Challenge Discussion!

I just beat the cruisers one twice in a row, with the same setup I posted in the strategy tips thread. Both times I won with two cruisers left, so it seems to be a pretty consistent win. It wasn’t tailored to your fleet either. Just the standard ship and lineup I blitzed though the missions with.

youtube.com/watch?v=cpH7WkmM3LQ
Still processing, but it will get there.

The ship design I used isn’t any secret, given that I had a screenshot of it in that thread.

I just won the clown one as well, on my second try, with the same setup, a line of those cruisers. I can’t win that one as consistently though. Sometimes I’ll come out far ahead, and sometimes I’ll get crushed. That one seems harder to me than the no cruisers challenge.

¬¬

Cracks knuckles. Look out for a ‘Snail Buster’ challenge sometime tomorrow. I’ll break your toys… and you’ll like it!!!

I’ve got a challenge for you Omnitronic, or anybody who feels like taking it on. I wanted to try to make a somewhat broken fleet, with a very specific gimmick. It just beat your clown challenge 88% to 19%, and can do so consistently.

I am sure it is beatable, but it will at least make you consider how. A particular feature was made in mind in order to exploit the default orders. Approach this one like you do a normal challenge and you WILL die.

Look for the challenge “Defeat The Giant Arc-Welder”

If there is any challenge which shows the necessity of area effect weapons, I think it is this one.

it’s not mine, but I wanted to recomment the “fortress” challenge. It gave me absolute fits, and I needed to setup 3 different ship types just to defeat it.

Also sorry Esgaro, I beat your challenge with 97% of my fleet remaining :slight_smile:

You silly fool! Cruiser missiles will remove it in one go. You need to rearm that thing with the longest range missiles available. XD

Haha. Good point. Yeah, it is has a definite weakness. But hey, it makes you think about it. It makes it feel more like a puzzle. Quite funny what that setup does to challenges that don’t exploit its weakness.

I think Arc-Welder style fleets are possibly the first serious ‘broken balance’ thing I’ve seen, although I’m sure I’ll find a counter for it. In general, this game really allows you to rock/paper/scissors at problems.

img259.imageshack.us/i/screensho … 16354.jpg/

Lacks anti-fighter defenses.

Oh, no doubt it does. I made it while thinking about what would work against Omnitronic’s ‘clown’ fleet, which only has one fighter squadron. The three decoy cruisers are armed with four anti-fighter guns, but they can’t take out serious fighter fleets.

Four cruiser defense lasers, a power generator III, crew module II, two shield generator II, six ultraheavy armor, and three nanobot repair systems. The default orders have ships attacking cruisers before frigates, so the only real point of the cruisers was to draw fire, and to provide a little anti-fighter defense.

Why would I want to draw fire? Well, the actual torpedo frigates have no shields or armor. They are just all torpedo, a generator, and the crew to man them. The point was to make them as cheap as possible, to stack as many as I could.

So yeah, the setup has definite weaknesses, I just thought it amusing enough to share. What it does against most challenges, which are usually heavy on plasma or beam weapons, is quite the spectacle.

Somebody could probably put together a more well balanced immobal blob, but what is the point? It will still be ravaged by long range missiles. I tried the frigate missiles myself, using the same formation, but the fleet ended up losing to the clown fleet by a huge margin. I am honestly not sure why those didn’t seem to work.

seriously, try the Fortress setup by Jackl. It’s also immobile, but with tons of point defense and a scary scary fighter fleet. It’s the best challenge I’ve played against.

Plasma cruiser spam worked well enough for me to beat fortress. Admittedly, I did have to modify them to include more anti-fighter than I normally carry.

Just put them all in a line and let them go.
youtube.com/watch?v=3eKVgXklX7I

Really, of all the ships I’ve tried, the light plasma launcher cruiser has been the best swiss army knife of them all. Sure, you can customize the scissors to beat a particular challenge’s paper, but if you don’t know what is coming, plasma cruisers seem to be the best bet.

The best challenges I think are the ones that plasma cruiser spam fail against. They have a tough time againt Omnitronic’s clown and Federation Foxes fleets, which is one of the reasons why I like those two. Against arc-welder, plasma cruisers will fail miserably.

Hi Guys, Just finished all the singleplayer missions so I’m going to try putting up some challenges that even Omnitronic can’t beat. :stuck_out_tongue:
It seems a lot of challenges focus on one strength but GSB seems to allow a counter in that situation. The hardest fleets I’ve come up against are the balanced ones with a range of Crusiers/Frigates and weapons.

To try something different I created an Ad Hoc Imperiel Battlestation that people can fight. It’s up right now with a Small Station and Protection, shouldn’t be hard to beat but it’s something else for people to try. The inclusion of the Imperiel ‘Weapons Platform’ Hull gave me the idea, I hope Cliff will make a few more Immobile station hulls so you can attack a defended position rather than 2 Fleets all the time.

Anyway, have fun against the station and I hope to get up a wide range of challenges for you all, and with all the available Races instead of just the Federation.

Omnitronic, your pesky frigates were no match for my devestating army!

(Actually it took me three tries so i could get my orders right. The build I had saved was the wrong one. Once I had my guys work together I made short work of you =P )

That mass of frigates really took me by surprise. I didn’t think frigates could be very effective until I saw that. I think they’re a bit too frail and don’t use their maneuverability enough, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Interestingly enough I did the opposite to combat the frigate horde. I split them up as much as I could so they couldn’t focus my cruisers down.

Two new challenges - both dealing with Gaxalon Beta. I’ve marked them with ‘GA’ and ‘GB’ at the end - hopefully more will be added to the sequence! If you have a killer fleet against both, send it to me and mention which (GA or GB) it did best against!

I’ve that the plasma spammers aren’t able to deal with my cunning plan of a bunch of missile/beam cruiser hybrids with a wall in front (Extra point defense frigates added to for taste). The wall cruisers (I call them The Sit Tight Class) are hilariously stubborn, and by the time the go down the multi-warhead missiles have opened up a nice lead. It’s good fun.

Well, I fielded my Alligence Shock Fleet against both and came out with 86% to something like 40% because some of your ships dissapper. -.-
I don’t know if I would’ve won, but I was using a rapid assault fleet that got in so close with Lightening Weapons your ships couldn’t retaliate or escape as my frigates were so fast. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have an Alligence Fleet up on Challenges now if your tired of fighting the Federation. I haven’t used the other Races that much so I’m sure there’s weaknesses I overlooked, but you can still have a go.

Okay. Now that the WARP CANNON BUG OF DOOM (vanishing ships) is done with - someone defeat Gaxalon Pirates challenge ‘GB’ and show me how you did it!

Well Omnitronic, someones already Bested your fleet. I’m still trying with Alligence ships so hopefully it will go up to 2 victories. :stuck_out_tongue:

UPDATE: Whoo, I Got It! Took me a few tries. My mistake was trying to attack your fleet, so instead I went on the Defence. I especially liked the way your Frigates stayed vigilantly behind the Crusiers, but my Frigates were able to get round behind yours and destroy them. Splitting up your fleet was its main weakness, without a combined firepower they could be picked off. I finished off with 61% of my Fleet Intact.
Still a great challenge, I hope to see more Omnitronic.