BOTF Guide - by Aralon

BOTF Strategy Guide

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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

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Long Live the Red Squad Alliance

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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

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Amazing wrote: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:55 pm Long Live the Red Squad Alliance

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How are you, Amazing? Long time no see. :smile:
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

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Ummmm, long live both.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

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I'm good buddy. Sorry for delay in getting back to you lol
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

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Amazing wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:26 pm I'm good buddy. Sorry for delay in getting back to you lol
Only 2 years mate, don't worry! :wink:
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by RSE_Dissy »

bump

Cuz this is the best strategy guide for vanilla botf ever :)
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

A nice guide for noobs, but a bunch of nonsense should be deleted from it: :eek: :shock:

Basics

@ 5
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amIMPORTANT: After you finished the procedure you must not click on any ship in that system again (not even on ships that are not part of the planetary assault) for the turn, wait till the planetary assault has taken place before selecting one of the ships again. Otherwise you might erase the order of ships and in the worst case the troup transports fly in first and get shot down by the orbitals before they can reach the ground.
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amKeep in mind that a system you were used to be taking with 3 troop transports [like Ferenginar] on hard settings might repel your attack on impossible settings unless you use additional troopships.
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amOne more thing... keep in mind that cloaked ships are more vulnerable to orbitals. A cloaked warbird will take more damage and take longer to repair than an uncloaked WB. A rom destroyer group in T4 which bombs the enemy homeworld will loose less ships if it bombs while its not cloaked. If you are "sure" you wont get attacked while you bomb a planet and that planet has orbitals, then i advice you to bomb uncloaked and avoid damage.
@ 6
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amDon't waste time to terraform the minors other planets it automatically terraforms them when it upgrades

Game tricks

- list vs text #2 & #4 are interchanged :???:

@ 2
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amBut be careful not to damage the Edo gods' hull without killing him, in that case he will shoot back even if hailed and kill your complete fleet.
@ 3
Amazing wrote: Fri May 23, 2008 8:50 amIts important never to leave a system screen with a "not enough dilithium"-message displayed on it to make this trick work.
To avoid this simply leave a screen with the message on it and reenter.
Then the message is not shown as long as you don't change something on the screen and you can leave it now and press turn.
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Flocke »

hmm, gives a good read and great rememberings!
lets pick up your points SCT :D

@Basics 5.1 Planetary Assaults/Invasion - Fleet Order

Well, selecting a fleet should make no difference. I really can't remember it ever did.

In the games I played I found the safest way to prevent the fleet sorting from being changed is either to wait a turn and see what changed or to not create any new fleets but just swap ships without removing any (which creates a new fleet as well given code wise also a lonely ships makes up a fleet).

The reason for changing the order of fleets I think is routed in how fleets are saved all together in one single global listing ( http://flocke.bplaced.net/botfwiki/inde ... D_GWTForce ) and that empty fleet slots might get reused when creating a new fleet ( I think I once figured that one comparing the savegames ).

The actual sorting I think is determined by the fleet id and that might differ from what you see in the ui list when you rearrange the fleet sorting.
When you move a lonely ship to another fleet you empty its previous fleet. The next fleet you create might take its place then and it doesn't matter in what sector you create it. Also be aware that the fleet list is shared for the different players and I only can guess on how changes are merged for multiplayer.

A common procedure similar to the one in the guide is to create complete new fleets without removing any fleets in the meantime (in any sector!). That way it is likely that the first fleet you create picks the uppest most empty fleet slot if any. But it is not clear that empty slots are always searched from the start. A common practice in progamming is to keep a list of available free slots that is filled while you remove fleets.
So when in some other sector you removed a fleet with id 0 while in the empty slot list already are 5 and 6, that list becomes out of order and new fleets you create therefore might become out of order as well. If such a list exist it further likely is kept for onfollowing turns.

Therefore my approach usually was to make sure I reuse my existing fleets instead. The order of all newly created fleets is unknown. If necessary temporarily create new fleets to move ships around. But never remove the last ship of an already existing fleet or it becomes an empty slot that you don't know what new fleet is taking its place.
I can't remember a single case where that approach failed unless I failed myself and erroneously gave assault order to a newly created fleet that picked up such an empty fleet slot that comes first.

In addition to that however also comes the sorting of individual ships within a fleet. I think that one works similar in that all ships have an id that is used for the sorting next turn but is ignored in ui while you add and remove ships. Pretty hard to guess what id a ship uses. You only know next turn in what order it is compared to other ships in same fleet. Likely older ships have a lower id and come first, but this is only guessing.


@Basics 5.2 Planetary Assaults/Invasion - Difficulty Level

It is all about ground combat and shield defense I guess. But wasn't there some sort of global defense or ground combat factor by the difficulty level? In addition there is also a portion of luck during system attack. Are you sure the difficulty mode isn't taken into account here?
I have the feeling there was an effect, although I don't have any specific remembering.


@Basics 5.3 Planetary Assaults/Invasion - Cloaked Ships

I got tricked by the cloaked assault a few times in MP till I found how it works. Not sure anymore how shields were taken into account that case. I think it didn't make a difference but possibly the repair of that turn is lessened. Cloaked vs uncloaked repair sounds interesting, never checked on that one.

But whether a romulan destroyer group in T4 has enough shields to survive orbitals is risky for sure. Even more so when you give the AI or your opponents an evolution level in advance. :D


@Basics 6 Minor Upgrading

Yeah, indeed that is a false advice. Minors do terraform, but not all the system planets at once and not every evolution step. By terraforming them yourself you make sure that next evolution step not only they have max system population but also the system has more buildings.
When you aim to member a minor next evolution step it is a good advice to make sure all planets are terraformed.


@Tricks 2 Edo Training

I always hated that abuse of a trick. Specially in mp when you see your opponent in fight each turn and wonder what he's doing. Not a nice one given it is only applicable to players in range. I actually never tried it myself and therefore can't tell whether it makes any difference when you scratch the edo guardian, but from what I remember being said is you needed to get behind the edo guardian if you want to safely destroy it or continue the "training" abuse. Further I wonder whether cloaking gives you an extra turn here.

And what about the Chodak, didn't it work the same? I think I once attacked it for two turns till it fired back.


@Tricks 3 Phantom Dilithium

Yeah, I think the icon is not of importance. However, as far I recall, when you have more ships in progress that aren't ready yet, I think it failed in some circumstances when as many ships were about to complete as you had dilithium. To get around I think I needed to track in what order the ship building was assigned or started. Code wise this could be explained by the usage counting of the dilithium. When there are more ship build tasks to process after all dilithium is already found to be used, it might not matter whether it is actually needed. Some exception like that easily drives fault assumptions on things like the dilithium icon.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

Flocke wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 7:25 pmWell, selecting a fleet should make no difference. I really can't remember it ever did.
'Nuff said, the quote is only about that. All other advices make sense. :wink:

EDIT: In fact, this part of the advice causes a disadvantage. In some rare cases the game will show the re-sorting of task forces and ships in task forces in advance (it's worse if this happens in between turns). So one can see the tactic is failing beforehand when double checking the fleets.


And yes, all other quotes are false statements as well. You can look it up in respective modding topics and the asm-code or verify via testing.

Some useful links:

- success chance of invasion viewtopic.php?f=156&t=1632#p22232
- Phantom Dilithium viewtopic.php?f=237&t=408#p5383
Last edited by Spocks-cuddly-tribble on Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by thunderchero »

ship sorting

personally I want to save any combat ships for actual combat even scouts.

So I always sort my troop transport to the top and assault with 2x transports vs orbitals. so if there is 9 orbitals I use 18 troop transports plus 18 strike/command that are at bottom of list.

now how I get the 18 strike/command to bottom, is the turn before with transports already in fleets I redeploy/empty fleets of all combat ships close redeploy screen. reopen redeploy screen and create new fleets of combat ships.

it does not matter if they are in same sector or not they will be below troop transports from that point on until new fleets of troop transports arrive.

with this formula I rarely fail during planetary assault. And I never lose any combat ships
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

A comfortable solution for single player. In a vanilla multiplayer session with equal resources not always affordable. Time is a crucial factor and TTs are up to twice as expensive as scouts and depending on race & tech slower. So you risk pros will show you (s)laughter is best medicin....
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Mudpuppy630511 »

Any tips on the Random Galactic events like the Calamarain? I just unlocked Scout II as the Kilingons, and only have the K'tinga II. It will take me a few turns to get a full tf of 9 Scout IIs per nearby system. It has carved through my Outposts on a diagonal path stopping in Chalna. My empire rests against the tip of the map. Malcom, Benard, Lorillia, Graber, Dene, and Rubicun are all in range for a TF of Scouts to respond. It will take several turns to have enough to hit it with the free turn cloaked. How long does it take to leave the galaxy? I don't want to waste my K-tingas as I need them in the war with the Feds, and about to declare war on the Cardies.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

Calamarain won't attack your star systems, only stations/ships. You can avoid placing your ships in sectors with star systems, means if your fleet's firepower/tech is too low to kill it or if you would take heavy losses.

'Jumping' monster (Borg, Calamarain...) movement is very random: viewtopic.php?p=34119#p34119

EDIT: Here is some advice against Borg: viewtopic.php?p=51553#p51553
Key factor is to kill the cubes before they obliterate a whole star system and get a chance to replicate (i.e. to early make hard sacrifices to stop them). If there is already an out of control invasion there are certain empire specific tactics to oppose them. From what I remember, for example, sacrifice about 20+ scouts, set to evade, and charge(or assault I don't recall what works better) with 8-12 heavy cruisers. All your shipyards produce 1 scout each turn to replace losses. In vanilla you can fight them much easier, not because they are weaker, but you can use many broken game mechanics to cheat around certain game limitations (i.e. srapping ships for money to support way larger fleets).
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by thunderchero »

Mudpuppy630511 wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:46 pm Any tips on the Random Galactic events like the Calamarain?
open stbof.ini
edit lines

BORG=ON change to BORG=OFF

RANDOMEVENTS=ON change to RANDOMEVENTS=OFF

start new game

problem solved
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Re: BOTF Guide - by Aralon

Post by Mudpuppy630511 »

thunderchero wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 9:41 am
Mudpuppy630511 wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:46 pm Any tips on the Random Galactic events like the Calamarain?
open stbof.ini
edit lines

BORG=ON change to BORG=OFF

RANDOMEVENTS=ON change to RANDOMEVENTS=OFF

start new game

problem solved
Oh but Thunderchero, wheres the fun in that? :cool:
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