So I'm a little rusty. And we havn't had a decent heated discussion here in a while.

Here is the scenario:
Stock Game (some minor ship improvements, but think stock)
The enemy is offline (think of it as an #extended vacation# ...bwah ha ha haaa)
Here is the way the sector looks on a holo scan, and yes, it's in a dead end.

(names and numbers removed to protect the innocent)
Sector : XXX
Planets : <<<< (H) H >>>> (Shielded)
<<<< (L) L >>>> (Shielded)
<<<< (O) O >>>> (Shielded)
Fighters: 50,000 [Offensive]
Mines : 250 (Type 1 Armid)
Warps to Sector(s) : YYY

I'm playing a solo red. It's MBBS. 1000 turns per day. I have mobile planets and plenty of figs and cash.

I have no idea what the cannon settings are. I have no idea how much ore is on any of the planets, but they have been in game long enough to be full if they worked at it. So assume they could be full of ore.

I know the L can hold up to 200k ore and the H can hold 1,000k ore and the O can hold 100k

I want to go into the sector and get my figs in there with the least amount of pods and fig loss.

I'm pretty sure I can keep them out of the sector once I take out their last fig. Once my figs are in there, I know how to invade on the cheap. And I'll be able to do it at my liesure. No help needed there.

So, given the above scenario, and a goal of getting one of your figs in the sector, what would you do? Use XXX for the enemy sector, and YYY for the adj sector.

KK. First. I would consider how long they've been in the game (or age of game) and weigh the chances of there being full planets (ore, figs), and lvl 6's.
1- Disrupt the Mines
2- Photon XXX, Xport into Moth ship, Move into XXX.. not aborting any displays
3- Determine from inital moth which planets have Shields, Cannon blasts
4- If inital moth survives, or likely another moth would survive, Moth again towing in a ship that can pop planets.
5a- If cannons are large I'd pop planets and hope for a overload
5b -if cannons are low AND there likely to be no Lvl 6 planet, I'd xport in and retrieve moth ship(s)
6- keep mothing with fotons to wear down cannons
7- eventually, when cannons are really low, moth without photon using guardian ship (corp planets should be in sector already)
8-erase sector figs and move in a mobile planet to use tlelpad
9-foton xxx, enter land on each planet get shields below 200 (use mobile planet to bwarp to yyy)
10a-shields gone I would photon xxx, enter land kill figs.. depending on p-wave, i would likely create a simple script to photon xx, enter, land attack, lift on corp planet, refig, and attack again.
10b-low on turns, I'd xport into foton ship in yyy, foton xxx, xport into attack ship in xxx, land attack, lift, refig from corp planet.. do twice/foton if wave is long enough

[edit] I haven't played Stock in a long, long time. little fuzzy on ship details

Assume that they have been in game long enough that they could have them 100% full of ore. I changed the above to reflect that too.

So, what ship to moth with and how many figs/shields on it?

If the sector cannons are off, you don't want to waste a pod on offensive figs, right?

But if the cannons are on, you don't want to waste any figs either.

Do you tow in another ship? And if so, what kind and what should it have on it.

And why?

I wouldn't really mess with most of that. Might photon under and test their cannons once but mostly you're going to need to take out those sector figs. Use the ship that has the best odds and most figs.

So you would grab a battleship (as a red, it's the ship with the most figs/best odds. A stock CFS doesn't have the odds needed to survive the off figs i think), load up on figs, photon in, see if you survive the cannons, and if you do, back out, re-load up with figs, and go in again without photon? I suppose 10k figs isn't that much to risk.

You wouldn't take in an IC, I assume?

I'm trying to go as cheap as possible without sacrificing too much on the strategic/tactical side.

Oh, and I never thought of using the tholians bonus to soak off figs. learn something new every day.

Hmmm. I do like the thought of using a tholian to soak the figs once the cannons get low enough.
The only problem with that is it burns a lot of turns. Especially if they have their cannons set low enough to be annoying, but not so low to be useless. I should mention that this is a 1k turn/day game. I'll edit my original post.

I suppose I could photon in with a cfs and leave figs on the planet for the tholain to pick up then just exit/enter/get more figs.

Load up a battle ship with fotons. Use the Interdictor Cruiser to moth with (full figs/shields, planet scanner, get torps (1 min (for defender bonus), 15 max (if moth survives and you want to overload)))

Forgot to mention in previous post that getting cannon damages from each planet is critical to determine what the sector cannons are set at.


I did mention using a defender ship to retreat off of figs --assuming there's no PIG.


If cannons are that high, then I'd wait till tern and use my second and third pods and come back right after tern


If the moth ship doesn't hold gen torps then yes. tow in a defender ship get corp planets popped and use them to land moth and offensive planet fig (aka military reaaction), later on.

One should always moth using ships with full figs and shields. There is still that nasty game bug that resets a planets ORE to max when the hour passes.

You can put the figs on a empty planet for later use, but you wont be able to access them if you're hanging off of the sector figs (this is where corpies come in handy.. laff)

If they have LV 6 planets with PIG turned on, then you will either pod or erase the figs. This is why it's good to wait until tern approaches to utilize your pods --even the 3rd.

Yeah, thought there was a problem with my logic.

Well...sit back and let you two moth them then take all the credit for the invade:)

he he...just got home haven't had time to be serious......sorry for hijack.

I'm not going to venture in to telling you how to do it. There are numerous ways and all can be debated.

I will tell you this. If that player hasn't been in the game for some time, the game won't recognize the true amount of gas on the planets until you try to land. So you can actually moth all the planets to 0 sector blast, but once you try to land, the amount of gas on the planets will be updated. Just a word of precaution.

Yeah Big D, I've been bitten by that one. It's no big deal if you know it's coming.

My instincts say in this case, go battleship, battleship, battleship. But I wanted to hear other's opinions.

Nod. In the end, mothing is a messy business. No way around it really. Get the biggest best ships you can and just go for it. If you're feeling skiddish then photon-in and probe the cannons once w/ something light, but unless the planets are empty you'll need planet support to invade. It's a question of making the best use of your pods, sometimes that means sacrificing turns or cash.

My prefered method would be to use a Missile Frig and an IC and then macro a photon/transport/move. If you make it in, transport out in case of an active PIG. Grab another IC and repeat the process until the cannon damage is ready to drop below 50k. Then just take an IC in without photoning and drop a fig. This assumes the planets are in fact all shielded. If not then you can whittle down the planet figs with any remaining figs on you moth ships. Not as efficient and draining the cannons 100% and using a battleship or scout to clear the planets. But hey, a fully fueled H is worth burning a few more figs.