I hope someone read this board...
I have an SS question:
How do SS players manage their bombing efforts?
I think using the Stealth bomber is best, as it can have 98% cloak, and be used as an overcloaker too.
But maybe poeple prefer the extra bombing power of the B-52 bomber?

And a bigger qestion:
If I have the Hush-a-boom, what should I do?
With the Hush-a-boom my cloakers would loose the overcloaking capability, but they'll be much cheaper and gatable.
And what if (to make it more difficult) I was planning on using smart bombs? the Hush-a-boom only destroy 2 building per bomb, but this add up. So what the confused SS player should do?

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UAF commander wrote on Thu, 17 April 2003 01:13

I hope someone read this board... I have an SS question: How do SS players manage their bombing efforts? I think using the Stealth bomber is best, as it can have 98% cloak, and be used as an overcloaker too. But maybe poeple prefer the extra bombing power of the B-52 bomber?

The one time I played SS and got to use bombers I used the Stealth bomber, didn't use it as an overcloacker since I didn't even knew what that was at that time!

Quote:

And a bigger qestion: If I have the Hush-a-boom, what should I do? With the Hush-a-boom my cloakers would loose the overcloaking capability, but they'll be much cheaper and gatable. And what if (to make it more difficult) I was planning on using smart bombs? the Hush-a-boom only destroy 2 building per bomb, but this add up. So what the confused SS player should do?

If you have the Hush-a-boom you USE the Hush-a-boom!!! It's the best bomb you can get!!! Fill up your bombers with them, take your enemies planets as good as intact and in only one year of bombing and which means you can turn their planets into production worlds the very next turn! And as another bonus the bombers will indeed gate perfectly.
This is IMHO one of the best (if not the best) toy you can get from the MT! (But let's not start that discussion here.)
I got it twice and they were wonderfull!! I didn't use smarts in combination, I didn't even bother to check if that would be more efficient ... I got it once as AR, once as 1/2500 SD, of course taking planets intact is not that usefull for an AR (but the 1 year kill is), better to destroy everything so if the enemy takes his planet back he'll have to start over again but I had an planetary ally so some planets where meant for him ...
For the 1/2500 it was fantastic!

Sure you lose your "natural" overcloackers but I couldn't care less should I get the Hush-a-boom!

regards,
mch

[Updated on: Thu, 17 April 2003 02:06]

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[Updated on: Fri, 18 April 2003 00:29]

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(Not really about SS anymore now, better to move some bits and bytes around )

regiss wrote on Fri, 18 April 2003 06:28

Micha, How much do You expect Hushs to be to knock through the whole of the defences (it's cheaper to put up 50% hush and last LBUs to put out the whole planet out, than it's with bare hushes). I can't grind my assumptions on calculations, couse I've lost my original Posey's spreadsheet and the new one isn't capable of calculating the bombing accurately (however that word is spelled), but I still remember that ~900 Cherry bombs were needed to bomb out a single world with full defences out in a single year.

One H-a-b costs me at max tech:
1kT iron
2kT bor
no germ
2 resources
weighs 5kT
kills 3.0% of the pop
destroys 2 buildings

The LBU-74 (latest model):
1kT iron
18kT bor
7kT germ
8 resources
weighs 45kT
kills 0.4% of the pop
destroys 45 buildings

Cherry:
1kT
13kT
no germ
6 resources
weighs 52kT
kills 2.5% of the pop
destroys 10 buildings

I don't have the sheet at hand, but these are the numbers I wrote down one day ...

Hush-a-boom:
1.100.000 people planet with:
100 neutron defences need 101 B-52s
100 planetary defences need 44 B-52s
100 laser defences need 24 B-52s
100 missile defences need 15 B-52s

Cherry:
100 planetary defences need 53 B-52s (848 bombs)

The H-a-b (a lot) costs less, kills more cols, kills LESS instalations (very important) and weighs less (gate-able, others are NOT, unless with mini bombers or B-8.5s, which means they cost more per bomb, and yes yes IT too).

The major point with H-a-b is that they let you take planets almost intact in one year at a very good price! So do not start mixing them with LBUs!
And they're nicely gate-able, like I said before: one of the best things you can get from the MT!

(Not going further in detail here, that would require a bit more math ... but I think you'll get the point ...)

regards,
mch

[Updated on: Fri, 18 April 2003 10:58]

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Quote:

The ONLY downside to the H-A-B is if your enemy has battle orders set to kill your bombers.... If they do this and they succeed in killing all your bombers... you're left with warships and nothing to take the planet with.

The same as for normal bombers, but your H-a-b bombers are lighter, this not only matters for gate-ability but they will also have more moves in a battle so they can escape faster. Still probably not fast enough to evade missile ships, but than you bring just some freighter chaff! Afterall the target is: "Bombers/Freighters", not just "Bombers".

Quote:

Not only that but the battle wreakage may give them they ush-a-boom all for themselves!!!!! (insert name of deity) forbid that the ENEMY should get their hands on your favourite toys!!!!

Now THAT would be bad indeed!!!

regards,
mch

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JamesWD wrote on Tue, 22 April 2003 13:50

Quote: freighter chaff! Afterall the target is: "Bombers/Freighters", not just "Bombers". Which is more attractive? surely bombers?

Let me respond with:

"Arma or AMP nubs vs FFs with just one tiny laser. Which is more attractive? Surely the big armed ships!"

True, any good captian would try to kill the bombers, but the Stars! targetting algorithms (first time I'm using this word! sounds really smart, doesn't it?) are limited ...
My guess is that if the bombers are shielded (which they should be) and possibly carry jammers than my bet is that the freighter chaff dies first ...

regards,
mch

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freakyboy wrote on Tue, 22 April 2003 19:29

Depends on the design really.

Well of course it does, but I was referring to good fleet design.

Quote:

Check with your trusty battle attractiveness calculator!!

You mean bombers vs freighter chaff? At work now so don't have it handy

regards,
mch

[Updated on: Tue, 22 April 2003 13:33]

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Quote:

Not only that but the battle wreakage may give them they hush-a-boom all for themselves!!!!! (insert name of deity) forbid that the ENEMY should get their hands on your favourite toys!!!!

Yeh did a little test on that some time ago.
The test was done with races that were maxed out on tech.
Can't remember what the toy was but that shouldn't really make any difference.
As follows:

50 x scouts scrapped individually at the same planet in the same year (with a space station). Result - no toy.
Tried it again - same result.
Tried it again but this time scrapped 100 vessels - same result.
Tried it again using 100 scouts - same result.

Conclusion - the liklihood of gaining this tech seems very remote. Sure I could have gone on and on using more and more vessels, but an ally that's providing scrappers isn't going to keep persisting under these circumstances and you probably won't get to destroy that many bombers over and over, so i thought what's the point ?

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Steve1 wrote on Tue, 11 November 2003 09:34

50 x scouts scrapped individually at the same planet in the same year (with a space station). Result - no toy. Tried it again - same result. Tried it again but this time scrapped 100 vessels - same result. Tried it again using 100 scouts - same result. Conclusion - the liklihood of gaining this tech seems very remote. Sure I could have gone on and on using more and more vessels, but an ally that's providing scrappers isn't going to keep persisting under these circumstances and you probably won't get to destroy that many bombers over and over, so i thought what's the point ?

IIRC the chance increases when putting more items on a ship (in contrast to tech scrapping), so a scout wouldn't be the best platform ... A B52 OTOH carries 16 H-a-B's so your enemy will have a higher chance ...

mch

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Quote:

IIRC the chance increases when putting more items on a ship (in contrast to tech scrapping), so a scout wouldn't be the best platform ... A B52 OTOH carries 16 H-a-B's so your enemy will have a higher chance ...

Yes this is true, but we also did an earlier test by giving a tech maxed out race 5 x Lifeboats (or whatever they're called) that had no toys. All 5 were scrapped separately but in the same year and no toys were gained.

There were multiple chances of gaining any one of a number of toys but still no cigar.

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