Question about Warp Dissipators

[RFS-81]

I read in the strategy guide that a warp dissipator has a 50% chance of reducing a ship's speed by 1. Does this mean that

• The firing stack has a 50% chance to reduce the targets speed by 1?
  
• Or, for each ship in the firing stack, there is a 50% chance to reduce the speed by 1?
  

[Ianus]

I'm not positive but I have NEVER seen a stack get immobilized in one shot so I presume it is per shot per stack. I admit I haven't used it much, but that's my observation.

[RFS-81]

Thanks! That's what I expected, but I seem to remember someone saying in one of the succession games that the Warp Dissipator is as good or better for stopping bombers than the Repulsor Beam. But if the bomber has a moderately high speed, I don't see how that could work...

[Ianus]

Yes I feel the same way. It is great for stopping ships, but how long it takes to do that can vary. Given Sullla's (rightful) opinion of FTL combat drones I'm surprised he feels so strongly about it. You are absolutely right though, speed defeats Warp Dissipator both by requiring more shots to freeze the target but also by getting stacks where they need to go faster. Which isn't to say that it can't be devastating, just that it tends to be less good at defending planets. IMHO of course.

[Psillycyber]

I'm almost certain it is the 1st one, RFS-81. As far as I know, there is no benefit to having multiple ships with warp dissipators in the same stack. If you want to get multiple chances to slow down the enemy each turn, you have to put the warp dissipator on multiple ship designs.

As for how it stacks up against the repulsor beam, it depends. If the opponent only has 1 or 2 truly dangerous ship designs that need to be slowed down, and those ships have combat speeds of 1 or 2, then warp dissipators hold their own quite well. Beyond that (3+ ship designs with speed 2 that need to be stopped, or even just 1 threatening ship design with 3 speed), warp dissipators cannot be relied upon to consistently stop enemy bomber fleets from reaching the planet.

One advantage of warp dissipators is that they can help you avoid damage and whittle down AI fleets even better than repulsor beams. For example, if the enemy ships are using heavy 2-range weapons, your repulsor beam ship will still be taking damage. It's worth mentioning that the warp dissipator has a range of 3, which often means you can start slowing down enemy ships without risking your own ships.

Then, the warp dissipator synergizes well with high attack initiative because, once you get the enemy ships frozen, if you have the initiative you can duck in, fire on the enemy (with a 2-range weapon if your speed is 2-3, or with a 1-range weapon if your speed is 4 or above), and duck back out (using the missile trick). And the enemy won't be able to pursue you or fire on you, even if they have heavy 2-range weapons. Plus, the enemy fleet won't be able to retreat once it gets low.

The most satisfying way to deal with mid-game bomber fleets, though is either the energy pulsar or ion stream projector. The energy pulsar can wipe out an enemy stack in an instant, although sometimes it takes 2 or 3 hits with it (sources say the energy pulsar does 5 damage, plus 1 per every 2 ships in firing stack, but it must be 1-5 damage plus 1 per every 2 ships in firing stack (so, 2-6 damage if fired from 2 ships), because sometimes I'll see the energy pulsar do 2 and then 1 damage to a stack in a given battle, so it must be a range of values. Keep in mind that shields can block this damage, but in practice the AI does not put shields on small bombers).

Even more reliable at dealing with small bombers is the ion stream projector, which ALWAYS does at least 1 damage to all ships in the stack, regardless of shields, hit%, etc. So, if the AI bombers only have 3 or 4 hp, you just need 2 ship designs with the ion stream projector, and assuming that you can keep them alive (aided by the fact that the ion projector also has a range of 3 like the warp dissipator), that enemy stack will be dead in 2 rounds, guaranteed. Plus, the ion stream projector is a nice support weapon against larger ships. About the only thing that it doesn't do well against is small stacks of medium ships. (As for large stacks of medium ships, or large stacks of anything (including missile bases!), the ion stream projector is great at chipping away base hp and reducing the number of hits your conventional weapons will need to land).

[Sullla]

The AI in non-kyrub's patch is very fond of creating ships that have a tactical movement speed of 1. This is the context in which I have written about the usefulness of the Warp Dissipator, where one good shot could often freeze an enemy death stack in place and render them helpless. In the world of kyrub's patch where the AI is much better about designing ships with effective tactical speed, I agree that the special is significantly less useful. And for what it's worth, from everything I have observed it definitely appears to work in the scenario #1 listed above.

[RefSteel]

Yeah, Warp Dissipators definitely "fire" once per stack with the device, not per ship. Still, I love Warp Dissipators when I have to defend against tactically-slow enemy fleets, and they're even useful against faster fleets just to slow the things down and make them easier targets. And in a case where either one will do, I'd rather have the WD in spite of needing to roll the dice each time it fires, just because the animation won't have to repeat a hundred times if I need to time out an enormous enemy fleet.

[RFS-81]

Thanks for explaining, everyone! Oh, and I completely agree that the Repulsor Beam animation is way too long.

[shallow_thought]

Thanks for explaining, everyone! Oh, and I completely agree that the Repulsor Beam animation is way too long.

Shudder. I have lost far too much of my life this week pushing fleets of cloaked Psilon smalls around while whittling them down _very slowly_ with barely enough attack level to hit (and you have to explicitly attack to push back cloaked ships). I seriously considered just abandoning the (nebula) planet in question because it was just taking SO DARN LONG to play every turn. I did deliberately allow some bomb attacks through so that I could kill the bombers more quickly once they'd decloak.

Finally traded my best tech to the Alkari for Energy Pulsar to solve the problem. First time I've ever used it, probably won't be the last.