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 Newbie in need to tactical advice.
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| wminsing |
Posted on 12-09-2007 00:51
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 Posts: 1 Joined: September 12 2007 |
First, let me say the PDS mod is the greatest thing wrought by human hands. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but the mod is still pretty damn awesome. Good enough to get me to reinstall HW2 for the first time in 2 years, at any rate. Anyway, I've tried a couple of the scenarios, and a few skirmishes, and had a lot of fun. But I feel like I'm so far missing the general thrust of how things are supposed to work, in terms of tactics. It's a definite step up from the 'rock-paper-scissors' tactical triad of the original, but right now I am a little lost. I can lead ships into battle, but I'm not sure what it takes to win. So would some of the veterans be willing to give me some general guidelines and tactical wisdom? -Will |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 12-09-2007 17:04
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 Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
PDS as you mention isn't about "this unit counters this unit in the enemy's fleet composition". Rather, it resembles modern combined arms warfare in that you need a mix of different units in order to be successful in combat. PDS ships may be divided into the following: 1. Recon Recon platforms have excellent sensor range and usually are able to run harrassment and interdiction roles against light opposition. Aside from scout fighters that don't survive long, the best example of a fleet scouting unit is the J-5 "Reina de los Malcaidos" BCR, which not only is fast enough to stay out of direct enemy assault, has enough firepower and maneuverability to constantly be a thorn in the enemy's side with huge salvoes of standard missiles. 2. Fast Attack/Strike FA/S units include anything built on the principle that speed (in RL space terms, acceleration) and first-shot firepower is life. The very best examples of these are Taiidani light cruisers which are very deadly due to their antimatter rockets. Against coordinated opposition they don't do well because running into a wall of AC275/100 fire at a RL velocity of 20km/s means instant destruction. But supporting a battle line's flanks and doing hit and fades versus fleet carriers, these are the enemy's worst nightmare. 3. Close Assault CA units like the Hiigaran Aggressor class are built for the point blank range battle and also to take a heavy punishment from ballistic weapons (where strike warfare ships don't do well). A combination of plasma (short range, low rate of fire, high lethality) and ballistic (short to medium range barrage with low hit rate, high rate of fire, extreme lethality) weapons gives this boat a very strong punch, but it's vulnerable to modern strike warfare tactics because they're so specialised and overbuilt. 4. Bombardment These are flying arsenals designed to fling ordnance at the enemy from extreme ranges, and the best example of this is the Majiirian super battleship built around very large missile/railgun hybrids designed to give guided payloads excellent reach. 5. Fleet Support FS units are usually in charge of the fleet's small craft flotillas and are the reason why your fleet can operate independent of supply lines for a period of time. Although most today are powerfully armed (Hiigaran Praetor can serve up awesome firepower in the bombardment role) they're generally the worst things to be in when under attack. Their main defense is speed and escort fighters. No ship is entirely dedicated to a specific role, unless they're really old or very small. All modern ships are able to function in place of another more specialised vessel but with reduced capability. But where you're operating far from home and require multi-mission flexibility to make best further your nation's interests, the only thing stopping you from designing an all purpose warship is how expensive is it going to be and how much are you going to compromise on your primary role. The most successful ship designs either are intelligently planned to reduce primary mission ability reductions (cruisers carrying their own self-defense fighters or assault shuttles) using secondary functions to complement their main punch. The worst of the multirole ships try to do too much and end up in the middle of nowhere like the Vaygr sorceresses. But in low intensity conflicts, these all-purpose carrier/cruiser hybrids actually hold their own very well. So the best advise for you, the new player is, enjoy the graphics, go one step at a time, figure out what works for you best. While reading some military history or watching/reading good sci-fi. Then you can see where PDS concepts come from. |
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| Nocturnus |
Posted on 20-11-2008 18:38
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Posts: 17 Joined: November 19 2008 |
In the interest of getting more newbie advice... Does PDS employ different armor values for locational damage on ships? I believe stock HW values employed 170% dmg on the engines and 90% on frontal armor. I recently employed 2 destroyers to engage a Vaygr Carrier from a vector directly below the world plane while simultaneously engaging the captial ship with 2 Arbiters to pull the bow of the ship up eventually exposing the carrier's engines to sustained ion fire. Did this do anything or was it just fun for me to watch? |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 20-11-2008 22:18
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Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
You can check in the ship values yourself! .ship files are text files. Currently in PDS the side/rear attack values play a relatively minor role but you can easily change that yourself and post the results here! |
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| Nocturnus |
Posted on 20-11-2008 22:25
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Posts: 17 Joined: November 19 2008 |
Hmm ok cool. This is turning out to be pretty neat I had no idea i could tune the game to my own liking so much. |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 20-11-2008 22:27
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Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
Thats the good thing about HW2. Although you can say it's bad because the original developers obviously were too lazy to make revolutionary gameplay (and thus direct $$$$ profits) where they could. Easily. If they just read a book of naval warfare. |
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| biochrome |
Posted on 21-11-2008 02:16
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Posts: 113 Joined: November 20 2007 |
My tactics: build a whole bunch of picket ships/recon ships/flotilla leaders and drown the enemy in so much ECM that they can't hit the broad side of a barn, then bring in the heavy hitters - the added accuracy from the EW above makes them quite lethal  |
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| Nocturnus |
Posted on 21-11-2008 06:46
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Posts: 17 Joined: November 19 2008 |
To clarify: -Bio, are you using v7 or v11? I am not sure how ECW works in PDS or what its effects are outside of sensor disruption... which of course is oh so effective against a cpu that knows where you are anyways...  I have recently started to use arbiters to draw enemy fire and lead fighter groups away from their escorts while using my fighters to pick off those that take the bait. Are you saying that if I added ECW ships it would reduce the accuracy of enemy fire thus increasing my units survivability in combat? |
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| TelQuessir |
Posted on 21-11-2008 13:35
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Posts: 2598 Joined: August 30 2005 |
As posted in another thread ECW gives friendly forces about 5-10% bonus to hit, the same penalty for enemy weapon accuracy, makes small craft less detectable in the sensor 'shadow' of the jamming ship and allows easier maneuvering of close by allied ships (simulating task force cohesion). Indirect and barely noticeable but effective in a large engagement. |
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| aspasticninja |
Posted on 21-11-2008 23:27
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 Posts: 97 Joined: May 28 2008 |
the problems with changing ship values is that when you play multiplayer everyone needs to have the same settings or it gets fuxxie. also, careful when you change unit caps; i raised them a lot and when i tried to do the first scenario in V11 the enemy had like 10 battlebarges.
Edited by aspasticninja on 21-11-2008 23:28 Ford, I don't mean to alarm you, but there are an infinite number of monkey's outside and they want us to go over their screenplay for Hamlet.
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