THE GALACTIC ARENA!!!

[Finnian]

Brilliant job guys! wow! I will come with new forces

[catfighter]

i'd like to see eldritch vs minotaur.

i can provide either.

I have a small eldritch fleet there right now and I can easily send over more. I'll leave 20,000 or so on the arena, so bring in the challengers!

[6cef]

Just to make sure I'm clear, if a smaller empire attacks a larger empire, either in the arena or in an agreed upon swap, they will lose the "civil disorder" protection should that larger empire decide to attack them, right?

If that's the case, probably best to make sure you only play with your friends.

[catfighter]

Just to make sure I'm clear, if a smaller empire attacks a larger empire, either in the arena or in an agreed upon swap, they will lose the "civil disorder" protection should that larger empire decide to attack them, right?

If that's the case, probably best to make sure you only play with your friends.

I think that only counts for taking planets. The Republic of Reason didn't lose half of his empire for accidentally blowing up a couple thousand of my scouts back when I only had a dozen or so worlds, but I wouldn't risk it without asking the empire in question first.

---

Arena Combat Report

Summary: 16,000 minotaurs + 14,000 sirius' attacked Republic's gorgos fleet

Combat Report: There is virtually no way for minotaurs or sirius' to touch gorgos' without sending tens of millions of them. The gorgos began firing immediately upon engagement and my fleet took 11% casualties after 5 rounds without getting a single shot off. Gorgos are amazingly powerful due to their long range and energy weapons. Although mind-bogglingly slow, they are probably the most powerful ships in the game because of their sniping capabilities.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

Arena Combat Report

Summary: 16,000 minotaurs + 14,000 sirius' attacked Republic's gorgos fleet

Combat Report: There is virtually no way for minotaurs or sirius' to touch gorgos' without sending tens of millions of them. The gorgos began firing immediately upon engagement and my fleet took 11% casualties after 5 rounds without getting a single shot off. Gorgos are amazingly powerful due to their long range and energy weapons. Although mind-bogglingly slow, they are probably the most powerful ships in the game because of their sniping capabilities.

How many Gorgos?

[6cef]

Just to make sure I'm clear, if a smaller empire attacks a larger empire, either in the arena or in an agreed upon swap, they will lose the "civil disorder" protection should that larger empire decide to attack them, right?

If that's the case, probably best to make sure you only play with your friends.

I think that only counts for taking planets. The Republic of Reason didn't lose half of his empire for accidentally blowing up a couple thousand of my scouts back when I only had a dozen or so worlds, but I wouldn't risk it without asking the empire in question first.

not sure. also, no doubt he's got civil disorder under control with many thousands of imperial brigades, which is really all it takes.

anyway, permission or not, i'm just advising caution unless we're 100% sure of the game mechanic. if mandalor takes on nor's ships at the arena, could nor then attack with impunity? i don't know the answer to that.

[Wayward Device]

Arena Combat Report

Summary: 16,000 minotaurs + 14,000 sirius' attacked Republic's gorgos fleet

Combat Report: There is virtually no way for minotaurs or sirius' to touch gorgos' without sending tens of millions of them. The gorgos began firing immediately upon engagement and my fleet took 11% casualties after 5 rounds without getting a single shot off. Gorgos are amazingly powerful due to their long range and energy weapons. Although mind-bogglingly slow, they are probably the most powerful ships in the game because of their sniping capabilities.

How many Gorgos?

I sent 10,000, took 3.7 cycles to get there. When I checked them last night (still about .8 cycles left) there were 8,200. Right now there are 7640. If anyone else can send a few thousand, I wouldn't mind testing a few million hellions against them.

[gc2]

Here's what I'm curious about: how many times did the gorgos fleet shoot before the gunships moved into firing range?
So far the trial battles in the arena have revealed two things: gorgos are awesome and undines suck, neither of which is really news. I think it would be interesting to test some of the less often used ship types, one of which being the defiance starfrigate.
The attribute that could potentially make the defiance worthwhile is that they're TL6, so manufacturing them requires neither luxuries nor chronimium. While the power of the defiance is only a fraction that of the gorgos, I wonder how well it would fulfill the starfrigate role, which is gunship and jumpship deterrence. I feel that a defensive starfrigate fleet doesn't need to necessarily win every confrontation, only to inflict enough damage to make it not worthwhile to try to defeat it. So could someone make some defiance starfrigates and see how they do against minotaurs or eldritches?

I sent 10,000, took 3.7 cycles to get there. When I checked them last night (still about .8 cycles left) there were 8,200. Right now there are 7640. If anyone else can send a few thousand, I wouldn't mind testing a few million hellions against them.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier if you just send your helions to a starship yard? There's nothing special about the arena world. The planet that used to be Human Imperim's capital has more than 100k gorgos on it.

[6cef]

Here's what I'm curious about: how many times did the gorgos fleet shoot before the gunships moved into firing range?
So far the trial battles in the arena have revealed two things: gorgos are awesome and undines suck, neither of which is really news.

any ship that outranges another, that is whose weapons have a longer range than their opponent's, is going to win without taking a single hit *IF* they have sufficient numbers.

that means when it comes to planetary defenses, a single gorgos could destroy the most heavily defended planet in the galaxy, given enough time (and if it didn't begin combat in range of the defenses, which seems to happen sometimes.)

also, each time a gorgos fires, something dies. so 100 gorgos (range 30) will need 1000 rounds (give or take) to destroy 100,000 minotaurs (range 10). could those minotaurs close 20 megameters in 1000 combat ticks? i have no idea, a lot of minotaurs will be lost.

also remember that it's going to take 12 minotaur shots (damage 100) to destroy 1 gorgos (armor 1200).

so a fleet of 100k gorgos frigates is basically the apex predator in the game. even if the republic of reason massed his 6.7M eldritch jumpships and pitted it against that, it would take *67 combat rounds* for the gorgos to destroy those jumpships.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

40,000 gunships vs 8000 Gorgos is no contest even on paper; remember that not only does it take 12 Minotaur shots to kill a Gorgos, but Gorgos also cost close to 12x as much as a Minotaur all told (and require a dedicated autofac planet that could be used to build more gunships instead) so if you're comparing combat potential you would need something like 100,000 Minotaurs vs 8000 Gorgos for it to be a "fair" fight and to see 8000 Gorgos defeat 200,000 Minotaurs before saying "Gorgos are OP" (since that would be a 2:1 cost victory).

One thing that seems certain in most cases is that when the space forces rating of one fleet is overwhelmingly greater than the other, that fleet usually wins with far fewer casualties than if it is fighting at just a 2:1 or 1.5:1 ratio. Missiles vs. protected ships is an exception to this rule, obviously.

I am still not totally convinced that jumpcruisers are worthless, since Adamants at least are certainly way more effective than Stingers at taking out HEL cannons and autocannon planetary defenses in the early game and they can quickly garrison a planet against an incoming gunship attack (although it is clearly really expensive to build and maintain a force large enough to do this effectively). I would like to see how our beloved Eldritches do against gunships; I suspect much worse than a fleet of Undines built with equivalent resources and labor.

[catfighter]

I am still not totally convinced that jumpcruisers are worthless, since Adamants at least are certainly way more effective than Stingers at taking out HEL cannons and autocannon planetary defenses in the early game and they can quickly garrison a planet against an incoming gunship attack (although it is clearly really expensive to build and maintain a force large enough to do this effectively). I would like to see how our beloved Eldritches do against gunships; I suspect much worse than a fleet of Undines built with equivalent resources and labor.

The only reason adamants are any good is because of their range advantage against stingers and the fact that missiles keep going even after the ship has been shot down; the only reason I build any undines/adamants at all is to take care of HELs and autocannons.

I wouldn't mind testing a few million hellions against them.

I'd like to see how well they do against everything. Can massed fire beat the highest of high-tech?

[6cef]

i'm down w the galactic arena idea, but i'd just as soon not see fleets of arena explorers anywhere near me.

i don't know who controls the arena, but it seems unfair to use arena ships to probe neighbouring empires. if you want to do that, use your own ships.

[catfighter]

i'm down w the galactic arena idea, but i'd just as soon not see fleets of arena explorers anywhere near me.

i don't know who controls the arena, but it seems unfair to use arena ships to probe neighbouring empires. if you want to do that, use your own ships.

We all put up with your explorers.

Unless another admin asks me to stop, I'll move explorers back into the capital.

[6cef]

i'm down w the galactic arena idea, but i'd just as soon not see fleets of arena explorers anywhere near me.

i don't know who controls the arena, but it seems unfair to use arena ships to probe neighbouring empires. if you want to do that, use your own ships.

We all put up with your explorers.

Unless another admin asks me to stop, I'll move explorers back into the capital.

what do you mean admins?

and explorers are part of the game. controlling two empires at once is not. it's like the one thing that you're asked not to do when you join.

[Finnian]

I agree with Lord Charm, The arena must be a neutral galactic institution and it needs a management at the complete service of all the galaxy. I suggest Lord Felor to write here in this thread his ideas about the actual management of the Arena (In my opinion now it is perfect and it doesn't require any new transformation, nevertheless it should be cool obtain some citadels for the arena). Remember Jaerevar that (obviously) the eyes of the galaxy are observing your actions