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How to destroy a star station... almost guaranteed


kschang
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Or your money back! Here's the recipe...

1) Make sure you have the best shields and armor

2) Look in Tacops, and zoom in at the hostile station, note which side of the planet it's on.

3) Locate a nav feature (moon, jump gate, wormhole, etc.) on the OTHER side of the planet. HJ there.

4) Issue order to fly to the supply depot to the CC. You'll fly THROUGH the planet to get there. While on the way, target the station and turn OFF the A/P, and start slewing your ship toward the station.

5) You will get into the weapons envelope of the station just for a few seconds, and your big shields SHOULD withstand that. When engines come back online, immediately use A/B to get into a station's blind-spot. Though in general, the supply depots ARE in stations' blind spots.

6) Now you don't even need to fire a single shot... The station will launch everything it's got... fighters, ships, etc. Most of them will try shooting THROUGH the station. There's a few that'll jump in and such, but you can just rotate in place and engage them with missiles and such. Wait until your HJ is recharged.

7) Set fly-to back to that nav feature you HJ'ed from... and go. You'll go THROUGH the planet again, and you won't even get hit. The fighters and ships should come after you. Take care of them when you drop out of HJ.

8) Repeat jumping to station and back until all defenders are gone.

9) Get into the blind spot and peck at the station one shot at a time until it crys uncle, then dock.

When it doesn't work, the station goes POOF! You still get plenty of points for it...

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quote:

Originally posted by Viper2000:

I got my ass whooped within 2 seconds after getting within the weapons range of a starbase. I had a firestorm with the best hull and shields. I pretty much did what you said to.

Really? I destroyed like 3 star stations with a Warmonger this way... You SURE you set course for the supply depot, not the SS itself?

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Confirmed that this also works for a type 4 and type 5 station. Took out the Insurgent base a Rinaal last night. It refused to surrender even though it's down to 200 armor. Then one of their own fighters blasted it trying to shoot me.

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quote:

It refused to surrender even though it's down to 200 armor. Then one of their own fighters blasted it trying to shoot me.


Unless its just coincidence, I find certain stations are more difficult to capture than others. They refuse to send out an SOS, and I end up destroying them. Maybe it depends on race/caste.

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quote:

Originally posted by Kasey Chang:

It refused to surrender even though it's down to 200 armor.

Somewhere in these forums it is explained (sort of, not in every detail) when a station sends out a SOS and as far as I can tell it doesn't depend on armor but on system-integrity. Hit it with the lowest settings till overall integrity goes below 20 (or something like that). Then wait for SOS.

I don't know if some stations are easier to capture than others or that some are more stubborn about the SOS-thing ("The starstation is NOT under attack, our shields and armor or NOT down, the sounds you hear are NOT explosions from incomming fire and yes, we WILL prevail, so don't call the SOS-thingy").

But I wouldn't be surprised.

Hmmmm, before anyone states the obvious, I mean comparing two stations of the same type.

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Then something's funny with the damage model. According to my readings on the type 5 I destroyed in Rinaal (?), ALL FOUR systems are at 99/100 %, with shields at 0 and hull at 200 or so. The shields keep going back up though.

So any tricks in knocking down the integrity without wiping out the hull?

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quote:


Originally posted by Kasey Chang:

Then something's funny with the damage model. According to my readings on the type 5 I destroyed in Rinaal (?), ALL FOUR systems are at 99/100 %, with shields at 0 and hull at 200 or so. The shields keep going back up though.

So any tricks in knocking down the integrity without wiping out the hull?


There's nothing funny about it really - and its all explained in the manual. And I explained it in another one of your threads recently.

Quite simply, the integrity is a combination of several critical systems. These are listed at the top of the target info in the CVD. The station won't emit an SOS unless it determines that its integrity level is critical and it has no further options (or inbound assistance). Which is exactly what it also does when it is sieged and runs out of supplies.

Simply put, if you don't breach the shields, you can't breach the armor. If you don't breach the armor, then no crirical system damage will occur. And if no system damage occurs - incl none to the critical systems - then the integrity is unaffected.

This is all explained in the manual. Try reading it.

And just because its shields are going up means that, well, the engineers are busy. What exactly did you expect?

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

quote:

Originally posted by Kasey Chang:

So any tricks in knocking down the integrity without wiping out the hull?

There's nothing funny about it really - and its all explained in the manual. And I explained it in another one of your threads recently.


I thought that's about ships, but I guess it would apply to stations too.

quote:

Quite simply, the integrity is a combination of several critical systems. These are listed at the top of the target info in the CVD. The station won't emit an SOS unless it determines that its integrity level is critical and it has no further options (or inbound assistance). Which is exactly what it also does when it is sieged and runs out of supplies.


So a station can think of itself as "fully functional" even if its hull is down to 500 out of 25000... Hmmm... (The other integrities are down to 70 or even 50, but it was repaired back up to 99).

I must be hitting the station at the wrong places. It DOES make a difference, right, SC? If this just keeps happening, should I try shooting at a different spot?

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Try hitting a different spot.

Integrity wise, the system is fully operational as it has no actual system damage when the shields are still up. If you brought it's shields down to 500 of 25000 and then left, the shields would recharge without the station ever taking any actual damage and it would still be fully operational....

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quote:


Originally posted by Kasey Chang:

So a station can think of itself as "fully functional" even if its hull is down to 500 out of 25000... Hmmm...


Well, why not? Just because you breached its armor by that amount, doesn't mean that you hit any of its critical systems. Think about it this way, what if it were your ship? Haven't you noticed that regardless of your armor level that its not the same systems that are damaged?

quote:


(The other integrities are down to 70 or even 50, but it was repaired back up to 99).

Nothing wrong with that. Again - (are you NOT getting what I'm explaining?), the integrity is IRRELEVANT when it comes to shields etc. Just because the integrity is critical means NOTHING if the shield systems (you know, the thing that makes the shield work) are even fractionally operational. There is a good reason why when armor is breached it rarely gets fixed quickly, but shields do. With the shields being repaired and functional, other systems can be repaired because the shields will prevent further breaches - especially if the armor is severely breached. The AI tries to mimick a human player. I don't know about you, but I don't go repairing the flight deck or weapon systems when I have a shield breach to worry about. Do you?

quote:


I must be hitting the station at the wrong places. It DOES make a difference, right, SC? If this just keeps happening, should I try shooting at a different spot?

Damage is evenly distributed amongst systems but it depends on the impact factor. There is no location based damage in the game. Bandus stated that incorrectly (when he said Try hitting a different spot) and must be thinking about the amount of damage applied. i.e. the greater the damage, the more systems that will be damaged. You can't, e.g. hit it from the back and assume that its going to disable its engines. Thats location based damage and its not supported. But hit it with a missle of factor 10 from the back and then one with factor 100, the latter missile will cause breaches to more systems - assuming the armor itself is breached.

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Got it, really. So what you're saying is... the damage model rewards DEEP penetrating HUGE salvoes, as those penetrate to damage more systems.

"Death of one thousand pinpricks", on the other hand, just strips away armor without doing much damage to the interior systems, right?

And shooting at the "tail" or "head" or "waist" of the station makes no difference at all. Got it.

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Back to the destroying a star station...

I wanted to elaborate on Spindoktor's flawless plan but for capturing

1. start as a carrier and load up on Iridium and the necessary minerals

2. get to the system with the hostile station you want to take over and wait for your engine's HJ to recharge

3. when 100% hit cloak and HJ to the station

4. get the station down to about 500 armor/hull integrity left using strong guns (about 50% intensity), then switch to 10% slowly firing (pressing and not holding the return key to fire works best)

5. wait for the SOS (happens around 100 hull integrity) decloak and dock

The biggest problem is if there are other ships around the station... they may destroy it or capture it themselves while you are doing the deed. Most of the time however, the station takes care of those who are not cloaked in quick order

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To keep little pests from stealing your station capture launch and give your fighters some busy work so just as the enemys warp in you can order then to "elimiate" the enemys tring to SH*T on your victory .

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