Guidance scramblers do not seem to be a problem due to the huge number of missiles in the air plus emp cannons on fast missile cruisers turn off guidance scramblers to allow them to get through. In any case you still have plasma to fall back on. Rocket fighters overwhelm any other missile defenses too.
On another note does anyone else find the defense laser useless?
I just get a dedicated cruiser with mostly tractor beams on it and have my fighters and fast missile cruisers slaughter the fighters. Sometimes I use laser fighters here to kill them faster but usually the rocket fighters will suffice.
You can use any laser cannon to kill fighters with tractor beams so no need for those defense lasers. It would truely take a huge as hell fleet of fighters to make me worry about them. Those enemy fighters live extremely short lives. Everytime a tractor beam latches onto one of them it is a guaranteed kill. For this reason on maps with smaller number of fighters I might even send in unarmored cruisers because the damage I will take under my shields will be too small to matter or else I can just use a nanorepair mod to fix any damage they do. Also if you put bigger laser cannons on them the tractor beam cruisers do not become completely useless once the fighters are all dead.
The defense laser is complete garbage. The pulse lasers can be useful though. They have enough range and firepower to be semi-decent against even cruisers, assuming you can use other weapons to drop the shields. But at the same time they are fast enough to be have a reasonable chance of hitting fighters.
Probably one of the simplest yet best defenses against fighters is to just put a tractor beam on your cruiser, and then order the cruiser to be escorted by a squadron of cheap, fast, rocket fighters.
The tractor beam slows an enemy fighter down to a crawl, and it is then promptly obliterated by rockets. No need for laser painting if its not moving. Keep several of these cruisers in close formation so the overlapping tractor beams, fighter screens, and GS/PD makes for a deathtrap for attacking fighters.
I use Empire for most conflicts. The trick is to use 4 shield points on the cruisers.
3 - Fast Recharge Shields
1 - Reflective Shield
That will hold off bruit strength.
Now, one problem with Shields is that fighters can enter them and damage the Hull. To counter that, either use anti-fighter frigates or the smallest speed boosted fighters and load them w/ high rate of fire guns.
The rest, use long range weapons. Sure Cruiser Lasers have high DPS, but the opponent needs to be in range first to use them.
Last, Imperials are one of the few races to have a weapon spot that houses 3 guns for the price of one on all of the cruisers. This will do triple the damage on the target. Rebels only have 1 cruiser that can do this and the Swarm Disruptor beam is a different story (race specific item).
Correct. There is only one actual weapon there. Visual effects show two additional fake weapons, for a total of three energy beams appearing. However, only one of them is doing any damage. That misunderstanding can cost you dearly when designing a battle-fleet!
For a minute there I thought Empire had some kind of ‘secret triple weapon slot’ that had gone previously unnoticed. So, the Empire ships don’t have a 3-for-1 capability in one hardpoint or anything like that, but are rather the same as the other races in that regard?
no, same as other races. mind you, it would be interesting and it;d add a new level of strategy. plus the empire (and the alliance) really need the boost
edit: sorry, yes the empire is normal, no it doesnt have a triple weapon slot, and yes, it needs it
As Cliffski has said, those multi-turret hardpoints are entirely gratuitous. You still only have the firepower of a single gun, it just looks prettier and with more lasers.
Here we go with my challenge. I went at it from a different angle, deciding to concentrate my firepower and ignore the free-ranging frigates–you seem to go for a high degree of fleet cohesion and rigid formations, on top of cruisers with beams, plasma, missiles, and CLs all together instead of a more unified setup. I could have met such a balanced fleet with a balanced fleet of my own and hoped to win on orders, or I could have taken advantage of the fact that none of your ships besides the fighters were particularly fast or evasive. Switching out my multirole backline cruisers for plasma cruisers, my torpedo fleet support weapons platforms for plasma ones, and my frontline tank cruisers for frontline tank cruisers armed with scramblers, plasma, and EMP only instead of painters served to do the latter, and your ships fell pretty quickly.
Which called for me to unleash my Wolf Cruisers which with my fleet lacking any of my Valkyrie Cruisers, made short work of your fleet. Since your entire fleet was so focused on stopping missiles, I dropped the Valkyries, making your Scramblers less than helpful with a lack of missiles coming from my fleet. Also, since your entire fleet was focused on plasma spam, the small Wolf Cruisers were almost impossible to hit and made short work of your front line. With the majority of your Scramblers on the front line, the Loki Frigates shut down a good deal of your fleet, leaving the Hrist Cruisers to plasma spam back. Not sure if my front line survived or not, it rarely does, sadly.