Need Help with Privateers

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2936 days, 6 hours, 27 minutes ago

Need Help with Privateers

I've read here and on Donovan's that the right answer to privateers is offense-offense-offense. I'm playing as cyborg and so I tried that and started hitting my opponent with overwhelming force, laying down minefields as I advance, but he countered by laying in big fleets unfueled at some of his worlds and when my attack groups arrive he issues rob missions and refueling from cloaking ships. I researched again and the answer was to transfer all but one unit of my fuel down to the newly conquered world and set 'beam up fuel' as my mission, so I can fight him if he doesn't run off after the rob. Instead all my ships got robbed and tow captured before combat. I'm out of ideas at this point. I've still got a substantial edge in fleet size, but I can't attack, and I can't hang back... Can anybody help?

2936 days, 5 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Want to hear any responses from smart players because I was wracking my brain about this a few months back and couldn't figure out a good strategy.

This was the best I could come up (unfortunately not to far from the beat the snot out of them camp);

A task force running forward and heading deep into Priv space. Hit him in his back yard and stay unpredictable. Just cause damage, force him to have to standup and fight, don't hit him at the planets he's taken, hit him at the planets he's building from. The more ships you can draw in dealing with this force the better. But that's just my 2 cents and I didn't flesh it out much more than that because I realized it was unrealistic for my situation... I was going to need about 10 Virgos and 15 Cobols to keep it realistic... But the Borg could do a very similar tactic using scores of Fireclouds.

2936 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

If possible, make friends with the fascists and get them to give you a ship with a glory device. Then you want to clone the hell out of it and have each of your ships towing one with them. When the privateers try to attack the ship pops and if it doesn't destroy them, it will give your fleet the chance to engage which will almost certainly destroy them. Other than that, I would need more information on what ships he is using and his tactics to give you a better strategy.

2936 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Feint towards one planet and land on another. Make sure all your ships are fueled and go in groups of 4. Your Biocides and Annihilation class hold a ton of fuel, so if you fill up, move in groups and keep him guessing which planet you are going to hit, much harder for him.

Keep doing the mine fields. The Cyborg should make decent money over time, so you can afford a lot of mines. Mark 4 torpedos are plenty for his main craft, the Meteor class.

If he has a large fleet of empty ships there, don't stay at the planet. Tow one or two of his top ships in an unexpected direction with your entire fleet. He can't follow you easily to refuel and if you have laid a minefield first, then he can't move without dying. Keep the mine field up and his whole fleet is useless because it can't move. So you just go along and take all his other planets and ignore the big fleet one.

2935 days, 22 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Use Quietus Cruiser WITHOUT beams to lay mines, he can not rob you with such no beam Quietus* if he get one as he can´t rob without beams. Move deep into his space and lay more mines.
Beside mines there is not much you can do. Lokis and GD would be nice, but you can´t build them on your own.

If it is too late to escape one of his traps, try to get rid of all your remaining fuel! He will rob you anyway, but if he can not refuel with your ship, he might end up with your ship, but its harmless as his robbing fleet is out of fuel and stucked. That will force him to bring more fuel and you have a chance he hit a mine. It will not save your ship, but it will create a fuel problem for him and prevent a direct counter attack.

*edit

2935 days, 18 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Excuse my, Spacesquad, I am interested in the topic.

I do not understand this that you say "Use Quietus Cruiser WITHOUT beams to lay mines, he can not rob you with that ship if he get one as he can´t rob without beams. Move deep into his space and lay more mines."

Do you say that if I make a Tranquility without beams it will not be robbed by the Privateer?

Is this true?

Greetings.

2935 days, 17 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

no he means if the privateer robs your tranquility and takes it over he will not be able to perfrom the rob mission back at you with your own ship since rob requires you to have a ship with beams... frieghters cannot rob etc.

2935 days, 17 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

No jaba, he says that it can't rob if the ship had been captured :P

My advice notorius. Extra big minefields and Attack his planets with a cube + LSDF full of colonist. When you get the planet drop all the colonist and set your cube to beam up fuel. Why? You will load fuel by ship id. So if you attack with more ships the other ships will not receive fuel and will be towcaptured. And why the LSDF? A fueless ship can only beam up fuel from his own planets. He will probably drop clans from his cloacked ships the next turn after your attack and you will lose the planet forbidding you to beam up fuel. Is important too to change the friendly code of the planet after the attack, if you don't do it he will be abble to match friendlys with the planet and beam up fuel with a lower id ship before you can do it leaving again your ship fueless and losing it.

Regards,

Nite

2935 days, 17 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Thxs Halion,

:D :D :D I was very astonished, now I see the matter clear, I feel like idiot :D :D :D

Edit: Joder con el traductor on-line! Luego me lo explicas bien, porfa.

2935 days, 17 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Hi

I think it means:

if a privaterr captures (rob+tow mision) "that" tranquility (without laser),
he can not do the mission rob-ship withl that ship.

good idea.

2935 days, 17 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

yes same way you can build ships without torp tube if you need to go sweep a lot of crystal mines away so if they capture t they cannot use it to mine you more :)

2935 days, 17 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The short answer is to reach as far under your shorts as possible, grab tight and kiss your a$$ goodbye. The Borg are notoriously bad at dealing with the Privateers on their own. The one thing you HAD going for you was that the Privateers do not have a cost effective ship in their fleet to take out your planets. That is, a Meteor Class Blockade Runner can not defeat a planet with about 250 defense posts on it. If he got a cube from you, that advantage is gone though. He should be able to march through your territory slowly, but certainly.

Your most attractive solution right now is to immediately send an ambassador to the Crystals. Invite them to team up with you to lay webs and catch the Privateer ships. In exchange, he can give you a SB in his territory and you can build him some Fireclouds. If you can use a B200 probe to get to him, it will all go over well. You give it to him, he sends it back. You give him a Firecloud or a Quietus with 250 MkVII torpedoes aboard and go fishing. The entire process takes about 7-12 turns if you are efficient, and should be the end of your Privateer troubles. If that is not an option, you can make the same offer to the Robots. They lay standard minefields, but at 1/4 the cost. If you control the minefields, you can just wait until his MBRs that are already in place run out of fuel as they cloak. Just keep all your ships in deep space and moving slowly until then. You can do this with the Colonies as well. If you give him Biocides with plenty of fighters aboard, he will be able to sweep Privateer mines from a distance for you, clearing the way for your own minefields to dominate, giving you a similar tactical situation to the Robot agreement.

Beyond that, the Feds and Lizards both make the Loki, which will take the Privateers out of cloak so that you can hammer him when he goes to steal your stuff. But they either have to get them to you, or you do the probe thing, build them a SB, then have them produce some fr you. But after the ship limit, this is just not feasible unless they are willing to use priority builds to do it. Same goes for the glory ships from the Fascists.

Of all these options, the Crystal one is the best.

If none of those options is reasonable due to distance or bad relations, you will have to rely upon your own arsenal. You have a few tactics at your disposal that can complicate his goals...

Understand how the Rob mission works. He will be draining your ships of fuel and cargo beginning with the lowest ID ship you have at a given location up to the max capacity of the ships he has running the mission. if he does not have enough ships, he can not go for your throat. He will have to let the opportunity pass or take a chance, based on what he thinks you will be doing that turn.

Remember that even the Privateers, with all their stealth and mobility have limited resources too. he has lots of little guys flittering around like flies. But they are not innumerable. If you drop a surprise minefield of 280 markVII or 224 markVIII torpedoes, right in the thick of his actions, he is going to lose some ships. If this happens often enough, he will have to take a more measured approach to your territory. He will be calculating your moves constantly, you should do the same. Assume that he has MBRs parked on your planets. Keep your waypoints more than 81 light years when leaving a planet, forcing him to brave much more of your minefield if he really wants to tow. Intercept freighters with Fireclouds or cubes when they arrive at a dangerous planet. If he has only one MBR there, he will go for the freighter - and you will be there to make sure he gets a black eye.

Be unpredictable. Change course for no apparent reason. Alternate starbase friendly codes to from NUK to mkt on some turns with it on primary orders: Force a Surrender. You may catch a ship. Chunnel your ships unexpectedly. Scoop up a minefield with a low ID ship after it has been there for a few turns. If you know he is about to tow your cube, have it beam up fuel from the planet below. Then, intercept it with a large Deep Space Freighter full of fuel - normally a suicidal move, it can rescue your ship if he has insufficient MBRs to handle the second ship's fuel capacity. He has to make decisions based on your most likely actions constantly. If your actions are not easy to predict, he can not be as bold - especially if he has been burnt by your moves in the past.

All ships that can defeat - or even injure an MBR are on PE Privateer all the time. All freighters are on PE Cyborg, forcing them to fight you back if he gets one in a tight spot.

These are only tactics, however. You will need resources at your disposal to make tactics possible. Lots of fuel. Lots of torpedoes for mine fields. Lots of ships for maneuvering. Lots of defense posts on all planets. And so on.

Good luck.

2935 days, 17 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Had the same problem in a game being the Borg. My advice: fly to another direction with a Firecloud and chunnel everything you have far away from the Priv. Then just build 300 defense posts on each important planet (easy with the Borg) so that an MCBR will lose against it.

No ships in the area -> nothing to steal -> planets to heavily defended for the Priv -> nothing to capture

Borg VS Priv is one of the hardest matchups (I guess EE vs Priv is even more worse) and you need a partner, lots & lots of minefields or you just retreat and fight somewhere else. The Borg are perfect for this.

2935 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The borg are one of the stronger races against the privateers (at least compared to the other "big" races). I'll assume you know how to do the tow-drop-chunnel trick, otherwise you'll have to read up on that (the wiki mentioned elsewhere has some info I think).

You either need a loki (trade) or an ion storm - either will do, and with the huge amounts of ion storms in the games I'm playing in, thats not really a problem to get access to.

1) Place a firecloud inside the ion storm (or next to a loki) - warp 0 and fuel (you'll have to chunnel to it). Also put an annihilation with gamma bombs and disrupters (and a ton of torps) at that position. Mission kill or PE privateers

2) Do a tow-drop-chunnel on a planet that you expect the privateers to stockpile a bunch of cloaked/empty MBR's - the target of the chunnel is the firecloud in the ion storm (or near a loki)

3) Watch the privateers cry in pain, as you are now the owner of all those MBR's

After that, mix up your game, and sometimes do a chunnel and sometimes do an actual attack. The privateers won't know when to attempt to rob you, and everytime he makes the wrong choice, he either looses a planet/starbase, or one or more MBR's.

Regards

2935 days, 16 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

A short bit on the tow-drop-chunnel, since I couldn't find the information on the wiki page.

- A firecloud cannot chunnel if it is being tow'ed
- If a ship towing another ship runs out of fuel, it will drop the tow lock

These two bits combined are what works the magic. Do the following

1) Set your firecloud to warp 0, and the friendlycode so it matches that of a firecloud that you wish to chunnel to (ordinary chunnel). You can use the UI to check that the chunnel will actually work

2) Now use another ship to tow the firecloud above to the position where you wish to initiate a chunnel FROM. Since you are now towing - the firecloud above can no longer chunnel... let us fix that

3) Ensure that the towing ship has just enough fuel (but no more than that), to arrive at the target location. It should end up with 0 fuel.

Now what is going to happen is this

1) The firecloud will be towed to the chosen location
2) The towing ship will run out of fuel, and drop the tow-lock
3) The firecloud can now chunnel, and will chunnel to the firecloud it has as a target
4) Any enemy ships that are cloaked or has warp 0 are chunnelled along

If you just happen to arrive inside an Ion Storm, those cloaked ships will be decloaked - and your Gamma/Disrupter equipped ship can attack them ;)

Regards

2935 days, 16 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Ok I have to bookmark this thread now... ^^

2935 days, 15 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

That trick with chunneling is fine if you have an ion storm handy and you are willing to spend a build making an Annihilation that has but one purpose (gamma bombs are horrid for any other duty) and you actually know a place where cloaked MBRs are parked long enough for you to manage this for some reason and there are no minefields to prevent your approach and so on. But it is cool when it works.

2935 days, 15 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The Borg is the WEAKEST race to deal with Privateers, I don't see how anyone can say they are not. Actually, Empire then the Borg.

Colonials have Cobols which help and the Robots can lay 4x mines.

This is where the diplomacy part of the game really helps you out. There are 4 races in the game that can help you.

1. Lizards - Loki
2. Feds - Loki
3. Crystals - Webs
4. Fascists - Glory Device
5. Empire - Dark Sense

That's not bad. If one of those guys is your neighbor then you should strike up a conversation about teaming up.

If you are truly on your own then you have a problem. You need to identify the Privateer HW and go straight to it. You cannot stop at any planets on your way there, it is simply not an option. Once you stop at a planet you are done, you will lose your big ships. Even the beam up fuel trick isn't going to help you, the only thing that will do is ensure that the towing MBR / BR4/5 is blown to bits after he tows you away, but next turn you'll be robbed clean in deep space and that will be that.

What I would do if I was you is first find the Privy HW.

If you don't know where it is you should ask the Empire for help.

Once you know where it is, then move in 5 or 6 Fireclouds and protect their advance with heavy minefields. Privy will have to basically try to destroy each fire cloud and if you have big enough minefields he will have to sacrifice ships to do it... remember Graviton ships will explode even after a single mine hit.

So you take a pack of 5 or 6 fireclouds. Load at least 2 or 3 of them with as many MK7s as you can, big enough so even when you travel 81 lyrs, you are still within the mine field. So you should preferably be able to leap your way into his territory and dropping a 150 lyr mine field every time, kind of like a leap frog type of trade off, one scoops the next one drops, etc.. etc.. Also I would tow one with the other, so if you are hit by a counter mine, only the lead firecloud gets hit.

And if you run low on fuel, just chunnel in some more, no problem.

Anyway, once you are 1 turn away from his HW, then chunnel in your strike fleet and finish him off.

Don't send too many ships to take him out though, because you will most likely lose whatever ships you send to his HW after you destroy it.

I would use a Biocide with X-ray lasers for the actual starbase attack. I say this, because it will cost him lots of money to put fighters on it once he steals it and also they won't be able to use it as a mine sweeper.

So for that reason I would always use Biocides to take out his big starbase planets.

Hitting his HW is obviously not necessarly a huge problem later in the game, so I don't know what stage in the game you are at right now, but maybe his HW is not necesarly the place to hit, one way or the other you need to identify his important planets.

If you do not have that information than I see no reason to attack him, because you can't afford to just guess, because everytime you go to a planet, you will lose that ship.

So perhaps you can expand on your situation a bit more... why do you need to fight the Privy, how far along is the game, things like that.

I would really talk to the Empire and see if you can get that info, the Empire can identify every single key planet and then once you know that, you can hit him where it hurts the most.

Remember, the beauty of this game is that its a 3 part game, combat, resource management, and most importantly, diplomacy!

For the Borg to fight the Privy effectively, they must excel in the Diplomacy part of the game, it's very important.

And last but not least, patience! That is the key, you can't rush into it.

2935 days, 14 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

> The Borg is the WEAKEST race to deal with Privateers,
> I don't see how anyone can say they are not. Actually, Empire then the Borg.

Well, I guess its always a matter of personal experience, but so far I've yet to encounter a privateer that I couldn't crush as the borg. And the empire has an advantage over the robot/rebel/colonial players - they know where the starbases are, so they don't have to waste any carriers attacking non-base planets.

So I'll just have to politely disagree with your statement about the borg.

Regards

2935 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The Borg do not have any natural defenses against the Privateers, I don't see how they are not one of the weakest races.

1. Feds - Loki
2. Liz - Loki
3. Bird man - Cloaking
4. Fascists - Glory
6. Borg - No Defense, Firecloud can help a little
7. Crystals - Webs
8. Empire - No Defense, Dark sense can however point out key planets
9. Robot - 4 X Mine fields
10. Rebels - No Defense
11. Colonies - Cobol and can sweep away Privy counter mines with little effort

I feel that the Empire is the worst race in the entire game, by themselves they are complete and utter crap. With allies they can certainly be very helpful. So automatically the Empire is the absolute worst race to deal with the Privateers, they have absolutely nothing of value.

Borg is next, they have nothing special to deal with Privy either. Just because you have crushed every Privy player you have come across when you have used the Borg doesn't mean anything. How do you know your Privy opponent was any good to begin with?

Also, it very much depends on when the Borg encounter the Privy. If the Privy are next to the Borg in the beginning, the Borg are absolutely toast. There is nothing they can do. They don't yet have the economical advantage or the Chunnel network setup to out mine lay the Privateers, so what can they really do?

Later in the game, after the ship limit, no one threatens the Borg, They are all over the map, they couldn't care less if one of their hubs is taken out or threatened, they basically have 20 homeworlds at that point. So I assume we aren't talking about that stage of the game.

And while its nice to know where the Privy starbases are, I'd take the Robots 4x minefields or the Colonial mine sweeping ability any day of the week vs the Privy.

2935 days, 14 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Just to add - the Robot has no real issue with the Privateer as soon as he has his economy going and enough Mark VII ships to drop enough minefields. He still has issues attacking though, due to the lack of intel but the Priv may for sure not to be able to breach the massive minefields without

a) a much better ecology

b) a fleet of stolen ships that are better suited to destroy thousands of mines

In my oppinion, the Priv can quite easily take out:

- Empire

- Borg

- Rebel

and to some extend the Colonies (because of the Cobol and those pesty Patriots). Of course it all depends on your skill, if you are much better than the Priv you might win of course. The Borg together with the EE imho is the weakest race against the Priv, because you rely on a relative small amount of big ships while the Priv swarms you with 40-50 MCBRs. You just cant be everywhere.

2935 days, 11 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

My specific circumstance is VERY late game. I stepped in to replace a borg player on turn 95, and it's turn 108 now. I control 257 worlds right now as well as 285 ships. I have maxed defense on the bulk of my worlds, and the only surviving races as of my arrival were Rebels (5 worlds remaining, player dropped, so I ate them) EE (around 50 worlds, was actively attacking me, he didn't respond to diplomacy, and so I've essentially broken his back, he's down to 26 worlds now, and is missing about 2 in 3 turns) Birds (114 worlds, allied) crystals (20 remaining worlds, 18 warships to his name, and unresponsive to diplomacy.. I'm holding out hope, so I'm not attacking him) and finally the privateers, who were at about 100 worlds, but is now down to 62. The first few turns were unopposed, as he was busy fighting the crystals and the birds while the borg was absent. He already had a lot of cube ships and fireclouds he'd apparently grabbed while the borg were inactive, so the acquisition of the 10 or so cubes from me is painful but not a total game changer (I still have about 60 more cubes plus all my support warships) I've taken out probably 15 or 20 high population worlds with high tech starbases and max fighters, but given the stage of the game he's got a couple dozen more at least before I can knock him out that way. Bringing a lot of extra clans to prevent the counterattack on the ground is a done deal... that's certainly been part of his strategy. Also the tow-drop-chunnel will help, as I can pull his fuelless ships to a starbase on force surrender and grab the lot, right? Given my access to the bird allies, my remaining strategy at this point is to get him to use his ships to scout privateer worlds so I know which ones don't have piles of unfueled ships sitting around them, so I can run over the top of them. Thanks for all the advice guys, I'll have to try some of these strategies out, but keep 'em coming, because the privs are a problem in ALL my games!

2932 days, 8 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

just some more mindfood:

- empty ships can not intercept
- ship to foreign ship transfers come after rob but before movement ;)
- cloak comes before rob
- cloaked ships can not be robbed
- stolen and not yet repaired ships have a super low crew (torpers will catch them back!)
- ship to foreign ship transfer comes before combat
- high id ships are the last to be attacked by nuk if all are empty. (if all with highest battlevalue, i guess)
- drastic cargo changes make it nearly impossible to precisely tow - ending up empty.
- and as always: one minehit means death to a meteor

good luck

2932 days, 8 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

I'm pretty sure that you cannot rob a ship of its Fighters or Torps:

All Privateer ships set to Rob will rob as much as they can, starting with fuel (until their tank is full or there is no more fuel to rob), then all megacredits are stolen (each ship can hold a maximum of 10,000 MCs) and then in order Molybdenum, Tritanium, Duranium, Supplies and Colonists until the cargohold of the robbing ship is full.

That would be sweet though if you could :)

Also cloaked ships cannot be robbed, but it is a Host setting, so be sure to check that setting in custom games if you plan on playing a cloaking race. By default it is turned off, so by default you cannot rob a cloaked ship.

Cloaking is the only way to escape the Rob mission.

2932 days, 8 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

and countermeasures for an empty fuel tank
are 'beam up fuel' and 'ship to foreign ship' ...

how about the refuel order for starbases?

sure about the torps?
no! you're right - the cubes i stole still had torps - and my cargo was not full..
will edit that.

2932 days, 7 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

1. Also fighters, so Torps and Fighters cannot be robbed.

Note: If the Victim has its Carrier or Torp ship towed to a wolf pack in deep space, they can Jettison their fighters / torps BEFORE they are robbed of their fuel, so at least that way the Prviy gets an empty hull and no extra goodies :)

2. Ship to Foreign ship is interesting and I'm not sure about this one... needs to be tested unless someone knows for sure... I know one fact but I don't know the second:

a) Ship A cannot transfer to Enemy/Ally ship B if Ship B is cloaked

Question: Does it matter if Ship A is cloaked?

If it does matter, then it is reasonable to believe that if Ship A has to be uncloaked, that it will also be robbed of all its fuel thus there wont' be anything left to transfer over after the Rob mission.

IF Ship A CAN be cloaked however, then yes, this would work.

3. Starbase Refuel happens AFTER movement, so its no good.

And it still holds true, as far I know, that the ONLY way to escape the Rob mission is by cloaking.

Beaming up fuel from a planet still has you get robbed, but you just beam up the fuel after you get robbed.

Its a fine tactic I suppose, but as a Privy player I hardly ever really bank on capturing a ship right from orbit. I always pull the ship away to a wolf pack or a relay Graviton ship if the wolf pack isn't close enough. As a Privy you have so many of these graviton ships that sacrificial lambs are not really that great of a loss.

2925 days, 15 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Just wanted to mention here that the Rob failure message is very fun. Something about an airlock door getting jammed. Flavor is a wonderful thing.

Also, the transfer from foreign ship can actually work indefinitely if you have something like two Darkwings helping out, and you have minefield cover. You set one Darkwing to intercept the ship that they Privateers are towing. The other one cloaks. Intercepting Darkwing destroys the towing ship. On the next turn, you set the other Darkwing to intercept and the first one cloaks again. Never done it, but it should certainly work. Just one more reason why a game of skilled players is the best defense against the Privateers.

2925 days, 14 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

I'd like to hope that any Privy commander worth his salt would always tow an enemy ship at least 82 lyrs from any enemy planet :)

2925 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

And anyone worth his pepper would then ensure that the privateer would have to fly through > 82 LY of minefields - giving the privateer a 1 - 0.99^82 ~= 56% chance of blowing up :)

2925 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Ahem, any Privateer Commander worth his uhmm... salt and pepper, would probably drop down a minefield big enough to wipe out the opposing minefield, or at least shrink it down to where the odds are much improved :)

2924 days, 20 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

^^ then the attacking cyborg commander worth his... should set his ships to minesweep to protect his fields from counter mining as much as possible.

daniel - resolute classes (or d7 / lcc) would be even a better way to go, because they are strong enough for meteor classes and have a much larger range (mass vs. fuel tank) and also an advanced cloaking device. actually one intercepting at a time should be enough - and if done randomly with two or three cloakers, it will lower the proximity of a successful cloaked intercept by a whole wolfpack.

after all - this refueling thing is a last line of defense mechanism. if ships only touch ground when they need to, and they have a high id or a cloaker flying in front to avoid the NUK trap by refueling the empty lady royales, then this should not be necessary.

actually there are very many ways you can use cloaking ships for fighting the priv..
e.g. to intercept newly stolen ships that are standing empty in space to unfuel your battle ships - then refuel them while cloaking away so that you can attack and capture them back with a big torper. a biocide with 13 or even sometimes less crew is captured immediately after the shields are down ;)

or very simply fly somewhere with p.e. but cloak and destroy all ladies, meteors or whatever shows up above a planet without attacking the planet.

2903 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

hey dave. instead of thinking of privateers like me as the problem, think of us as freeing you up to have more time to concentrate on other games. less ships to move for you = faster turns :)

2903 days, 1 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

I concur. This is a service we provide out of the kindness of our hearts, free of charge!

A thanks would be nice :)

2902 days, 17 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Well vepr, the turns in our game certainly are going fast... truly you privateers are the heroes of our time.

2868 days, 9 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

My two Fav races to play are Colonies and Priv. I could add so much to what has been said here as far as tactics but I am in a few games right now where what I would post would be helpful to my enemy, so I won't.

It is complex after all...

2864 days, 9 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Oh I think we're all here to help each other...

I doubt there are that many more Privy tactics that haven't already been discussed to death, the basis for most are the same.

While I respect your decision to not share right now because you are currently involved, I question a post that simply says...

"There's more stuff you guys don't know about that I know about, but I'm not sharing right now. Bye!"

Seems a bit pointless.

2864 days, 5 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The fact is that there are some players that do not know all that you do, which I am sure is everything about it.

Ohhhhh so sorry you had to read it. So just move on, nothing to see here.

2859 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Someone was saying a Priv commander worth his salt will tow a ship to 82 ly from the planet to a point where the wolf pack is waiting. I disagree: you might run into a mine/web field an why spend so much fuel? :)

What I like to do it tow it 2.2 ly away from the planet and meet the wolf pack there(of course is harder to plan it). This way I'm still in the warp-well and if they try to intercept either they go warp 1 and fall short, or go warp 9 and drop to the planet. And as an extra bonus, I can come back to the planet with the "liberated" ship with it's fuel tank empty and the MBRs cloaked in just 1 turn. And I'm safe from mines.

What matters the most is the economy, including PBPs. If the priv has MBRs to spare and use to tow your ships away and steal your ships, or to sacrifice to destroy a Loki or a GD ship, there's nothing you can do to him. In a normal game, there won't be more than 10 Lokis and 10 GD ships at a time once the ship limit is reached. If the priv has 20 ships(MBRs or even BR4/5 against GD) to spare against those and the ship limit is reached he will get all your fleet. If there are more than 20 anti-cloakers in game, you will be severely handicapped and probably unable to finish him anyway, so for him it will be a win anyway.

2856 days, 18 hours, 23 minutes ago

richard hendricks

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Notorius,

What is the victory condition for your game? You sound like you should be very close, especially if you are Full Ally with the Birds. Don't fight the privateers on their own terms. Remember, the enemy's gate is down! (ender's game reference!)

2853 days, 20 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

On my very first game I had the misfortune of dealing with a very capable Priv player (madreams). He robbed me blind early in the game and demanded Biocides. (at turn 6 I think) Well my pride took hold but he ended up besting all of us. Having played (badly) Priv in a game to try to understand the race better I appreciate how difficult it can be.

I understand what a pain in the A** Privateers can be, but also understand how much fun it is to be the wolf! :-)

2853 days, 18 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

Geoff, I am glad that you did not sour on the game after that. I have played the Privateers a few times. Their style can be addictive. In almost any situation it is the Privateers player who has something up his sleeve, and that is fun. But I can only play them once in awhile before returning to a team with more substantive builds and firepower. Most players are not sufficiently prepared for the Pirates of Orion. But those who know how to can shut you down absolutely. I would say that playing them yourself and perhaps getting the snot kicked out of you is the best way to be prepared for them. Are you going to try using them again soon?

2851 days, 11 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Need Help with Privateers

The main point is that you can read all you want about the privy, but the best way to know how to fight them is to play as them for a couple of games and master their common tactics and thus understanding them.

Heck sometimes you runinto someone that does a great job repelling your efforts and you get ideas from them and use those ideas to defend yourself from Privy in other games.