This article gives suggestions on how to play a SC in an intermediate-level game--that is, a decent pickup game, or a low-level clue game. It's closely related to the Intermediate Bombing article, and is followed by the Advanced SC Play and Advanced Bombing articles, which are more geared towards top clue games and INL play.
Introduction
The SC is the most under-played ship in pickup games, by which I mean
under-played relative to its usefulness. In INL games, the SC is
usually the second-most-played ship, but it is rare to see a SC in
pickup. This is unfortunate, because the SC is also the easiest ship
to pilot effectively, and piloting a SC is the easiest way for an
intermediate player to help their team. The skills required to use a
SC--positioning, awareness, and above all, patience--are common to
most team sports, and therefore familiar to most people who play
netrek, even if they have not developed any netrek-specific skills.
It is therefore the ideal ship for players who enjoy the game but
don't want to spend the time required to develop front-line
dogfighting skills. It is also the most cerebral of the ships to
pilot; SC bombing is a good way to get a feel for the flow of the
game, because you spend more of your time thinking and less clicking.
General Info
The SC is the smallest and fastest of the ships. To use it most
effectively, you must remember both these facts. Unless you're in
position to bomb and are waiting for pops, you should use your speed
to your advantage, and stay away from big ships, because if they get a
tractor beam or phaser on you, you'll be sucking MOTD before you can
say "acc++". Your overarching theme should be SPEED.
You can sometimes use cloaking to fake past a big ship, either to
bomb, to get in bombing position, or to drop 2 armies, but it's
usually safer to simply outrun and/or outwait your opponent.
| SC stats | |
|---|---|
| Shields | 75 |
| Hull | 75 |
| Fuel | 5000 |
| Max warp | 12 |
| Cruising speed | 8 |
| Explosion dam | 75 |
| Phaser dam | 75 |
| Torp dam | 25 |
| Torp speed | 16 |
| Army capacity | 2 |
Roles
The SC can do three things well in intermediate games: bomb, drop, and
ogg. They are best done in that order of frequency. The greatest
lack on most pickup teams is bombing; a single SC bomber, even a poor
one, can make a huge difference in a game. SC dropping can be
extremely effective, but only if someone is also bombing; otherwise,
you can't deliver armies as quickly as your opponents can. SC ogging
can be fun, but its effectiveness drops exponentially as the clue of
the oggee rises.
SC Bombing
Most of the info on SC bombing can be found in the Intermediate Bombing and Advanced Bombing articles; here, I'll
discuss mostly the SC-specific issues.
SC's are normally the best ship for bombing, because their speed allows them to get in position to bomb quickly, as well as cover a lot of territory once they are there. If there is no serious ASW, they can bomb indefinitely, even with low fuel. Even if there is ASW, as long as they can keep enough fuel to run and cloak, and be more patient than the person doing ASW, they can be useful to their team.
There are a few maxims which the SC bomber should remember:
Hold your fire
The torps of a SC do very little damage, particularly when detted--the phasers are even worse. You will not often further your goals by trying to damage or kill another ship--your fuel is more efficiently used for running away and cloaking. You should use your weapons sparingly, and usually not with the intention of doing damage. Your torp speed is good, and 25-point torps look the same as 40-point torps, so you can often use long-range torps to slow down pursuit, or to help one of your oggers by cutting off the escape of an enemy carrier. But in general, it's better to save you fuel so you can cloak away when necessary; you need enough fuel so you can cloak, go in, bomb, and remain cloaked until you're out of tractor range and going at least warp 8--depending on various factors, that's at least 2000-3000 fuel. But if you do get caught in a big-ship tractor, maxwarp away and butt-torp--you're still not interested in killing the big ship, but most players have an instinctive aversion to butt-torps. You want to get away so you can continue bombing.
If you are above 3000 fuel, you have enough to accomplish your main goal. So when you're above 3000 fuel, proceed to the best available area for bombing, and patrol there at warp 4 or 5. The reason for this is that it's faster to turn at warp 5 than it is to accelerate from a stop to warp 5, so you'll get to pops faster if you keep moving. You will also be better able to run away if sudden ASW develops.
Your greatest asset as a SC bomber is patience; you are the fastest ship, and therefore can stay alive indefinitely simply by running away. In mid-level games, you will rarely find someone who is good at ASW and is also committed to it; usually if you just make it clear that you will not get close enough for the ASW to kill you, he will eventually give up. It is good, when you are in an ASW situation, to indicate to your team that you are getting ASW; this will sometimes get you bomb help, which will neutralize the effectiveness of the ASW. If it doesn't get you bomb help, that's not your problem; just continue to waste the time of the person doing ASW and wait for support.
In an intermediate-level game, it is very unlikely that anyone will take over bombing for you. It is therefore imperative that you remain dedicated to bombing for your team to succeed. Don't get caught up in battles at the front, don't go for low-percentage oggs, and don't come off bombing to scum planets. Your team almost certainly has too much scumming and ogging already; you need the bombing to win. Keep it up at least until the enemy is in core, and keep thinking about it even then.
The idea of SC-dropping is to create high-percentage drop opportunities, and take whatever high-percentage drop opportunities you get (unless they're on AGRIs). You have to be flexible in choosing your targets; a drop on the closest core or open-side planet is better than getting dooshed at the front line. You can even go to the rear corner planets for a drop.
The way SC-dropping can help a team is not so much by delivering armies (although it does that), but by breaking down the enemy defense. In intermediate-level games, especially, a SC-fake and drop on a core world will often pull multiple enemy ships off the front--ships with no chance of stopping the drop. This happens sometimes even in top-level games; the Fall 1996 INL Championship was decided when a SC pulled 5 ships to a core world, opening up the front line for a drop by a CA.
SC-dropping is an easy thing for an intermediate player to do. The hardest part is getting the first kill; probably the best way to do this is to bring a big ship to the front, get the kill and refit on the SB. Hopefully the SB has an army stash--if your team doesn't have an army stash, you will not be effective as a SC-dropper. So, you pick up at the SB; let's say you're ROM vs. FED in an even game. All you have to do is to force the enemy to commit to defending a planet that you can get to first with a high degree of speed relative to the defender. Usually that means heading towards whichever front-line planet is not defended. Let's say there are a lot of FEDs at CAN, but none at ORG, while you're at the SB, behind IND. You break off and maxwarp (always maxwarp) towards ORG. Usually you should do this uncloaked, but be on the lookout for enemy oggers; if you are within tractor or phaser range of an enemy, you should definitely be cloaked, and in most cases you want to cloak just before you're on the screen of the defender, so he doesn't get a hint about your direction and speed. If you do cloak where he can see you, make sure to change direction at least once before you commit.
So, you maxwarp to ORG. You are fully prepared to drop on ORG if they don't defend it, but let's say they do, and one ship pulls off CAN to rush to ORG. Now it's time for you to make a decision. If he will get to ORG before you do, you should cut back towards CAN; he may have left CAN undefended, or RIG could become available as ships head towards CAN. If all three front-line planets remain guarded, pull back to your SB or a fuel planet and wait for your next opportunity.
On the other hand, if you will get to ORG before he does, you now have created a drop opportunity, and you should probably take it. Continue heading towards ORG. Your goal is to pass the planet just before he gets into range where he can phaser you; if you are further ahead than this, you can slow down and possibly juke towards ORG. If you're further behind, you can aim a little to the right of the planet.
Your goal is to pass ORG right after, or while, the defender sends his stream of torps. When he's torping, he's probably looking at the tactical for torp hits, rather than at the galactic for your position, so now is the time to complete your take. Maxwarp over ORG and head to CET. Most of the time (in intermediate games), the defender will continue moving towards ORG until it is too late for him to stop you dropping on CET and getting away. If he is better than average, he will see your switch and chase you to CET; once he has seen your switch, you can safely uncloak (if you're out of tractor range) to save fuel (but, if he is much better than average, he will give up on you once he realizes he can't stop the take). Then, you can drop on CET if you have enough of a lead, or you can just keep flying all the way to BET. You'd like to be able to drop both armies and get away, since getting another kill is expensive for a SC. But remember, the further away you pull the CA's from the front, and the more fuel they waste on you, the more effective you are being.
If all the front-line planets are defended, you can often create an opening simply by moving horizontally along the front. Some ships will try to chase you, then you can double back to the planet they left. Or you'll lead them into other ships on your team, they'll die and there will be a hole for another carrier, or you.
Basically, the idea is to stay alive, and use your speed to create and take advantage of holes on the front line. Drop on whatever planet is available, unless it's AGRI. Don't get within tractor range uncloaked, or 30-point phaser range ever. If there are multiple carriers on your team, make sure you don't try to go to the same planet as the big carriers--instead, try to draw the defense away from the big carriers, or take advantage of the openings created by the big defense.
The main reason to avoid SC-ogging is that it is the fastest way to give kills to the enemy. You especially want to avoid giving kills to 0-kill or 1-kill ships--these will allow the scums on the other team to be more useful by carrying more armies. If the scum already has 3 or more kills, it's not as relevant, but you're still giving away position when you die. This is especially a warning for people who are SC-bombing; it is very rarely right to try to ogg a carrier when you are the sole SC-bomber (as you probably will be, in intermediate games).
Solo SC ogging
Your advantages as a SC ogger are that you can get in position
quickly, and catch up to a running ship. Your disadvantages are that
you don't have very much fuel, you can't take much damage, your
explosion only does 75 points, and your weapons are weak. Your goal
as a SC bomber is to maximize your advantages, and minimize your
disadvantages. To maximize your advantages, always maxwarp. To
minimize your disadvantages, don't fly through escorts. You have the
speed to get around them and come from the carrier's weak side. Since
you can't live long, you need to do a lot of damage quickly--that
means uncloaking close to your target. But, uncloaking close to your
target means that you'll die sooner. Ideally, you should try to pull
even with him before you uncloak (if you were chasing him), then you
can cut across his path so that he won't be able to use torps to kill
you. If you uncloak behind him, he can use both torps and phasers,
and you'll probably die before you're fully uncloaked.
When you uncloak, you'll probably be under 3000 fuel. That's not a
lot, at 25 points a torp (as little as 5-10 if he dets). There are
basically two ways that solo SC oggs can be successful: the Big Torp
method, and the Butt-Torp method.
The Big Torp Method
In the Big Torp method, you uncloak very near the target, fire all your weapons, and try to blow up on him. If the target is a CA, you need to do 200 damage. Your explosion (The Big Torp) and phaser max damage is 75 (decreases with distance), and your torps do 25. So you need a close-range phaser and a close explosion for, say, 120 damage, and 4 torp hits. This method is not likely to work if the target knows about pressor beams; you can expect, in that case, one 50-point phaser, one or two torp hits, and no explosion. It can sometimes catch a good player who hits a lag burst, though, or it can cripple one for someone else to finish off (or for you to come back in another SC).
The Butt-Torp method is to uncloak after passing the target and fire backwards. Because your torps are so fast, it is difficult to dodge them, and decisions about how to avoid the stream have to be made instantaneously (and often wind up wrong). Usually if you are doing this, it works best to fire in an arc, expecting the target to slow down and turn away from you. You won't often kill a ship on the first pass this way, but you will sometimes wound it enough that you or a teammate can finish up the kill. This method has the advantage that you survive a lot more often, and are a lot less likely to give up acc.
Generally, the CA-SC combination occurs when the SC already has deep position for bombing, and the CA chases a carrier back from the front, usually the open side. Cloak before you're on the enemy's screen, and go for the Big Torp Method; this may kill him outright, since he is probably concentrating on the CA on his tail, but even if you don't kill him outright, you'll probably hurt him and disrupt him enough that the trailing CA can finish him off.If the friendly CA is too far behind to be an immediate threat to the carrier, you could try overruning the carrier and corralling him towards the open side. If you slow him down and set up a situation where he's got to stay ahead of the CA, while you keep cutting him off with the SC, he will be in trouble unless he gets help.
A pair of SC's can make life extremely difficult for a carrier. The key to successful SC-SC ogging is timing. The enemy has enough fuel, and probably enough hull, to kill two solo SC oggers if he's aware of them. But he can only fire one phaser at a time, and torps in only one direction; if two SC's uncloak on opposite sides of him at the same time, he will not be able to defend himself from both. That is the situation that dual SC oggers should strive to create; if you are ahead of your SC-buddy, you should overrun the carrier as if you're going to bomb, and then come back to hit him from the backside while your buddy hits him from the front. Or, if you're coming up together, one should head to the right while one goes left. If you uncloak too near each other, your torps will do damage to each other as the enemy dets them; you will take more damage than he does! So get him from different angles. Another way to do this is to have one ship use The Butt-Torp Method, and while the enemy's weapons are trained on him, have the second ship pound him with The Big Torp MethodIn the long run, this winds up being a poor tradeoff; you are using two ships to kill one. But in pickup games the number of carriers on their team is usually small enough that you can control them using two SC's. This becomes less true as the games get better.
When you do ogg, remember that a base can kill you very quickly. Also remember that 25-point torps look the same as 40-point torps, and that the base can only shoot one direction at a time. Generally, you want to uncloak behind the base and moving away from him while butt-torping. If you can manage to get there before the bulk of the ogg wave, that's even better. Your goal is not to cause any major damage; instead, it's to distract the base, possibly get him shooting the wrong direction, raise his WTEMP, and maybe get him to be afraid to det because of the high volume of nearby torps. Base phasers have a max damage of 125; you want to uncloak at a range where it will take him at least three or four phasers to kill you, which is not too close, especially if you're the first one there. Also remember that his dets of your teammate's torps will hurt you; you want to be in clear air so you can survive as long as possible.