123's Comprehensive GSB Guide

Gratuitous Forum Gratuitous Space Battles
61

Ack, I don’t mean your aren’t an awesome challenge builder and a great DuelDown player - I’m saying those challenges don’t highlight the thing you want them to because they have other features the detract from the message you’re trying to show. I posted you two challenges (to you privately) 4628117 & 4628119 that are a FML and MWM fleets that take a much more vanilla approach. Meaning a scientific approach (reduction of variables) so you can test or show case your point.

I wouldn’t want you to “handicap” a challenge, but your Anti rush does a better job showing how a lure works than how the main fleet (which should be attacked directly by the rushing fleet) counters a rush fleet. Are you trying to show how to build ships to counter a rush or how to lure a rush away? I thought it was the former, my appologies if I was incorrect.

In your Tribe CL Rush fleet the fighters do more damage than your cruisers. I don’t think you were trying to show case Tribe fighters. In one of my tests my ships would beat your rush, except the fighters kill me. I’m saying that challenge does not make a good demonstration because fighters are ALL purpose. I am saying that fleet does not show off a rush fleet because fighters aren’t rush they’re ANYTHING (except anti missile, and they can be that if they kill the missile ship before it fires).

This is the build of the FML ships:
[config]
name = ch f c pnthr fml
guiname = CH F C PNTHR FML
hull = Federation Panther Cruiser hull

[modules]
0 = cruiser_targetpainter,
1 = cruiser fastmissile,
2 = cruiser fastmissile,
3 = cruiser fastmissile,
4 = cruiser_ecm shock,
5 = cruiser_armour V,
6 = cruiser fastmissile,
7 = cruiser fastmissile,
8 = cruiser crew II,
9 = cruiser_engine V,
10 = cruiser power,
11 = cruiser shield fastrecharge,
12 = cruiser power III,
13 = cruiser_ecm beam,
14 = cruiser shield reflective,

And the MWM:
[config]
name = ch f c pnthr mwm
guiname = CH F C PNTHR MWM
hull = Federation Panther Cruiser hull

[modules]
0 = cruiser_targetpainter,
1 = cruiser missile multiple,
2 = cruiser missile multiple,
3 = cruiser missile multiple,
4 = cruiser_ecm shock,
5 = cruiser_armour V,
6 = cruiser missile multiple,
7 = cruiser missile multiple,
8 = cruiser crew II,
9 = cruiser_engine V,
10 = cruiser power,
11 = cruiser shield fastrecharge,
12 = cruiser power III,
13 = cruiser_ecm beam,
14 = cruiser shield reflective,

From my testing you are 100% correct, MWM will beat FML everytime. I can give FML an advantage by starting them within firing range of each other but MWM won in the long run anyway.

62

That particular MWM fleet can actually beat all the rush I build before I throw the lures into it as an extra layer of security, mainly to beat plasma spams. Basically I want to show every trick I can think of to make rush impossible, while at the same time maintaining MWM density to beat other anti rush/long range.

To put in another way, a good anti rush fleet is not about beating rush alone. You can easily do that by spamming cruiser lasers with near stationary fleet. The point is to use as little CL as possible while maximizing the amount of long range, so you can beat other Anti Rush as well as Rush.

Rush fleet typically NEED fighters. Rather it is a CL rush or Frigate rush, because they cannot afford other forms of air defense without seriously hindering their speed. If a rush fleet does not have fighters you can easily offensive dual laser fighter it to death.

But you are right, I should include that in the rush chapter.

The MWM fleet I retaliated with uses

Frontline
7 MWM
1 Scrambler
1 Shield 2, 1 multiphysic
1 engine 1
power and crew

Backlines
7 MWM
1 Scrambler
1 Shield 2
1 engine 2
power and crew

All ship set to 1160 range, co-operate.

I have absolutely no way of getting fast missiles to work against MWM.

I also retaliated your MWM using my fast. Namely by trimming down to the bare minimum of
7 FML
1 Scrambler
1 Shield 2, 1 multiphysic
3 engine 1
power and crew

But then, my own MWM slaughtered it…

63

The rush fleet I posted back beats the MWM but not the FML. Interesting.

64

The 2 is reasons are “fuel” and “tracking”.

MWM has 1700 fuel, 0.6 tracking, .19 speed. If it miss it will fly for 8947 time interval.

FML has 1400 fuel, 0.9 tracking, .32 speed. If it miss it will fly for 4375 time interval.

Not only do MWM have a much lower tracking, each time MWM miss it will takes over twice as longer than FML to recover.

So while MWM beats FML in a scrambler war, FML is much better against fast moving fleets such as a CL rush. The reason I don’t use FML is because target painter remedy this MWM problem quite well, so I can maximizing MWM to win long range war while still counter rushes.

65

By adding 4 FML cruisers to the FML fleet and flattening the deployment (2 columns instead of 3) it beats the MWM.

66

Added 2 tricks to counter lures, along with a Tribe Plasma fleet showcasing one of the counter lure trick.

Edit: Major oversight on my part regarding shield 2 vs reflective, namely photon beam. I think I need to remake that nomad missile fleet.

67

I had fun nuking a tribe rush fleet with empire. Front line was a mix of cruiser beam lasers and cruiser lasers, followed by 2 lines of hasta frigates with a mix of beams and shield support beams. Back row was weapons platforms with a mix of torpedos and anti-fighter missiles.

The theory was that the torpedos would nuke the shields, and the beams would quickly finish off wounded ships, and it seemed to work, but there was a lot of wasted torpedo power when a ship died with lots of missiles on the way. Going to tinker with the orders a bit to see if I can get the torpedos to simply plaster everything in front until the shields are down.

The theory behind the shield support beams was that occasionally a hasta frigate (with 3 shields) would get some fire, before the rushing cruiser got picked apart, and its shields would be restored before it got exposed to fire again. Also, as long as the frigate could withstand one volley of a rocket fighter squadron with shields up, they chances are that it would be a different frigate which got targeted next, and this particular rush fleet didn’t have that many fighter squadrons to worry about.

I probably could have achieved the same thing with a double cruiser line, with weapons platforms at the back. The key was that the rush cruisers simply couldn’t get close enough to the orbital weapons platforms at the back that were ripping them up. My OWPs cost 740, fire 8 torps with a recharge of about 3500. Each does 22 points of damage. In terms of cost per shield damage, no cruiser weapon comes close.

And versus tribe, they can generally penetrate the armor as well.

And yeah, the OWPs explode if you so much as look at them. But there were bigger, better armored frigates that generally drew the fire of anything set to target frigates.

I wouldn’t take empire against a fighter heavy fleet. But against a rush fleet? Especially a TRIBE rush fleet?

68

Every decent Tribe rush comes with max fighter counts though…

69

I will have to try out a decent tribe rush which has lots of fighters. Empire frigates can be pretty effective in an anti-fighter role, provided the larger armored frigates show up as higher priority targets than the OWPs.

70

You can find a few sample fleets at the end of my guide.

That said, rushes tend to be easy to beat in general. Their only use is against fleets too trigger happy with MWM/Plasma and omitted any form of close range defense.

71

Could Somebody please demonstrate tactics like luring in the form of a video, to help people learn and understand it more easily.

thank you

72

Added a rather distasteful “Hard Counter” chapter.

73

Added a section on EMP. Unsure of rather to put the math first or intuition first. While the math is important in seeing how those conclusions are drawn, I suspect most people don’t care for it and just want to intuition.

74

Thanks for this useful post !

75

Is this post dated or biased in any way?

If what 123 says is true then it’s quickly broken down to:

Tribe or Nomad
vs.
Tribe, Tribe, or Tribe
vs.
Tribe or Tribe

How is this balanced in any way, shape, or form?

76

Tribe is overpowered, thus 123STW’s use of it in examples. I’m working on making rebel versions of each of these tactics, which i will ask him to post as “pure, simpledemonstrations of the tactic.”
And from my own playing, the Nomad Missile, while a rather deadly weapon against an enemy who doesn’t have good antimissile, will die to a concentrated FM fleet that has proper defenses

77

I didn’t want to post the others because of how obviously easy they are to counter. If I put up an armored frigate spam, they will get countered by 20% pulse lasers. If I put up armor walls, they will get countered by 10% beam. If I use shields but no armors, they will get countered by aggressive lasers fighters. 2x HP on the other hand does not come with these obvious weaknesses.

I been working on a bunch of non Tribe fleets. I can put them up if you guys want. While they can beat Tribe fleets and practically similar in a SAC/NEC environment, they will be a lot easier to beat stand alone. You can counter both their weapon setup and defense setup.

78

I’d like to see those non-Tribe fleets. Would you post them here, please?

79

My point is that the examples of each tactic should be that tactic, in isolation. No, of course it won’t be mind-breakingly hard, but that’s the POINT: it’s there just to demonstrate the tactic, so you can get a feel for how countering it works.

80

Here are some non Tribe fleets

Nomad Missiles With Counter Lure - 4634886
Alliance Armored Plasma - 4636215
Rebel CL Rush With Quick Tank - 4636209
Swarm Frigate Rush - 4636213
Nomad Frigate Rush - 4636220
Order MWM with Tank - 4636212
Swarm Disruptor with Smart Bomb - 4636250

I was reluctant to post anything non Tribe, as the guide’s legitimacy rest in the difficulty of the sample challenges.

I wouldn’t read a guide of this length myself if the sample fleets fail to impress.