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[CapnHector]

This is in response to Hiruma Kai's challenge to be able to beat a double Ordo with less than 75 DP. The original statement:

I could solo two Ordos at a time with Ziggurat (three last release), but I cannot solo five Ordos with it - not enough PPT, and Z can only be deployed twice at most because of -50% CR per round.

I'd love to see a 75 DP no player flagship fleet handle a double Ordos (with battle size set to 400) to be honest.  I don't think I've ever seen that, although perhaps I've just missed it.  Given a 75 DP solo ship fleet is a very different fleet from a 240 DP fleet.  AI is fine when it's even up in numbers, but when it gets surrounded, it starts having issues.  Given these are all self-imposed challenges, which do people think is harder for the AI?  75 vs ~640 DP (double Ordo), or 240 vs ~1600 DP (5 Ordo)?  Assuming 400 deployment point limit.

...

CapnHector, once you're happy with the Astral quintuple Ordo challenge, you might consider going the other way - what is the least amount of DP under AI control you can use to beat a double Ordo?  Can you get to or lower than 75 DP , the level of a human running a solo Zig?  Feel free to use Tesseract dropped weapons and/or the Zig under AI control.

More accurate terms: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27461.msg408602#msg408602

The 9 Medusa fleet that I figured might be able to do it, video:


This is not, in fact, my best combat. I am still learning to use this fleet, so we lose one Medusa to just issuing a Direct Retreat order, as that causes it to charge the enemy, then direct retreat - I didn't know that's not allowed (yet). I've been able to beat a double Ordo with only 1 Medusa lost.

Getting all optimal D-mods on this alongside Derelict Operations would reduce it from 117 DP to 81 DP, so we are very close. I think we would be fine with just 8 Medusas, beating the challenge. Needs tweaking to fit Combat Endurance, however. I'm not sure if/when I have a chance to do that, so I figured I'd post it because it's pretty cool already.

The build:
Cryoblaster variant (helps taking down Radiants, x 4 in fleet)

Heavy blaster variant (it's probably just better vs ships other than Radiant, x 5 in fleet. 1 does not have Front Shields as a mistake due to autofit front shields issue, I would recommend it)

Officer skills (for all officers):

Character:


Weapons are just all in their own group.

Short writeup:

Spoiler

The Medusa combines the agility of a frigate with 2/3rd the dissipation of a battleship, .37 shields 360 shields and significant (though not overwhelming) firepower. It beats the Hyperion in PPT and also DP. So, I think it's the one for this challenge. I had some other ideas such as a pair of Dooms, but this would seem to leverage fleet skills best. Its most significant weakness is that the AI has no appreciation of the EMP component and range of the Tachyon Lance, requiring care on part of the player.

[close]

[Alex]

Very cool! Video seems to be set to private btw. (Edit: never mind!)

so we lose one Medusa to just issuing a Direct Retreat order, as that causes it to charge the enemy, then direct retreat - I didn't know that's not allowed (yet). I've been able to beat a double Ordo with only 1 Medusa lost.

Would you mind clarifying exactly what happened? Did it just move towards an enemy, did it skim, or? This sounds like it's probably a bug, though it's hard to say and I'm not sure how this might happen. All a retreat order would do is make the ship disengage and move towards the retreat border, hmm.

... I guess I'll see in the video!

[CapnHector]

You can see it in the video - sorry, I can provide the exact timepoint later, it's at the end of the first fight. I have a Medusa successfully retreating with a normal Retreat order. I would like it to start skimming away actively so I issue a Direct Retreat order. This causes it to engage the enemy momentarily before continuing to retreat with a Direct Retreat order, leading to the ship's death.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Very cool! Video seems to be set to private btw. (Edit: never mind!)

so we lose one Medusa to just issuing a Direct Retreat order, as that causes it to charge the enemy, then direct retreat - I didn't know that's not allowed (yet). I've been able to beat a double Ordo with only 1 Medusa lost.

Would you mind clarifying exactly what happened? Did it just move towards an enemy, did it skim, or? This sounds like it's probably a bug, though it's hard to say and I'm not sure how this might happen. All a retreat order would do is make the ship disengage and move towards the retreat border, hmm.

... I guess I'll see in the video!

No, it stops moving towards the border, clearly starts moving towards the enemy, and then teleports to the enemy. After this, it starts retreating again, but refuses to raise its shields, which causes it flame out as a fulgent is hitting it with an ion beam, this causes it to start taking fire from multiple sources and die.
The exact same problem exists for the Wolf, Hyperion, Shrike, Fury, and Odyssey. Direct retreat causes the ship to re-engage the enemy for a moment, and in that moment it may use its movement system to try to get closer to the enemy.

[Alex]

Yeah, I just saw this, hmm. Very odd, I'll dig into it; not able to reproduce this so far but the behavior definitely looks wrong, this looks like a straight-up bug.

[Okawal]

Yeah, I just saw this, hmm. Very odd, I'll dig into it; not able to reproduce this so far but the behavior definitely looks wrong, this looks like a straight-up bug.

Had that bug too in a different setting (was fighting vs Ordos): at the start of the battle i order a Wolf to capture a point after that i issue a direct retreat order it always ignores it. Maybe this help to recreate it and find the bug.

[Alex]

So I spent some time trying to reproduce this and can't, so far.

One thing that's weird is that it happens after a full retreat order is given, but at that point you're not supposed to be able to issue any new orders/switch retreat types/etc; when I do it all the order buttons are grayed out. Maybe the bug is that the game let you actually do this and it's possible that I've fixed that aspect of it in-dev (i.e. the ability to switch retreat types), though I don't remember doing that.

Had that bug too in a different setting (was fighting vs Ordos): at the start of the battle i order a Wolf to capture a point after that i issue a direct retreat order it always ignores it. Maybe this help to recreate it and find the bug.

Thank you! Do you happen to have a save where this is readily observable? It's kind of difficult for me to imagine a scenario where a direct retreat (or just regular retreat) order is straight up ignored.

[Candesce]

One thing that's weird is that it happens after a full retreat order is given,

??

Direct retreat is one of the single-ship orders that's implied to mean "get off the map ASAP" as opposed to "get off the map as convenient." They're right next to each other.

Edit: Wait, ignore me. I misunderstood.

[Okawal]

So I spent some time trying to reproduce this and can't, so far.

One thing that's weird is that it happens after a full retreat order is given, but at that point you're not supposed to be able to issue any new orders/switch retreat types/etc; when I do it all the order buttons are grayed out. Maybe the bug is that the game let you actually do this and it's possible that I've fixed that aspect of it in-dev (i.e. the ability to switch retreat types), though I don't remember doing that.

Had that bug too in a different setting (was fighting vs Ordos): at the start of the battle i order a Wolf to capture a point after that i issue a direct retreat order it always ignores it. Maybe this help to recreate it and find the bug.

Thank you! Do you happen to have a save where this is readily observable? It's kind of difficult for me to imagine a scenario where a direct retreat (or just regular retreat) order is straight up ignored.

sadly i dont have the save were it was easily reproduced. But if i remember correctly the bug works like this: after the wolf captured the point and has directly an enemy ship in his vision range he tries to engage it (will use his teleport) even if you gave him a direct retreat order after the succesfully capture. Managed to reproduced it once but after loading the save the fight played differently (enemy was too fast on the objective). Will try tomorrow to get a better save with more detailed instructions.

[Alex]

(Thank you for all the details, and sorry about sort-of derailing the thread. I see what you mean about the phase skimmer; I can see why it might do that while still generally moving to retreat. I'll take a look! Edit: and, that should be fixed.)

More on-topic: I gotta say, that one Medusa playing distraction really reminds me of like... microing a protoss probe in the enemy base in Brood War

[crvt]

(Thank you for all the details, and sorry about sort-of derailing the thread. I see what you mean about the phase skimmer; I can see why it might do that while still generally moving to retreat. I'll take a look! Edit: and, that should be fixed.)

More on-topic: I gotta say, that one Medusa playing distraction really reminds me of like... microing a protoss probe in the enemy base in Brood War

The proberto is not locked in the enemy base. The enemy is locked in with the probe.

On topic: very nice!
Do you think that RFC is better than solars there?

[CapnHector]

Thanks! Distraction is a really powerful strategy. The key to this fight in particular is separating the two Radiants. They could never be defeated if they just stuck together, but once they separate they have signed their own death warrants. It really is kind of like a RTS. I notice on watching I'm spending all my time in the tactical view again.

@crvt some form of EMP protection is essential. It's the main threat to this fleet, I might even say basically the only threat since as long as engines are online and shields are up the Medusa is close to invulnerable. Tachyon Lance in particular can fry a ship even through shields. They have so little HP they will even die to the shield penetrating EMP arcs of a TL. I didn't try the alternatives systematically though, Solar Shielding should definitely be tried maybe even in addition to RFC. I was even considering Polarized Armor but it certainly won't fit if we already have to swap Helmsmanship for Combat Endurance to get under 75 DP.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Reminder that there's currently a bug in the game with Shield Conversion - Front where issuing the retreat order will cause the ship to randomly drop the shields.

[Hiruma Kai]

I wanted to say that looked like really impressive work commanding that fleet.  Excellent use of distractions and avoid commands, and it demonstrates the power of a fast destroyer wolf pack.  I'd put my money on 3 Medusa when up against any single capital.  The key being getting that capital isolated.

I was curious if you'd played at all with front shield conversion versus accelerated shields?  Even the no front shield conversion Medusa (presumably with 1000 more flux capacity - roughly 10% more - if they were dumped into caps?)  The s-modded extended shields seems a given, but it is not obvious to me given the fact that a Medusa is forced to drop its shield every time is uses its phase skimmer, and thus has a that the front shield conversion is superior to faster shield raising and rotation, or alternatively just 10% stronger shields.  It might be, but the answer is not obvious to me. 

In the past I've played around with s-modded extended shields and s-modded accelerated shields, but that was in the context of a full mixed fleet, and less likely to get surrounded, so perhaps not a good comparison.  I'll simply note a front-conversion, 360 degree shield takes roughly 3.5 seconds to cover everything.  A s-modded extendend and s-modded accelerated shield takes about 1.5 seconds to cover 240 degrees.   S-moded extended and just normal accelerated shields takes about 2.25 seconds.  However, the latter two can start covering the rear arc in like 0.1 seconds if necessary, which might be as much as a 3 second difference.  The 240 degree omni-shield variant didn't look like it took that much damage during most of the fight and worked fine as a solo distraction in the second round it seemed.

Also curious if swapping combat drills for carrier group has any survival benefits, as increasing Talon respawn time by 67% would improve their ability to distract and take fire enough to compensate for the ~3% net change in overall damage to cruiser and capitals (considering the Destroyers were likely getting 15-20% bonus from Target Analysis, 5-15% from Energy Weapon Mastery, 10% from Wolf Pack Tactics, and another 10% from 100% CR).

[Thaago]

Really cool! Interesting to see Helmsmanship being one of the chosen skills, but then again Medusas are fast enough to get a decent boost from them, and they live and die by their maneuvers. I probably would have gone gunnery implants for the range myself (maybe the recoil on ion pulsers?).