Little quandery guys, need opinions please.

[Gandalf The White]

Hi all,

Well, hear it is.

I now havve an empire that spanns from Kingdom End to Menolowus Paradice. Note, not all sectors have the privilage to have my factories and financial interests based in them.

Anyway, my ships have been getting atacked by Pirates quite a lot. So, I took to protecting certain sectors with leaving a given number of ships in there to atack and destroy any enemy. I was using Prommies which as you all know, I favor or I favor the Mamba for this task equally.

Now, I have been round all my factories and gathered all cash reserves together. I have in my bank account, about 300000000 CR.

I am thinking of dumping the lot on Mamba's and placing about 5/6 to a gate in certain sectors. And, if there are any sectors where I know that Xm1/2's travel through, I may double that amount.

But I seek your opinions and stratergies. Have any of you any thoughts?

[Jericho]

Mambas are the 'bodyguard' of choice for just about everyone. Crap to fly yourself (Guns too far apart) but great when computer controlled.

[Avis]

Or surround the keygates into your systems with laser towers

my personal prefered method

[ElectricMonk]

You can try hunting down and destroying nearby pirate bases, or you could invest in squash mines or lasertowers.

[Gandalf The White]

Hi. Well, I have used LT's before, but they don't seem to hold out for long. That's why I left that idea. As for the mines, they will blow up anything that gets in their way and I don't want to blow up friendlies.

I know that some people have great success with LT's, but I haven't had that much success with them to tell you the trueth.

The only little floor I can see in my current plan, is keeping the fighters where they are. Once enemy comes through another gate, then the ships on other gates in that sector will mobilise and head straight towards the battle zone. Or, this a good thing? yes there is more the merrier I guess, but was hoping to baricade all gates.

And there is the additional advantage that ships have over LT's. They can move and that means they can track their targets better. Perhaps I could back up the fighters with LT's? But what configuration? Because, I did try the 6 tower aproach and that didn't hold for long. I did 3 on top and 3 on bottom. Any suggestions there?

[Goldo]

i tend to guard my key sectors with several wings of fighters

usually mambas and prommies, (prommies carry hornets whereas the Mamba cant)

the mamba is fast, and therefore makes excellent intercept runs when pirates/Xenon try it on

6 LTs should be fine, although i agree i never had much success when i deployed LTs in the Xenon sector i captured, the Xm2 came through, the LTs did sod all, even on Beam mode

CG

[Gandalf The White]

Didn't think that your fighters would fire Missiles. Especially out of sector. Am I wrong? If so, then I have to Hornit Missile Factories Which can be put to good uses.

[Goldo]

yes, your ships will fire missiles

i equiped my Prommies with Hornets, checked again later in the game - bingo, they had all been fired off

[Gandalf The White]

yes, your ships will fire missiles

i equiped my Prommies with Hornets, checked again later in the game - bingo, they had all been fired off

Hmmm. Then, that gives me an idea then. Will put about 10000000 in each of the Hornit Missile factories and will laden up as many of my ships as I can with my own missiles. And I might go and play with the Pirates as well.

[old elite pilot]

I use captured zenon L3 fully maxed as intercepters with Captured zenon M also fully maxed set to protect the L's works quite well even against other zenon L all my fighters are fully loaded with missiles.

[Gandalf The White]

Hi all, well, I have employed a tactic which seems to be holdingg well.

I have as far as the enemy are concerned, blocked off fronteer sectors. For example, Atrius Clouds, Presidents End, Teladi Gain and Cloudbase South west with Prommies. But, when I checked after an attack, I found that non of the missiles had been fired. I loaded them into the bay by going into the fighter menu of each individual fighter and pressed G, moved the bar down to rockits, went in there and installed them, but as I just said, they have not been fired. So, I am going to retreave them I think, because I can put them to more ifficient use.

IE, blowing the crap out of Pirate bases and getting my hit efficiency up to 100%.

Still, 300000000 well spent, because I have plenty of fighters in the TL, so I have plenty in reserve. I still need to patch up defences and perhaps get a few Pirate bases out of central sectors, to let the defences deal with them. Either way, my defences are now holding nicely. And my reserves, I can put to very efficient uses.

[Al]

how many hours have you played now Daz? I had a quick shot last night and found that I'm just over the 200 hour mark. And all was going well until the pc froze. I'll get the gfx card working properly yet

al

[Gandalf The White]

Well, not sure. I say that because I have spent some time in SETA. Am in SETA now so it's probably or should say, is going into the thousands now.

But in real time, probably 2/3 months on and off.