QUESTION:
Is it possible to counter the much-vaunted carrier and its associated strikecraft WITHOUT building carriers? I decided to test it personally.
SYNOPSIS:
I chose an online opponent whom I have played before, and whom my friends have played (and beaten). The people I play with consider him "mediocre." We played a 1v1, random small map. I chose vasari, he chose tec.
OPEN:
I dropped a mil lab right away, queued up a space whale, and spammed 5 scouts to find him. While waiting for the whale to come online and the scouts to find him I researched assailants. Found him, and he had dropped 2 civ labs. This was my cue to rush. His home planet was connected to the "main system" via a single asteroid chokepoint, so my plan was to take that asteroid first so that I could seal him in and also have a base of operations (my home planet was too far away to be able to replinish my attack, and my stream of forces would have to plow through too many neutral systems while being attacked the whole way).
I got to the asteroid with space whale and about 5 assailants. I took it easily, colonized it, and dropped a repair platform plus frig factory. He arrived just as I was doing this, and messaged me saying he had already lost, he shouldn't have gone eco, blah blah. I told him to continue the game because I didn't plan to build any carriers, and if it's true that "carrier spam rules" he had quite a large chance to win. He said it was going to be impossible. I told him that yes, by any reasonable measure that anyone on the street looking at it could muster, I already had the "strategic win." I had the chokepoint connecting his mini-system to the rest of the map, and it was fortified. My space whale was there, with 5 assailants, and I had repair and a frig factory. Yet, if there is anything to this "strikecraft own all" mystique, he had a chance for a "tactical win" I told him. So he continued the game.
MIDGAME:
He only had access to 2 roids in his "mini-system," so that's all he had besides his home planet. I, on the other hand, had the rest of the map, which included 1 desert, 3 terran planets (in addition to my home planet, which makes 4), and numerous asteroids, in addition to one neutral mining site with 3 mines. My plan was to build up the chokepoint roid with all my forces, not build any carriers of my own, and hope he built carriers so I could test whether they could be countered. Meanwhile, I sent my space whale (alone) in one direction, and a colony frig with a couple of assailants in another direction, in order to colonize the rest of the system.
My first spam at the roid was assailants. His initial attack was with cobalts and a Kol - easily repelled. His next attack was with Kol and lrms. I countered not only with my assailants, but with an additional scout spam (seeing as he had no cobalts). He was repelled. His 3rd attack was with the Kol, lrms, and no more than 2 or 3 carriers. At this point, just those few carriers was enough to seriously contest the roid, even though I had plenty of assailants. He managed to destroy the repair, destroy the frig factory, and bomb the roid down to nothing. I had to send my space whale back from half way across the system. I also dropped 2 frig factories on a terran planet connected to the roid, and from there I pumped as many skirmishers as I could, continuously. I managed to repel him back off the roid, and I recolonized the choke with the space whale, and rebuilt facilities.
ENDGAME:
At this point I knew he had carriers, so WE HAD OFFICIALLY ARRIVED AT THE TEST. I started my anti-carrier spam. Since it was a very small roid and I knew I could easily get to his carriers, I built tons of skirmishers NON-STOP. I built them at the roid, plus at the terran planet next door. I mixed in assailants as well, just in case. After a few minutes, his attack came. It was the Kol, carriers, and hoshikos vs. my skirmishers, assailants, and space whale.
He won, took that roid, then went up and took the terran planet. My jaw dropped. This exact conversation ensued:
Me: Apparently carriers are near impossible to counter without carriers of one's own.Him: Well, I had hoshikos too.Me: So what?Him: Well, they are pretty nasty.Me: But I had tons of skirmishers.Him: Yeah, but the hoshikos repair faster than your counters can damage Me: So your carriers plus hoshikos are a "press a button and win" button?Him: Yes.
CONCLUSION:
With a far, far superior strategic position which I had obtained, with the restriction that I would not build carriers, I could not beat a mediocre opponent who spammed carriers plus hoshikos. I had far more planets and far more resources. I only had to defend 1 system - the choke. The counters I spammed were far cheaper that his forces. I had every advantage. I don't suck at this game. But I lost.
At this point, unless the devs come out and say "the intended counter for carriers is carriers," I am ready to say that there is some sort of balance issue. Now, I did not test flak this game, but I've been told by everyone, including pros, that light frigs are a viable hard counter to carriers, plus this situation was ripe for them - there was no room for him to pull off tactics or maneuvering. In fact, this did not happen - he micro'd nothing. I, on the other hand, did micro. In particular, I grabbed my skirmisher fleet, and told it to attack every single carrier and hoshiko in the well.
Phase Jump Inhibitors so they take 700% as long to jump. Throw in a disabling ability from a cap ship that makes them restart the jump process and you have at least one or some trapped carriers....
A few people have told me that the presence of the hoshikos corrupted the test, so that I did not get an accurate result. I suppose more tests need to be done, hopefully either without hoshikos, or with the hoshikos countered. Unfortunately, I don't know how to counter hoshinkos.
I think that with all the flak (no pun intended, heh) that carriers are getting, we are at risk of a hard nerf. That will suck. If there will be a nerf, I think that only a minor adjustment is needed (and a conservative, carefully-thought out one at that). Either a buff to the flak frig, a buff to the light frig, an adjustment to the antimatter capabilities of the carrier (amount it holds, speed at which it regenerates, etc), or an adjustment to the speed at which strikecraft are rebuilt. I DON'T think that they should nerf the carrier back down to 1 strikecraft, and I DON'T think they should nerf the carrier range.
Your criticism is over a tactic, pure and simple.
I played a 3v3 game the other day as Vasari. I was cornered by two opponents and nearly killed, but my ally fed me so I could spam carriers. I built 25 before counter attacking. One of the opponents had left the area and the other had massed flak frigates (TEC), he had about 35-40. He had also built a couple of lrms and carriers, but it was really the flak frigates that were toublesome. Now I chose not to do the smartest thing and switch over to bombers to take them out, but i did learn a lot about the Flak frigate - carrier relationship. The guy I played against was a horrible micromanager and let his flak frigates just chase my fighters around the system as they destroyed everything else, but i realized if he had wanted to, he could have attacked the carriers with them and really put a wrench in things. First of all, I tested the fighters against them to see how theyd do mono a mono. Almost all the fighters were destroyed in just a few minutes. Also I found out that when squadron hosts are under attack, their squadron build time is reduced by %50. Flak frigates also fire in all directions. If the guy wanted to he could park his 35 flak frigs right on top of my carriers, and do some serious damage. Flaks aren't slow ships either so they can move just as much as kiting carriers. Now if you have 3 or 4 flaks per carrier, as an equal use of supply, you've got a battle. I think what people tend to do is use flaks passively to just thin out fighters and bombers, they can do that, but lets not foget they can atack other ships. Now I've never tried it out, but I think in terms of pound for pound, 3 or 4 flak frigates could destroy 1 carrier, but you have to use them aggressively. Too many times I've seen folks bring in flak frigates and just let them wander around gravwells chasing much much faster units, or parking them with the rest of the fleet in a futile attempt to save the other ships from an endless stream of strikecraft. Really what you have to do is have your entire fleet chase down a group of enemy carriers until you can get your flak frigates right ontop of them, then they can break off and continue pursuit and cut off strikecraft reinforcement while ALSO attacking the carriers, maybe leave a couple at your fleet to clear out straglers that get away. I've never tried it, but it seems to me this would be the way to fight carriers without using them. Trick is you've got to out micro your opponent, simple as that. As far as diverse fleets go and tactics in general, you have to have something to counter every ship your opponent has. If they want to build hoshikos, then you need something that can destroy them, sometimes carriers are the best thing for that because of their versatility. But in my experience, the person who has the most carriers is not always the winner of the battle, which means they aren't overpowered, so doing a major nerf like "no sc building during battles" would make them too expensive to be any kind of useful, especially at the rate a flak frigate can destroy strikecraft. I'm not saying they are perfect, maybe some little tweaks may make it easier to defeat a large group of them, but don't change them drastically. That's my two cents.
"I beat my opponent's balanced fleet by building nothing but carriers as a last ditch effort."
Yes, I'm a bad person.
You SHOULD NOT be able to counter fighter/bombers without some of your on. I've countered carrier spam with alot less carriers than my enemy ussually. Just the right mix of micro with the fighters and haveing a few squads of bombers for the enemy sc to go after and then draw em into my flak supported by my fighters. Once there sc drops to below 40%. Send the flak and lf's after the carriers both of which are way faster than carriers. Support em with that nice space superiority you've just won. While leaving a few squads to clean up the mess. I think the point here is that any spam whether it be carriers or hc SHOULD BE counterable with a balanced fleet. I think its close if not quite perfect. Good job IC.
On a funny note: Could you imagin the brits tring to counter the german air force with 40mm cannon and no air force of their own. Lets see, lets put AA on everything. Building, boats, cars, on my flag pole in the front yard. lol...not likly...eh.
I just happen to notice this is one of several anti-carrier threads you have started. So having some issues? Whats your choosen race? Your main issues seem tactical in nature. Just sounds like you were tring for a achievement. Their is really only one op carrier in the game. That would be the drone host. They are pricey but to counter them you need unreasonable ammounts of lf's 20+. For the time there able to bring them into the game. What I mean by that is. Say you have an Advent vs a tec or vas player. The Advent player only needs the 2 labs for production. With the extra squad they carry plus more sc per squad. Seems a bit much and is hard to counter....not impossible. Advent can have can have a desicive edge here, because its hard to have what you need by the time they have 3 or 4. I think most peeps carrier issues revolve around they under estimate them. Don't counter them aggressively enough. Just plane want to do it there way whether it's death or not. lol.
I posted this elsewhere, but I'll say it again.
Give flaks a constant firing solution (like in BSG) where they pummel a constant area as opposed to targeting individual SC or squadrons. Balance the effect by reducing the damage maybe but this way as SC fly through they take damage. This allows you to cover a fleet so SC can't just fly through your formation without some cost.
At the same time, reduce (slightly) the speed/hull/shields of carriers. As well maybe bump up (slightly) the effect of LFs on carriers.
A good balance of flaks provide segnificat cover for the fleet, while at the same time you could send a group of cobalts (or equivalents) covered by a couple of flaks over to chase after the carriers.
The counter to this would be a good mix of other ships within the carrier fleet thus forcing it back into a fleet v fleet game as opposed to carriers v everything else.
What you should do is have flak bunch up and folow the ships that are the main target of the attack and use Light frigates in large numbers to catch and take out the carriers since Carriers are weak against them.
like above poster pointed out.
Sure, if you read my post you will see that I did this. But it's apparently much easier said than done.
Add the flak in there.
Playing Tec, the Kol, dunnov combo works very well at clearing stikecraft, but if you dont follow it up with LF(light frigate) assault on the carriers, you have pretty much given up your advantage.Especially with Tec, you can build LF in droves. They are completely expendible.
Clear sky, launch LF like kamakazi pilots and start building replacements. its gonna cost your opponent much more in terms of replacing carriers than you replacing LF.
Always be aware that some micro is needed countering strike craft. C'mon ppl, it aint that hard, but it does take practice.and once mastered, it almost always plays out in your favour.
Let the skys burn, make him sorry for ever trying to use carriers. Mwahahahahaha
If you read carefully, I beat my opponent because of his horribly poor micro management skills, and stated that he had a good chance with what he was working with. And 35 flaks, 8 lrfs and 6 carriers is hardly a balanced fleet.
Hey also Agent, I think the test was a little lopsided, i mean if you think about it in terms of tech. he's using two tier 3 units versus a bunch of tier 0 and tier 1 units. What you ought to do in a future test is grab a friend and do a couple of one on ones (that is in terms of supply). Have a carrier go up against a unit amount equal to it's supply, and just try it with LF, LRF, Flaks and HC's. See which one's come out on top and don't and how much damage each side takes, you'll get a much better idea of strengths and weaknesses that way.
This was done on purpose. In other words, I was trying to counter expensive, high fleet supply units with cheaper, low fleet supply units. Thus, if successful, it would have been a "harder" counter. And don't forget, I used masses of the very thing everyone recommends for taking out carriers - light frigs. Sure, it's tier 0, but if you disagree with my counter selection, take it up with the "pros," the "experts," and I suppose the devs. Other than that, you make a good observation.
Already beat you to the punch. See my post ("testing flak" I believe).
I would like to see what happens it Entrenchment 2.5 with the addition of the multi target, multiple banks firing solution anti SC craft now have. Especially when they are supported by HC's with intercept and LF's?
I haven't done anything to test the anti SC without carriers hypothesis, but I also agree that with the appropriate balance of units, any spammed fleet can be countered. One key is that you can't have your engagement set at the gravity well setting, but at a local or none. It may take some micomanaging, but it can be done.
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