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11A. Dreadlord Battle Manual |
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11D. The Solar Federation |
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11H. The
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11I. The
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THE SOLAR FEDERATION (RACE 1) STRATEGY GUIDE(S): |
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The Solar Federation |
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By Conrad Lesnewski |
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clesnew@tribeca.ios.com |
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There
exists a rather vocal group of players in the VGAP community who swear that
the Feds are THE race to play. Let me |
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make
it clear from the start, that I am not one of these players. I'll take the
Lizards over the Feds any day of the week and |
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twice
on Sundays, but that's a story for another time. Today we're here to discuss
getting the most out of The Solar |
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Federation
who, while not my favorite race, do have a number of advantages to be
exploited for fun and profit. |
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The
first advantage the Feds have is money, lots of it. They make twice the money
from taxes than any other race. This is the |
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good
news. The bad news is mining. They mine at a 70% rate, which means to really
have a thriving empire, the Feds have to |
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find
a good sized Bovinoid planet early in the game and make building a Merlin
Class Alchemy ship a priority. Likewise, |
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finding
a Reptilian planet with decent minerals at decent densities, is a godsend for
the Feds. |
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The
second advantage the Feds have is the Super Refit mission. This becomes
apparent when you don't find that Bovinoid or |
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Reptilian
early in the game. When faced with a mineral shortage, other races must
either wait to build, build a different ship, |
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or
put lesser components on a ship and make do with it. The Feds, on the other
hand, need only ensure that they have |
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enough
minerals on hand to build the hull with stardrive 1 engines. The stripped
down ships then remain in orbit biding |
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their
time until a sufficient supply of minerals can be procured. Once the minerals
arrive at the base, the ships are refit with |
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the
best engines and weapons money can buy and then leave orbit to reign terror
on their enemies. This means the Feds |
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should
be striving to build a ship every turn on every base. When the 500 ship limit
hits, a decent Fed player should own 200 |
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or
more of those ships. Once the queue has started and few ships are being
built, the Fed player can go back and refit his |
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mothballed fleet into a
power to be feared. |
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This
strategy works best when in a "last-man-standing" game, where you
know the 500 ship limit will be reached. Two |
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caveats
with this strategy: 1) A level 4 or 5 Ion storm can destroy half your fleet,
so either play in games without Ion Storms |
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or
refit the fleet as early as possible and start moving it around, and 2) Guard
your ships waiting to be refit with one Loki, |
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and
at least two or three fully outfitted battleships loaded for bear (Missouris/
Diplomacys/ Kittyhawks/ etc.) or you will |
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find,
much to your dismay, that one Resolute Class Battlecruiser can easily destroy
20 empty hulls. |
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The
Feds strategy is slightly different in an invasion game. Many invasion games
are over before the queue hits so the Feds |
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can't
afford to sit back and wait. However, their advantage in money means they can
usually afford to raise their tech levels |
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before
any one else can. This means the Feds can usually get out two or three
warships, with H. Blasters and Mark VII |
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torpedoes
very early in the game, with which they can launch an early blitz attack
against their neighbor's ships and |
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homeworld.
This makes the Feds very dangerous in the first 20 turns of an Invasion game,
but time is against them. Kill your |
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enemies
early. |
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Super
Refit also gives the Feds an advantage in cloning. Let's assume The Feds and
The Fascists both desire a Darkwing with |
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Transwarps,
H. Phasers and Mark VII Torps. Furthermore, let's say, for arguments sake,
that The Birds are willing to sell |
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them
one Darkwing each at cost, outfitted any way they want, but they'll have to
clone it to get more. The Fascists will have |
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to
order the ship with the desired equipment in place at a cost of $2,550, then
clone it at a cost of $5,100. The Feds, on the |
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other
hand, will order the Darkwing with Stardrive 1's and no weapons at a cost of
$452, clone it for $904, then refit the |
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weapons
and engines for $2,100. Bottom Line: Each cloned Darkwing cost the Fascists
$5,100, but the Feds only pay $3,004 |
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for the same cloned ship. |
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Of
course, most ships being cloned are captured booty, rather than ships that
were traded or bought. In many cases, the Feds |
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can
still clone these ships more cheaply than the other races. To do so, the
player needs to understand how Super Refit |
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works.
In Host 3.2x, ships must be refit with a full complement of weapons (e.g., a
Darkwing must be refit with 10 beams |
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and
8 tubes). If the ship is set to refit and there is less than a full
complement of weapons available (e.g. attempting to refit a |
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Darkwing
while only having 6 Beams and 5 tubes in stock on the base), then the current
weapons will be stripped off and |
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NO
weapons will be added to the hull. The astute Fed player rapidly comes to the
realization that this restriction can be used |
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to
his/her advantage when cloning a captured ship. Let's see how. |
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The
Feds and Fascists both capture a Resolute with Transwarps, H. Blasters, and
Mk VII Torps, and they wish to clone the |
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ship.
The Fascists simply clone it at a cost of $3,176. The Feds first build a
single H. Phaser and a single Mk VIII torpedo |
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tube
on the base and set the Resolute to Super Refit. The following turn they will
have a Resolute with Transwarps and no |
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beams
or Torps. They clone this stripped down ship at a cost of $1,960 and then pay
an additional $608 to refit the clone |
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with
the 8 H. Blasters and 3 Mk VII Tubes for a total cost of $2,568. Each
Resolute the Feds clone, and refit, is $608 cheaper |
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than
the same ship cloned by the Fascists (or anybody else). The restrictions on
this technique are as follows: 1) It only works |
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for
weapons, not engines, 2) the beams have to be H. Disruptors or lower tech and
the Torps have to be Mk VIIs or lower in |
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order
for them to be stripped off during the first refit. It should be noted that
this technique can also be used to "downward" |
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refit
a ship (e.g. strip the H. Blasters and Mk VIIs off of a Missouri and replace
them with Disruptors and Gamma Bombs). |
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Using
this technique the Feds can pretty much reconfigure their own or captured
ships at will. |
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It
should be noted that the downward refit only occurs if the ship has less than
it's full complement of weapons. So a |
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Darkwing
with 9 H. Blasters and 7 Mk VIIs can indeed strip those weapons off by
setting the ship to refit at a base that has |
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but
1 Phaser and 1 Mk VIII launcher in stock. If, on the other hand, you try this
on a Darkwing with 10 beams and 8 |
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launchers,
the ship will be left in it's original configuration. |
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Now
that we've seen how the Feds can reconfigure their ships, the question
remains, "Which ships should the Feds be |
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building in the first
place?" The Feds have a number of useful ships. Early on in the Game,
the Nebula makes an excellent a |
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rmed
freighter. It carries 350 kts of cargo and when properly equipped can blow
most mid-level ships into space dust. Later |
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on
in the game, it can be used as an effective mine layer. The work-horse of the
fleet is the Missouri. The Feds are better off |
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building
2 Missouris than 1 Nova. The cost is about the same and the Missouris are
more versatile. The Diplomacy makes a |
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decent
small battleship for dealing with pesky Resolutes, Emeralds, etc. These three
ships comprise the bulk of the Fed fleet, |
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however,
with the right Hconfig setting, the Feds have two more devastating weapons at
their disposal. |
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Shield
Tech: The Feds want it on and at 50%. Without this setting, the Feds will
have a very hard time keeping the carrier |
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races
at bay. If the Shield Tech is on at 50%, the Feds have a very effective
anti-carrier ship, The Thor. Four Thors with |
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Transwarps,
X-ray, and 32 Mk VIIs Torps, will kill any carrier in the game including
Gorbies and Biocides with the last |
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Thor
surviving (often undamaged). Compare this to the 5 T-Rex's or 4 Victoriouses
needed by the Lizards and Fascists to do |
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the
same. If Torp ships are the problem, The Kittyhawk with a 50% Shield Tech
setting will destroy any Torp ship in the |
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game
except the Annihilation (and it takes a big bite out of that). Obviously,
Shield Tech is of major importance to the Feds. |
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If
it's on and 50% (below 40% is the same as being off as far as the Feds are
concerned), the Fed fleet should have quite a few |
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Thors and Kittyhawks. |
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The
Feds have four specialty ships; The Brynhild, The Bohemian, The Eros, and The
Loki. The Brynhild is useful early in |
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the
game for quickly finding native races to exploit. The terraformers (Bohemian
and Eros) are useful throughout the game |
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for
creating maximized planets (e.g. get the planet temp to 50, turn the taxes
off, and watch a 6 million Bovinoid become a 15 |
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million
Bovinoid in 20 turns or less). If "Climate Kill" is on in the game,
the terraformers move from useful to absolutely |
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necessary
and give the Feds a big advantage in expanding an empire. The Loki will
protect the Feds from the Birds, Fascists, |
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and
Privateers with devastating effectiveness. If the Feds pair one (A LOKI) up
with a Nebula on each important planet and |
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send
them as escorts with their fleets, the Privateer theft will be a rare
occurrence. The Loki is also the Feds most valuable |
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trading
commodity. Other races will pay top dollar for this ship and since it cannot
decloak Fed ships (assuming the Feds get |
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a
cloaker from someone else), there is little risk of it ever being used
against them. The terraformers are also good trading |
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material,
again, even more so if "Climate Kill" is active. |
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One
Hconfig setting benefits all Fed ships, namely the "Fed Crew
Bonus." The default setting is on. If the host turns it off, |
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quit
the game. Playing the Feds with it off is equivalent to playing the Crystals
without the ability to lay webs. The Fed |
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Crew
Bonus does four things for the Feds: 1) All Fed ships will always fight with
their full complement of weapons |
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regardless
of their damage (e.g. If a Missouri has 90% damage, it will still fight with
8 beams and 6 tubes); 2) All Fed ships will |
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regenerate
25% shields between battles so the Feds will always begin each fight with at
least 25% shields; 3) All Fed ships will |
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have
an extra 50kts of mass during ship battles, and 4) All Fed carriers will gain
three extra bays in battle. |
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This
means that many so-called useless ships are actually a threat in the hands of
the Feds. One example would be the |
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Redwind
carrier built by the Birds and Privateers. In the hands of the Birds (or
anyone else), this ship gets captured by a |
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Robotic
Catspaw before it can bring the Catspaw's shields down. Give it to the Feds
and it can reduce the Catspaw to debris |
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without
losing its own shields. "Fed Crew Bonus" makes any ship controlled
by the Feds more dangerous in battle than it |
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would
be when controlled by any other race, with the possible exception of the
Lizards. |
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By using the above
advantages of money, Super Refit, Fed Crew Bonus, and ship selection well,
the Feds should be a f |
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ormidable
opponent to just about every race in the game. They do have, what I consider,
one natural enemy, The Lizards. |
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The
Lizards can match the Feds' money through Hissing, they can out produce them
in minerals almost 3 : 1, they can safely |
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ignore
the Feds' Loki and use their Lizard Cruisers to ground attack Fed planets and
bases, and their 150% damage ability |
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can
often match the Fed Crew Bonus. If the Feds find themselves near the Lizards
early in the game, they have two choices: |
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make
peace or start an all-out, no-holds barred war. If the Lizards get an
established foothold near the Feds, they can often |
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overwhelm
them far more quickly than any other race can. On the other hand, a Fed and
Lizard Alliance is something that |
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should
send fear into the hearts of every other race in the cluster. The Feds are
considered an economic race. Their advantages |
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are
used to build strong empires with a very high number of ships. If the Feds
are not growing and building at twice or more |
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the
rate of the carrier races, they will lose the game. If played to their
strengths, they can often be the rulers of the Echo |
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Cluster. |
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