This article focuses on the importance of escorts and how to support the taker. The very few planets taken during my last game emphasizes how important planet taking CAN be.
Several things need to line up for a successful take. To take a planet you need 100% of the requirements, miss one and you lose. Potentially wasting a valuable opportunity and resources, that may be YET MORE expensive to obtain later. Some of the requirements for a successful take include: kills, escorting, and post take defense.
In my last game, at least three times, I sacrificed my kills to kill someone announced as carring, who was in fact EMPTY! Please announce unconfirmed carriers with a "?".Non-carriers, those without kills, should protect the potential carrier if he is the only possible carrier. Not to a high degree, but some help should be lent. This results in:
Undefended, undefendable, agi, strategic fuel, rock, and other.
With an excess of armies, unless there is a strategic reason to risk loss of the carrier, the carrier should do easy takes. But, if an escort is available the carrier should consider more strategic takes.
An undefendable planet should only be taken if there is an excess of armies, and the enemy is otherwise engaged or kill flat. Agis, are somewhat self defending.
If FEW players are carriers, it is unreasonable to impose on the carrier all three of the following burdens:
The basic key to winning a combat is to have your larger force meet a smaller force. In general, the responding/reactive team ends up being the smaller force as they can not synchronize their arrival at the target location.
To this end, an escorted carrier can usually, take a lightly contested planet with little effort. If unescorted, he places at great risk his carrier status and armies.
In general, players should know the terrain of a game. In Netrek, this is where the agis are, who has the greatest skills, and who has low lag. Determine the agis on joining, know the greatest skills by reputation and performance, determine who has low lag, by checking their lag after they kill you. Basic players will know when the enemy team has no kills. Advanced players will know when enemy takers have no kills.
Escorting can occur in several forms and stages.
Passive escort. When taking the enemy's home world (or planets nearby), a "no kill" strategy should be taken throughout the galaxy since you don't want a freshly killed enemy poping up around their home planet with a new ship.
Another form of passive escort is distraction. The enemy is baited to engage the wrong player. This wastes the enemy fuel, and perhaps moves the enemy player from the contested region. Towards last planet stand it is vital to strand the enemy without fuel. With an excess of kills, the enemy can be baited to attack a potential carrier instead of the real carrier.
Against skillful players, the only possible escort may be to mutual with the enemy.
Against multiple opponents, the key is to survive and distract. Your goal should be to injure and make the enemy waste fuel. Your carrier must make the decision when the enemy is sufficiently drained for him to walk amongst them. Or, destroy them with the fuel he has been able to hoard while you emptied their fuel tanks and crippled their ships. Alternatively, this distraction is just what a cloaked carrier needs to divert to taking another deeper planet, perhaps an agi or home world.
Against lightly defending planet, the best place to be is OFF CENTER of a line between the opponent and the target planet. Placing yourself directly in between the target and enemy gives him two good targets for each photon launched at the planet. Also, late detting results in massive damage. Being to the side allows you to receive less damage when detting. Do NOT det ALL torps, if you know the carrier can take some damage. The cloaked carrier has a responsibility to occasionally put up shields and det. Your goal against light defense, is simply delay. After taking the planet, both players can take on the enemy player if desired.
Alternatively, against light defense, the taker should engage with the defender in cooperation with the escort. At a minimum, if time and fuel permits, the taker should fire torps to slow or divert the defender before the taker cloaks.
Against a moderate defense, with moderate escorts, the taker should prefire torps, and cloak to take while the escorts delay the attackers.
Escorts should feel free to mutual when the result is no enemy ships, or the arrival of supporting help is immediately forthcoming.
Escorts may arrive early, late, and on time. Carriers should always give escorts time to arrive early. Sometimes, carriers force their escorts to travel at maxwarp when engaging opposing forces. That is, the escort must be at maxwarp to stay between the enemy and the carrier. The predictable result, is escort dies or mutuals. An escort needs to engage the enemy at less than maxwarp to be effective and to have the opportunity to engage another enemy.
If an escort arrives early, he must pose a threat to an alternative target, or give other plausible reason for his presence or possibility of surprise will be lost.
In taking deeply held planets, early escort is often of critical importance. He arrives from the opposite or direction of the taker. He is well rested, having arrived early and is at an advantage against a rushing less fresh opponent. An early escort may bomb to reduce the time the taker needs to spend orbiting the planet.
Escorts who arrive late are of little value, at best they may be able to det torps aimed at the carrier. They should take care not to explode on the carrier.
The concept of supporting a carrier from behind is poor. If the enemy is near the carrier, he may det your torps on the carrier, thus damaging the carrier.
An advanced carrier, may consider baiting the enemy into a ready to be beaten position relative to the escort.
Escorts should DET! If a carrier doesn't trust his escort, he will not be able to take as many planets. A carrier needs to trust his escort to det, and mutual as needed. Escorts only gain this trust by action.
Team trust only happens by working together. For critical operations, this can be enhanced by having microteams (buddies), two or three players working together. After enganging in an operation a few times together, they will be able to predict the other player actions and maximize the result.
To this end, I suggest, preassigned escorts of one or two players to apt carriers. These escorts, come on call if at all possible for their carrier.
If you are cloaked and surrounded by torping enemy ships, consider detting to destroy many of them.
With agis, offer as much support as possible till the planet pops.