February 2010

SFB Tactic of the month [continued]

DRONE DEFENSE TRICKS NEAR PLANETS

If you are attacked by drone bombardment near a planet (and you cannot just allow the drones to hit the planet and devastate it for some reason) you can still use the planet to assist your defenses.

1.) Maneuver in such a way that the drones must enter the atmosphere to close with you (this takes lots of skill with speed changes and timing). You have to be sure to maneuver such that self-guided seeking weapons never accept the planet as a target. Using this tactic, you can buzz by, take your range one shot without fear (even from high-speed drones) and pull a bunch of drones into one hex for easier disposal at a later time (via T-bombs) more efficiently.

2.) Alternately, you can grab a drone with a tractor and shove it into the atmosphere. The atmosphere breaks the tractor, but by then the drone will be under the "in atmosphere restrictions."

3.) Another clever tactic is to place a wild weasel/wild SWAC behind the planet in such a way that it draws the drones into the atmosphere.

4.) In addition, you can force the drones to turn in awkward ways, HET, or otherwise torment the drone controller . . .

5.) If your planet has rings or asteroids/moons or whatever, you can use these (unoccupied presumably) rocks to kill drones by clever movement.

Finally, of course, if you do not care about devastation damage just let the drones acquire the planet and they will hit it.
All of this is much easier using planets with a radius greater than one of course; a large gas giant would make this devastating for the drone controller.


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