Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

You can talk about anything. (please read forum rules before posting)

Moderator: thunderchero

Post Reply
User avatar
savaovi
Cadet 1st Year
Cadet 1st Year
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:55 pm

Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by savaovi »

I am playing BOTF Ultimate Dominion Mod and the Dominion attacked me at one of my starbases with around 250 light ships, 100 cruisers and 80 artillery. I had around 60 Defiants and a mix of 40 cruisers and 5 dreadnoughts. For 4 moves, they only moved towards the Starbase, ignoring my fleet. During those moves, my ships killed 160 of his light ships. I retreated without losses. The next move some of his ships are able to attack the starbase, but they could not destroy it yet. In the 6th move they destroyed the starbase. They won the battle, but lost 160 ships to 0. A great phyrric victory. Why this strange behavior? Also, the Dominion ships are somewhat similar in quality and abilities to the Ferengi ships, or they were made from scratch? To me it seems the Dominion ships are tough to kill and they can pack a punch. I'd like more information about this faction.

In the same game later, the Klingons attacked me at a starbase with 150 light ships and around 80 cruisers. I had 80 defiants and 40 large ships, including 10 dreadnoughts. My ships were 4-5 experience chevrons. During the uncloaking move, they all attacked my defiants, but they did not do much losses. After that, like the Dominion, they started to crawl towards the starbase. Only 3-4 cruisers attacked my ships. Somehow, our fleets flew by eachother and by the 4th move the Klingons lost 60 cruisers, most of them hit from behind...they were lit up like fireworks. Then they retreated because it was obvious they would have been destroyed in 2 more turns. Is there a pattern? The computer is set to destroy the starbase first?

The Defiant ships just rule. They are cheap, have great speed, very maneuvrable and deadly if they have more than 3 levels of experience. The Dreadnoughts...expensive, but still good. I never lost one in combat in this game. They can really take a beating and survive. The computer tends to avoid attacking the dreadnought groups because they can take a punch (maybe I am wrong, but this is my impression). I'm impressed by the toughness of the Dominion ships. The Cardassians were easy targets each time we fought. The Romulans were almost destroyed by the Dominion,so I did not fought with them. The Klingons were unimpressive, but I think because my fleet was already very experienced. Can someone offer some useful insight about battles, maybe a few secretive tricks ?
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

I'm guessing the hardcoded AI has many bad habits and dumb priorities which modders haven't been able to fix?

105 ships with 0 losses vs 430 ships with 160 losses does seem rather unrealistic. Although I've seen similar results before when the opponents have great disparity in tech levels.

Although of course Defiants are always ridiculously overpowered little things. I haven't played this mod but it's possible the ship designs aren't well balanced and perhaps a single cloaked Defiant could wipe out half a fleet without much effort. Typical Federation shields and targeting plus non-typical Federation firepower and aggression, all combined with first-strike cloaked attacks ... well, the outcome seems rather obvious.

My opinion is that Vanilla BotF overemphasized the Feds. More ships, more techs, more stuff. We've seen a Defiant (with a cloaking device) seriously kick butt on the show so we're given a Defiant (sometimes with a cloaking device) in the game which is equally epic and overpowering. The Klings and Roms got some attention, then the other races got barely enough attention to fill out their ship rosters with the basics. But the Vanilla game certainly wasn't well balanced, and I suspect these imbalances were inherited (even exaggerated) by many BotF mods - although, again, I haven't played this particular mod (yet).

I find the best defense is offense. By the time I've let my opponent build tons and tons of ships unmolested then it's already too late.
Last edited by Korth on Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[/Korth]
User avatar
slickrcbd
Lieutenant-Commander
Lieutenant-Commander
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: in front of a computer

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by slickrcbd »

Thing is, only the lead ship in the Defiant class had a cloak on loan from the Romulans. IIRC when it was destroyed in the battle with the Breen energy dampening field, they lost the cloak as well.
The Defiant class in BotF should NOT have a cloak. Maybe the first one you build might have one, but all the ones after should not.
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

Vanilla Defiants don't cloak. Only Romulan ships, Klingon Bird of Prey ships, and that pesky little Yridian Scout. (Also the Edo Guardian and the Echo Papa Combat Drone in the ECM mod, since apparently the devs "intended" they do so.)

But, to be fair, this mod involves the Dominion as a major. It seems plausible for Defiants to all cloak in an anti-Dominion setting, since that's roughly compatible with what was seen on the shows. The Defiant was a divergence from traditional Federation frisbees with nacelles, a real "warship" built to fight and win real wars, originally intended to counter the Borg threat but I suppose the Dominion threat works too.

Says something that the utmost pinnacle of Federation technology is the most violent combat vessel in the game. A noble goal for, say, the Klingons, what good is science if it can't invent better weapons? ... But I'd think that (in the absence of an immediate extinction threat) the Federation would aspire towards something more peaceful and utopian.
[/Korth]
User avatar
slickrcbd
Lieutenant-Commander
Lieutenant-Commander
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: in front of a computer

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by slickrcbd »

They did, and it was the Dominion's fault that the ship even went into production.
Originally the project was canceled with only the prototype being built for the very reasons you stated. Sisko was able to requisition the prototype he helped design for use helping to defend the then-underarmed station (they upgraded it later) and giving them some more firepower than just a runabout. After a few modifications to correct the design flaws, the ship proved itself a very capable combatant, able to hit well above its weight class.
Then the Klingon War happened (caused by Changling infiltrators ) and the Defiant was exactly what was needed. A cheap but powerful combatant.
The whole war was the only reason it went into production. If it hadn't been for the Dominion, the Defiant would be a single-ship class like the U.S. Navy ship U.S.S. Long Beach
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

I recall the Defiant's cloaking device was a one-of-a-kind "loan" from the Romulans. Along with the arrogant Romulan Tal Shiar officer who was assigned to operate (and guard) it ... although she mysteriously vanished after a few episodes and I think was never mentioned again. Of course Sisko blatantly ignored the relevant details of the Federation-Romulan treaty and (ab)used the cloak anytime he wanted privacy on either side of the wormhole.
[/Korth]
User avatar
slickrcbd
Lieutenant-Commander
Lieutenant-Commander
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: in front of a computer

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by slickrcbd »

I know, that always bothered me that the Tal Shiar officer just disappeared.
I don't recall any explanation for that in the show, they just never mentioned her again.
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

Haha, I thought I must've somehow missed an episode or that maybe I was the only one who noticed. Didn't even bother to write her out of the story. She was simply never seen and never mentioned again, even the Romulans and Section 31 totally forgot about her.

The Romulans also never seemed bothered by Sisko's unsupervised cloak-addiction. They didn't seem to care (or even notice) that their "classified" cloaking device was never returned. They were never even given any of the "wormhole/Dominion intelligence" promised in exchange for the device. It's as if the writers decided they needed to backstep but didn't want to relinquish the toy, as if just putting it on screen often enough meant the audience would get used to seeing it without asking questions.
[/Korth]
User avatar
savaovi
Cadet 1st Year
Cadet 1st Year
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:55 pm

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by savaovi »

I dont think the defiants can cloak in ultimate dominion mod. Also, I had a battle with 5 legendary defiants vs. 15 dominion cruisers and I lost. I destroyed 3 cruisers. I think that the defiants in ultimate dominion mod are not as good as in vanilla, but they are still cheap and good. I think the Dominion starts the game with a rather big fleet. In my game they quickly crushed the romulans, but were stalled by my starbases. Their ships can really take a beating.
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

Well you say your ships are Defiants and Excelsiors, among the strongest in the game.
With 4-5 chevrons, Elite and Legendary.
And since you've been training them up forever then you probably have massive advantage in tech levels.

If your opponent's ship types, crew experience, and tech levels were roughly equivalent to yours then I'm pretty sure the battles wouldn't be so one-sided. I know the AI is dumb, and no mod can really fix that, but once ships reach the battle it's hard for them to be *totally* useless.
[/Korth]
User avatar
slickrcbd
Lieutenant-Commander
Lieutenant-Commander
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: in front of a computer

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by slickrcbd »

Korth wrote: Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:00 am Haha, I thought I must've somehow missed an episode or that maybe I was the only one who noticed. Didn't even bother to write her out of the story. She was simply never seen and never mentioned again, even the Romulans and Section 31 totally forgot about her.

The Romulans also never seemed bothered by Sisko's unsupervised cloak-addiction. They didn't seem to care (or even notice) that their "classified" cloaking device was never returned. They were never even given any of the "wormhole/Dominion intelligence" promised in exchange for the device. It's as if the writers decided they needed to backstep but didn't want to relinquish the toy, as if just putting it on screen often enough meant the audience would get used to seeing it without asking questions.
I too thought I'd missed an episode.

As for the cloaking device never being returned, well, it was destroyed in the battle with the Breen energy dampening field.
The use of the cloak in the alpha quadrant during the war before the Romulans entered the war on the other hand was inexcusable.

The only excusable use was when Thomas William Riker stole the Defiant. It was a violation, but I'm sure they would have had little to no issue handing him and his crew over to the Romulans once the Cardassians were done with them.

On the part about sharing intelligence, we honestly never hear anything one way or another. They DID share intelligence up until the point where that fleet of 30 ships attacks the Changling home world, only to find it was a trap. Afterwards I don't think it was ever mentioned again.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised the Romulans did not send a small scout ship similar to the one in the TNG episode "The Defector" and place it and its crew under Sisko's command instead of installing a cloak on the Defiant.
User avatar
Korth
Ensign
Ensign
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 9:13 am

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by Korth »

I'm surprised the Romulans didn't park a cloaked Warbird near the station, as well, whether specified in the treaty conditions or not. One liaison officer stranded on a (nominal) ally's military base doesn't seem like a very effective intelligence or counterintelligence presence, especially given the sensitive nature of the cloaking technology, and especially for an arrogant species known (even expected) to constantly mistrust and deceive others. Maybe things would've been different for the Romulans (and more interesting for us) if their officer was a sort of Tal Shiar equivalent to Garak, lol.
[/Korth]
User avatar
slickrcbd
Lieutenant-Commander
Lieutenant-Commander
Posts: 199
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:22 pm
Location: in front of a computer

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by slickrcbd »

The Federation and Romulans were not allies. It was closer to a joint operation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (IIRC there were a couple of such for search and rescue).
The presence of the Neutral Zone and all the previous interactions indicated they were not allies until they were forced to unite against the Dominion, and even then the Romulans stayed out of it until Sisko tricked them into entering the war.
User avatar
savaovi
Cadet 1st Year
Cadet 1st Year
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:55 pm

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by savaovi »

I only build defiants and dreadnoughts, not excelsior. Sovereigns. My ships gained a LOT of experience after they destroyed those 160 light dominion ships I was talking about. I had a tech advantage of 1 level above my opponents. Now I am level 11 in all techs and I think they are all 10.
User avatar
savaovi
Cadet 1st Year
Cadet 1st Year
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:55 pm

Re: Combat. Tactics and helpful advice.

Post by savaovi »

I am sure that Dominion victory costed them 160 raiders from a total of 250. I lost 0. They only went after the starbas, completely ignoring my fleet. The report was loooooong and only DSS ships were listed. I think the EVADE order works good for Defiants, because of their speed and maneuvrability. they often evade to the back of the enemy fleet. After that, a charge order gathers them right behind the enemy (or below) and they inflict a lot of casualties that way. Dreadnoughts perform well anyhow, but they are good with Assault in the first round and any order that keeps them on the move after that. Evade order wastes their firepower.
Post Reply

Return to “General Chat”