So do you get into space war with the other human factions?

[ulzgoroth]

Human space ships for much of the game are reportedly helpless against aliens. So are they going to be needing combat capability for use against hostile Earth factions, or is there no real reason to bother sticking guns on them?

[ExavierMacbeth]

Define "Helpless"
I am in 2036 at the moment and I have a 3 ship group that has the same combat power as some of the smaller ships. I haven't actually launched an attack yet (waiting for an attack window since my drives are too slow to run them down). Basically I am going to see if I can sneak a nuclear tipped torpedo through they point defense through saturation attack (lots of little missiles fired at the same time).

So far the other factions have been too busy stealing eachothers ships to really start a proper space fight, or their designs run out of fuel and end up drifting. I think the biggest reason to have early ships is so you can send council to space and mess with enemy space assets.

As for your guns question... I would honestly do clusters of missiles on early ships you don't plan to take into combat... If an enemy does attack them there is a chance for you to land enough hits anyway to at least make it a mutual kill. But then I arm everything any time I can so I might be a little biased :P

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

Define "Helpless"

Can't do, I'm going on ambient forum information. My game hasn't progressed far enough - nobody has a space dock yet. (Nobody but me even has built a platform yet.)

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

Define "Helpless"

Can't do, I'm going on ambient forum information. My game hasn't progressed far enough - nobody has a space dock yet. (Nobody but me even has built a platform yet.)

lol I will let you know once I hit something. My target is still about 3 months out from earth orbit :P

[DeciNinja]

Early human warships can defeat smaller alien craft. For your first intercept, I believe missiles are the best weapon, but railguns and lasers become viable in a bit. Just make sure to outnumber them at least 3 to 1.

As for space war against humans: it's lawless territory up there. Just shoot who you hate and they'll shoot you back if they can.

[VoiD]

Yeah, even the very first missile can take down alien craft.

As long as they don't miss that is, they are not very fast so if the alien craft manages to dodge them, you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

But they do hit pretty hard.

Haven't gotten a railgun to land a hit yet on those quick alien ships

[ExavierMacbeth]

Hah yea not so helpless... My first Alien ship kill was caused by a swarm of Rattler Defense Missiles used in attack mode.

Unfortunately the tooltips on missile speeds seem to be off... somehow the torpedos that can accelerate at 2.5g were FASTER than the defense missiles with 7.5g acceleration. So my nuclear torpedos all died to the point defense weapons... the 60 defense missiles i fired to cover the torpedos originally eventually caught up with the poor alien ship.

No losses on my side at least.

[DeciNinja]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

Unfortunately the tooltips on missile speeds seem to be off... somehow the torpedos that can accelerate at 2.5g were FASTER than the defense missiles with 7.5g acceleration.

I suspect this is down to the missiles' dV. Torpedoes have a lot while defense missiles have little.

[JonBolds]

Originally posted by DeciNinja:

As for space war against humans: it's lawless territory up there. Just shoot who you hate and they'll shoot you back if they can.

Except for stations. Don't kill 50 servants on a space station, that's equivalent to nuking new york.

[corisai]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

I am in 2036 at the moment and I have a 3 ship group that has the same combat power as some of the smaller ships.

This is mean "Helpless". Until you're capable to fight their 1k battleships. ;)