Ambrosia Software Web Board: In Light of the Boards Being Dead... - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Well, moderators, you wanted ship debates, and Cicion appears to be back (check the bar a few posts up), so I'm going to start a debate about human carriers...

Human Carriers SUCK! Their turning kills their front gun, their turret does almost NO damage, and their fighters are horrible!

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"I can ail what cures you."

Let's not forget the painfully weak acceleration. You'd be better off building gunships with the resources you could waste on the carrier. In fact, Vegeta did a test a while back: Two gunships vs. one carrier. First round, the human carrier was dead, and both gunships remained. The second try was with all the carrier's fighters out. The results were still the carrier and all its fighters destroyed, and both gunships intact.

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Throughout their history these "unenlightened" beings have continually opposed and fought abuses of power wrought by their own bretheren. We, as the prophets would do well to learn from these Humans.
-Final statement of the Salrilian reformist Sirthis shortly before his execution.

Maybe I'm suffering from deja vu, but I can swear I've heard (read?) this debate before.

Just to offer my 3 1/2 Japanese yen, the human carrier and its fighters form excellent distraction for the enemy. It was not designed to go head to head and one should never use it that way. Instead of worrying about 2 gunships, the enemy has to contend with 11 separate targets. (which uses approximately the same amount of resources to build) When used in conjunction with a large escort fleet, the combination is very powerful.

True, but this is the case for ALLcarriers. When it comes to the human carrier aside from this function, it fall very short in its gield, and as a ship in general. The Gaitori carrier at least has a ranged weapon, which makes it superior to its human counter part in my book.

Somebody should do a test on Gaitori Carriers vs Human Carriers. Yes, this thing happened a long time ago on the old boards. It was the longest, most grand debate of them all. Now, if only Cicion would stick up for the human carriers again...

Anyway, here's a chart:

Ship...............Gunship....Carrier
Cost...............22.........22
Firepower..........x2.........x1/2
Shields............+1000......-1000
Maneuverability....fast, etc..slow, etc
Fighters...........-10........-10
Number of targets..2..........1 to 11*

*it is rarely 11 because the fighters can't warp and they die so easily...

That's the best way to look at it, I think...

Now, if only Cicion would post!

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"I can ail what cures you."

Yes. The problem with human carriers is that they sorely lack a ranged reapon such as a missile launcher.

Now here would be an improved carrier:

Long-ranged laser turret
rapid launch fighter bay (15)
C missiles

That would be comparable to the Ishiman Carrier in terms of firepower!

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I do not suffer from insanity
I enjoy every minute of it

-Cantharan Commodore za'Grom
After the capture of Earth

Also, I dislike huma carriers because they are so easy to hyper-bomb when they are facing perpendicular to your course. Their side profile is just too big to avoid being turned into glowing debris in the heat of battle.

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I do not suffer from insanity
I enjoy every minute of it

-Cantharan Commodore za'Grom
After the capture of Earth

Slug, dont make us get into this again, hyper bombing is NOT an apporpiate or efficiant tactic!

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Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

Era, an huge plugin for EV: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html"]www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html[/url]

It would be very effective if you used a Cantharan Gunship... I have also found that concussion missiles work great for hyperbombing...

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"I can ail what cures you."

Giving a human carrier missles is terrible. Missles, in all aspects (aside from the audemedon ones) are terrible weapons. They do poor damage for their refire, terrible turning, and are very hard to hit anything other than lethargic with it. A much better thing for the carrier is the laser turret, fighters, and the lepiton beam, or stick with the magneto pulse.

(Note, fighters release MUCH too slowly, they need to at least be released at the rate they can be built, or it's pointless.

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Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

Era, an huge plugin for EV: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html"]www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html[/url]

Missiles are very good weapons, Cotten. Their range is the main factor, but if you are good at delivering them, you can get almost all your missiles to hit your target. You also make your target dodge whenever you fire a missile, which can bring them into akward situations. In Chapter 2: The Stars Have Ears, I always fire one missile when I start getting close to the relay dishes because the cruisers dodge and have their backs pointed at me. Then I can just stay behind them and blow them away... Missiles also are good if you have a lot of ships with missiles escorting a transport to a planet, because the missiles give your fleet the first hit.

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"I can ail what cures you."

Plus missiles are very effective at disabling Bunker Stations. In EV, missiles are meant to be anti-fighter eapons. In Ares, missiles re anti-capital ship weapons.

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I do not suffer from insanity
I enjoy every minute of it

-Cantharan Commodore za'Grom
After the capture of Earth

It might be a good weapon, but I'd by no means rather have a missle then a magneto pulse. Ever been in a ishiman carrier without any turret ammo left? It's a flying death trap!

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Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

Era, an huge plugin for EV: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html"]www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html[/url]

No, it's a Miranu Gunship. You can pound stuff all day from long range.

Although, even if we DID replace the magneto pulse guns with missiles, the human carrier would still suck. It would have a horrible turret. We'd have to give it something more...

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"I can ail what cures you."

Just boost the range and firing rate on the turret and it would be fine. The damage would still suck, but this is true for all human weapons (with the exception of the photopulse on the HVD).

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Throughout their history these "unenlightened" beings have continually opposed and fought abuses of power wrought by their own bretheren. We, as the prophets would do well to learn from these Humans.
-Final statement of the Salrilian reformist Sirthis shortly before his execution.

[This message has been edited by Sargatanus (edited 08-27-2000).]

Just a question- why would we mess around with the carrier at all?

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Sundered Angel,
The One and Only

Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

So that it might be worth the time and resources to build and be usefull in combat. With the turret modification it would be brought up to par with the gunship. (Though that may throw the advantage rating off a little...)

Well, I don't know about the web board in general, but at least this thread is alive and well.

First, I don't believe we should exaggerate the human carrier's ineffectiveness. True, the lack of a long-ranged weapon is a flaw. Its horrendous turning and speed are also faults. But claiming that the Gaitori carrier is better than the Human carrier is an exaggeration. If the Human carrier can maneuver to the back of the Gaitori carrier, (A difficult proposition, I know, but with good timing of light drive and some decent piloting, it is not impossible.) then it will have all the advantages with its rapid magneto weapon. The Gaitori carrier is the only ship in the game that can be conceivably killed by a fighter. The same cannot be said for the Human carrier whose turret weapon takes care of even Audemedon fighters.

In addition, the carrier also forms a magnificent shield for other human ships due to its length. Human gunships can hide behind the Human carrier using its shields as cover and fire away.

As for Human carriers dying before it launches all of its fighters, that is probably because the player is not piloting the carrier hiumself.

I just like to emphasize that carriers are usually not meant as a weapon to be used alone. In modern warfare, a carrier needs many escort ships. A Human carrier escorted by Human gunships will be a formidable threat. (All right, so "formidable" may be an exaggeration. How about "serious"?)

Slug's modifications are interesting, but I do believe that it has a serious flaw. Namely, you took away its rapid magneto weapon. Without it, the Ishiman carrier can move in close and dispatch the Human carrier quickly. The rapid magneto weapon is the Human carrier's best short-ranged weapon. Replacing it with long-ranged missiles is a questionable choice.

I agree that missiles is a good weapon. But I question whether it is indeed a superior replacement for the rapid magneto weapon.

I also believe that hyper-bombing is inefficient. But I'll let others take on this issue.

I believe that the primary fault of the Human carrier lies not in its choice of weapons but in its terrible speed and maneuverability. If the two can be improved, then the Human carrier will become a much more effective warship.

About the Gaitori Carrier part: why can't the Gaitori Carrier do the same thing to the human carrier? Concussive pellet guns are awesome weapons. They let you shred a lot in not much time. And it is definately possible to take out a human carrier with a fighter. I have several battle plugs set up, and one is with only carriers. I transferred control to a fighter, and lived happily near a human carrier, firing away at it, until one of their gunships arrived. Then the gunship got me. And about it being a shield, two gunships has more shielding, and they dont take as much damage anyway, because of their speed. A do agree that it would be much better if we increased the speed and maneuverability, though.

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"I can ail what cures you."

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No, in case you haven't noticed, they ships come after you, and kill you very quickly becasue the only weapon left sucks.


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Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

Era, an huge plugin for EV: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html"]www.geocities.com/rhysmctharin/erahome.html[/url]

The thing about using it as a shield was that you could use it as a flying barrier and shoot safely from behind it. But with computer AIs this is much easier said than done.

[This message has been edited by Sargatanus (edited 08-28-2000).]

If its gunships or cruisers that you're pounding, the cruisers spend too much time dodging the missiles, and the gunships spend too much time trying to dodge the missiles. If its carriers, they can't accelerate enough to stop coming at you, but they do it slowly. If it's heavy destroyers, you're commiting suicide.

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"I can ail what cures you."

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True. Then again, it is difficult, but not impossible.

To Mag Steelglass: I guess it depends on the players themselves. One can easily foresee a well-piloted Gaitori carrier pounding the Human carrier into submission. But the fact that this depends on the skill of Human players suggests that the Human carrier is not as useless as one might assume.

As for the fighter v. carrier part, the fact that the Human carrier has a turret makes the enemy fighter's task that much harder. The lack of a turret on the Gaitori carrier is a long-recognized weakness of the said ship.

I think comparing the cumulative shields of the 2 gunships v. the carrier's shields is a questionable comparison. After all, the fact remains that each gunship only has 3,000 points of shields, which is only 60% of the carrier. When the carrier fires its rapid magneto weapon at one gunship, it isn't firing it at a ship with 6,000 shields, it is firing at a ship with 3,000 shields.

Just to make sure that this thread doesn't die too quickly:

What is your favorite level and please also explain why? (Your answer may be important to plug-in makers. Hopefully, some of them might read this post and create levels to cater to individual taste.)



Level 10. It's short, with one glorious battle. Dealing with resource management is fine. But fleet combat is thrilling.

Which levels can you complete without losing a single ship?



Level 1, of course . Aside from that is Level 6. I'll try to see if I can do the same for others.

Just to answer my own question: Other levels that I can also complete without losing a single ship include levels 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 20.

New question: How many people can defeat Level 18 AFTER the Audemedon transport landed? If you can, can you defeat the level after the transport landed and AFTER the Audemedon carriers arrived?