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The Birdmen: Not Just Sneaking Around
by Shaun "Noysh" Gilroy
Introduction
It was a dark day for the Crystalline Confederation. The truce was broken and
war was upon them at the worst possible moment in their race’s known history.
Three spectral vessels had appeared in orbit around their HomeWorld. Although
the unchristened diamond flame that had just been constructed launched to meet
the uncloaking warbirds, without a load of torpedoes it was not match for the
Dark Wing battlegroup.
It was a bloody space battle, but in the end millions of Crystalline voices
cried out and were silenced as the third of the spectral battlegroup liquidated
the planetary defences and slaughtered the inhabitants of the Confederation’s
HomeWorld.
The knowledge that I am about to impart to you here, could have been used to
stop this travesty. But alas, it was too late for the Crystals. Pray that you
have received this in time to stop it from happening to your people.
This is how you gut an Echo Cluster as the Birdmen.
Starships
The topic of starships is one that seems to be the one that everyone and their
dog has to say something about on the strategy forums, and all of them
contradict one another. So which ones are wrong and which ones are correct? All
and none.
Let me explain.
As Dave Killingsworth says in Complete VGA Planets User’s Guide, "Without
them you are NOT dangerous." By and large, I have found that when people spout
off an essential ship-list for any race, many of their strategies are specific
to the game that they are presently in.
There IS no essential ship-list. However, each given scenario has an
essential ship-list that if you deviate from it you are lost. And guess what?
Only hindsight is 20/20.
When playing the Birdmen, there is a lot more room for potential error than
when you play, say, the Colonies. There are two universal ship-building
strategies that I work with when playing the Birdmen.
The first rule that I work by is: Build a fistful of swift heart class scouts
with transwarp drives. Then, as the name implies, use them as scouts. It is
often more comforting to know who your neighbours are and how close they are.
The second rule is: If it doesn’t cloak, don’t build it. There are two
exceptional cases to this rule:
- Freighters are desperately necessary. But make sure you planet-hop. No
sticking your neck out.
- If it will help your overall situation, and it doesn’t cloak, discard rule
2.
- Your ships are smaller. This is an overlying theme of your entire fleet.
Never get too attached to anything, not even a Dark Wing.
Building
Proportionate to your fleet’s lack of overall mass, they have guile. This means
several things. Primarily, it means you have to be aggressive. The Avian Empire
that waits for the other race to come to them is the Avian Empire that falls.
However, I am not telling you to be stupid either. You don’t have the fleet
mass to charge through someone else’s empire like a mad bull.
All of your ships have qualities that make them worth using. Here are some of
the things that I’ve found them useful for.
| The Swift Heart |
One of the wonderful things about this vessel is it can go
cloaked forever before refuelling. It can be used with limited success to
raid freighters. Due to its ability to last so long without refuelling, it
is ideal for sending it around an opponents colonies to size up the
situation. |
| Neutronic Fuel Carriers |
With a load of 5 Kt of Neutronium, this vessel can go from
one end of the star map to the other. This starship is ideal for
intra-Imperial cash transfers. Its not to wise as a scout though, too easy
to see. |
| The White Falcon |
Both this vessel and the Fearless wing are very similar in
design. Both are ideal scout/re-supply vessels. There is a key thing to
remember when sending this ship into battle, however. It has 150 crew
members. When the e-s bonus is on, that means that attacking another ship of
similar size with it is practically giving it away to your enemy. This ship
is more scout oriented. It is also ideal for laying big minefields in your
enemies’ space <g>. |
| The Bright Heart |
The Bright Heart does its shining as a disposable torpedo
battery. It really doesn’t have the fuel capacity to get around much, nor
the mass to stand up to a larger warship. The e-s bonus usually manages in
getting it captured like the White Falcon. However, the Bright Heart is both
cheap and has four torpedo tubes. The trend seems to be (and I agree with
this) to make a bunch of them with high-level torpedo tubes and low level
stardrives and about eight to twelve torpedoes. Then tow them to fringe
planets and leave them cloaked to give any invasion force a bloody nose
first off. |
| The Fearless Wing |
This ship is the White Falcon’s double crew, six beam
counterpart. The significant cargo/fuel capacity of this vessel make it
another quality re-supply vessel. Especially if you don’t have a secure
economic base within the enemy’s territory to make more torpedoes and refuel
(all of this is true about the White Falcon as well). The major difference
between this ship and the White Falcon is that you can consider the Fearless
Win a small warship. |
| The Skyfire |
This ship’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t cloak. It
could be reasonably useful as a Birdman warship if it had a cloaking device.
This ship is marked, like that of most ship designs that the Privateers also
have by a 250 Kt cargo capacity. However, this ship has more than one
torpedo tube. |
| The Valiant Wind |
The Valiant Wind is another vessel that doesn’t cloak, but
it is a carrier. In fact, it is a good middle-sized carrier. The real
crippling factor is that it is a carrier. If you’re really sold on using
carriers, then perhaps you should ally yourself with a fighter building
race. Otherwise, this ship represents a significant drain on your resources. |
| The Deth Specula
|
In shared ship designs, there is always something missing
for one of the design’s holders. The case with the Deth Specula is it has
the Fascist’s token lack of cargo space. This cripples an otherwise quality
ship design. Therefore, there is a trick to using the Deth Specula’s. When
you put together a battlegroup, make sure you pair them off with things that
can carry a backup supply of torpedoes (i.e.- 2 Deth Specula’s and a White
Falcon/Fearless Wing). Otherwise, your campaign will be short. |
| The Resolute |
With the advent of host 3.22.005, the resolute has been an
invaluable and all-purpose large-medium warship. It has both a 420 fuel
capacity and now cloaks without burning fuel. Even in ion storms. Its
weakness is in its lack of torpedo tubes. With a cargo capacity of 280, it
carries more torpedoes that it will ever fire before going down to another
ship of comparable size. The cargo/fuel capacity of this vessel makes it a
great compliment to a Dark Wing Battlegroup. |
| The Red Wind |
A carrier that cloaks. Sounds good doesn’t it? What sounds
good on the drawing board is often not as successful in the empirical sense.
The Red Wind carries the trademark traits of many of the Birdmen ships: "not
big enough." As a carrier with 2 beams, and 2 fighter bays, its a grand
design. However its cargo space of eighty coupled with the cost of fighters
make this a Bright Heart that wasn’t. The problem is that Birdmen just
aren’t fighter oriented enough to justify spending 8000 MC on outfitting
this tiny vessel. If you ally with a fighter-building race, however, these
things could potentially work like, and even compliment, the Bright Heart as
cheap garrisons. But as an offensive ship they are stopped at the front
lines by their fuel capacity. |
| The Dark Wing
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What is there to say. This is the biggest cloaking warship
in the game. This is one of the ships that is feared and reviled by
non-Birdmen players almost as mush as the Gorbie and the Meteor Class
Blockade Runner. This vessel has a serious Achilles heal: Its fuel hold.
This vessel now requires no fuel to cloak under the same advanced cloaking
convention listed above for host 3.22.005 and later. The Dark Wing has the
mass of T-Rex and the fuel capacity of a medium freighter. If these things
don’t move in battle-groups that include Resolutes, their movement often
stops quickly. There is also the interesting issue of what a Dark Wing,
built without beam weapons does to a carrier. In combat against a carrier,
this vessel survives longer if the fighters have to fly back to the carrier
in waves instead of the steadily pummelling that a Dark Wing with enough
beams to shoot down significant numbers of fighters and allow the carrier to
launch early second-waves. This makes a strong argument for a B-class
variant of Dark wing that is build with one beam and as many high-tech
torpedo tubes as one can spare for use against enemy carriers (run the
SIM’s; it works). |
Trading
As the Birdmen, there are tools available to you that the other races can often
see gain in procuring for themselves. However, how many of those vessels that
you would like to see sent back to haunt you is up to you.
There are a few significant considerations when deciding on what to trade and
who to trade it too, and what to trade it for.
When Trading vessels and making alliances (as the two often go hand in hand)
it is important to consider not only short term goals, but long term ones as
well. In fact this is probably the place to discuss allies. For it is dubious
logic to trade warships with the enemy.
| Fed’s |
The Federation has little to offer in an alliance with the Birdmen aside
from the obviously large war vessels and the super refit capability. These
abilities are hardly a worthwhile compliment to the Birdmen (unless they are
your neighbours. Even then, eventually you will be building your own tech 10
stuff without the wait.) A valid position to make at this point is that any
neighbour makes a good ally, no matter what the race (if you’re into that
ally stuff <g>). |
| Lizards |
Lizards have cloaking vessels so as long as you don’t give them a big
one, there’s really no harm done. However, if you’re looking for an ally
that compliments your racial advantages, the lizards (apart from having
oodles of minerals) only share your weakness of small vessels (smaller
even). |
| Fascist |
I admit that glory devices are both handy and a lot of fun to get hold
of, but for the purposes of warfare, it only tells your enemy where you’re
coming from because glory device vessels don’t cloak. Fascists’ got little
ships too. |
| Privateers |
I know everyone across the Internet touts the "great" meteor class
blockade runner. But for the purposes of remaining unseen, nothing beats
having a fleet of gravitronic accelerated vessels to tow your non-cloaking
freighters. The Privateers are practically adept at keeping unseen as well. |
| The Cyborg |
The Cyborg are difficult to work with as an alliance. Usually, they
demand protection for the first 20 or so turns from an ally, then they will
get to big to keep in check and they eat their allies (unless that ally can
provide free fighters for their Biocides, which you cannot). However, being
on their good side can save a lot of woe over lost Dark Wings. |
| The Crystals |
The Crystal Confederation are both slow and are restricted to primarily
to defensive warfare Your strengths are really in your offensive
capabilities (the old strike and fade tactic). Their vessels are solid, but
not strong. Really they have nothing that you need. |
| Empire, Robots, Rebels, Colonies |
Inevitably these races are all similar for the purposes that they serve
for you. Brute force. These races could fill your carriers with little
commitment on their part and generally pack the biggest ship to ship/planet
punch. None of them have the subtlety that cloaking warships provide. They
all are good as allies and have lots of middle to large vessels that are of
quite convenient. What they have that you want, however is mass, firepower
and fighters. (I apologise to this race’s players for the vast
generalisation). |
Planets
Planetary organisation for the Birdmen is synonymous with that of most of the
other races. Except that you really don’t want to be seen before you have to.
Because of this, I propose the side-step colonisation strategy.
The side-step strategy is dangerous, but it may save you having to deal being
sighted by multiple races at once. This strategy assumes that the
HomeWorld distance is set to very long in the host configuration and that you
are at least within 200 LY of the star map edge.
This technique is, instead of the traditional starburst flow of colonisation,
choose one of the two directions and push that way. This accomplishes two
things:
- This puts your HomeWorld on the fringe of your empire where freshly built
warships can charge forth to engage enemy scouts/others stuff that get
dangerously close.
- If you expand in one general direction, the chances that you will
encounter one race and remain invisible to the other are raised. Then you run
up the white flag and sue for peace (or wreak havoc on an unsuspecting
opponent, depending on the size of your fleet and his).
The dangers of this strategy rest in the fact that when the other race that
you expanded away from comes around. Your HomeWorld is right there where he
doesn’t have to fight very far to get to it. If you utilise the information in
this article, it shouldn’t be a problem. The trick is to keep close tabs on his
activities and launch a crippling attack of his HomeWorld that you have found
the location of with your scouts.
StarBases
Unless it directly effects your end score, or it ups your building capability,
don’t spare the minerals and cash for an extra StarBase, build a ship with those
resources. The reason for this that in combat you will go through so many ships
when combating the races with bigger vessels, that you can wait for the 500
ship-limit to be reached before you begin to produce extra starbase’s. However
you should have several starbase’s by the time the ship-limit is reached that
have already cranked out a sizeable fleet. Remember that all your ships are
smaller than most races’ ships and you have to work harder to make them count
and be willing to sacrifice them to achieve an objective.
Warfare
As I have said already, as the Birdmen, you must be aggressive. Never give your
neighbour enough due time to mount an invasion. Force him to defend himself. A
good standard to play by is, never attack until you know what’s there. But make
sure that you know what’s there.
The beauty of having a cloaking warship is the capability to pick and choose
your battles. If you are being invaded, you will eventually have to make a
stand, thus reducing your options.
One of the most important thing that I have learned is move everything in
battlegroups with both warships and support vessels (2-3 Deth Specula’s, 1-2
Fearless Wing\White Falcon; or 3 Dark Wings and 2 Resolutes) this insures that
there’s always something left to pick up the pieces after a key battle. Also
when throwing a battlegroup up against a Virgo, Rush, Gorbie, Biocide and the
like if the Dark Wings have 1 or less beams weapons built into them and loaded
with high-tech torpedoes, you will save yourself a Dark Wing or two sometimes.
Summary
The key to making the Birdmen work is to play smart and never give up the chance
to keep a conflict on the opponent’s territory. Never Disregard a potential ally
or a non-cloaking ship design entirely on the basis that it doesn’t cloak. Just
remember, the next HomeWorld that my Dark Wings drop cloak over could be yours.
This article was submitted by the Editor of the, now defunct, E-Zine
Planeteer Resurrection.
Other articles, fiction & humour from the Planeteer Resurrection have been
submitted to the "UK Atheist
& Science E-Zine
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