[TC] XENON WARS by deca.death

[David Howland]

This thread has become absolutely AWESOME!
What a read chaps, fantastic info. for the day I finish my game with a Xenon War.
Unfortunately, despite my game running two and a half years and entered its last third development-wise the Xenon war is on a distant horison for me. I have yet to get ready for boarding my first Tyr and my most advanced Xenon act is to set up an anti Xenon lab., not that its getting much use at the moment!
Carry on the good work and I look forward to a day when I can emulate it!

[cmdnenad]

Here is a nice tip for a rapid response task force (best when you have a serious income): Get a carrier that can house lots of fighters (50+) and fully equip it (I use the split Raptor, houses 65 fighters). Look for a fast, easely replacable fighter (I use the mamba raider for this, it's fast, and can be fully equipped the moment you buy the L version, just keep the EQdocks supplied with HEPTS) .Give them all a number & assign the carrier as their homebase (has to be done individually) This is the boring, annoying task.

Once you have done the preparation work (best done in steps of 10 to avoid boredom striking) you have one beasty taskforce, able to rip apart most enemy fleets OOS apart in moments when your structures are threatened. A carrier with 50+ M3 fighters is lethal. After each engangement you probably loose one to a few fighters, but they are easy to replace (stockmodels from shipyard, with eqipment on the EQdock) Due to the low number it's easier, and less annoying to assign their number, and the carrier as homebase.
Note, never give the carrier the attack command, just give it the order to launch it's fighters and attack the target. Also, due to the homebasing, you got your own independent fightergroup that you can collectivly command without disrupting any other fighters you own in the sector.
Been using this tactic for a while, and it's great for enganging enemies OOS in large sectors (Khaak invasions, Pirate raids, if your relation with the pirates can be described as Open Fire).

This is interesting... would you care to elaborate it a bit further?

Do you order your carrier to Launch fighter attack (this has limited range IIRC)? Or do you use fighter's Broadcast to all homebased fighters command? And how do you control them as a group once they are out of the carrier (assuming you don't want to use broadcast to ALL fighters in sector)?

Also, about your choice of the fighter.... wouldn't Mamba Vanguard be a better for OOS?. It is slower than Raider, but has double shields...

P.S. Sorry for off topic


@deca.death
Nice job!

[Master of the Blade]

Not sure if you're still wanting comments on viability of IS fleets and the other stuff, but I'll throw in some anyway.

Firstly, large numbers of capitals do not do well, as you've noted. However, I've been experimenting with a pack of frigates (Aegir, Tiger and Griffon atm, but I expect it'd work with pretty much any frigates.) with me at the head against the hordes of fighters Improved Races throws at me.

I thought it'd flop and the AI would be a hindrance, but the extra two frigates (both set to protect me, and generally given orders to either attack a specific target or just kill fighters) are actually very helpful - and happily follow me on my travels, generally behaving pretty well. (except when the Griffon decided to pull up 100m away from the broadside turret of a Carrack. That nearly ended badly. )

Since I'm running the Advanced Weapons Research Mod (and regretting it, btw - it introduces a lot of overpowered weapons which are spawned on every NPC in existence), the Aegir gets some use against capitals with the Adv. Fusion Beam Cannon, but I daresay a Panther/Tiger/Agamemnon would do pretty well instead.

I have it set up so: I fly the Tiger with an all-weather loadout - 8xIBL in the main grouped so that I can fire them as a bank of 2/4/6/8, to give varying levels of DPS versus recharge rate. PALCs in the sides work moderately well on everything (can be substituted for flak), while flaks go everywhere else.

The Griffon (substitutable for Deimos/Yokohama I guess) does what it does best - antifighter work with flak everywhere. While I keep it generally on 'protect me' so it follows me around it generally gets told to go after fighters or flank enemy frigates (combination of 'move to' and 'attack' to draw fire.

The Aegir (substitutable for Aggy/Panther/Tiger/Thresher) is a bludgeon. With massive burst damage from the AFBCs (or IBLs or PPCs depending on the substitute) it can evaporate a frigate, but then runs out of juice. You use this guy to take out annoying capitals while you can still keep him close for antifighter work. If you use the Thresher as a substitute, micromanagement or protection is required, since it can't take a hit.

I find this makes battles more fun, and can take some of the pressure off you. Personally I sometimes feel like a dirty cheat for using the strafe drive, so I rely on my allies to keep enemy fire spread out and manageable. The Aegir in particular has saved my behind on multiple occasions, and the Griffon keeps the fighters from overwhelming me.

Another thing, someone mentioned friendly fire /killing yourself with shadows? I'm pretty certain that I've seen on few occasions shadows passing through my ship harmlessly, not immediately after firing, but some time later. If anyone can confirm...?

I rarely use M7Ms, but that's probably when they've told an AI Skirnir to barrage/launch and got in the way, or it could be a random M5 detonating the missiles before they leave your ship. But yeah, missiles you fire will not collide with your ship.


X472 is ridiculously active for me too. Clear it out and BAM! In an hour everything's gone to hell again. I think that's par for the course - happens in all of my restarts and makes 472 my go-to sector for a scrap.

[Infekted]

The sector north of the core is always good for fight. Proper nasty sector in my experience. If you can survive/clear that then it's guuuuud.

[Starlight_Corporation]

Carrier task force

This is interesting... would you care to elaborate it a bit further?

Do you order your carrier to Launch fighter attack (this has limited range IIRC)? Or do you use fighter's Broadcast to all homebased fighters command? And how do you control them as a group once they are out of the carrier (assuming you don't want to use broadcast to ALL fighters in sector)?

Also, about your choice of the fighter.... wouldn't Mamba Vanguard be a better for OOS?. It is slower than Raider, but has double shields...

Started up the game for the finer details, and noticed a very important thing I forgot.... The fighetrs of the strike-carrier are winged... wich ofc overcomes alot of problems. I went back and etsted tons of stuff with two regular carriers with fighters (no wings) and remembered why they're winged: the homebase option for fightercarriers is very poorly implemented, it serves no purpose, except for only ordering docked homebased carriers... wich in 99% comes down to ordering the docked fighters. Once undocked, you can't command groups from one carrier sadly (homebased option vanishes in commands when undocked...)

Why the Raider and not the Vanguard? We're sending these fighters OOS to heavy stuff as well, so shields don't matter as much as firepower, and the Raider has an extra gun (turret) for more firepower. OOS combat makes sure the enemy pumps out his entire salvo at one target each round. If it's a large ship, your first fighter to reach it is dead, no matter it's shields (Falcon sentinel excepted, but he's got other problems) so you're better off bringing soemthing that has extra firepower.
There are heavelier armed ships, but most of those are way slower, non stock, or got hard to get weapons (spitfire would be topdog, if it's weaponfactoeries didn't risk dissapearing, EEMPC-forge)

To prevent going offtopic more, and risking this thread to be messy, i'll create a separate topic called Rapid Response Task Force to elaborate on it.