PRIVATEERS FAQ...

> 300 kilotons of fuel on the planet's surface!... will U rob before he
> beams up fuel?...

Yes. Rob happens before everything else (or most everything ;)

> Pirate's nest without a Sacrificial lamb? is it possible?

Sort-of. If the shield bonus is 20% or greater, the MBR gets captured rather than killed. You can then rob both ships, and surrender them both at your base.

> Is it a better tactic to build skyfires to Rob fuel with their 370 KT > tank or MBR's with 285?

MBRs, as they cloak. If you want to build non-cloakers for robbing, build the Outrider or Lady Royale (park them in space with no fuel and a cloaker parked underneath, tow an enemy ship out to them, transfer 1 kt to them and set their mission to Rob ;).

> What is the best tactic to use non cloaking ships eg: Lady Royal, > Saggitarious trans. (captured), or Gemeni (captured) to ROB?... there fuel > and cargo rooms are increadible but could only rob non armed ships!

See above. Ships w/o fuel can't fight. Transfer some fuel _after_ the enemy arrives, then rob and move.

I have never played the Privateers before (I have only played two full games past turn 45) but I have been thinking. When you tow the ship to the Pirate's Nest, couldn't you just have exactly enough fuel on the towing ship to get both of them there? Then you would have no fuel on the towing ship when it gets there and it couldn't be attacked OR captured. Then next turn you rob the fuel from the enemy ship and tow it - there you have it. You could also transfer 1 kt fuel from one of the robbing ships to the original towing ship with no fuel, but it wouldn't be much use to you on that turn.

1. VPUTIL can tell you the waypoint of others ship sometimes ...I haven't quite figured out the variable......I think it has to do with planet to planet .. or setting it to a definate planet as a destination .......VPUTIL does not cheat either

2. The Wolfpack Strategy...... There are several variation ... but this is the main idea .... Have several MBR's and a BR4 cruise around .....Once you have located a target .... and know it's destination (via a utility) Have the MBR's wait at some x,y within 162LY but more thatn 81LY ...Have the BR4 meet the ship at that planet either ahead of it or at the same time .....Once the ship arrives...drag it with the BR4 to the WolfPack.. The BR4 will get dusted, unless you have matching friendly codes or calculate the fuel perfectly so you end up with zero reaching the "wolfpack", then set all ships to rob ONCE the ship gets their.... the next turn you will have a enemy ship robbed of all it fuel ....Drag it home and it is Yours ......

Tips:

----> Make sure you have enough fuel capacity to rob his tanks from max ... anything else is a calculated risk

-----> Make sure you wolfpack is cloaked until the BR4 drags the ship ..that way you don't fight.....Remember Robbing ships comes before fighting and moving .. if done successful .. he will have no fuel to fight or run....

-----> I general have 1 BR4 ... and half MBR with just beams (sacrificial if needed) and the other half with Torps ...That way I can lay a mine field and protect the Robbing ships ... Isuggest you lay a mine with one MBR thus losing his "robbing" for the turn....

3. A tactic to stop them is Dump all you fuel to the ground but 1-10 units ... then set mission to beam up ..... ie .....You have 600fuel ...drop 590 leaving 10 ....next turn he robbs you of 10 ...you beam up fuel and then dust him....

>Is the Outrider Class scout good for anything?

>How about the Small transport?

>Both ships seem like a waist to me, but then again maybe you guys know something I don't when pair these ships with another.

>So what do you consider good groups of ships for the Privateers?

>BTW, "it's already clear to that it good to have packs of MBRs travel together cloak read to Rob. That way one can be sure to get all the fuel from a when robbing ship. "

Aside from the MBR's, I like to build a few BR4's, and Dwarfstars.

The BR4's are great for hunting unarmed freighters, transporting cash, and general scouting duties as the take less fuel to move. They also make good sacrifical lambs when paired with your MBR wolfpacks. They can also tow smaller ships - and even larger ship for shorter distances - if need be, freeing up your MBR's for more important duties elsewhere. Another very useful role is sweeping mines. As they can carry 5 beams, I'll build a few with heavy phasers and use them to clear mines for the MBR's to exploit.

Dwarfstars make good hidden bases from at which your other ships can dump off captured cash, fuel, minerals. They also make excellent minesweepers with their six beams. I also think of them as escape pods for major bases as you can load your colonists, cash, fuel and whatever else you want into them if the base in question is facing imminent destruction. If you're using Raceplus, you can also RECREW your ships from Dwarfstars instead of going back to a starbase.

For planetary defense, I sometimes build the Lady Royale as you can generate cash with it each turn in addition to it's defense duties. Over the course of a few turns it'll pay for itself easily.

The rest I generally don't bother with myself...

>If two ships of Race A and B are orbitting a planet, which is owned by Race B, for example, but they have only one Colonist, and Race A drops 10 colonists...

>The rules say the order is drop cargo, rob, and beam up cargo. If the colonists are dropped, will they fight immediately, kill the Race B colonists, and prevent the Race A ship from beaming anything up?

>Or does colonist combat occur later...?

One clarification, cargo dropped to an owned planet happens BEFORE rob missions. Cargo dropped on unowned/enemy planets happens AFTER rob missions.

Both cargo drops are before beaming-up of minerals so yes, dropping colonists would prevent the previous owner from beaming up from the planet.

As a Privateer I always try to carry a fair number of colonists on my MBR's for exactly that purpose, as many players rely on transfering fuel to their owned planet and then beaming it up after rob missions are finished to prevent tow-captures. Boy are they surprised the first time I pull this one on them! <g>

Course this doesn't work so well vs the Lizards or Fascists as their ground def is multiplied; and if there are defense posts, they can modify the odds too.

Conventional wisdom is to lay a bunch of mines, but in my experience, that's really just a stab in the dark, so to speak. Cloaked ships have a much smaller chance to hit mines, and you'll still only catch so many of the little buggers. They'll still steal a lot of your stuff.

All of that is true, however, the point of the minefields is NOT to catch them when they are cloaked, but when that MBR is towing you to wolf pack. Under Host 320, if the ship blows up, the towed ship no longer finished the journey anyway.

Note - he ain't cloaked when he is towing.

This will force the Priv to, in the least, equip his MBR's with Heavy Diruptors for sweeping. This adds to costs and minerals, which slows him down - and you will get a few of those MBR's anyway.

Meanwhile, do the beam gather thing and be prepared to go on the offense. -- Minefields are good, but expensive when compared the gravatonic accel ships. Mine your important planets and starbases (if he already knows where they are). Planet hop when possible.

Also when at a planet, unload all fuel and set mission to beam-up fuel. Robbing ships tend to keep fuel low so they can steal more. You can also load up on cargo so that the rob mission gets no fuel and lots of HEAVY minerals. See how far he gets then.

Minefields are good, but expensive when compared the gravatonic accel ships. Mine your important planets and starbases (if he already knows where they are). Planet hop when possible.

Mining heavily traveled routes between planets is good too. It makes it hard to set up a rob in the middle of deep space. Of course, never never travel straight between worlds. Deviate your course. On short 2 month jumps, head for one planet, then arrive at actual destination. Misdirection, misdirection, misdirection...

Also when at a planet, unload all fuel and set mission to beam-up fuel. Robbing ships tend to keep fuel low so they can steal more. You can also load up on cargo so that the rob mission gets no fuel and lots of HEAVY minerals. See how far he gets then.

Make sure to keep at least 1 unit of fuel onboard, the privateers can board ships now. Also, to evade a tow, have the ship sitting in orbit to move 1 or 2 ly from the planet at the highest warp it can without using fuel. The gravity well will pull the ship right back where it was, and going warp 8 or 9 without really going anywhere will prevent being towed.

Escort your freighters. They can be attacked outright with xrays, so robbing becomes irrelivant. Have the freighter tow its escort, as that makes it more difficult for the freighter to me towed itself, and the towee can save its fuel for intercepts and such. It's best if the escort can cloak with primary enemy set to privateer. That's good for giving them a nice suprise... (Deth Speculas are perfect for this.)

Obviously, Lokis and ships with glory devices can make a pirates life tough too. Lokis have the advantage of a 10ly range, but if the pirate is not in the same point in space, you can't get them that easy. Boom-ships set on 'trg', obviously get destoyed when they detect a cloaked ship, but they only go off when the ship is in the same point in space, and there's no messy cleanup.

As a longtime Privateer player, I'd also advise you to develop some other bases far-far away from the hustle of the center of the galaxy to crank out MBR's and BR4's in peace <g> You can defeat the darksense by keeping minerals/ cash on a supertransport in orbit though he'll still detect the base he won't know how big it is that way. Remember, most of your best ships can be built with TL6 or less, aside from Engines which should generally by TL10. Ghipsodal worlds are my favorite site for new Privateer starbases because of that.

Setting up some "nests" of multiple MBR's at key worlds along the route of his invasion can be very helpful. You should strip all fuel off of worlds aside from starbases and key depots.

Dropping a few mines in anticipation of his moves can really louse up his day and shed off some smaller escorts in the process should they take mine hits.

Finally, if worse comes to worse, you should have some freighters standing by to carry off whatever Population, minerals and cash you can salvage. These can be towed by your MBR's using the fuel you've stolen from the oncoming Empire.

As the Privateer living to fight another day is the key to survival. Dispersing your population early to a variety of alternative bases will ensure a long and profitable existence if you do lose a few worlds and even your HW...

Here are some suggestions:

1) Initial 3-4 ships are BR4's. Warp 5 engines. Run them at warp 8. Take 10 colonists and supplies. Explore a new system each turn with each ship, dropping 1&1. Money for defense nice extra.

2) When you find natives, use BR4 to tow medium freighter with colonists/supplies (180/20?).

3) Use MBR's to tow Large & Supers when available.

4) Build best system to capacity first, then next best.

5) Expand QUICKLY. See point 1 again.

6) Push quickly towards your neighbours first, then toward easier expansion. Thus you get a wider slice of the pie.

7) Build starbases quickly. Even BR4's are quite worthwhile.

8) Did you know a warp 5 engine doing warp 8 takes no more fuel than a warp 6 engine doing warp 8? Gravitionic to boot! BIG TIME EXPANSION HERE!!

9) Even a BR4 kills 15 fighters on a starbase. 3 BR4's plus a Bloodfang takes out a lizard homestar before turn 30.

10) BE AGRESSIVE!

Expand QUICKLY. Be AGGRESSIVE. Get MULTIPLE builds to everyone else's.

Acually, the way that works is you leave a cloaked ship on the lady royales and oncle he gets there you transfer the fuel, you do need fuel to rob a ship, but since the transfer takes place immediately, and rob before combat, you never know the difference :)

Why sacrifice the MBR? Adjust the amount of fuel onboard (via jettison) until it will arrive at the specified waypoint out of fuel. The following turn, the second MBR transfers 1kt of fuel to the first one and they BOTH rob. Works like a champ. The other thing you can do is have the first MBR rob and the second TOW if you know the ship has less than 285 Fuel. That way the ship changes hands in one turn :-)

Use cheap BR4's to scout moving to 10 ly distance from a planet. If there's a Loki it'll uncloak you and you're still safely out of reach.

yes, but on the second turn, you can be A) intercepted, B) mined, >C) webbed.

Well this is true, but I did say a CHEAP BR4 <g> You might still get away if you run and you're lucky <g> If you want to spend a bit more money but have a more annoying scout build the BR5 with TL4 tubes and dump a few mines yourself if you get uncloaked to cover your attempted exit. If you want a super scout, build a BR4 with Heavy Phasers and if uncloaked change to minesweeping and RUN! They'll have to dump a lot of mines to catch you as you'll be able to sweep 2000! This ship can double for minesweeping duties outlined earlier too...

Watch out for lokis...

It's been my observation so far in the game's I've played that the number of players actually getting hold of Loki's tends to very limited. The fear of Loki's greatly excedes the real risk of encountering them. Anyway, if you don't have that fearless, carefree attitude, you'll never be a good Privateer player anyhow <g>

Q..What chance do I have towing a shipo thru a minefield : with a MBR as the tow ship. Most of the felds are smaller : then 50 ly across. Is there a formula for estimating survival : thru fields?

If minefields work as advertised (minehit% chance of hitting a mine for each light-year through a field), you can calculate the probability of surviving with relatively little difficulty. For simplicity, I will take minehit% to be 1%. This means that the chance of surviving 1 light-year is .99. The chance of surviving two light-years is .99 * .99 or .99^2. Therefore, the chance of surviving n light-years is .99^n. Since I didn't write the host, I can't tell you if this computation is accurate; but if it works according to the documentation I have seen, this is correct. To translate this to minehit% not equal 1%, take 100% - minehit%, divide by 100, and raise to the power of the number of light-years. Sorry if I have unnecessarily confused this, but most scientific calculators should be able to perform the necessary calculations.

RE: BR4's vs MBR's

My reasoning so far has been that Given a limited number of ship slots available before the ship limit hits, I wold prefer to have the more capable ships if possible. Your cost analysis is very helpful. It seems the major difference is in $ cost, as the minerals are pretty close. I have a tendency to over industrialize, however, so I tend to overlook minor mineral efficiencies. Also, the majority of my Meteors so far have no torps. This I do because 1) If I sacrifice a ship in the 'Wilson" manuver, I might as well sacrifice a cheap one; 2) a Meteor doesn't need torps to rob with; and 3) if captured, a torpless ship can't lay mines from cloak in my backfield (which I am terrified of), so I am more willing to risk them. I would certainly build a BR4 rather than forgo a ship slot, however.

I like BR4's for the following reasons...

1. You can start producing them immediately from any ghipsodal base w/ minimal R&D costs. MBR's require more capital investment in R&D in hulls and torps as I rarely build MBR's with out T5 Torps - I like them to be able to defend themselves if needed. I often build them with lower TL drives too as you can overdrive them fairly easily due to their smaller size if need be.

2. They make better scouts than MBR's as they are smaller and burn even less fuel. As the Privateer I always have plenty of ships so prefer to specialize. Why waste resources on a scout ship which could be used elsewhere?

3. Someone's gotta tow capture or be a sacrificial lamb, and I'd rather risk losing a BR4 - if they were smart enough to gather fuel - than an MBR. Which would you rather have potentially captured by an angry enemy?

4. They make great cash couriers - at a cheaper price than MBR's.

5. They can tow smaller ships such as medium/small freighters, Dwarfstars reasonable distances so why tie up an MBR?

6. They make better Freighter killers as they've got more beams.

7. They make great minesweepers as they've got more beams than MBR's.

8. They are significantly cheaper, so you can build more of them.

My minimal MBR TL1 beams, TL5 torps and TL10 drives costs

TRI 31 DUR 70 MOL 129 MC 938 TTL =1628 net cost.

My minimal BR4 TL1 beams TL10 drives costs:

TRI 28 DUR 44 MOL 105 MC 670 TTL = 1201 net cost.

As I often use TL9 drives this is even cheaper:

TRI 28 DUR 38 MOL 85 MC 470 TTL = 923 net cost.

The more ships the merrier, so I build as many bases and as many BR4's as I can till a base is capable of producing decent MBR's. Even then I'll build a few BR4's for scouts, minesweepers and small tugs.

I usually use MK IV's on my MBR's as they are rather inexpensive and give good bang for the buck in knocking out small irksome escorts with lots of beams.

I like my MBR's to be multi-mission ships as they are the heart of my fleet. At times, I prefer to destroy or cripple freighters rather than capture them so the torps are useful for that. I can also lay mines to interdict enemy shipping lanes - great for killing those nasty Loki's - and torps allow me to knock out medium sized colonies if no major warships are present and strip the place of fuel before reinforcements arrive.

In my experience, captured MBR's are usually pretty heavily damaged so fairly easy to recapture via rob and tow missions - or destroy. Your own minefields may well destroy the offending MBR should it somehow evade your recapture as well.

While naturally I prefer to build MBR's if I have the sufficient funds, The BR4 is a very good alternative - especially at smaller and newer bases.

The Privateers can do very well in the invasion scenario if they capitalize on their robbing advantages and lower ships costs from the start. Allowing other races to expand and settle unopposed is generally fatal to the Privateers. Especially as there are only seven players and so much space, you chould easily out expand others by pairing MBR's with LDSF or STF's , or even BR4's with MDSF's.

I generally build my bases away from my borders as I don't want my enemies finding them and knocking them off too easily. Remember with gravatronics you can cross 300 ly's of stripped worlds in only two moves and your enemies will take at least 4 moves to reach you giving you plenty of time to evacuate your resources and set up nests to pick off the invaders while they slowly starve due to a lack of fuel. The Russian grand strategy of scorched earth and trading space for time is one every aspiring Privateer should take to heart.

You should try to build as many bases as possible at Ghipsodal worlds - others are best avoided as it costs too much money to get TL10 Drives online. Be careful about building bases where you can't get enough minerals to keep them going. I normally build bases which are within 1 or 2 moves of at least 10 planets. These planets I rely on for generating the minerals and supplies to keep the base operational. You never want a base sitting idle, if so, you've not planned your logistics properly. Given the relative low cost of BR4's with TL9 drives - 470 MC, You should be able to build a ship every turn if you started the base with sufficiend cash and minerals.

Rob! <g>

Seriously, with your faster scouting with BR4's with TL10 drives you should be able to find good native worlds fairly easily - dropping a single colonist on each of course so you can keep them as listen posts and easily strip the minerals and fuel with the vaccum clearner combo of a MBR and a STF - I built you a couple of those. This same STF can drop supplies and colonists off and decent worlds worth colonizing. If you want money REALLY quickly, you can jack taxes upto 60% on natives without throwing the world into rioting - assuming it's happy to start. I use winplan and if you look at the build screen, you can fine tune your tax rate - see how much you'll get and how it will impact on your population. Never increase the tax rate, if you don't have enough population to collect more. Back to our STF - you can drop all it's colonists, crank up the tax rate, next turn collect the cash, drop the tax rate to 0%, and pick up whatever colonists excede the cash you could collect when you tax at rate which the folks are just short of 'angry' - if you're wanting to develop the world in the long

This slash and burn strategy can be very nastily applied to border areas which you don't want your enemies being able to develop. In fact, you may decide to pick up all but a single colonist and leave the tax rate on the natives high so they start rioting and go into civil war. This will deprive your opponents of the ability to easily expand into a region as they will not have any worlds which they can use as an economic base. You can keep these worlds in perpetual civil war untill whenever you're evicted, but by then the population will be decimated and it will be quite a few turns before the happiness level can be restored - unless it's a Liz or Reb player.

If you're a real miser, you can tax your colonists - I generally don't bother as I prefer the population growth to the meager mc you can eek out of colonists. The best overall economic tax policy is to tax at 30% about every three turns and leave the rate at 0% the other two. According to a gentleman on TC, who presented and tested this rather thoroughly, this will result in the greatest combo of revenue, population growth and supplies produced - assuming you max out factories.

The only time I bother with managing colonists tax rates is when I play the Borg - the dream race of every CPA!

Testing out different beam combo's on a BR4 vs different favorite targetes using Winplan's VCR SIM.

%Damage 50% Shield Bonus on/ No Shield Bonus

D= Destroyed

X Rays Blast Disrpt Hblst HDsrpt HPhsr

SMDF 1 22 18 D 10 D 18 D 8 D 20 D

MDSF 2 4 10 46 4 72 14 D 12 63 8 D

LDSF 11 8 45 67 12 18 26 48 12 28 20 36

STF 29 13 95 D 31 30 68 79 23 30 35 48

Comments:

1. Shield Bonus on means Privateers will capture more useable freighters rather than destroying or crippling them.

2. Heavy Phasers are a bit safer then Heavy Blasters and better minesweepers.

3. Blasters are one of the worst choices if you want to capture but the best if you want to cripple, or destroy enemy shipping.

4. XRays are the most target friendly - what a surprise <g>

--STARS & PLANETS -Issue June, 1995

>> I am playing the Privateers for the first time, and would really appreciate
>> some advice from veteran Privateers. General strategies and the mechanics of
>> cloaking/robbing/towing would be especially useful.

Ideally you should have 2 ships, 1 cloaked and 1 out of fuel at a planet. When an enemy warship comes into the planets orbit, transfer 1 fuel from the cloaked ship to the uncloaked ship, set the uncloaked ship mission to rob, and voila... one robbed ship. Then you can tow it to a starbase for capture (or use the capture beam if the option is set to on by the host )

This is a bit risky ... races with cloaked ships will most likely visit while cloaked - and will not only evade being caught, but could take (or tow and destroy) the visible ship. Sticking with cloaked ships is for the best. Also, if the enemy ship captures the planet, and the planet has fuel, the towing ship should expect to be attacked. (In case its not clear - the above applies to planets YOU own. On enemy owned planets, rely only on cloaked ships).

>... Tow it out as far as you can... and if you >want to be really tricky you can try to jettison your fuel so that you >end up with no fuel at the end of the move (works great with winplan).

VERY risky. Do this to an experienced opponent, and they will soon start varying their cargo/fuel load to stop it. Then you either have to fight anyway, or they end up with your MBR.

>Don't worry about losing an MBR to take out an enemy warship.

Very true - make sure the ship you are getting is worth it, though!

> ... as long as you equip the MBR's with only xrays and >maybe a Mark 4 torp, they are of lttle use to the enemy...

Er, MBRs are VERY valuable - as tow ships or as cloaked scouts for example. Building tow MBRs with just X-rays and no torp launchers is a good idea, though.

>Above all else NEVER LET THE ENEMY KNOW WHERE YOUR HOMEWORLD IS...

Actually, deny him as much information as possible. At the very least, don't reveal where your 'good' bases are. If you don't have tow capture, consider building 'dummy' bases just to surrender robbed ships (and arrange for a 'welcoming party' to meet (rob) a revenge mission directed at the base, of course :).

-- Blackbeard (ret.)

Rules of acquisition: Whats mine is mine. Whats yours is mine. What his -well, thats mine too.

>> > OK, so I'm a total newbie playing a shareware game as the privateers, >> > and by some stroke of luck I have a cloaked grav. accelerated ship (MBR) >> > cloaked and sitting on one of my opponents home worlds very early in the >> > game (turn 4). The is a SDSF in orbit. Do I

>> > a) wait for better prey >> > b) rob the freighter and run like heck >> > c) tow the freighter and run like heck >> > d) sneak off to some other planet

>I am no seasoned player myself, but the way I play the Privateers >at the moment is: >1. Become friends with your neightbours and grand-neightbours. >2. Develop and colonise like hell. >3. Don't give the neighbours reason to attack you, but be prepared > in case they do.

>In case it was an Instrumentality/Pawn/SSD/SSC in orbit I may have >taken an exception to the rules above, but I'd say d) in this case.

The Privs must be able to outbuild their neighbours by a factr of three to one to win. To do this they must agressively colonize and develop their economies. They must also hit their neghbours very early and prevent those neighbours form developing their econimies. Concentrate on shipping and planets. Ignore warships for now. They are too weak to be of any use to you in the long term, and by concentrating agasint his economy, you ensure that he will not be able to develop in to a threat.

I'd ignore the above advice and wait for better prey. The minefields are not up and you have the perfect spy. You know what he has on the turn he builds it. This is valuable info and is vey hard to deal with an enemy with this sort of intel.

Personally, as it is so early, IF your opponent is NOT missing turns and has not yet built an LDSF, I'd be tempted to grab the first LDSF that pops up and tow it near a planet at Jump 2 range - rob away and engage with Xrays if you must. (keep your torps off with the NTP switch - you'd prefer to take this LDSF intact). Chances are you'll have about a 1000 colonists on board and 200 supplies when you capture the ship if he does not miss turns (if he does it may be empty). Take the nearby planet and fortify and colonize away on surrounding planets- return MBR to enemy homeworld. This loss so early on of his main space seed will be devastating to his developing economy.

Cripple what is left of his freighter fleet and with a measly 2 MBr's you should be able to destroy this fledgling empire. He will never have been able to get off the ground. Silmultaneously move on and explore your other neighbour. Move fast - make a pact with your other neighbour or rob him all to hell. Hit the LDSF's early on and he will have a VERY hard time getting his tech and economy up to the point where he can effectively mine or stop you from running amok in his space. If you are going to play agressively - PLAY AGRESSIVELY. It is one style or the other - rarely will you succeed trying both.

As you are playing shareware, your main objective should be to scout and build a base over a Ghipsoldal planet at the very earliest opportunity to get tech 10 engines (no - that is your second objective - your first should be to register!). Without them you will not last long - Gravitonics or no.

.Robert

rtrifts@idirect.com

>I have 2 rushes heading my way. I'm the Privateers. Only got 2 turns before they hit an important world but what is the best way to defend? Glory devices? Mines? Robbing?

Just 2 Rush ships, no escorts?

Do you have any estimates as to whether they are full of fuel, or if they are stretching fuel economy just to make it? If they have full fuel tanks, you probably won't be able to rob one (Rush has . . . 1550 fuel at max?). If one or the other looks like it is consistently lower on fuel, you might try to rob one dry of fuel. Once he sees one ship drained of fuel, you would at least have him guessing.

As a last-ditch effort, you might want to waste one small or cheap grav ship towing one Rush as far away as your grav accelerators will let you. You might lose a ship, but if he was counting on having both ships for his assault, and suddenly he sees that one is unavailable for at least 2 turns (to get back to where he was before the tow), then that should at least buy you some more time. This is especially useful if you don't have enough ships to rob him of all his fuel, but you think he is having fuel problems which will make it difficult for him to get that towed Rush back to the front (hey, it takes a lot of fuel to move those puppies around).

You could also tow one ship further _into_ your territory if you have a pack of cloaked ships which could meet at one point, and rob him there. Then suddenly he faces the prospect of facing one of his own Rush ships somewhere in your territory.

Mining would slow him down, esp. if he has crappy beams since each Rush only packs 5 beams anyway with a normal shiplist.

Glory devices will slow him down only if he doesn't capture supply-rich worlds. You'll have to run sims of Rush ships against those you have built and captured to see what your chances are in combat.

If the planet he is attacking is not a Starbase world, I's suggest the following:

- Remove all fuel from planetary surface - remove all colonists from planet surface - put them in an armed - Netronic Refinery Ship or 2 with empty tanks -- leave 2 cloakers with full holds of clans above planet and some fuel - have one or more waiting wolf packs of 3 or more MBR's each in deep space cloaked. Depending upon your NRS's above the planet, you might get away with a smaller wolf pack - but I'd advise against getting seperated unless you have no choice.

Turn after he comes in:

1- drop your hold of clans on planet - preferably user a lowr ship id than he has to do this to take advantage of any def posts on surface in case he drops clans

2 - use NR Ships to Rob right him there, (transferring first 1 fuel to each with cloaker). The NRS is QUITE handy for draining mega fuel real fast. (Remember - the drainer needs to be armed)

3- tow both Rush's to waiting wolf packs. Lose 2 x MBRS, drain Rush Carriers dry with wolf packs on folowing turn. Call it it a fair exchange and try not to gloat :).

4- repeat as necessary ( except for the clans part - he probably won't be that sloppy again) in bid to win game until Rebel figures out he needs mine laying escorts very BADLY around the planets he is attacking. (But those minelayers can always be cloak-intercepted on the turn he moves in) Build all your future MBR's with Heavy Disruptors to use as support mine-sweepers when using wolf pack tactics. Carry on and look out for the Lokis and Glory Ships which your frustrated opponent will figure out he needs sooner or later...

Beaming up all of the clans off of the surface may or may not work to prevent a beam gather. If the enemy takes the time to match the fcode of the planet first - your clans won't be able to stop the beam gather. But then again, most players tend to be careless until given a reason not to be. If it is an important planet (but WITHOUT a BASE) this is a nice ploy.

Under Host 3.2x, pulling all the clans off a starbase world removes the starbase from play (this is a big "oops"). In some circumstances you might want to pull the clans off anyway - but this in highly remote. Arm the base and duke it out as best you can with the base if forced to. With a big bovie world - you might prefer to ditch the base just to keep the natives hapy (highly unlikely - but a possibility).

.Robert

rtrifts@idirect.com

>Does he designate a specific ship to rob, or does he rob all >ships at a given location until he is full?

All ships at the same location as the robbing ship are vulnerable

>If he robs all ships, does he rob them one at a time or equal >amounts from each? If one at a time, what is the order?

ID order - lowest ID surrenders its cargo first, then up the list. The priv ships also rob in ID order, btw, if more than one of their ships is in the same place robbing.

>If I have cloacked ships in the area, can he rob them and if so, >how do they fall into the rob order?

That depends on the host settings: 'Privateer rob cloaked ships NO or YES' If cloaked ships are exempt from robbery, they are simply ignored by the rob mission

>What items can he rob (fuel, minerals, megacredits, clans, torps, >fighters)?

Everything except torps and fighters. When all the fuel has been stolen, the robbed ship is helpless (usually the most important effect).

In host 3.2 (phost 3.2.x.x), LOKIs (available from the nearest friendly fed or Liz government), or glory ships (from your neighbourhood Klingon) are the most effective defence. After that, web mines (guaranteed to upset privs). After that, a LOT of normal mines and plenty of prayer. Dreadlords advice is a good starting point...