What to do against shields?

[Maerlyn]

Hi guys! (Hi Blue )

I am currently in a 1vs1 MP game as a Hiver vs a Liir. The Liir got heavy shields and shield magnifiers. And although I am doing much more damage than he is doing in a battle I got real trouble getting through his shields . And the sadorandomizer didnt offer me the Shieldbreakers. what should I opt for? I am using AP large drivers and am currently researching Neutronium Rounds. Should I opt for Stormers which would be available to ressearch? He is in early AM, I just entered the Fusion Area. I just managed to surpase him in income and output, though he has got more colonies than I do.

Any help would be welcome!
thanx!
Maerlyn

[ZedF]

There are a couple things you can do here:
- Weapons which have an area effect radius will potentially damage the ship even through a shield, if the blast radius is large enough. This means stuff like mines (e.g. with COL), missiles (e.g. Corrosives), and so forth. Note that SotS1 Detonating Torps are bugged and don't properly do AoE damage. On the other hand, EMP torps will shut down the shield section (and consequently the shield) if they hit.
- Stormers and other high DPS low penetration/accuracy weapons can help, but the shield will still come back on pretty quick so you need to make sure you can kill the shield section fast when it does come down.
- Of course Liir are generally slow, so you can always try just kiting them, depending on whether you are attacking and trying to hit his planets, or defending and trying to prevent him from hitting yours.

Some other ideas that might work generally but maybe not in your specific situation:
- Shields will not stop kinetic energy from being imparted to the target so you could in theory just keep knocking him back with Impactors or the like and prevent him from ever getting close enough to damage your ships. But Liir have ridiculous acceleration and are largely immune to being knocked around too much.
- Some beam weapons and direct fire torpedoes will ignore shields entirely, though they can get expensive to research and if you're Hiver you probably have low odds to get them. Similarly, inertial cannons will slow down the Liir to the point where you can just ignore them, but are hard to get for Hivers.

[fiendishrabbit]

I have two suggestions (although with Liir in the antimatter age you're hard pressed. Although farcasters and decent armor technology might be enough to carry the day.

1. Railguns
4x Impactor ships and the rest slugging cruisers. Their damage output is significant. Alphastrike those shieldcruisers to death. It will take 4 (3 with Neutronium) shots (2 cruisers) to knock out the shields, but that should allow the two others to really deliver the hurt. Liir can generally not take that kind of abuse.

2. Slug it out with cheap cruisers (Battlebridge+Armor cruisers and the best armor technology you got. Broadside mode and in the center of the enemy formation). Once you get neutronium rounds the these should deliver some hurt. With a shield section they lose a lot of damage and maneuverability.

[Maerlyn]

Thanx a lot for all the help guys (and so fast as well, we ll be continuing the game within the next hour. its really great that this forum is still this active!)

1. Kiting doesnt work since he's already using AM engines and I am just barely building Fusionengines.
2. Railguns sound great, but I am just barely within Fusion age and AM and Railgun are far outside of my reach.
3. I could reasearch Corrosive Missiles, but since the Liir is much more mobile than I am I dunno if thats really a great idea. Additionally I ve heard that they dont do that much DPS. So they seem like an inappropriat solution.

Maybe bursting the shields down might help. So some cheap mass DPS, low accuracy weapon sound good. I could get Stormers or Bursters. What do you think might work better?
I think I ll combine this idea with the "slug it out" idea, since I already got Quark Resonators. I am currently using HH sections. Is the Battlebridge really worth it? BB is slower and the HCL wont offer me much more damage (Lancers are of the chart I think). And BB is more expensive as far as I remember. So I would mainly use them for the one additional Medium Weapons slot. Is that worth it?

So these new questions arise:

Stormers, Bursters or maybe Shotgun?
BB or HH?
Any additional ideas?
Which Beams and Torpedoes ignore shields?

Thanx a lot!!
Maerlyn

[fiendishrabbit]

Bursters are IMHO not worth it. Stormers might work because Liir tend to have crap armor (and shields are both big targets and lacking in Bounce).

Battlebridge is BY FAR the superior option compared to Hammerhead.

There are two reasons.

1. More health. Hammerheads have 2600 health plus the 3x80 from 3 mass drivers for a total of 2840 health (before armor modifications).
A battlebridge has 3000 base health + 4x80 from mass drivers + 2x100 from HCLs for a total of 3520 health (again, before armor mods). That's a significantly tougher command section.
If you used stormers you'd have slightly less health on both ships (since a stormer only contributes 70 points) but that's kind of insignificant.

2. You often won't use the heavy beams (since broadside is generall preferable) but not only does the Hiver BB bridge have them (giving you a superior Alphastrike before switching to broadside), but the layout of the Medium mounts is much better. If I remember correctly the BB bridge has 2 centerline mounts and two mounts on the sides with very good arcs. That gives you 1 more mount than the HH in every situation (forward and broadside).

The drawback is 10 points lower speed and 45 vs 55 maneuverability. But honestly the hiver armored cruiser has excellent firepower in all directions so you won't really miss that maneuverability and speed. 20% more hitpoints and additional firepower makes up for it.

[ZedF]

For bursters to work you would need to give up BB/Assault. I have used Fire Control/War burster ships before against unarmoured targets, to great success, but that was against Zuul who aren't very bouncy and had no armour at all. Of course shields aren't bouncy and have no armour either, but the Liir ships underneath could be pretty reflective and you can't aim effectively at a particular spot with bursters.

If you have access to EMP torps then I'd go with assault in this particular case, otherwise I agree that BB is generally the Hivers' best command section at your tech era.

[Maerlyn]

Wow, very fast again, thanx .

No Bursters then and BB better than HH. I've never used EMPs before. Disruptors are available, so I ll aim for this direction now and hopefully get the EMPs as well. You are talking about the Electro Magnetic Pulsar I assume? If I get them I will dedicate a few torpedo ships. And I will also aim for HCL so i get the BB section. Firecontrol is not available for me this game anway.

[ZedF]

Yes I mean Electromagnetic Pulsar torpedoes (the ones that branch directly from Disruptor torps.) These ones are unguided but have an explosion radius. I don't think the follow-on Pulsar torpedoes (guided but no AoE) would be as helpful in your situation.

[Maerlyn]

I tried the EMP torpedoes and I love them! They really turn of his shields and sometimes I manage to damage the shieldsection in the short time I got.

May mainproblem right now is that my ships are firing their torpedoes as soon as the enemy ships are in range, which means that my AP drivers usually cant reach them at this point. Additionally they are all firing their torpedoes at once at the same time. And I would prefer them to be fired one after the other. Is there a way to hold the fire of the torpedoes until I tell them to shoot them?

[fiendishrabbit]

I tried the EMP torpedoes and I love them! They really turn of his shields and sometimes I manage to damage the shieldsection in the short time I got.

May mainproblem right now is that my ships are firing their torpedoes as soon as the enemy ships are in range, which means that my AP drivers usually cant reach them at this point. Additionally they are all firing their torpedoes at once at the same time. And I would prefer them to be fired one after the other. Is there a way to hold the fire of the torpedoes until I tell them to shoot them?

Yes. You can set ships to fire only where you command them to fire.

Also, when you design a ship you can designate each weapon to a weapon pool. The default is pool "1", but you can assign weapons to pool 2 and 3 as well. Each of these weapon pools can be set to their own firing status when you select a ship. Which means that you could set torpedoes to fire only on command but everything else to fire-at-will.

[Maerlyn]

Wow, this game keeps amazing me again and again . I ve already build my Torpedoships and added all Weapons to the No 1 slot. Can I change the Torpedo Weapons to slot 2 afterwards?

[ZedF]

Yes, by editing the design. I don't think you need to make a new version of that design, but I don't recall for sure.
Alternatively, or in addition, you can change which weapons are assigned to which groups on the fly in tactical combat.

[BlueTemplar]

Hi! Was that greeting directed to me, or BlueInstinct or someone else?

It's a bit late but anyway...

Stormers with Neutronium (and VRF) are probably the best idea indeed (79.2% chance, 222k research points total).

Otherwise other options I can think of are :

- Dumbfire Missiles with AM Warheads (and VRF) (56% chance, 123k rp from Fusion; 40%, 150k rp without Fusion) :
While they pack a lower punch, and recharge a lot slower, they're also much less deflected by armor, and especially have almost double the range of stormers, which can be quite important for hivers who have trouble positioning themselves, especially if the nimble Liir decide to stay at max range. I'm not sure how precision compares : at longer range, your non-beam weapons are automatically less precise. A higher range weapon also allows you to more easily focus fire a single enemy to quickly drop its shield and destroy the shield section.
(I wonder if they benefit from the Micro-Fusion drives upgrade?)
An additional bonus is that you get you planetary and platforms missiles upgraded as well, forcing the enemy to dedicate more slots to PD if you're often fighting around your planets.

- A riky, but interesting idea might be Fusion Cannons + Fusion Projector (23.8%, 180-200k rp, requires Fusion)
Lower damage as well, but higher range too, and not deflected by armor at all, but susceptible to absorbers. The projector section is also much more sturdy than the armor one, though the turret is susceptible to be picked off by precise weapons that Liir like, you lose the 2 small mounts for potential PD, is slower, and costs much more as well. The fusion cannons on command and engine might be better at destroying the shield section while shields are down thanks to their higher precision and range.

Though, since you already have large AP drivers, and researching Neutronium, that discussion is kind of moot : put the stormers in the mediums to drop the shields, and the large AP drivers in the large turret to focus the shield section as soon as shields are down.

The other large turret weapons are probably not worth the research cost, since your Fusion Armor CR have only one large turret, and your Fusion War CR only have 2.

[Maerlyn]

Hi Bluetemplar,

yep, the answer is pretty late, but thanx anyway, and yep, the greetings were going towards you

[BlueTemplar]

You know how you start thinking about something, get carried away, only to realize it's pretty much pointless, but still go on anyway?