Great match! One thing you mentioned briefly was that the evacuation of the Lost In Space may have been premature. If you look at the DC board at 14:59, it definitely was. You lost the two container stacks, the Pinpoint, and a berthing. One of the container stacks was going to blow, but your DC teams actually fixed it while you were ordering the evac. You also had a restore, so you could have gotten the Pinpoint or one of the unused container stacks back into action if needed. Being on the wrong end of a hybrid strike can be very demoralizing, but it's always good to take a minute to look at the situation and only sound the evac if the ship is truly screwed. Not every catastrophic event is an unstoppable reactor det, and red and orange across the DC board doesn't mean the ship's done for. Final thought, I disagree that the container decoys were dead weight. They may have bamboozled the enemy into believing you had a container hauler in play, causing them to misjudge the situation. I suspect this because they immediately launched missiles towards the source of the decoys. Given the small impact the Lost In Space could have had on the battle even if you didn't evac, those missiles would have been much better spent against your other ships and teammates.
Thanks for the great points and the write-up. One thing I really like about the Nebulous community is how supportive everyone is of each other, and this is a prime example! I beat myself up about that evacuation a lot!
Well Played! The Majority of your ships survived, and you managed to win the day through eliminating the enemy fleet, so that's a great result. At the same time, I have some points and suggestions based on the how the fight executed, both for you, and for anyone else watching. As other people have pointed, you didn't need to evac the lost in space, it was definitely hurt, but it probably would have survived and been able to provide some additional support. On that though, it's worth keeping in mind that the Lost in Space doesn't have a "Railgun" it's got a "Mass Driver". The point there being that the Mass Driver operates in terms of damage more like a long range cannon than it does a Railgun. Not immensely important, but worth keeping in mind for when you've got one in your fleet. Another thing to consider when it comes to your fleet makeup meanwhile, is your lack of any alternative ammo for the cargo feeders. In the Battle report at the end you can see the ammo expenditure on your guns. On all of your cargo feeders, you only expended about 10% of the combat ammunition you brought in. That's for both the Plasma and the HE-HC rounds in the 100mm cannons. Given that you only brought in HE-HC and Grape rounds for the 100mm, that means that you were almost fully reliant on plasma strikes to do any damage with the 100mm cannons, and you could only really do damage to Raines or smaller without needing plasma for softening. Given the lack of ammo expenditure on the HE-HC, I think you could probably cut down the HE-HC rounds you're bringing by at least 50%, maybe more, and add in some AP and HE belts. Just so that you've got some ability to deal with ships without requiring plasma to be brought to bare, which allows you to re-target threats faster, and ensure that you aren't waiting for plasma burn through before you can start doing damage. There's two other things then to mention for consideration. Damage control - While it takes extra thinking, it can be useful to keep an eye on the damage control readouts, and do a bit of manual tasking. Fires in modules do damage over time, and while I don't know if fires can spread to other modules, they can certainly grey out modules if left to their own devices. So one thing that it is helpful to do to increase your ships operational time while under fire, is to keep an eye out for the fire indicator on the left hand damage readout, and go onto the damage control interface on those ships to prioritise repairing modules that are on fire (and still functional). The DC teams will do certain prioritisation, but if a module has multiple debuffs, one fire and one something else, DC teams won't leave until all the debuffs are clear. That potentially leaves other modules on fire for longer, and therefore taking more DOT from the fires. Tactical View - While it's easy to spot stuff when looking back on a recording and not actively in combat, using the tactical view is definitely helpful for keeping in mind the whole battle space. Near the end of the battle, you noticed that you were taking fire from an Axford - Track 3903. But tactically, you were aware of this track for much longer. As you were taking the D point, you briefly went into tactical view, and we could see that the other cargo feeder fleet was engaging the Axford from long range. After you took the D point, you then spotted the nearby Solomon, and went to engage that ship (which is fine). Alternatively to that though, you could have reversed your fleet, and gone up behind Delta to engage the Axford as he went into hiding. That would have put additional pressure onto the other enemy ship while the rest of your allied fleets engaged the Solomon, ideally allowing you and your allies to take out both enemy ships faster. All of this is just tips and suggestions for getting more out of the fleet, so feel free to consider or ignore at leisure. The important thing is to have fun in game, not fret about making sure you're being as efficient/effective as physically possible.
I have taken a lot of this on board already, cheers for the detailed write-up. It's very hard in game to stay objective, especially as I am a very reactive player.
7:26 you can pre-emptively queue up attack commands with weapons, even without direct LOS . the ships will position themselves/roll/whatever else so the guns are facing the track, and start firing as soon as there within range and there is no LOS blocker (like a big rock or asteroid or smth) inbetween em, great for ambushes or whatever else. they wont unload into a rock or smth
I noticed that usually a lot of the RUclipsrs who post videos on Nebulous do less damage than me on average which I find strange since I'm a relatively new player. I'm sure they have better win rates than me and could probably beat me in a 1v1 fairly easily since I have a hard time pushing objectives with my fleet build. I'm usually laser focused on killing and crippling enemy ships, sometimes removing entire enemy capital ships from the fight with missile strikes before they're able to fire a single shot. My team wins most battles where I perform well and kill lots of shjps, but I really can't win battles on my own, I just don't have the staying power.
I see you used Abandon Ship on Lost in Space, what is the use of that function? I would understand if it was Conquest mode, but not in a Skimirish; isn't it better to give the enemy a potential target?
How many points would you get for dropping that other ship? Could you combine 2 into 1 for a larger hull that has better support options and less ship management to do?
the eathers won’t know what hit em!
Great match! One thing you mentioned briefly was that the evacuation of the Lost In Space may have been premature. If you look at the DC board at 14:59, it definitely was. You lost the two container stacks, the Pinpoint, and a berthing. One of the container stacks was going to blow, but your DC teams actually fixed it while you were ordering the evac. You also had a restore, so you could have gotten the Pinpoint or one of the unused container stacks back into action if needed.
Being on the wrong end of a hybrid strike can be very demoralizing, but it's always good to take a minute to look at the situation and only sound the evac if the ship is truly screwed. Not every catastrophic event is an unstoppable reactor det, and red and orange across the DC board doesn't mean the ship's done for.
Final thought, I disagree that the container decoys were dead weight. They may have bamboozled the enemy into believing you had a container hauler in play, causing them to misjudge the situation. I suspect this because they immediately launched missiles towards the source of the decoys. Given the small impact the Lost In Space could have had on the battle even if you didn't evac, those missiles would have been much better spent against your other ships and teammates.
Thanks for the great points and the write-up. One thing I really like about the Nebulous community is how supportive everyone is of each other, and this is a prime example! I beat myself up about that evacuation a lot!
A munition named “The Biggest Boy” 😅 What a great game. Thanks Phros!
Well Played! The Majority of your ships survived, and you managed to win the day through eliminating the enemy fleet, so that's a great result.
At the same time, I have some points and suggestions based on the how the fight executed, both for you, and for anyone else watching.
As other people have pointed, you didn't need to evac the lost in space, it was definitely hurt, but it probably would have survived and been able to provide some additional support.
On that though, it's worth keeping in mind that the Lost in Space doesn't have a "Railgun" it's got a "Mass Driver". The point there being that the Mass Driver operates in terms of damage more like a long range cannon than it does a Railgun. Not immensely important, but worth keeping in mind for when you've got one in your fleet.
Another thing to consider when it comes to your fleet makeup meanwhile, is your lack of any alternative ammo for the cargo feeders.
In the Battle report at the end you can see the ammo expenditure on your guns. On all of your cargo feeders, you only expended about 10% of the combat ammunition you brought in. That's for both the Plasma and the HE-HC rounds in the 100mm cannons. Given that you only brought in HE-HC and Grape rounds for the 100mm, that means that you were almost fully reliant on plasma strikes to do any damage with the 100mm cannons, and you could only really do damage to Raines or smaller without needing plasma for softening. Given the lack of ammo expenditure on the HE-HC, I think you could probably cut down the HE-HC rounds you're bringing by at least 50%, maybe more, and add in some AP and HE belts. Just so that you've got some ability to deal with ships without requiring plasma to be brought to bare, which allows you to re-target threats faster, and ensure that you aren't waiting for plasma burn through before you can start doing damage.
There's two other things then to mention for consideration.
Damage control - While it takes extra thinking, it can be useful to keep an eye on the damage control readouts, and do a bit of manual tasking. Fires in modules do damage over time, and while I don't know if fires can spread to other modules, they can certainly grey out modules if left to their own devices. So one thing that it is helpful to do to increase your ships operational time while under fire, is to keep an eye out for the fire indicator on the left hand damage readout, and go onto the damage control interface on those ships to prioritise repairing modules that are on fire (and still functional). The DC teams will do certain prioritisation, but if a module has multiple debuffs, one fire and one something else, DC teams won't leave until all the debuffs are clear. That potentially leaves other modules on fire for longer, and therefore taking more DOT from the fires.
Tactical View - While it's easy to spot stuff when looking back on a recording and not actively in combat, using the tactical view is definitely helpful for keeping in mind the whole battle space. Near the end of the battle, you noticed that you were taking fire from an Axford - Track 3903. But tactically, you were aware of this track for much longer. As you were taking the D point, you briefly went into tactical view, and we could see that the other cargo feeder fleet was engaging the Axford from long range.
After you took the D point, you then spotted the nearby Solomon, and went to engage that ship (which is fine). Alternatively to that though, you could have reversed your fleet, and gone up behind Delta to engage the Axford as he went into hiding. That would have put additional pressure onto the other enemy ship while the rest of your allied fleets engaged the Solomon, ideally allowing you and your allies to take out both enemy ships faster.
All of this is just tips and suggestions for getting more out of the fleet, so feel free to consider or ignore at leisure. The important thing is to have fun in game, not fret about making sure you're being as efficient/effective as physically possible.
I have taken a lot of this on board already, cheers for the detailed write-up. It's very hard in game to stay objective, especially as I am a very reactive player.
7:26 you can pre-emptively queue up attack commands with weapons, even without direct LOS . the ships will position themselves/roll/whatever else so the guns are facing the track, and start firing as soon as there within range and there is no LOS blocker (like a big rock or asteroid or smth) inbetween em, great for ambushes or whatever else. they wont unload into a rock or smth
Great advice! I mis-remembered a different tip for getting all guns on target (holding fire for green lights on a broadside Line Ship)
Thank you for this demonstration, my Alliance friend will love this
Haha, how did they take it?
Enjoying these replays!
Fun Fact. You can right click on menu buttons like Throttle to cycle through the options backwards. Quite handy to swap from Flank to Full.
Great tip!
I noticed that usually a lot of the RUclipsrs who post videos on Nebulous do less damage than me on average which I find strange since I'm a relatively new player. I'm sure they have better win rates than me and could probably beat me in a 1v1 fairly easily since I have a hard time pushing objectives with my fleet build. I'm usually laser focused on killing and crippling enemy ships, sometimes removing entire enemy capital ships from the fight with missile strikes before they're able to fire a single shot. My team wins most battles where I perform well and kill lots of shjps, but I really can't win battles on my own, I just don't have the staying power.
Ship name "Admiral Daud" is a nice reference to Hightfleet 👍
I see you used Abandon Ship on Lost in Space, what is the use of that function? I would understand if it was Conquest mode, but not in a Skimirish; isn't it better to give the enemy a potential target?
Honestly, I was overwhelmed at that moment and made a mistake. I didn't need to abandon ship and it is really just there for fluff reasons.
Dead is Dead! Light Cruiser at 10:15
How many points would you get for dropping that other ship? Could you combine 2 into 1 for a larger hull that has better support options and less ship management to do?
Did exactly this and ran with two groups of 3 Cargo Feeders and they really do a lot of work!
How do you turn the Map upside down?
Is plasmas effect on target largely dependent on how fresh the armor on that face is?
Yes, you need multiple strikes to burn through thicker armor as well. It makes long range plasma fire not super reliable due to spread.