Federation Commander

Well, with the disrupter ship the name of the game is escape routes. You get as close as the plasma ship will allow, idealy from an oblique attack to aid in the escape. If you are heading straight on you may not be able to turn off in time before the plasma can hit. With an oblique attack you have your escape route built into your approach.

For the plasma ship you can either try and play the range 10 bolting game, or play the attack vectoring game. The only problem with the bolting game is that it is highly luck depent, so you must keep enough plasma held back and online to discourage a direct damage ship from getting too close.

If you are playing the attack vectoring game the idea is to get the disrupter ship to turn off, preferably before he can get to range 8. This can be done by launching enough plasma to get his fleet to turn off at range 12-14. If the disrupter fleet flies right through the incoming plasma then we have a very different game (and probably one the plasma race can win pretty easily)

If the disrupter fleet turns off after taking a long range shot, then it is the plasmas job to keep on the pursuit, and keep enough plasma online and in the air to make turning in for the disrupter fleet problematic. In this fashion you are firing at the disrupter fleet such that many of their weapons are facing away from the battle. They will try and jink this way and that to get various weapons in arc, but this will bleed speed and if they aren't carefull will get them him by plasma.

This is easier to do in a fleet setting then a duel as in the duel you will run out of plasma before long. It is also easier said then .....

In the duel, your objective is to get the disruptor player close to the edge on a fixed or location map. Most disruptor races rely on maneuver to dance around. Getting close to the edge, removes their options - and corners are the best.

As you close to the edge, you should play the sniping game with what phasers you have. tickle his rear shields to either force him to shift the damage forward or weaken the rear shields. Rolling plasmas are a must here.

While you're following him, he'll be doing his best to slip around you - look for HET's and other maneuver tricks. Also, you should expect him to throw every seeking weapon he has at you - just be glad there's no T-bombs or mines. As an interesting tactical exercise, try a duel with a Kestrel KRC against a Kzinti CA - something with both drones and disruptors. This can cause you fits!

You've got to be on your game - one little mistake and he'll wriggle away and you'll have to start all over.

Now, if you on a floating map, you've got to do something else and entice him in, but not too closely.

I think consistently beating a KE with a CA says more about your opponent than the KE. It's a fine ship for the old series, cloaks very well, and has plenty of plasma and energy to fire 1 torp every turn (more if you use 2-turn Pl-F's).

It's damn hard for anything to really do significant damage through the cloak and the ability to accel/decel at will makes it much harder to actually get a good firing arc to begin with.

As for the range 0 thing, anyone sitting at range 0 against a plasma ship is just waiting to eat a full plasma launch. It's not a great photon shot anyway against a cloak, you fire at effective range 4 (1-4 to hit) and deal 50% damage while risking a full load of plasma. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

As a Rom, I'm thinking go right ahead and have at it. Even if you do manage to hit me, I can still fire my torps. If you used all your power to overload the photons even better, that means you probably don't have power to fire phasers or use reinforcement.

Of coures, as a Good Romulan player, I'll very rarely let you into overload range let alone range 0. If you do try to close the range, I'll send a torp up your #1 shield. Nothing crunches harder than a Pl-R that hits head-on, and then you're going to have fun trying to close with me for the rest of the game.

Basically, with good tactics a KE holds it's own vs the CA.

If you get a chance to fire before they do, cloak when done.

While Plasma Torps load, cloak to avoid getting banged.