded ships -- Juggers -- that can come up against and even defeat the Umgah in a general ramming contest. Chmmr Avatars are brilliant potential "raider" vessels, coming in from the sides and ravaging all before them. Orz marines can slip through the cracks and do all sorts of damage to the enemy formations -- not to mention what the actual vessels could do, with their decent primary weapons. Supox Blades, Pkunk Furies, and Arilou Skiffs have no trouble attacking any part of the enemy fleet they so choose. The Earthling Cruisers still exist, destroying as much fire as they can. Yehat Terminators and Scouts are still serving the rearguard. And the New Alliance will *always* heavily outnumber their foes. With just the loss of their heavy artillery and a single raider ship, the Alliance didn't turn out badly at all.
Even if they had comparable amounts of ships, I believe the variety of the New Alliance fleet would overcome the proposed Ur-Quan confederation above.
So, in summary, I think the Old Alliance would be threatened, definitely, but that they would likely have the upper hand in general. The New Alliance would be practically unhindered by their foe, however -- their advantages are too decisive and numerous.
- Bob
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« Last Edit: November 30, 2006, 08:41:32 am by C. Bob »
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Holocat
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I would like to point out, at this point, that we are all making a common armchair-general mistake; This is assuming that tactical capability is the only factor in large-scale conflict. Though, arguably, the alliance has a upper hand tactically, one must consider numbers, economics, production and production potential.
I have no real evidence other than the SC2 spheres of influence to back up this claim, but I believe that the SC1 Heirachy had a much greater pool of resources in terms of material and crew than the Alliance had. Large gobs of Broodhomes would be devastatingly effective yes, but we probably didn't have the capacity to field nearly as many as the Ur-Quan could field Dreadnaught formations, and probably have a far, far weaker capacity to replace lost broodhomes.
To be succinct, if it came down to a shooting match, a matter of attrition I feel it would only be a matter of time before we would lose. Therefore, the Alliance would have to take, at some point, an aggressive stance, and whether the alliance has the capacity to attack (rather than hold line) is highly in question.
Unrelated to the above posts, I should point out that the Terminator is a shielded ship, so we aren't introduced to shields by SC2, we are already familar with them. From my standpoint, because the Terminator has shields it becomes the backbone of the vanguard, rather than puttering around in the rear guard. Penetrators/X-Forms I would use as raiders, harrasment units and in the case of the former, special operations.
To alarm Alliance commanders even more, one might note that Earthling PD shoots everything, including your own missles. It would stand to reason that PD lacks the ablity to discriminate targets and if so becomes much less effective in mass use.
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C. Bob
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I have no real evidence other than the SC2 spheres of influence to back up this claim, but I believe that the SC1 Heirachy had a much greater pool of resources in terms of material and crew than the Alliance had. Large gobs of Broodhomes would be devastatingly effective yes, but we probably didn't have the capacity to field nearly as many as the Ur-Quan could field Dreadnaught formations, and probably have a far, far weaker capacity to replace lost broodhomes.
To be succinct, if it came down to a shooting match, a matter of attrition I feel it would only be a matter of time before we would lose. Therefore, the Alliance would have to take, at some point, an aggressive stance, and whether the alliance has the capacity to attack (rather than hold line) is highly in question.
We see from SC history that this is exactly what the case was, and what happened: The Alliance battle line was largely locked near their own space, and particular races -- the Earthlings and Shofixti, to be specific -- were apparently not only useful, but *critical* to the long-term operations of the war, due to their ability to field large numbers of cruisers (all-around useful fleet ships) and personnel (which the Alliance was in constant need of), respectively.
The Alliance of Free Stars *did* attempt a counter-offensive (source unknown, please tell me if anyone knows where it is), and it failed dramatically -- in other words, the Alliance has a tactical advantage, in general, and the Alliance was able to hold the lines against a larger foe, but they weren't able to do much else. That the Ur-Quan had to pull out the Sa-Matra indicates that the Alliance did a good job of that, but it's likely that the Ur-Quan still would have ultimately prevailed, without a major twist in the war.
Unrelated to the above posts, I should point out that the Terminator is a shielded ship, so we aren't introduced to shields by SC2, we are already familar with them. From my standpoint, because the Terminator has shields it becomes the backbone of the vanguard While it is true that the Yehat Terminator has shielding, and is an effective vessel, the Terminator is badly suited to charging down enemies -- and it's safe to assume that this would become an even worse case on a front line fleet battle, guarding against heavy amounts of fire. True, their shields can take basically infinite amount of firepower when they're up, but what happens when the Terminators run out of energy? Yehat Terminators are *not built* for fleet action -- if you want to use them against the enemy body instead of "puttering around in the rearguard", you need to split the enemy up so the Terminators can take them on one-on-one, which they do shine at. Same with the Syreen, in my mind -- while they may be good at attacking individual foes, I'm willing to bet that they would be much less effective in a fleet operation.
- Bob
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« Last Edit: December 06, 2006, 04:39:46 am by C. Bob »
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Holocat
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To alarm Alliance commanders even more, one might note that Earthling PD shoots everything, including your own missles. It would stand to reason that PD lacks the ablity to discriminate targets and if so becomes much less effective in mass use. However, it's worthwhile to note that the laser does not destroy your own missiles, implying that it can discriminate somehow between friendly and enemy targets. Therefore, I don't think this is a valid point; even if PD does fire on friendly vessels, it apparently will not damage them. Don't ask me about the science or logic behind that... but for our purposes, it's probably easier to treat them as if they don't fire at friendlies at all.
Now given my delusional tendencies I could again be imagining things, but I'm pretty sure that if you can get going fast enough, the missle's relative velocity is slow enough that PD can fire twice at it, and on the second time, the missle is destroyed; I can't remember missle HP however, so I'm left with this ningling feeling of doubt when I say this, but whatever.
Edit: I agree, however, that they shouldn't fire on friendlies, even if they do. Managed FTL travel and still stuck with Sgt. York as our FAADS AI. Gods, we suck. :3
As to Yehat vs. Utwig sheiding, true, I hadn't considered that an Utwig shield would last forever under constant fire. However, I don't see Yehat as that bad. First, if they're firing at you (with the exception of the Spathi) they're pointed towards you, at least. 'Chasing down' an enemy implies that they're moving away, and additionally implies that they're maneauvering evasively which they might not have the luxury of doing in a large-scale combat without moving into friendly fire.
I generally see Yehat deployed in a staggered manner, that is a 'point' ship or ships that activate their shielding and slow down. As their batteries drain the next ship or formation of ships move forward and activate their shields. Similar to line cycling in flintlock fighting.
Oh, now that I see what the Utwig are capable of, I declare them a totally cheesy ship that shouldn't be allowed in mass supermelee for reasons of balance. ;3
The source you're looking for, I think, is a line from commander hayes, '...and our counter attack made hardly a dent but the line held. The coreward front remained intact.'
There was another counter-offensive, Draco, that is implied to be highly successful.
To peel a bit at the Ilwrath ideas, I have points both for and against them. Firstly, let it be known that I believe that the cloak isn't perfect, and that's why we know the general area where the avenger is in super melee. In the ilwrath's favour is the fact that any large scale battle is inherently confusing and chaotic; Detecting them at all becomes more problematic the larger the battle gets. However, against them is the fact that most firing will be done as massed fire; That is, you aim at areas and angles and fleets, rather than right on at individual ships. Knowing the 'general area' in this case is probably accurate enough to launch a volley, and despite being not seen, the cloak won't protect them if they get hit.
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« Last Edit: December 06, 2006, 03:40:05 pm by Holocat »
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AngusThermopyle
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More on the Avenger’s potential effectiveness:
The Cloaking Device – We can see from Super Melee that the cloaking device is indeed imperfect. Unlike cloaking devices seen elsewhere (like Star Trek), the ship does not become transparent or produce a distortion silhouette. Instead, the ship simply becomes completely opaque, blocking out any stars in the background.
Now consider the Avenger’s profile. It’s long and wide, for sure. But, it’s also extremely thin. Meaning that if the Avenger was oriented towards your ship in combat, it would have an extremely small profile. Assuming the ship is cloaked (as it should always be), the Avenger would block out an extremely small portion of the starfield. Furthermore, a random potshot out into space would have only a small chance of hitting the ship.
(I’d say the best way for the Alliance commander to increase his detection odds is to position Scouts on the periphery of any fleet. There, they would have the advantage of looking for a larger profile against the starfield.)
All of this assumes, of course, that you are fighting in deep space, with no other significant light sources nearby. A nearby star or nebula may radically change the Avenger’s detectability.
Super Melee relativity – Of course the easiest way to detect the Avenger in Super Melee is just look directly opposite of your ship. This factor is nullified in a true combat situation.
Speed – The Avenger Achilles heel: it is still slow, and this hurts on both a tactical and strategic sense. The Hierarchy commander may not be field Avengers in battle simply because they’re too slow in getting there.
Anyways, that’s all I can think of for now. My main point here is that I think the Avenger would be far more useful in a true tactical situation that what’ve seen in Super Melee and the full game.
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