Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
Home » Primary Racial Traits » IT » IT Defense
IT Defense Tue, 03 June 2008 14:09 Go to next message
Effluviant Walrus is currently offline Effluviant Walrus

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US
Suppose you're an IT who has a decent sized empire but is trying to avoid war in order to develop a bit first (your gate network connects the whole empire, but has patches, as in you need to take round-about paths to get to some places). However, you're pretty sure that your neighbors are aggressive, and are expecting at least one of them to attack soon.

Is it a better idea to station a garrison close to the center of your empire or station a garrison around the perimeter? If you station the center, it can deploy anywhere within a turn or two, but it makes you seem weak as your ships are not really visible. If you station at the perimeter, it will present a strong front, but it might take half your forces three or four turns to get to the front.

What would you do?



"Thus spake the master programmer:
`When the program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes.'"

"In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better."

Report message to a moderator

Re: IT Defense Tue, 03 June 2008 17:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
vonKreedon is currently offline vonKreedon

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA
There are too many important unknowns in your scenario for me to give a good answer:
- What is your relative tech level vs. your potential enemies?
- What allies do you have?
- What allies do your potential enemies have?
- Can your potential enemies see your planet's orbits?
- Can you see your potential enemies' orbits?
- When you say that your gate network has "patches" are you meaning patches in which you would have to overgate or patches in which the overgating is too extensive for even an IT?
- For that matter, what is your current deployed gate?
- What are your current hull and weapon choices?
- How productive are your worlds?
- Can they produce 2 or more capital ships a turn?
- Are your minerals plentiful and balanced on you production centers?
- What sort of MF coverage do you have?

Now, having asked all those questions I will say that my general tendency, if I don't know which direction an attack might come from, is to concentrate centrally. But also I would work very hard diplomatically to eliminate, or at least mitigate the risk of attack from some of the possible directions so that I could move my concentration closer to the unmitigated vectors.

Report message to a moderator

Re: IT Defense Tue, 03 June 2008 18:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Effluviant Walrus is currently offline Effluviant Walrus

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 91
Registered: May 2008
Location: New York, US
Well, this is completely hypothetical, so the situation is whatever you want it to be. I was just looking for a general deployment philosophy.

However, your point about overgating made me think - I don't really use overgating as much as I could, especially as an IT. I think at least in most of the testbeds I ran I could probably get from one end of the empire to the other in 2 acceptable overgates (any/300); this would lessen the disadvantage of deploying on the border.

My biggest worry though is of a sneak attack or feint (using Kill Starbase), stranding a large chunk of my fleet somewhere on the border where its useless to defend against the enemy's main force.

Maybe I could use a central garrison itself as an diplomatic tactic. Since the enemy might expect that, I might be able to bluff and pretend I have more forces just a jump away; alternatively, I could actually have a large force and lure someone else into attacking me by looking weak.

Whew. Anyway, since I'm not actually playing an IT in a game, its just a mental exercise, but that turned out to be complicated. And I thought that being an IT would make force deployment so much simpler Sad

Report message to a moderator

Re: IT Defense Tue, 03 June 2008 22:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
gible

 
Commander

Messages: 1344
Registered: November 2002
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Effluviant Walrus wrote on Wed, 04 June 2008 10:21

And I thought that being an IT would make force deployment so much simpler Sad


Hardly...being able to overgate more safely, and generally gate biggerships further just adds to your options...

but yes...if you're building a gate network(for defense or otherwise) some level of redundancy is wise. As IT being able to gate bigger ships further means you *can* using a 'flying squad' as a primary means of defense much more effectively than other races(only IT can have a decent flying missile squad)

Report message to a moderator

Re: IT Defense Tue, 15 July 2008 12:39 Go to previous message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
Commander

Messages: 1316
Registered: August 2003
Location: Hiding from Meklar
Depends on what you want to achieve diplomatically.

If you are at peace, want to remain at peace, and want your opponents to know you have a strong fleet... In that case I'd keep the fleet moving. Gate it around the border at random, trying to ensure it's within reach to make it to the opposite side promptly if necessary. Basically both showing the fleet off and making it unpredictable where it will be each year (so it is difficult for an opponent to strand it, and also risky for them to try to sneakily pluck a 'vulnerable' world.)

Better yet, deploy adequate minefields and scanners, to be able to predict any meaningfull attack / buildup a year early. Then it doesn't really matter much where your fleet is, except for the decision of how much of it you want to expose to alien scanners.

Report message to a moderator

Previous Topic: Why ban IT from taking IFE?
Next Topic: ISB
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Fri Dec 13 01:21:07 GMT-5 2024