Torpedo ships

[kjn]

Does anyone have any idea on how to make torpedo ships work?

In a recent game I was lacking in beams (had NPGs, went Mercs over blasters and missed out on all the beams after that until Plasma Cannon) and tried a large hull equipped with three anti-matter torpedoes. It worked decently, but they could easily be overwhelmed.

I've already figured they're dependant on high propulsion TL compared to the engine level, but what purpose could or should it serve in a fleet, and are there any thoughts how to design them or use them in a fleet?

[RefSteel]

I don't think I've ever built a torpedo ship (though I've had them used to good effect against me!) but my sense is that they could be quite effective on an all-purpose huge ship. Give it good combat speed (true, that means few torps'll fit) and an auto repair special, and even if heavily outgunned, it can spend its off-turns dodging out of harm's way (especially with asteroids present) and healing.

That's my theory at least. It might be that they're just a better weapon for the AI than the player though: One of the MoO AI's bigger weaknesses is its inability to design and deploy specialized ships according to their strengths, such that it's not unusual to see bombers or spore ships "defending" their colonies or beamers being sent against your bases. Multi-purpose ships and therefore multi-purpose weapons (torps don't run out of ammunition like missiles, can target ships unlike bombs, and can often strike planets effectively unlike beams) often serve higher-difficulty AIs well however, as they can build (and maintain) them in quantity.

All that said: Factoid actually used an Anti-Matter Torpedo ship as the mainstay of his fleet (but to replace bombs, not beams) way back in Imperium 3! (I would imagine Doug.Lefelhocz will especially enjoy the way he ends the report, too) He didn't give those ships high combat speed, but did fit powerful engines on them for strategic movement - and they got the job done, apparently!

[Zed-F]

Unfortunately torpedoes are a very space-inefficient weapon system. Also by the time you can build them, seeking weapons are already nearing the limit of their useful lifespan as tactical movement speeds start to creep upwards of 3 and HEF is just around the corner. Usually you'll see conventional missiles doing the job one might otherwise assign to torpedo ships, and doing it cheaper and more effectively. There are occasional situations where torpedoes are called for, but these are certainly rare exceptions that test the rule.

[d0om]

Torpedoes + Repulsar drive (either on the torp ship, or on a guardian ship to stand next to it)

Park your torp in a corner, the guardian next to it.

Now you just freely spam torpedoes around the map until the enemy is defeated / withdraws.

You can do it with warp dissipaters too.

Torpedoes are amazing at killing large ships, hellfires completely decimate large ships. Since most torpedoes do much more damage per hit than missiles, they are very good at killing large, heavily shielded ships which missiles might not penetrate.

Unlike using missile ships, you don't run out of ammo with torpedoes, so you can finish off their whole fleet in one battle rather than having to retreat.

Can be worth sticking lots of ECM jammers on them, to stop them being taken apart by missile ships. Or a cloaking device, since they only fire every other turn anyway.

[Zed-F]

Or, if your plan relies on repulsers, you could just use heavy beams...

[kjn]

Or, if your plan relies on repulsers, you could just use heavy beams...

Until the enemy counters with cloaked ships. I imagine sub-space teleporters also bypass the repulsor beam.

I'm thinking of trying a no-beam game, just to get a better handle on missile combat.

[Zed-F]

Cloaked ships will do the same to torps as they do to beams, though. The point was to try to make torpedo ships work, but usually the same job can be done better with either beams or (more frequently) missiles.

That said, there are exceptions, for instance if you've gotten hosed on the tech tree or are playing a variant where certain staple weapons are off the table.

[Sirian]

*de-cloaks*

*fires torpedo salvo*

*recloaks*

*disappears*

[luddite]

Bumping a very old thread

I saw Sulla's latest MOO game, where he had some trouble with a runaway Psilon AI. At the very end of the game, they came up with a ship design that was surprisingly effective: large, cloaked, and 3 plasma torpedoes. It completely solved the main problem that plasma torpedoes have, which is that you pretty much to be at point blank range to be effective. And the cloaking device synergizes well with the every-other-turn firing of torpedoes.

I decided to fire up MOO and try a game where I intentionally try to use torpedoes as much as possible. I realize it's a bit suboptimal, for all the reasons that people laid out it this thread. And also luck dependant on getting the right techs. Still, I wanted to give it a chance to see if I could make it work.

I went with the humans, for good Force Field tech and to try to minimize random war decs. As luck would have it, I did manage to get both Anti-matter torpedoes and the Cloaking device, while also not having fusion beams or bombs. So this was a good setup for torpedoes.

The biggest challenge I faced was that torpedoes just take up so much space. I found that I could usually fit about 4 2-shot stingers for the cost of 1 torpedo. and those also fire every turn. So, it's definitely not a weapon that lends itself to fast, high-offense battles.

On the plus side, 30 damage smashes through shields like they're not there. So with enough of them, you *can* do hit-and-run attacks to wear down stacks. I found I was usually able to damage missile bases too, at least until they got class X planetary shields. But taking down missile bases was a slow grind.

The combination of anti-matter torps, cloaking, high maneuverability, and a jammer seemed to work well. While cloaked, they're almost impossible to hit. And with high maneuverability, you can usually get it so all their attacks hit you while cloaked. Here are the designs I used:



One weakness is that there's something of a runaway AI in my game, the Sakkra. Against all the other races these designs work great, but the Sakkra are too hard to damage and can hit me even through the cloak. Of course it's always hard to deal with someone much higher tech than you, but this design feels more "fragile" to that then most normal beam designs would be.

Any thoughts: Here are some other twists I could try:
-repulsor beam + high energy focus = 3 tile keepaway. takes up a lot of space though
-zyro shield. Ditto
-automated repair. I don't think it'll do much against the Sakkra though.
-take off the computer, do I even need it? torpedoes naturally have a to-hit bonus and do full damage always.
-steal hellfire torpedoes from the sakkra, or wait for some other kind of torpedoes
-warp dissipator. this could potentially be very deadly if I can slow them down enough.

Anyone else have ideas?

[MyName]

Torpedoes are a decent replacement for bombs and mauler devices if you need to hit level 35 shields and don't have the Oracle interface fix. You need computer if you play 1oom with fixbugs ruleset.