Kzinti Tactics?

[Paul B]

Hey,

I'm fairly new to SFB/FC and I was wondering what some good tactics were for the Kzinti? I've searched the net but most of the SFB tactics pages have gone the way of the dodo (even on the wayback machine), the few I did find deal specifically with the TCC. Which can be applied to FC of course, but I think there are a few important changes. The most notable being the lack of an 8 impulse delay between firing drones.

[terryoc]

Yes, by launching drones on Impulse 8, then moving at 16+1 or 24 on the first impulse of the next turn and launching again, you can build up a big stack of drones. Big stacks work well because they minimise the number of ADD shots the target will get, and they will all hit the same shield.

Drawbacks of the Big Stack Theory is that ships can often fly around the drones, and it tends to telegraph your drone launches.

You always know how much power your opponent has left, so if he runs out of power get in close and launch, launch, launch!! He will be helpless to stop them.

Don't rely on drones to get your kills for you. Drones are just a distraction, they waste the opponent's power, limit his movement options and absorb phaser fire. Fly it like a Klingon but with more phaser-3s. Get in close to use your phaser-3s offensively after you've sabre-danced a shield down.

[Scoutdad]

Paul, TerryO's tactics are one of the best ways to usea single kzinti ship in a duel. It also works well in a fleet battle, but another fleet tactic is to use your drones to direct the enemies movement.

We've found that unless you're playing on a fixed map, your drones only tend to soak up phaser hits, they never really seem to do all that much damage themselves... unless you can launch insanely massive number in a stack. What we tend to do in our battles is to launch our drones in such a manner as to force one ship to either split off from the group (thereby weakening the opponents fleet relative to your own) or to take a crippling strike (which also weakens the enemies force). If you can use your drones to make the enemy turn away from your fleet prior to their optimum fire range, you are then fighting a running battle wih an enemy that has most of its weapons facing away from you.

Just be aware that this isn't a sure thing. I've seen fleet battles where the target ship pays a couple of energy points to decelerate and drop to the back of the fleet. This forces all your drones to pass through their fleet at close range before striking the target. But this can also be a good thing as a large enough number of drones will often take most of the fleets fire-power to stop... making them prime targets for a follow up attack.

[Paul B]

Is it sometimes a good idea to split your ships? I was thinking if you had like 2 Medium Cruisers against a pair of Fed CAs or something you could split up both ships and launch a pair of 8 drone stacks from two different points. Such that basically he'd have to deal with one of the stacks or completely turn around to avoid them. And then if he keeps his ships together, while they concentrate on one stack the ship that launched the ignored stack can move in behind its own drones and attack on the flank.

Or when people fly multiple ships do they typically just group them all together? Though one argument might I've heard is, what's the point of fielding two ships and keeping them together when you might as well just field one large one (assuming there's an SSD available)

[mjwest]

The general rule is, given basically even forces, keep your ships together. Note that "keep your ships together" does not necessarily mean "keep your ships in one hex".

The reason for this is because if you split your ships up with a moderate amount of space between them, a competent opponent will bum-rush one of them and have (for a short period of time) a two-to-one fight. This is an excellent way to lose.

Again, circumstances dictate. Maybe you have a scenario objective. Maybe you have unequal forces and your bigger element can take on the opponent's full forces. But for the most part, if you have evenly matched opponents, splitting your forces is a recipe for disaster.

[Scoutdad]

Also, slitting your ships (sometimes by even a small amount) often prevents you from concentrating you fire on the same shield of the same ship, resulting in 2 downed shields but only half as many internal damage points.

[Paul B]

Hey thanks for the help guys, I managed go pull off my first FedCommander victory. Took a Kzinti New Command Crusier and a pair of Mediums up against a Federation DN and a new CA. I lost a CM but blasted the CA into shrapnel. Then the somewhat damaged DN conceded when he failed to cause significant damage to my CC with his photon barrage and found himself with no power remaining against what would be very shortly 8 drones (min 4 hits) (and another turn of disruptor/phaser fire while he reloaded).

Btw, I'm surprised there's no forum online here for battle reports. Some people enjoy reading them, and it might attract the attention of prospective players.

[terryoc]

there is a battle report forum on the legacy site. If you like, post your battle reports here in the Tactics forum or in General Discussion. I'd be interested in reading any batreps.

[DrFaustus]

Any other tips for a budding cat player?

Last game I played I tried creating big stacks and closing behind them to unload overloaded disrupters into my oppenent, he semi-paniced at the drone wave (we are both newbies playing on fleet scale), but knocked all 4 down, then manged to out manover me and I ate 2 overloaded Photons at short range.

Lessons learned

Getting in front of Fed CA is a bad idea.
Getting Drones to hit is hard
Kzinti phasers suck

So any helpful advice?

[Paul B]

Any other tips for a budding cat player?

Last game I played I tried creating big stacks and closing behind them to unload overloaded disrupters into my oppenent, he semi-paniced at the drone wave (we are both newbies playing on fleet scale), but knocked all 4 down, then manged to out manover me and I ate 2 overloaded Photons at short range.

Lessons learned

Getting in front of Fed CA is a bad idea.
Getting Drones to hit is hard
Kzinti phasers suck

So any helpful advice?

Hmmn, I play the Kzinit like I play the Klingons. Speed is life. The Benefit to using disruptors is that you dont have to tie that power down over a turn. My first priority is speed, going faster allows me to know where my opponent is going to move first. I'll go at least 16. It also depends upon my turn mode, the Feds tend to have poor turn modes at least compared to the Kzinti (I think). So if you have a better turn mode, you want to be going at least as fast as your opponent. If your turn mode is the same or worse, you want to be going faster.
When you're firing weapons, remember, just like the Klingons your phasers are your main weapons. Dont fire overloaded disruptors first, first fire every phaser that you can and then see what power you have left for disruptors.

One thing I sometimes like to do is to first do the sabre dance, basically stay at range 8-15 and fire disruptors at him, launch your drones in a couple big stacks, etcetera and try to hang back. Eventualy the Feddie will start to close the range, but dont let him get too close, let him fire his torps at range 5+. You'll get hit, and one of your ships might not have a good day, but it'll be a lot better than if you'd got hit at close range. Once he's fired his volley, turn and close with him as fast as you can and unload into him. Do a HET if you need to. His reloading turn is when he's vulnerable. Once your on his tail, stay there for as long as you can.

Also be concious of his power levels. If he's closing and he's got no power, launch some drones. You dont always have to launch drones as soon as you have them ready. Sometimes its better to wait. One time my opponent was closing with some overloaded photons, but no power and no front shield, I launched four drones (from in this case, a pair of klingons), needless to say he didnt keep coming to fire those photons.

[junior]

I ate 2 overloaded Photons at short range.

Never, ever get close to a Fed with overloaded photons unless you're flying a Fusion ship (Hydrans and Pirates only), or have the proverbial "hundred points of plasma!!!" sitting in your torpedo tubes ready to launch. As a Kzinti, Disruptors are your direct fire heavy weapon, and photons do a much better job of smashing through shields.

Keep an eye on his photon arming cycle, and the amount of power he has left. You want to catch him when...

1.) His photons are either unarmed, or in pre-load, or...
2.) His photons are complete with standard loads only, and he doesn't have enough power to convert any of them to overloads.

If you can't meet either requirement, then keep the range open. Dance in and out of range 8, and convince him that he's never going to get any closer than that range bracket. If you can keep the range open so that he never gets a better shot, then eventually he'll take it. And once he does, you then have the opportunity to swoop in with weapons blazing and hit him at point blank range.

If an undamaged ship doesn't want your drones to hit, then they won't. But every weapon that he fires at the drones is a weapon that he's not firing at you. And when the majority of his weapons are Phaser-1s, that's an advantage that you can definitely use. If he does use all of his phasers in the beginning of the turn, and you have a chance to smack him with a wave of drones before the turn is over, then by all means do so. But such opportunities probably aren't going to happen very frequently against veteran opponents.

[Mike]

Another tactic that I have seen (and used) is the old "drone sidestep." If you are going 24, you can launch your drones and use a few sideslips to get them a couple of hexes out in front of your ship. Then just follow them in. Set the distance to whatever you think will work best for you. If you can time it so your opponent has just turned and can't fulfill his turn mode before you get to him, that is great for you. If you can time it so that both the drones and your ship arrive by the end of the same Impulse, so much the better.

[TJolley]

Kzinti phasers suck

So any helpful advice?

The Phaser-3 is the most powerful non-base mounted direct-fire weapon currently in the game out to a range of 2, per point of power put into it. The only weapon more powerful than a Phaser-3 is the base-only phaser 4..go figure . The phaser 3 is also more powerful than either the Disruptor or the Photon, per point of power, out to a range of 3.

Don't forget that both disruptors and Photons don't always hit, you need to adjust their average damage by the odds to hit as well

__________________________________
Phaser per point of power used:

Range Damage
0 6 1/2
1 5 1/3
2 4 5/6
3 4 1/3

__________________________________
Phaser 3 per point of power used (remember a P-3 uses .5 point per phaser):

Range Damage
0 7 2/3
1 7 1/3
2 6
3 2

__________________________________
Photon per point used (but each has 4,6 or 8 points in them):

Range Damage
0 2
1 2
2 1 2/3
3 1 1/3
__________________________________
Disruptor per point used:

Range Damage
0 2.5
1 2 1/12
2 1 2/3
3 1 1/3
__________________________________

So if your choice is between firing a disruptor or firing phaser-3's, you are better off firing the P-3's out to a range of 3 if you have enough P-3's in arc.

This is not as applicable to photons, as they store power over 2-turns.

The lesson: If you are short on power and must choose which weapons to fire, learn which weapons are best for each range and use your power accordingly.

[junior]

The Phaser-3 is the most powerful non-base mounted direct-fire weapon currently in the game out to a range of 2, per point of power put into it. The only weapon more powerful than a Phaser-3 is the base-only phaser 4..go figure . The phaser 3 is also more powerful than either the Disruptor or the Photon, per point of power, out to a range of 3.

This is the reason that many (if not most) Hydran players wouldn't complain very much if all of the Fusion Beams were mysteriously replaced by Gatling Phasers (which at range 0 do three less points than the maximum damage of an overloaded Fusion Beam, take three less points of power to arm, and don't require a turn to cool down).

[terryoc]

Heck, I'd be happy with just a phaser-1 instead of a fusion beam.