Okay, apologies if this seems like harping on an older issue, but I have to ask: can anyone vouch for the ability of Empire ships to beat anything outside of the tutorial? I have tried enough different deployments and designs to make my eyes cross, on a number of different missions and challenges. And so far it appears that the Empire’s main battle strategy is to kill the enemy with overconfidence by allowing them to shred the Imperial fleet.
Am I just missing something here? I know pretty much everyone thinks the Empire is underpowered and at least borderline useless, but I have been assuming that there has to be a stride you can hit with them. Can anyone shed some light on the hidden talents of the Empire, or at least the vacant space where they should be?
Try searching for my name, crakker, and go to the empire strkes back challange. I might of changed the design by then, so counter challange me with whatever wins, and ill see how it goes. Pretty sure i can beat whatever you throw at me with an empire fleet.
Once again, there is a whole subforum dedicated to challanges…
I wasn’t actually referring to challenges specifically. I was trying to express that as far as I can tell the Empire doesn’t work. On anything. I’m trying to win maybe a mission or two, or put up a decent fight on the survival mode, but the attrition of my Empire forces is so fast and crippling that it looks like the only way to use the Empire is don’t.
I can only assume that I’m missing something, and since I’ve already tried everything that makes sense to me, I’d like to know in simple terms what anyone else has used with the Empire that has been something other than an embarrassingly crushing defeat.
I don’t see them as that much different from the other stock races. Obviously they aren’t tribe, so if you’re just trying to learn Empire, steer clear of Tribe to start with. Or playing like Tribe, for that matter.
Aside from that, just try using a few designs that already work for you as another race. Empire have roomy hulls and a shield bonus, but don’t fall into the thinking that you need to abuse either to succeed.
If every one of your empire cruisers is a 4000+ credit shield titan, you’re going to have problems.
Their racial beam weapon has extreme range and decent tracking, good for vulture or cooperative orders as a sort of focus fire that comes from your entire fleet.
One of their cruiser hulls have the higest starting power. This can actually be very usefull. Try some builds based around this fact. Also, cheapest rocket fighters in the game, can make quite a difference.
One of the keys with Empire, is to keep the opponent’s laser fighters off of your own cruisers. WIth their huge footprint and attendant, ‘giant shield bubble,’ they’re the most easily raked by laser fighters of all cruisers.
The Empire is indeed a very tough species to get into, but very rewarding. Play off the strengths of each ship and don’t be afraid to beef shields up by a lot - their bonus allows them to shrug off fire better than most other species. The large amounts of modules alow for a lot of shielding and armor. Basically, don’t skimp out on costs with the Empire, and use EMP weapons to help their shields charge with a bit of a break.
I can clear all the missions on expert with the empire (except the supply limits one, which I haven’t played very much because I don’t find it fun).
My mainstays are a cruiser with max imperial lasers, and fast recharge shields and three power plant II, and a super crusier with: missiles, a random rocket launcher for cost reasons, an illegal quantity of fast recharge shields, power armor backed by armor repair. A single one of these super cruisers can clear the tutorial. Finally some random fighters.
My hax weapon is plasma weapons platforms in the back corner.
This is how the mission will usually go:
Their fighters rush in. I have more fighters, campaign fighters suck. Their fighters die.
They shoot long range weapons at me. They bounce off my shields.
Frigates approach my fleet and get disintegrated by lasers.
Cruisers approach my fleet, the real battle begins.
Due to missiles some cruisers have their shields down. Those cruisers get lasered and die before they can do anything.
They close with their short range shield shredders. Take out a super cruiser. However this takes a bunch of time, and their shields go down in the process they get lasered and die before they can move on to the next super cruiser.
My ships start to die at an accelerated pace. Random streaks of plasma dart across the screen. Frigates slip their bodies past my shield bubble. It’s pretty chaotic and awesome.
???
Profit!
Seriously, if at the end it comes down to one super cruiser against a bunch of random stuff, the super cruiser wins if the random stuff doesn’t have enough dps to take down its shields.
Doesn’t work in challenges though because:
Their fighters are way better than yours.
Super fast cruisers can dodge lasers and missiles, then shred your shields.
I avoid frigates, it means I have more fighters than them.
I made a fleet work, but in a lame way, and only against the “normal” scenarios. I built a fleet of heavily armoured (54+) fast missile cruisers that have no shields, and loaded up on fighters for AA purposes. This involves no finesse, and isn’t much fun.
I’ll try again sometime with a focus on keeping costs down - that probably is what kept holding me back.
