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[RedKing]

It also makes for some interestinig strategic choices...do you take the "long" route that involves 5 jumps, or do you take the "short" route that only has 2 jumps but runs through a nebula? And if so, do you just uparmor your vessels (including civilian designs) so they can run full speed through the nebula?

One annoyance with nebulae is that if the nebula reduces your top speed, your vessels will remain at the limited speed once they return to a normal system until you manually max out their speed again. Another reason to uparmor vessels so that they don't have to slow down. Most nebulas are Class 1-4, so it's not like you need a lot of armor to accomplish this, unless you're trying to do really fast vessels. It *does* curtail your ability to have speedy fighters, since most fighters slow down significantly with even modest armor. In short, it encourages dreadnaught-type designs: heavy armor, slow, big long-range guns (laser or rail).




On a different tack, I'm trying a novel approach in a game currently: Making gauss cannons my primary weapons. Even on capital ships (I use the 6Hs, 100% accuracy version there and smaller, less accurate versions for correspondingly smaller vessels). Requires a lot of sensor research to be viable, but the designs seem to be very rugged -- there's no powerplant or magazine to worry about, and no ammo to manage. My principal designs have been carriers; light, fast fighters; and true gunboat FACs mounting an array of cannons. Haven't seen a lot of action yet, but they've acquitted themselves well in the dustups that I've had with Precursors. Oh, and CIWS abounds. With all the emphasis on gauss cannons and sensors, my CIWS chew up missiles like nobody's business and these particular Precursors favor small volleys of large ASMs.

[Paul]

One annoyance with nebulae is that if the nebula reduces your top speed, your vessels will remain at the limited speed once they return to a normal system until you manually max out their speed again.

You can prevent this with a conditional order. Set the condition to current speed not equal to max, and the order to change speed to max. That way ships flying through nebulas will automatically adjust speed as they go.

[LoSboccacc]

gauss cannon works, but remember that you have to keep some of your fleet in pd mode to shoot down missiles, even when close up with the enemy, that will reduce your damage potential.

if you use fighters remember that the final pd mode wont work if you detach them in the final close by and that area defence is useless with gauss (range is too short) - but if you close by with carriers they will just become the prime target for enemy beams.

you could leave half fighters with the carrier, the carrier being outside enemy beans, and close up with the remaining half fighters; but this means that half tonnage of your fleet is not being used.

also, gauss damage will be spread thin all over the enemy armor, so you will need a lot to bring down even the least of the armoured target. you could probably throw some meson in the mix for that lucky shoot.

well, this IS a game about trade-offs, in the end 

[Sirus]

I for one applaud RedKing for trying a tactic other than missile spam, especially such an unorthodox tactic as MORE DAKKA.

[LostCosmonaut]

I think a whole bunch of 1/2 HS gauss cannons on a ship would be a good strategy in a dense nebula. Your accuracy is already going to be trash because of the nebula, so the size penalty shouldn't hurt you too bad. I just conquered a 0.0 planet in a level 8 nebula, so I'm not too concerned about accuracy in that area.
Another thing is that nebulae usually cover a whole bunch of adjacent systems. I have about 10 nebula systems all adjacent to each other in my current game.

[Sirus]

Another thing is that nebulae usually cover a whole bunch of adjacent systems. I have about 10 nebula systems all adjacent to each other in my current game.

Considering that real nebula can span hundreds of lightyears, I say this is a plus in the realism department.

[Flying Dice]

Effects of nebulas, from http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,965.0.html :

- No missiles.  Period.
- No shields.  Period.
- Passive sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Active sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Chance to hit with beam fire controls is divided by nebula level.
- Max ship speed is (2500km/s / nebula level) * ship armor level.  So, a level II nebula limits an armor-1 ship to 1250km/s.

Also the planet generation might be different.

...Y'know, I think I'll just delete nebula from now on. There doesn't seem to be a single upside to them, but a hell of a lot of downsides.

They're excellent static defenses. Just drop some beam-armed warships with really heavy armor on the JPs and your enemies will have a really tough time breaking through.

[Paul]

Gauss is amazing for PD and against lightly armored ships, but becomes a bit less useful against heavily armored ships.

I prefer mesons for my beam fighters. They don't have the damage potential of gauss, but they pass right through shields and armor. Fighting in a Nebula, where both sides are likely to have heavy armor, being able to bypass armor is pretty handy.

The only downside is they don't pair up with missiles or other beam weapons very well, since they have to punch through the armor and shields first. If you've already weakened a target with missiles (as in, penetrated most of the armor and dropped shields) you're better off with other types of beam weaponry that does more damage like Gauss or lasers. In a Nebula you can't use missiles anyway, so focusing on mesons works great there.

Microwave weapons are also handy when fighting an opponent with no or minimal shields - which is always the case in a nebula. If going up against large powerful ships, being able to instantly disable their fire control systems and sensors (effectively neutralizing them unless they manage to make repairs) can save a lot of your ships. Mesons will sometimes take out fire control systems too, but the damage isn't focused (they bypass shields though, so they can occasionally disable even heavily shielded ships).

For a nebula defense station I'd have mostly mesons with one fire control dedicated to microwave weapons. That fire control could sweep the enemy fleet, blinding all of them, while the mesons tear them apart. By the time their sensors adjust after the jump you could blind their entire fleet, then slowly pick them apart with mesons.

You could also keep assault shuttles at a jump and board ships in a dense nebula, since most ships would be moving slow in one.

I sometimes wish the game had some form of weapon for targeting enemy engines, so you could focus on it for a boarding specialized race. Right now slowing down big ships enough to safely board without destroying them is a matter of luck - if you happen to kill engines first you can disable them, otherwise you might blow the whole thing up. That way you could use a combination of microwave and engine disabling weapons to blind and stun an enemy ship, board them, make repairs, and use the ship yourself.

[Sirus]

Effects of nebulas, from http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,965.0.html :

- No missiles.  Period.
- No shields.  Period.
- Passive sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Active sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Chance to hit with beam fire controls is divided by nebula level.
- Max ship speed is (2500km/s / nebula level) * ship armor level.  So, a level II nebula limits an armor-1 ship to 1250km/s.

Also the planet generation might be different.

...Y'know, I think I'll just delete nebula from now on. There doesn't seem to be a single upside to them, but a hell of a lot of downsides.

They're excellent static defenses. Just drop some beam-armed warships with really heavy armor on the JPs and your enemies will have a really tough time breaking through.

What if they just fly past? Or ram your ships?

[forsaken1111]

Effects of nebulas, from http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,965.0.html :

- No missiles.  Period.
- No shields.  Period.
- Passive sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Active sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Chance to hit with beam fire controls is divided by nebula level.
- Max ship speed is (2500km/s / nebula level) * ship armor level.  So, a level II nebula limits an armor-1 ship to 1250km/s.

Also the planet generation might be different.

...Y'know, I think I'll just delete nebula from now on. There doesn't seem to be a single upside to them, but a hell of a lot of downsides.

They're excellent static defenses. Just drop some beam-armed warships with really heavy armor on the JPs and your enemies will have a really tough time breaking through.

What if they just fly past? Or ram your ships?

If they fly past, you get a bunch of free hits and you now have forces cutting off their escape while your defenses on the other side know they're coming and you can shred them during their jump disorientation.

[RedKing]

gauss cannon works, but remember that you have to keep some of your fleet in pd mode to shoot down missiles, even when close up with the enemy, that will reduce your damage potential.

if you use fighters remember that the final pd mode wont work if you detach them in the final close by and that area defence is useless with gauss (range is too short) - but if you close by with carriers they will just become the prime target for enemy beams.

you could leave half fighters with the carrier, the carrier being outside enemy beans, and close up with the remaining half fighters; but this means that half tonnage of your fleet is not being used.

also, gauss damage will be spread thin all over the enemy armor, so you will need a lot to bring down even the least of the armoured target. you could probably throw some meson in the mix for that lucky shoot.

well, this IS a game about trade-offs, in the end 

not really an issue. I don't build PD frigates or area defense cruisers....I just spam CIWS on the important ships 
My carrier design is essentially a flying hangar, fuel tank and repair bay with half a dozen CIWS systems and a strong, high-resolution radar. And a bank of 'capital' gauss cannons for close-range fighting if FACs or frigates close to that range. Yeah, I'm vulnerable to fast beam-heavy ships (the Swarm would probably make mincemeat of the carrier if the fighters/FACs couldn't whittle them down fast enough) but so far missile defense has not been an issue. It might, if I run into one of those NPRs that likes to sandblast you with a few thousand AMMs at a time.

And yeah, I realize that I'm basically sandblasting as well, with umpteen 1-pt shots every 5 secs. I'm thinking of adding either particle beams or railguns to the mix eventually as the heavy guns. I was leaning towards railguns because it fit thematically with the gauss cannons but then I started salvaging PB tech like crazy from an early NPR I ran into. Which was an odd situation....I ran across 9 different 3k-ton ships, from two different classes -- all in one system that was one jump away from Sol, but was a dead end. I eventually wiped out all their ships and found (and took) 3 listening stations but never found any kind of homeworld or ruins. Either there's a dormant jump point I haven't found yet, or these ships materialized out of thin air without any kind of supporting infrastructure.

[Sirus]

Effects of nebulas, from http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,965.0.html :

- No missiles.  Period.
- No shields.  Period.
- Passive sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Active sensor strength is divided by nebula level.
- Chance to hit with beam fire controls is divided by nebula level.
- Max ship speed is (2500km/s / nebula level) * ship armor level.  So, a level II nebula limits an armor-1 ship to 1250km/s.

Also the planet generation might be different.

...Y'know, I think I'll just delete nebula from now on. There doesn't seem to be a single upside to them, but a hell of a lot of downsides.

They're excellent static defenses. Just drop some beam-armed warships with really heavy armor on the JPs and your enemies will have a really tough time breaking through.

What if they just fly past? Or ram your ships?

If they fly past, you get a bunch of free hits and you now have forces cutting off their escape while your defenses on the other side know they're coming and you can shred them during their jump disorientation.

Er, you might not get ANY hits at all. And if you neglected defenses in the next system in line, hoping your awesome nebula would hold off all challengers, then you're pretty much screwed.

[forsaken1111]

Er, you might not get ANY hits at all. And if you neglected defenses in the next system in line, hoping your awesome nebula would hold off all challengers, then you're pretty much screwed.

True you may miss with every shot, as unlikely as that is. If you neglected to practice Defense In Depth though that is your own fault.

[USEC_OFFICER]

How long are you setting your increments?

[Zrk2]

I opened it and I was like:

OMG

WTF

This is exactly how I felt the first time I looked at DF.

*Shivers in anticipation*