Repost of Previous:
by gene malin (Privateer) Friday, April 07, 2000 - 8:43 pm
Tell us about the best ships you use and why.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Friday, April 07, 2000 - 9:12 pm
I find early on the Missile ships give the best bang for the buck and allow you to reach out and touch your opponents farthest site if necessary. Later, in DH games a good selection of Carriers is necessary to take advantage of the free fighter buy in 184. Hidden cloak Romulans using fighters can be particulary nasty.
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by Tim Ewick (Kahless) Tuesday, April 11, 2000 - 6:44 pm
I must agree with Gene on this point. Drone cruisers and carriers add a lot of firepower to you fleet, but remember this is a game of economics also. Early on you might not fill up all of your ships until it is soon needed for AF or DF values. Then later in the game at year 177 get (FD) Free Drones for only 500 EP. Then for the next 5-7 years buy almost all drone cruisers, destroyers and frigates. You can get back your investment in one turn if you buy right. After that it is FREE income 500 EP a turn. Then do the same with (FF) Free Fighters in year 184 with your carriers. You can make up the 2500 EP investment in about 2 turns but then it to will be FREE income totaling 1200-1500 EP a turn figuring about 15-20 ships per turn. If your economy is booming then you can buy 20-30 ships which would give you plenty of firepower to conquer the cloud. Just think, how many prospecting ships, in NE terrain it would take make 2000 EP a turn? Late in the game many players have run out of prospecting. This gives you an alternative source of income and firepower.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Wednesday, April 12, 2000 - 7:55 pm
Tim, you can never buy more than 20 ships a turn. About turn 20 I tend to start scrapping so many ships(20) a turn, so that becomes my prsp income. And I always fill with at least drones, this usually doubles my DF and makes my prospecters much harder to kill.
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by Tim Ewick (Kahless) Saturday, April 15, 2000 - 3:14 pm
Gene,
I was speaking of in a DH or T game there is a BX order allowing you to Buy Extended orders. This way you could throw down 20-30 ships. Although I believe it only exists in those formats.
1-10 Free Orderlines
11-20 BO Buy Orders
21-30 BX Buy Extended Orders
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by Randy Hill (Wingman) Saturday, April 15, 2000 - 3:49 pm
Tim,
Regardless of the number of order lines that you have, you can only purchase 20 ships MAX per turn. This was confirmed by A1 in the 1st DH game when the BX became available.
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by Tim Ewick (Kahless) Sunday, April 16, 2000 - 3:32 pm
I stand corrected, A1 did not make that clear to me when I spoke with him, but then again I did not ask the question that specifically. Thank you.
This way you could throw down 20 BIG ships
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by Isidore J Baker IKE (Cloudmasters) Sunday, April 30, 2000 - 5:54 pm
C-MBB
Wish everyone could get a chance to get it in every game.
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by Paul J. West (Psi) Tuesday, August 22, 2000 - 12:08 pm
I am looking at the Seltorian Hive Ship. Has anyone ever used one of these babies fully loaded?
Was it worth the cost?
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by Robert Lafortune (Coldharbor) Tuesday, August 22, 2000 - 7:43 pm
Paul the s-hvs is more than worth the cost,It takes a bunch of little ships to take it out especially running a smaller ship with it.It just comes to late to be of great use.Bob W.
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by Donald Kelly Jernigan (Kelly) Wednesday, August 23, 2000 - 12:34 pm
Ah, back to the old arguments of 1 big ship vs. several small ships.
I guess it all boils down to what you intend on doing. As an anchor for a "crush-em-dead" fleet this would be good. The ship will require speed refits to be mobile enough and to use that infinite repair ability at battles end...and that can also be expensive.
If your looking to take territory/sites quickly and do mass PRSPing, then the large number of small ships is what you need.
The only problem with the large ship vs small fleet battle is the random amounts of damage. Your HVS can get lousy rolls; while my drone frigates can get great rolls.
Anyone ever do a battle with the HVS vs the C-MBB??? That would be epic.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Thursday, August 24, 2000 - 11:14 am
Paul, the S-HVS is a nice ship, however, lets look at its cost;
Hive Ship 600 eps
PFs 480 eps
Commandos 72 eps
T-Bombs 24 eps
TOTAL 1176 eps
For the expenditure you get 596 points of AF.
I will now buy as follows;
F-CLD 156 eps
F-CAD 194 eps 350 total
K-D6D 165 eps 515 total
K-D5D 163 eps 678 total
Z-TGC 246 eps 924 total
Z-MDC 154 eps 1078 total
Z-MMS 158 eps 1236 total
Total of 574 AF
This is how the battle goes; Turn one the HVS does an average of 298 divided by 7 for an average of 42 points of damage per ship, causing light damage or more on every ship. The cruiser squadron returns fire and does 287 points of damage to the HVS. This removes the shield -120 and does 167 points of damage causing heavy damage. The last 50 points of damage are absorbed by the PFs negating 8 of them.
Round 2; The Hive ship does 179 of damage for an average of 25 per ship, causing greivous damage on all ships. The cruisers retaliate with an average of 182. At this point all the galactic ships are as follows, CAD-Crippled, CLD-Destroyed,
D6D-Destroyed, D5D-Destroyed, Z-TGC-Heavy Damage, Z-MDC-Destroyed, Z-MMS-Destroyed. The HVS loses all remaining PFs with 93 points of damage, the other 89 are applied to the HVS which destroy it.
This was a rather bloody battle meant to emphasize a point, the Hive ship is a wonderful core ship but is very expensive to lose. Also, by the time of the HVS entry all the optionals on the cruisers should of been free even though I paid for them and while you would never use the HVS for prsp the 7 cruisers have already paid for themselves most likely a few times over since I use fleet units to prsp as it discourages raiders looking for easy pickings.
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by Randy Hill (Wingman) Saturday, August 26, 2000 - 1:08 pm
Paul, the only time that a HVS is really economical to purchase is if you have purchased Free PFs in a DH or T game. For a regular game its just not justifiable to buy one.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Saturday, August 26, 2000 - 1:19 pm
Unless of course you get the speed 6 ship event, then it makes sense.
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by Isidore J Baker IKE (Cloudmasters) Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 8:02 pm
I get one in every game.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 10:08 pm
See the above tactical note on a standard battle between a hive and normal ships.
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by Paul J. West (Psi) Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 5:37 pm
Lets say you get a speed 6 random event before Y-170. I have and went for the K-C8. Which I then sent out as a commerce raider. It was hugely succesfull. Anyone ever get this "Random Event" early on, and ponder what ship to buy in the early stages of the game?
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by Jason S. Brown (Jasonian) Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 5:42 pm
I got the buy any ship regardless of its availability on turn 3. Went for a hive ship, lucked out and it cost barely over normal. It is now a freaking monster flagship. This was in a +10 year game, so PF's came quickly, and I was able to refit and xfit the SOB. Not a bad ship.
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by Isidore J Baker IKE (Cloudmasters) Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 7:55 pm
Paul The best ship that you can get!!!
Jason I love the HVS!!!!!
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by Paul J. West (Psi) Tuesday, April 24, 2001 - 1:53 pm
What is the best ship for the Graveyard?
I have had no luck with Tugs or carriers?
DNs or BB's? or stay small and fast?
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by Jason S. Brown (Jasonian) Tuesday, April 24, 2001 - 3:57 pm
I recently had great success with a F-CC! with a PT on it. Immune to almost everything, mega bonus on prospecting and fairly tough.
I also tried an O-CVS set to mission V with a PT, LC, and LD. Was mostly immune or 1/2 effect on most if not all terrain, could change mission and was tough to fight.
I prefer the Fed Elite Cruiser one though. Refit it and away you go.
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by gene malin (Privateer) Tuesday, April 24, 2001 - 7:17 pm
I used to send in the biggest thing I could, but lately have opted for something small and cloaked.
While a big hulking B10V with a Captain and PT and trained up to 7 would be nice, it takes three turns to do it after 173 and costs a arm and a leg. A simple Frax light cruiser sub is available much eariler, costs less to upgrade, and cloaks. And I would get to put it in the graveyard by 169, giving me at least 5 extra turns of profit.
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by Donald Kelly Jernigan (Kelly) Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 10:58 am
I typically send in something generic. Usually a tug of one form or another. I've also tryed a W-OLR. Immune to the Radiation and able to change missions. Since my thoughts on the GRAV is economic, I usually only put a PT on the ship and train it up to max. The first site I take gets a 200 point base so I can see where other ships are at. This lets me avoid other ships. This also shows me whats been PRSPed (if a ship is on a hex for 2 turns I assume the hex value to be zero and won't waste my time stopping there).
I liked the big tugs because they are pretty strong in combat for those accidental encounters.
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by James Dosher (Obsidianlad) Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 4:12 pm
Is there anything that a Crew 9 ship isn't immune to?
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by Jason S. Brown (Jasonian) Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 8:40 pm
Nebula and MM. Only takes 1/2 from MM though.
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by Randy Hill (Wingman) Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 11:53 pm
Radiation Zone, Dust Storm, Cold Star, Gravity Well (if greater than light damage), White Hole, Antimatter Zone (if shieldless), White Dwarf, Black Hole (if heavily damaged).
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by James Dosher (Obsidianlad) Wednesday, April 25, 2001 - 11:53 pm
Thanks.
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by John Haugh (John3haha) Thursday, April 26, 2001 - 4:43 pm
On the large ship vs. small fleet, be careful when talking about "random damage". If you mean the damage scored by the fleet on opponents, this is not a big deal because every 10 AF/DF create another roll of the dice and these tend to average out. OTOH, there is a nice bonus for the fleet in that there are fluctuations and overkilling a ship gets you no bonus while there will almost always be 1+ ships surviving longer than average.

By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Monday, December 16, 2002 - 05:27 pm: Edit

A SF Warlord Term Paper

Clear Your Ship Thinking
Donovan Willett, USS Alabama

When you are going from playing SF Battles to SF Warlord, it is important to not think of the ships in SFB terms many times. Because SFW uses an abstract system, many of the strengths and weaknesses of SFB ships are changed compleately.

An example is the Fast Cruiser concept. In Star Fleet Battles, the Fast Cruisers were not used much because the were effectively underarmed. But in Star Fleet Warlord, these are Cruisers with stats close to the baseline CA, but are speed 5 Cruisers. Thus, while in a SFB campaign, the CFs are a novelty, in Warlord, they are quite useful.

By gene malin (Privateer) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 09:30 pm: Edit

Donavan,
They are useful at the beginning, but the fast cruisers go up in price pretty quickly. I am currently working on a new ship list that will add more of the hot warp variants and X ships, since faster is what the players want. A1 says that some of the old will need to go, so it will take a bit.