So, challenges are all well and good. After playing a few I feel like - ‘so what?’ Any challenge is crackable. So here’s my counter-challenge, which should result in a pretty sweet fleet cooked up by somebody:
Make a group of ship designs, a ‘fleet’ if you will, and then see if you can beat several challenges with that same group of ship designs. I will arbitrarily set some limitations. Your fleet shall be composed of:
One race
Six total capital ship designs.
Three total fighter designs.
Three (3) hard challenges must be defeated with these designs. Deployment can vary from challenge to challenge, you don’t have to use all of your ship designs in each mission, but you are limited to the 6 + 3 total designs.
The Challenges:
- Rebels - BlueBreaker - Rebel Aggressive Fleet (updated) - 12/29/09
- Empire - Galadriel - The Emperor’s Fist - 1/15/10
- Tribe - mrblitz01 - mrblitz26… tribal patchouli cruisers - 1/31/10
- ALTERNATE - Federation - yurch - Federation Purchasing and Procurement - 1/30/10
- ALTERNATE - to be determined Alliance challenge.
A colorful run-down description:
Bluebreaker’s Rebel Aggressive Fleet I took a few hacks at last night, and it is rough. Lasers and beams and speed galore, these guys have firepower and will steamroller over you. A low pilot limit and decent armor means you will have trouble besting this fleet with a fighter swarm. You’re probably going to have to beat it at it’s own game, somehow.
Galadriel’s Emperor’s fist is also rough. There is possibly a bug he is exploiting here which let him make an impressive stack of fighters. They will cause you some incredible pain. If too much trouble or you think that is cheap, exchange this for one of the alternate challenges. An impressive fleet, apparently some people have beaten it. I don’t know how, I did not. Also, Galadriel gets props for apparently making effective use of carrier modules in this fleet.
The Patchoulli cruisers are a fast stand-off fleet which will frustrate you and rain down death in the form of rockets. Also, you will have to deal with a ridiculous and painful swarm of rocket and rocket + painter fighters at some point. A masterful exercise in engagement ranges and ship design, you are probably doomed. Good luck.
BONUS 1 - Federation Purchasing and Procurement. I’ll tell you one thing: You aren’t going to have much luck taking this fleet down with any kind of guided ordinance. Missiles will be swatted away effortlessly. And are those frigates shooting at your cruisers? Yes, yes they are.
BONUS 2 - an Alliance challenge. I wanted to get all the races in, but couldn’t find an uber-challenge alliance fleet out there. Also, I wanted to find a challenge by somebody other than the people already in this multi-challenge. First person to suggest a hard alliance challenge gets it added here. We’ve got a stand off fleet, a knife fight beam fleet, a couple fleets heavy on fighters, so I was thinking maybe an EMP or missile spam heavy fleet here would be good.
When done, post whatever configuration of your hulls you like in a challenge for us to take up, with your own credit and pilot restrictions (keep it pretty high and the big map size though). If we get three winners, they will become the new Uber Multi-Challenge Fleets. Also you should post your hull types and how many you used of each to defeat each of the three challenges you selected. You get a gold star if you manage to beat the three +2 bonus challenges. Also, use engines for everything, don’t be lame and set up some floating rocks of armor or something.
Right, I suppose I should try to beat this challenge myself first to see how feasible it is - who knows - maybe one of you already has a fleet that can cream these fleets.