Describe how you would take the system

[ketalis]

Pretend you are the Empire and you have to take a Rebel system that is protected by a planetary ion cannon. In addition to this, you have to deal with a level 3 space station (produces x-wing, y-wing, + 2 corellian corvettes), a nebulon b frigate, an assault frigate, and a marauder missle cruiser.

 

You have 20 unit points to allocate and you have access to level 3 imperial space tech, meaning you can choose between acclamators (3 points), victorys (3), tartans (2), broadsides (2) and scouts (1). You also have access to Vader (1) and a Fleet Commander (1). Bear in mind that acclamators and victories will be neutralized for the majority of the time by the ion cannon and will likely suffer heavy losses, meaning that realistically their only role will be to soak up damage.

 

This is a small system and you will be within visual range of the space station within seconds of entering it. The only terrain hazard is a small asteroid field between you and the station, which can be easily maneuvered around if you wish to approach the station free of obstacles.

 

How would you compose your fleet and take the system?

[Throxx]

Welcome to the Boards!!

 

I think the Broadsides would ultimately be the key here because of their barrage ability.  Stations go down quick when you have Broadsides using this special ability.  The problem lies in protecting them.

 

I would say:

 

3 Victorys     9pts

4 Broadsides  8pts

1 Tartan       2pts

1 Vader        1pt

---------------------

                  20

[Teradyn_pff]

I would venture that your fleet is toast given the way that the side balance is in this game.  The maruader will open fire on your forward heavy ship so as to have its missle impacts wipe out any fighters around it and any on thier way.  The Imperials will probably have some time to try to attack the station with thier broadsides but those ships will be disabled as soon as possible by a smart rebel player.  The Corellian Corvettes from the station will waltz around the middle of the Imperial fleet as they always do, being horribly missed by the (apparent) substandard targetting technology of the Empire compaired to the retrofitted fleet of the Rebels (go f-ing figure).  The Rebel neb-b and assault frigates will hold back until the victorys' shields are brought down by the uncontested y-wings since the 1 tartan is not enough to handle 1 spawn from the station, let alone subsequent ones.  Vader will have a small amount of time to attack before the losses he incures from the ccs outpace his slow wingman ability.  He will spend most of his time hiding in a corner regenerating unless the imperial player sacrifices him to try to take out the rebel hangar if the broadsides manage to get the station's shields down.

 

All in all this engagement should go to the Imperials due to their pop-cap (if things were truely balanced).  The fact that this 20pt (including a hero) Imperial force is going up against a 16pt (with station defences completely spawned) Rebel force.  If the Imperials are able to stay effectively out of range of the space station at first, this should be an even or semi-even fight, but realistically the Imperials will most likely lose the entire battle and the Rebels will probably lose their Neb-B, Maruader and Assault Frigate at max, but a decent Rebel commander will probably lose less.

 

In other words, unless you out pop-cap your opponent as the Empire by a 2 to 1 margin, you are going to need a lot of luck or be playing against a novice Rebel player to win.  I play the Empire a lot but I also have been playing the Rebels quite a bit lately to see if these imbalance issues are imagined or are real.  They are real alright.  The game is set up in a way that evenly competent players will have the game decided by the side they chose and not their skill.  This is the biggest issue with the game right now.

[Throxx]

Hmm… good point.  I have yet to play this game multiplayer so I was basing my first selection vs. the AI.  However, vs. another player maybe the selection below would be better:

 

2 Victorys    6pts

4 Broadsides 8pts

3 Tartan      6pts

-----------------------

                      20pts

 

 

or…

 

2 Victorys    6pts

3 Broadsides 6pts

4 Tartan      8pts

-----------------------

                      20pts

 

 

 

In either case take out the Station’s shields/hanger as soon as possible.

[Teradyn_pff]

The hangar is your only hope, but expect to take massive losses anyway.  If you take out the hangar you will be able to rest from the CC atrocity, but you have to take it out and the current CCs before your bomber force is depleted.  The tie bombers will fall to a station eventually anyway, unlike the Rebel's Y-Wings who could take out 2 level 3 space stations in the time it takes a station to destroy the group.

 

If some how you manage to get the hangar destroyed before your bombers are wiped out and if your tartans survive to the end of that particular part, you can clean up the remaining fighers/bombers that were spawned and clean up the area.  Otherwise, you are toast.

 

This will require the last configuration with the 4 tartans that you listed.

[ketalis]

Thanks for your inputs. This is actually the exact scenario I was stuck on for several days (Wayland on a medium difficulty story campaign), except more marauders, corvettes and gunships seemed to be spawning from somewhere continuously. I tried the various tactics described, but in the end either the cruisers or swarms of corvettes/gunships had the best of me. I eventually completed the mission by sending a stack of seven victories and an imperial commander, four of which were destroyod and the remainder barely survived.

 

Welcome to the Boards!!

 

Many thanks. I look forward to seeing some excellent mods released here.

 

The game is set up in a way that evenly competent players will have the game decided by the side they chose and not their skill.  This is the biggest issue with the game right now.

 

Yes, so it seems. But in a way it is true to the movies that each Rebel unit is more competent than their Imperial counterparts. However, they failed to stay true to the movies by imposing such a low limit on the amount of Imperial units that can be deployed at any given time. Also, the game is very lacking in covert ops compared to Rebellion, which I think represented the Rebel's efforts far more accurately than a system by system conquest ala EAW. Much work can be done to improve the game.

 

Has anyone considered some sort of TC/mod in which uses both the Rebellion and EAW engines? Rebellion for strategic and EAW for tactical... maybe even replace ground tactical with Force Commander. I have no idea if this is possible but it would be sweet.