I am happy to throw myself at these ship voluntarily so I can hit them with my sword!
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
As our Rocks diverge slowly off to Port (screen lower right), the oncoming Bandit-1 group alters course slightly, from 50 degrees to 51 degrees... adjusting course to Starboard!
Are they chasing our Rocks instead of our Battle Fleet? Please let it be so... this would buy us more time to deluge them with missiles from a safe stand-off distance, and also buy more time for the Mine-Layers to come up and join the action.
why didn't you start with attacking a prix presence that was confirmed to be small, as opposed to an unconfirmed location btw?
Which is that one that is confirmed small? 82 Eridani? You don't know how many ships there are in that system - just because we only saw one doesn't mean there aren't many others around.
How exactly do you "confirm it to be small"? Polar Mongoose was vaporized by two Prix ships... but were they the only two Prix ships in that system, or were there half a dozen more? Unfortunately, at our tech level the only way to actually count Prix ships is to send a fleet in, fight a general engagement, win it, search the system to make sure there aren't any more of them, and then count the wrecks.
Several decades from now... or maybe a hundred years... we will have the tech we need to just pop in, fire off a drone, and have it blanket the system with scanners. But we are still several decades (at least) short of having that capability.
It was two, not one... wasn't it?
The Fighters are about half-way back to the Carriers. The first salvo... launched by the Fighters... is roughly half-way to the Prix Bandit-1 squadron. We will soon find out whether they really did fire off all of their PD missiles or not.
Often, you cannot tell if the presence is small or isn't. When a scout without active sensors gets shot, most of the time, you can only spot one or two attacking ships. If you're lucky, you spot a bunch of enemy ships orbiting a nearly-habitable planet and can guess it's the core fleet, but often, you're on your own.
30-40 size-4 missiles? They're doing 4 damages, then? Well, won't destroy any ship, but it should seriously cripple both of them, unless we have bad luck.
Again...
Bandit-3 (Genghis and Khan) has split into single ships, and the big bastard (Khan, 14,300 tons, now labeled Bandit-4) has reversed course and is headed 229 degrees, almost directly away from us! The remaining ship (Genghis) in Bandit-3 continues on course, as does the pair of Temujins in Bandit-2, still steering 45 degrees... directly towards us.
Yes... but I'm not sure how many full salvos I want to fire before our first one reaches them and we find out whether they've still got thousands of PD missiles left.
Opinions? Should I start dumping salvos at them without knowing whether their PD is still operational, or should I wait and see? They are still just over 8 m-km away from our fleet.
Bandit-3 (Genghis and Khan) has split into single ships, and the big bastard (Khan, 14,300 tons, now labeled Bandit-4) has reversed course and is headed 229 degrees, almost directly away from us! The remaining ship (Genghis) in Bandit-3 continues on course, as does the pair of Temujins in Bandit-2, still steering 45 degrees... directly towards us.
Yes... but I'm not sure how many full salvos I want to fire before our first one reaches them and we find out whether they've still got thousands of PD missiles left.
Opinions? Should I start dumping salvos at them without knowing whether their PD is still operational, or should I wait and see? They are still just over 8 m-km away from our fleet.
Again...
Bandit-3 (Genghis and Khan) has split into single ships, and the big bastard (Khan, 14,300 tons, now labeled Bandit-4) has reversed course and is headed 229 degrees, almost directly away from us! The remaining ship (Genghis) in Bandit-3 continues on course, as does the pair of Temujins in Bandit-2, still steering 45 degrees... directly towards us.
Yes... but I'm not sure how many full salvos I want to fire before our first one reaches them and we find out whether they've still got thousands of PD missiles left.
Opinions? Should I start dumping salvos at them without knowing whether their PD is still operational, or should I wait and see? They are still just over 8 m-km away from our fleet.
fire, fire fire and fire away
Running might indicate it was Khan that shot those 1200 missiles at us and is now running dry, without back-up weaponry and therefore disengaging. Is he headed for a planet? Might have a prix base on it, if so.
Considering their point defence is able to take out our ships as well as our missiles, waiting may not be the best course of action...
While waiting for replies, I fired another salvo, anyway... at a new target. If we can damage a few of them, that might slow the whole squadron down, and buy us more time to finish them off.
Khan was in Bandit-3, over 25 million km away. If he has enough tech advantage to see my 450-ton Fighters and target them from that distance with freakin' PD weaponry, why aren't we dead already?
Or slow them down enough that some of our fleet might escape if there's another surprise waiting for us.
I think we should unload the rest of our ordnance as fast as possible once the first salvo either runs into PD or arrives on target.
Our first salvo of ASM is now only 2.5 m-km from Bandit-1. Surely he can see it by now... even WE could spot incoming missiles at 2.1 m-km, and his equipment must be several tech-levels ahead of ours.
Considering how many ships and missiles we have, and how far they are, I'd say we can wait. If they still have lots of missiles, we're quite screwed; if they don't, they're sitting duck until we're 500.000 km from them, so plenty of time to wreck them.
That big ship acts like it's some kind of support ship that hasn't any attack and barely any defense, and gets to safety since the tide turns against them.
On the other hand, indeed, it could be the anti-missile ship, and either he's empty and goes into hiding, or he goes to reload... Is it the only ship that's the single representative of its class, or is there another single one in the attacking Bandits?
I remind my Captains that we are still playing to WIN!
The Fighters have almost reached the Carriers, and I've ordered the Carriers to reverse course. By the time the orders-delay is processed, the Fighters should have landed. The Battle-Fleet is also joining the Carriers, in order to re-munition from the surplus stocks of size-4 missiles that were originally intended to re-arm our now-destroyed Fighter Squadrons.
Bandit-1 continues to veer to starboard. It is now obvious that they are trying to catch the Rocks rather than charging directly at our Battle Fleet... it seems that they don't want any of our ships to escape. Over-confidence?
We've only seen one Khan, and it's numbered 001.
How many ASMs do we have left? Obviously we don't want to waste all our ammo on a few targets, but on the other hand I doubt we are much of a match for them at close range (do we even have beam weapons?).