Strategically Select the Sector's Ships (December 3, 2013)

I found due to they way the Armada AI acts, long range guns were especially important in that game. So anything with a range below 3500 was next too useless and that includes the MD (as well as the FLux and Phase Blaster making the Kor-larh incredibly hard to fly IMO)...so it left you with the guns of an Arrow but you offered a much bigger target.
 
It's a challenging ship to fly; hence my enjoyment of it. Quarto's right in that it's a compromise ship - with the AI the way it is, an Arrow is enough to defeat any number of AI ships; facing the AI in a Wraith is almost a joke it's so easy. The Phantom let's you waste the AI faster than you could in an Arrow due to the improved armament over the Arrow, while not allowing you the two-shot kill (Leech followed by ImRec) the Wraith does. Plus I like the gatling action of the guns on the Phantom when its capacitor is drained. It probably works against you tactically; I just think it's a cool effect.

The real measure of its worth would be in a straight-up fight against a human opponent...

The gatling action was part of my enjoyment of the Phantom. If I'm remembering correctly, it worked quite well in multiplayer because of the shaking effect when you get hit. Could be quite unnerving to some pilots until they learned to ignore it.
 
I found due to they way the Armada AI acts, long range guns were especially important in that game. So anything with a range below 3500 was next too useless and that includes the MD (as well as the FLux and Phase Blaster making the Kor-larh incredibly hard to fly IMO)...so it left you with the guns of an Arrow but you offered a much bigger target.
I dunno, I think against some of the heavier ships, you could use shorter range guns relatively well. Also - how can being a bigger target make a difference when flying against the Armada AI? ;)
 
I dunno, I think against some of the heavier ships, you could use shorter range guns relatively well. Also - how can being a bigger target make a difference when flying against the Armada AI? ;)

Yes, when playing campaign mode, I could use a Kor-larh with reasonable effect against a Banshee because the Banshee couldn't fly away from me. But in the gauntlet, as soon as I came to the 2nd navpoint in the first Kor-larh misson with more than one gladius, I always lost: the Gladius hammered down my shields with its longer range guns and before I could get out enough shots with my phase blasters, it already had turned away and afterburned away - while my afterburner fuel was almost empty after the first Gladius fight already.
 
That's certainly true - Armada dogfights in the strategy mode are one thing, but an extended battle against multiple waves like in the gauntlet is something else entirely. Personally, I've never been able to get as far as the heavy fighters on either side. On the Terran side, I never got past the last of the Phantom missions, and in fact, maybe this gun range issue is the exact reason I've had so much trouble with that...

I really do wish there was a little more story to Armada, incidentally. It was a low budget game, I know... but just imagine how much cooler (and more popular!) it would have been, if instead of simply having a fifteen mission gauntlet, it would have had the exact same missions presented with WC2-style talking head briefings/debriefings and short between-missions scenes. Just WC2 quality would have been fine - heck, take the exact same art, paint a moustache on Blair and dye Angel's hair blonde to make them into different people, and no voiceovers. The Kilrathi, of course, would have required a little more work. But how awesome that would have been! The depth it would have added to the Kilrathi especially...
 
What would have made the game much more awesome is rather then automatically resolve with a carrier death when all defending fighters around the carrier are destroyed and there is a torpedo bomber attacking it, have it so the attacking player MUST destroy it themself. It's my one real gripe with the game. It really cheapens the victory. The other player could just automatically keep spawning in a light fighter till either he manages to take out all attacking ships or the carrier is destroyed.
 
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That's certainly true - Armada dogfights in the strategy mode are one thing, but an extended battle against multiple waves like in the gauntlet is something else entirely. Personally, I've never been able to get as far as the heavy fighters on either side. On the Terran side, I never got past the last of the Phantom missions, and in fact, maybe this gun range issue is the exact reason I've had so much trouble with that...

Same here: never got past the Phantom missions and never past the 2nd navpoint in the first Kor-larh mission.

What would have made the game much more awesome is rather then automatically resolve with a carrier death when all defending fighters around the carrier are destroyed and there is a torpedo bomber attacking it, have it so the attacking player MUST destroy it themself. It's my one real gripe with the game. It really cheapens the victory. The other player could just automatically keep spawning in a light fighter till either he manages to take out all attacking ships or the carrier is destroyed.

Well, you can try and fly directly to the enemy carrier with fighters still around - that flak really eats up your protection! But still, as soon as you launch the torpedo, the sequence triggers.
 
I made it to the first Wraith mission once; those gauntlet missions in Armada were pretty hairy (though not necessarily any more so than the ones in Academy).

They added a password feature for the gauntlet later on, IIRC. Maybe with Proving Grounds; my memory's not that terribly accurate.
 
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