Is challenge by Palomer Hacked?

apologies in advance if I am wrong but I was starting to think I was getting good at this game and this challenge is hacked After dozens of battles and losing all horribly I just started to wonder.
I had a couple of missions with torpedoes and another with missiles that over and over again attacked that cruiser but there is no damage.
I have tried again with all ships missions deleting fighters and cruisers, just frigates and still no joy. If 7 ships can do this then why bother playing.

AAAArrrrrggghhhhhh …

Not likely seeing as the data files being used are the ones in your computer.
Unless he was able to deploy ships with no generators or something but I think there’s a check for that.

Hey Skip, how did you do against this one?

Which challenge? Palomer has several challenges posted. If you mean “Try and blast through this”, it’s not hacked it just has a ludicrous number of shield generators. With enough shield killing weapons (like Cruiser Lasers) you can punch through it. The real problem is that it’s screening a bunch of uber plasma ships and is protected by superfast fighters.

(I went and looked at the file… it has 6 Fast Recharge shields. Wee!)

disruptors are good against heavy shields, especially stacked shields

Yep, thats the one. I even tried an imperial laser beam at 860. As will e coyote says “back to the drawing board”

Cruiser lasers, ion cannons, and fast ships… that’s the way to deal with this one, imo. :slight_smile:

I’ve beaten it several times, it’s a fun one.

Laser cruisers will thrash it, and I had success with engineless missile cruisers too.

Finally consistently beat it! Alliance frigates and 2 fast fighters.

name = bug ff pt boat
guiname = Bug FF PT boat
hull = Alliance Cobra Frigate hull
cost = 1091

[modules]
0 = frigate torpedo,
1 = frigate power III,
2 = frigate torpedo,
3 = frigate torpedo,
4 = frigate_engine III,
5 = frigate_engine III,
6 = frigate_engine III,
7 = frigate_engine III,
8 = frigate_pulse laser,
9 = frigate disruptor bomb,
10 = frigate crew II,
11 = frigate crew II,
12 = frigate_engine II,
I call this my PT boat strategy!
Notice the 5 engines…
2 of these set to escort and protect
name = bug fighter laser 1a
guiname = Bug Fighter Laser 1a
hull = Alliance Tarantula Fighter
cost = 88

[modules]
0 = fighter_engine III,
1 = fighter power III,
2 = fighter_laser,
The frigates set to keep moving and retaliate.
delete the fighter and cruiser settings, they will go for them anyway
The pulse laser is for those pesky fighters that my fighters don’t get.

Finally I can sleep now …

lol. I remember that one. It was really hard till I figured out that you needed to get your ships to target the back row. Retaliate and Cooperate worked really good on that one.

if im thinking the same, i completed this challange with score 100% to 0% :smiley: (fast disruptor & ecm frigs)

Yeah, it’s a slow fleet without missiles… So you can standoff and win. Got 100% spending only half the resources on MIRV cruisers.

And it’s also a fleet without any short range weapons… So you can rush in and win. Got 50% using only half resources using cruiser lasers (really short range, massive DPS) on ridiculously fast cruisers (five engines each :smiley: )

And there’s no anti-fighter there… At all. So you can have a 100% win by spending just 5% of the resources to get one dirt cheap fighter squadron.

:smiley:

I find trying to win challenges with the least resources is a fun way to approach them - since going at them with the same resources is a bit unfair, really, as you can pick your specialty to demolish them.

The Palomer challenge I actually beat on the first try by random luck. I used the rebels with two squadrons of fighters armed with rockets and pulse lasers along with five cruisers in various configurations. The fighters did most of the work though.

The Amdusias challenge was the one I took forever to beat. I ended up using mostly torpedo frigates to beat that one.

You can beat that challenge (Try and blast through this) using just torpedo fighters.

I keep meaning to re-do that one with the new parts and builds.

I was very glad that so many people enjoyed fighting my fleet. :slight_smile:

I just Palomer’s “Blast through this” in three tries then I posted the fleet I used to do it as “Blast Through This II”

I can not for the life of me find the original Palomer challenge.

It was there a minute ago and when I refreshed the list things are not in the correct order. Even when I click the top bar of the columns, data is not properly sorted.

You missed the point though… The name “Blast through this” was referring to the shield tank in front of the fleet. It’s dealing with that tank that lead to the original poster wondering if it was hacked. Hope, just loooots of shielding.

Take that away and just have a pure plasma fleet like yours… There’s nothing interesting any more. Any fleet with nothing but plasma (including the original challenge) is excessively easy to beat. I just beat your fleet by 100% with three different fleets.

  1. It has nothing that can kill fighters… So a few squadrons of fighters is a easy 100% win.
  2. It has nothing that can hit anything fast (half a squadron of fighters doesn’t count :wink: so you can (and I just did) 100% it with fast frigates.
  3. It’s slow, and doesn’t have missiles. So you can outrange and smash it with a missile fleet.

Palomer’s challenge was nearly as vulnerable… But had the redeeming feature of teaching people about tanks. :stuck_out_tongue:

Actually that was my point. The tank isn’t “hacked” it is superfluous.
I did better by cloning his fleet and skipping the tank.

Well that’s the thing… His fleet was able to beat frigate and missile fleets, or at least give them a run for their money, unless they used ‘retaliate’ orders, because the tank was able to soak fire for so long that his slow plasma ships could get in range of missiles, and it’s own weaponry was actually capable of hitting frigates. The lack of fighter defence was a flaw it shared though.

It’s just such a misnomer to call a fleet ‘Blast Through This II’, when you don’t actually have a tank to blast through…