3/0 4/0 Swarm on Talas

[Murph]

Ive been practicing the 3/0 Bomber swarm on talas, but it came to my attention that frsty or someone from FL have used a 4/0 bomber swarm. Can someone like explain how this is different from the 3/0 and how the advantages/disadvantages vary?

[DoltIncognito]

if you micro your colls 4/0 is as effective as 3/0. i always go 4/0 unless i get a cont...

[banshee]

paying attention to your collectors is manditory on talas. If you just hit H and let them make up their own minds on where to go you are going to have major build stalls no matter what your build is. There are little rocks all over the place that make your harvesters wander. You should make sure to only harvest the big rocks and a couple little ones that are in your harvesters path and skip all the little scattered rocks.

When swarming on talas it's easiest to just use three collectors. Collect a couple loads from the near right (there's about 2 3/4 there) and a couple from the near left (there's more like 3 1/2 over there) then go straight to the middle with all three colls and have them dock at the MS. If you build a fouth collector, you're using 650(?) more RU in the begining. Keep in mind that when you build a collector it has to go out, harvest and then dock in order to pay for it's self. You can use four colls if you can work the harvesting out enough to keep this extra spending from giving you a build stall. When you're building a swarm a medium sized build stall can mean your death. I learned how to harvest 3/0 before i started trying 4/0 and i still do a lot of 4/0 testing in skirmish mode. I often go to skirmish and build only collectors to test out different ways of resourcing, the computer doesn't attack for like thirty minutes anyways so you have plenty of time to collect all the resources near your MS

did anyone save my old "Talas Crossroads" thread from before the last crash? :confused: I did not =[ everyone wrote such good detailed stuff out about Talas
(/me looks around to see if MF is near by)

[Metho]

Murph

The difference between the 3/0 and 4/0 swarm on rad and tal hinges on three things;

1) Initial build
2) First build stall and length of stall
3) importance of initial attack

Obviously a 3/0 build is going to give you many more fighters for the initial battle. However this comes at the cost of major build stalls once your starting ru is spent. At this point you have firepower superiority over your opponent - but its up to you to exploit that.

The 4/0 build leaves you with a smaller initial fleet that will be more sufficiently reinforced by a 4 collector harv op. However ru's run out sooner than the 3/0 and so you are forced to go and attack to take advantage with your firepower. The longer you delay the initial attack in both cases - the more your opponent eats away at that advantage.

The 3/0 swarm is absolutely a "do-or-die-strat". The strength lies in your superior numbers for the initial battle. Loose the initial battle and you loose the game. No way can a 3/0 feed you worthwhile reinforcements.

The 4/0 gives you a little breathing space. Loosing the initial battle is not necessarily the end, you CAN make a come-back.

After all this is said and done, there are always exceptions to every rule. How many times have you read on this board;
__________________________________________________

"It's not the number of ships you go into battle with - it's how you use them"
__________________________________________________


3/0 or 4/0 - doesnt mean squat if you cant d0 the tango with a swarm. Swarming is an art that only a selection of HW'ers have mastered and to them - it is a matter of extracting 110% killing power from every single ship. THATS the key - not a 3/0 or 4/0.

[reki]

dont forget the extra gravkiller component either. one of molles favourite strats was a 4/0 corvwall, & he has been know to try between 4-7/0 swarms & just take time with it.

antiswarm strats (def/corv etc) are all slow so the strikecraft player can use their speed to advantage (both speed of kill & speed of travel). antiswarm has little capship penetration so it means that your ms isnt going to die quickly. it makes it difficult if they put everything on the centre cloud, but with a couple more colls it is possible to keep your guy at arms length if you need to changeup to something else.

personally, ive gone off the strikecraft swarm caus people use a heap of supports these days & also mixed corvwalls are too popular. last year it was mostly lcv to cap so the strikecraft swarm had a bit of a resurgance as a quick changeup killer. mixed corvwall kinda killed that idea and made talas a bit boring for a while till ppl started mixing ints into their lcv/cap strats, which can own a corvwall nicely & also hold off a strikecraft swarm.

i just dont like the idea of not being able to go to caps as an option if you get in trouble. 3-4/0 swarms dont give you much room for flexibility if you see your guy doing something that can beat it. ask chatanga what i mean - we had a few giggles at the start of this year at his persistance in using a 3/0 strikecraft swarm every game. every time he played us, we would do a triple corvwall or heavily supported graw strat and he would say "gg" as soon as he probed. dunno why, but very next game he would do exactly the same thing & so on & so on. poor guy sat outside the top ten for ages wondering what he was doing wrong.

i reckon lordrule and jason still do a good job with it every now and then though.