From the hoverdesk of Zark.Q.Grabblethorp, Chief Acquisitions Manager, Galactic Administration Corps. (Our motto: ‘Corruption is our middle name’)
Admirals:
This top-secret thread is to be used to record the most dastardly fleets in the galaxy. If your pathetic human brain / pulsing hivemind / amniotic fluid sac (delete as appropriate) encounters a particularly vicious combination of enemy ships lurking in some faraway system, Universal Order Alpha-Gamma-Xul/38b now requires that you log the details here. Admirals of all races can then purchase the data from us (for a small administrative fee) for training purposes.
Under subsection TK-421 of the Order, fleets using particularly interesting tactics or challenges that are ‘just plain fun’ (as our human friends might say) should also be logged.
Reports from the front are required to use the following format or risk being dropped down the nearest black hole by our disgruntled filing droids:
ID
From
Taunt
Map
Enemy
Date
This should be followed by a brief battle report. The content of this is discretionary, but could include details on weapons, fleet composition, etc. The more our captains / sacrificial drones / mindslaves know about what they’re getting into, the less ill-prepared they’ll be (and the more we can charge for the information).
Yours authoritatively,
ZQG.
Appendix (1) - Example response.
4514808
Corbeau
Wall-O-Beef, coming soon to a battlefield near you
Battle Above Edyai IX
Tribe
12/06/09
Incredibly tough tribe frigates with lots of beams and rocket fighters
4619567
Mad_Wolf
kinder suprisses are fun
Baleur’s Blood Bath
Rebels
10/08/10
400,000 credit limit and 1500 pilots -
Mad_Wolf slaves his fighters to one ship on the front - do not try to missile this fleet to death it will kill you. Rush it for the victory.
Yeah, tell me about it. So I’d say he has 60 cruisers as well.
I can beat this with 16 cruisers and 1056 fighters. This fleet kept poping up when I was testing the campaign and slaughtering me. None of my ‘slow but steady’, ‘tank protected’ missile fleets could beat it. Also with the campaign - you can’t build a fleet to deal with a known enemy at will, you have to take what you have to battle. Never quite had the right fleet to counter it when it did show up.
Dang. If the ratio went the other way i’d have just FT spam’d it to death xD
And if his FT are all slaved to the lead ship… I might know a way to beat it!
Both, really. My hopes are that, if enough people start posting here, the thread will end up as a resource that players can use to find good examples of specific fleet types to test their own designs against without having to scroll blindly through the challenge UI.
There are also a lot of great challenges with <100 plays, and it would be cool if this thread could bring a few of them out of the shadows.
4615745
123STW
SAC 5-28 Nomad Missiles
0_SAC-5 See Forums for details
Nomads
09/13/10
Forced central deployment, tanks and nomad missiles. One of the toughest long-range missile fleets out there - by the time you get into beam range of the tanks, you’re under seriously heavy missile fire from the cruisers in the back row.
There are also a few refinements here and there. In particular it is now practically immune to aggressive fighters, more Nomad Missiles, and still better at countering rush with a few cruiser target painter. But then it is still no match against a similar Tribe Fleet… Tribe is just so OP with their 2x HP and air dominance.
Well the swarm smart bomb tank with plasma will beat pretty much any missile oriented fleet… But then they will die horribly to rush or other plasmas with beams.
Personally I like the alliance armored plasma fleet as anti long range more than the swarm one, since it can beat more fleets while sharing the same weakness.
It’s possible to build a smart bomb fleet that can handle cruiser rushes if you sprinkle in some CLs…but I agree that they tend to die horribly against other plasma & beam fleets. Frigate rushes will kill them too, as rocket fighters are pretty useless with all those smart bombs going off.
Hmm…it seems there’s a bit less interest in this thread than I predicted. Ah well, I’m going to keep posting stuff here anyway. Feel free to join in, folks - and post your own challenges if you think they’re deserving.
Here’s one that pretty much everyone has played but is utterly deserving of being called Elite.
4521144
Dogthinker
The Tribe has learned some lessons from the rocket riot police. Easy to beat challenge, but sparkly.
Defend Caspian IV
Tribe
12/14/09
‘Easy to beat’? I wouldn’t say so. Massed Utopias with a mix of missiles supported by missile frigates with EMP and a cap of painter fighters. As I recall this was one of the first challenges to really optimise the use of painters in an anti-rush setup. I’ve only ever beaten this challenge by using a tonne of Swarm smart bombs, although I’m sure it’s beatable with a good MWM / scrambler setup.
