Ship repairing

[hlo]

Currently we can build carriers to Repair Fighter. But there is no way (as far as I know) to build a mobile space dock to speed up ship repair.

Another equipment that we can put into the carrier hull? Some colony upgrade called "Repair Yard". Xeno logic is getting harder so we can use something to repair the ships close to the front lines.

[Cory Trese]

Fall back to green territory, exploit the map design to find repair zones, concentrate on Fast Repair, avoid damage, improve Repair values on ships... or just avoid the damage in the first place.

[khamya9]

My favorite solution is to self destruct the damaged ship and buy a new one.

But I also use far fewer cruisers than fighters for this reason.

[Cory Trese]

Cruisers do their best work in ranged combat, focusing on mass driver Xenos.

This lets your Fighters close range and engage the hyperwarp torpedo Xeno ships.

But, that's just one basic strategy. It depends a lot on your Cruiser designs.

[En1gma]

I have a certain fondness for a crazy high powered Railgun Cruiser on each system that could be attacked. It's nice to have a high powered last line of defense for those brutal World Killers- it's nice to knock them out in one or two hits instead of whittling away at them, losing population and quality in the process. Plus they always stay in faction space, so they're always being repaired.

[khamya9]

I've yet to be impressed with torpedoes

On a level 4 cruiser with 4 captain and 10 ship points into torps, the bridge that gives +2 DMG and +1 hyper damage firing squid torps with torp spread 1 at level 2 ai ships I average 9 damage with a record high of 16.

Meanwhile that same cruiser with 2 captain and 4 ship points in guns and one of the low end rail guns averages 19 per shot with a high of 27, and doesn't need fuel to do it.

I also keep mine as defenders where they stay reasonably well repaired. If they take too much damage I either pull them back or self destruct and replace.

[Brutus Aurelius]

I have Tamalin Mk 6 Battlecruisers with 30-80 Torpedo damage, and they barely miss their attacks

[Cory Trese]

It depends a lot on what you've researched and what type of designs you are building. I am certainly fond of very high cost Battlecruisers for system defense -- why send 4 fighters when one ship can do the job?

I take advantage of the 4MP fighters to rove between battlegroups, but leave Carriers stationary. They tend to stay in Green and use Repair and Refuel as a team, while fighter ships come and go.

Battlecruisers with 500 Hull and 60 average damage is definitely achievable =)

[AA]

Cory Trese that's exactly what i do! 500 hull 50+ damage battlecruisers

[khamya9]

Can you post a build for a decent torpedo cruiser for the early to mid game, because I have tried everything I can find and can't get one over 10 avg damage, but even with ju k railguns they run into the 20s early on.

And please consider re-jiggering the Templar defender and wolf cruiser default builds, because both deal double or triple damage with their rail guns as with their torps. Given the torp needs fuel and the rail gun is infinite it always surprised me how the torpplinks for 6 to 9 damage while the railgun hits for up to 27. Granted the wolf uses heavy barrage, but still, their torps are pathetic.

[khamya9]

Dec 10, 2014 15:49:29 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

It depends a lot on what you've researched and what type of designs you are building. I am certainly fond of very high cost Battlecruisers for system defense -- why send 4 fighters when one ship can do the job?

Please post a cruiser build that can kill 8 enemies a turn like the 4 fighters can. Since the cruiser is paying more mass, cp, maintenance, and fuel for its attacks compared to the fighter it should get something in return right?

Since the fighter attacks twice, it only needs to be doing g 35 damage per hit to outperforms 60 Damage cruiser. That's before factoring in the way two attacks double crit chances and the benefits of exp. And before the "war of attrition" math on wasted overkill damage.

Example, take three 370 HP xeno ships and compare your 60 dmg cruiser to  a dual hitting 35dmg fighter. Your 7t . shot kills xeno a but damage is "wasted" in overkill. You have to deal 1260 total damage to kill 1110 HP worth of enemies. The fighter kills xeno a on turn 6, and gets one shot on xeno b that same turn. The cruiser kills b on turn 14, but by 14 the fighter is 6 attacks into xeno c. E_trapolate out into the hordes of enemies we fight.

 Now, remember that since the cruiser shoots once a turn, it faces a counter attack every time, potentially 4 attacks for every 1 of its own until the first xeno dies, and at best 2 vs 1 when its fighting the last. The fighter only faces one counter for every two of its own shots (even on rounds it shoots two enemies since the first dies before retaliating) and it kills the second xeno one shot sooner and the third three shots sooner than the cruiser. Again, extrapolate out the reduced enemy attacks across the enemy hordes we fight.

Granted, I specifically picked numbers to make the point. So consider this a worst case scenario for the cruiser, not an average one. Still, cruisers have some serious mathematical disadvantages over fighters.

[En1gma]

A lesson I've learned from Heroes of Steel is that the higher the base damage, the less effect soak has on the overall damage...

If your weapon on a Fighter deals 30 damage and the enemy has 15 armor/soak per attack, two attacks will net you 30 damage.
Now if your Railgun deals 60 damage, and the enemy has 15 armor/soak per attack, one attack will deal 45 damage, effectively beating out the Fighter's damage.

This is a gross approximation, but a decent example of how overcoming soak can make a difference.

[Awesomdary]

All this talk of fighters and cruisers... My transport ships are the bulk of my defending force in the mid game, one shot kills and on to the next, criticals for up to around 125 damage... And Transport ships get 21 hp per durability, only downside, they can't use any crew or structure, but who cares with the damage they still put out... Then just have 2 refuel carriers with torpedoes behind them and a couple of 4 move fighters to mop up any stragglers, and blockade the planet from enemy bombardments.

[Deleted]

I try to make my ships last as long as possible to accumulate maximum XP. For this reason, all of my ships are high-end, even the fighters. Furthermore, I only leave green space when to attack invading Xeno ships two or three spaces out, or to invade Xeno colonies. I do keep my fighters in front of my carriers, however, because they can be repaired much quicker.

[khamya9]

That is a neat strategy. Can you post one of your combat transport designs?

@enigma, when I quote damage numbers, I always talk damage actually received by the enemy, not damage in theory. For example, in theory, my main mid game cruiser design has a max of 29 damage with its torps and 17 with its railgun. In actuality it does 9 with the torps and 20+ with the railgun against most enemies. So I tend to call it a 9 damage ship.

When I compare a 35 damage fighter and 60 damage cruiser I don't mean base stats on the gear. I mean when you shoot, what damage number appears on average.