How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

« Back

1063 days, 23 hours, 3 minutes ago

How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its virtually impossible to move. is there something im missing?.

1063 days, 22 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Minesweeping.

1063 days, 22 hours, 47 minutes ago

zenic

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

heavy ships stacked with supplies towing eachother and heavy phasers

1063 days, 22 hours, 43 minutes ago

commander koski

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

The answer is many, many heavy phasers. A bit over 50 of those in one area of space suffices. For this to succeed early on in the game in practice you need hard strategic choices and long term planning: it is always important to scout your neighbours early on and if there are hostile Robots or Crystalline, you need a big amount of heavy phasers fast. I have a victorious encounter with a hostile robot neighbour who also was a good player while playing classic Fascists in the Vehrnoch sector http://planets.nu/#/sector/75081 - check for example turn 57 and the vicinity of P#205 to see my hodgepodge of sweepers.

I usually build a Starbase on ambhibian planet and build there low tech ships with tech 1 engines armed with heavy phasers and either use them directly via towing or recycle them in another starbase to equip better ships with heavy phasers (In Vehrnoch I recall I made Transwarp in another base, recycled them in another where I built HP ships). This is what I also did against the Crystalline in Uri sector: http://planets.nu/#/sector/115490

The Diplomatic answer would be easy: ask the Missing Colonies of Man for help. They can sweep minefields with fighters easily. I also got Crystalline help while fighting the Robots in the Vehrnoch sector, it was important so I could sweep without fear of interceptors.

1063 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes ago

commander koski

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

@Zenic gave also a good answer - with heavy ships there is more room to play; I for example killed off a Robot using heavy phaser Rushes: just a few at first, but the trick was that my opponent was counting on minefields to serve as defence, but I just flew straight into those fields. A few minehit don't hurt if there are a lot of supplies on board. My opponent didn't have time to react and build enough heavy carriers for defence as he had used all his beginning resources to build freighter fleets, starbases and minefields, and I was soon doing RGA on his homeworld.

Good times! Reminiscing all this makes me remember why I love this game so much. <3

1063 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes ago

commander koski

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

The challenge then becomes that at the same time you are spending awfully lot of resources to build heavy phasers but you also need to build a mobile fleet capable of winning battles and constantly conquering space. My biggest fear in this game is to become immobile and that is what happens if you sit in a minefield or web OR have spent all your resources on wrong ships and don't have the ships to attack or the logistics to keep them going...

1063 days, 19 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Or can you ignore them?

Put a lot of sweepers on your borders but don't advance. Defend heavily and don't allow them to a point where they can keep laying but don't advance.

With an aggressive defence the Robots may run out of fuel.

Or Team work.

Fight them to a standstill and find out who is on their other border and try and convince them to attack and divide their resources.

Contact the Feds and get them to super refit your beams to max.

1063 days, 19 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Good advices so far.

Hit them early and straight or ally with the Colonial .. their Colonial Minesweeping power will clean your pathway to his homeworld.

If both is not possible ... sweep like hell and use the tow hint to surprise him :) Lizzards are great to tow throught minefields due to their 150% damage level.

1063 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Also, if you are Lizards or Feds you may have the financial capability to literally match him mine for mine.

Don't be afraid to counter mine as either of these two races especially to support counter attacks or to suddenly flip the advantage of local minefield dominance (this applies to all races, but Feds/Lizards have the cash to literally go toe to toe with robots, especially if good sweeping is also included in the calculation).

1063 days, 12 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Talk with Colonial :-D

1062 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Thanks guys. Some really good info.

1062 days, 17 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

If you have better fleet and better economy than the robot - You should have no problems. But if you have developed too slowly - no decent fleet, and undeveloped economy, and you are facing turn 30 robot with 20 heavy carriers coming for you - prepare to die. ;)

Number 1 rule every robot player should remember. Robot has already lost the game, if they have to use minefields primarily as defence.

1062 days, 17 hours, 22 minutes ago

macros the black

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Robots' ships have comparatively less beams than other races' ones, therefore since in the host order minesweeping comes before mines destroy mines a good torper with a reliable supply line can counter-minelay quite effectively. You'll need a combination of stacked sweepers with H.Disruptors or H.Phasers and good minelayers. The Feds are ideal for such a task (in campaign games they've got the Wild Banshee cheap ten beams sweeper too). But they'll then need the firepower to kill the Golems too.

1062 days, 17 hours, 16 minutes ago

emork the lizard king

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

A cheap and dirty trick which sometimes works: if he is about to conquer/reconquer a planet from you then set this planet to friendy code "mfX" (X can be anything). If he doesn't notice and change it then you can fly unharmed through his minefields with this code. Of course you never know when your opponent gets aware.

1062 days, 17 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

One more rule of thumb ... It's better to be the agressive player and fight on foreign ground then vice versa.

Robots must be played aggressive from beginning to get a chance in the late mid game. Means for enemies of the Robots ... be earlier or deadlier ;-)

1062 days, 16 hours, 24 minutes ago

olegboleg

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

@Macros The Black

"effectively" is relative, considering the 4x minelaying capability.

but i get what you mean. it can be nice addition. Especially, since robots tend to discard beam weapons in the early and mid game. rarely anything above disruptors.

1062 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes ago

macros the black

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Yup, against the Robots there's a lot of math to be done but combining minesweeping stacks at the right positions and heavy minelayers availability together with the large minefield limit it is possible to dent the minefields wall in order to penetrate the enemy defenses. Add to that the possibility for capital ships to try and intercept the advancing Cat's that have to get out of their own minefields to expand the wall and an organized commander can positively limit robotic initiative.

1062 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

@Frostriese said it above, but if you can simply economy the mines away. Make the mines too expensive for the Robot to maintain, whether by sweeping, countermining, or both. Sweeping is preferable, since it costs you nothing. And if you are going to be doing this, be on good terms with your other neighbor(s), otherwise the big winner in your war of mine attrition will be one of your other neighbors running right through your other front.

1062 days, 12 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

@Emork The Lizard King ""A cheap and dirty trick which sometimes works: if he is about to conquer/reconquer a planet from you then set this planet to friendy code "mfX" (X can be anything). If he doesn't notice and change it then you can fly unharmed through his minefields with this code. Of course you never know when your opponent gets aware.""

I thought that when you conquer a planet by a combat (ship-planet fight), the fcode is changed to a new random fcode. Or dou you refer to conquer/reconquer dropping clans? Thanks.

1062 days, 12 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

It is only changed when it is set to a few "special" ones like 'nuk'.

1062 days, 11 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

@Azzazzello: Are you sure about that?

It'd be nice if it was in Documentation either way.
___

@Restan22: Ground combat definitely doesn't change the FC; http://help.planets.nu/ground-attack

1062 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

The rules about friendly code changes upon capture have changed fairly recently. It would be nice if that didn't happen so much -- the game's been around since the '90s, after all -- but given that it does, the Documentation often falls behind.

1062 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

AFAIK ... nuk, att and its variation will be changed after combar (ship / ground combat). Other FCs are kept.

But even if you not use the MFX special code ... konowing the planet FC of the planet nearest to the center gives free passage, too. Thats lower the risk to be surprised by changed FC.

1053 days, 13 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: How on earth do you combat the robots minelaying? Its...

Sweeping with Vickies and/or Illwinds will attract interceptors so you can't stay still and keep certain area clear from mines that easily. It costs fuel to move your sweepers...

150ly minefield = 21500 mines = 57 Heavy Phasers = 10 Deth Speculas in warpwells = no more minefields. Have a couple of D7s to supply fuel when needed, but you don't need to cloak too often since it's pretty pointless to try to catch a cloaker from a warpwell without a cloaker.

After you have negated Cylon minefields, start laying yours. Cylons aren't really the best minesweepers and they can't use minefields to destroy yours since your sweepers sweep first before mines destroy mines.

- Admiral Thrain -