Counter to BCs
 

is there really any counter to 2 or more BCs coming towards your base except having BCs yourself.

i ask this as 3 times today my enemy did this, and Vagyr dont usually get BCs and DDs, so i was stuffed.

if anyone has any ideas about how to respond, im open to suggestions

Rant Warning
the bc seems way overpowered to me. the fact that i BC [4000RU] can defeat 5 DDs [10000RU]! is overbalanced. the BC doesn't take longer to build than the DDs, and its certainly cheaper, so it makes me wonder why anyone in their right minds would build destroyers.
Sure i know that the BC has to be researched [1800RU] and built at a shipyard [3500RU] but this money only needs to be spent once, and the shipyard is useful for other things too. I know this has been said many times before, but it still needs to be said again. maybe the BC should be 5k and the limit reduced to 2....
we just have to hope and wait for 1.2

bombers (with advanced bombs)- take out bc's turret and engines

dds - ONE dd can kill a bc if used properly -

hint move your stuff while atacking directly above the top ion turret

finally since bc is disabled nothing is stopping you from sending infiltrators at it - as a vaygr you have an advantage too as your infiltrators get upgraded with the frig upgrades - marines dont.

BC's can also be taken out by loads of corvettes and/or frigates.

...which can all end up costing more than twice as much as one bc.

I'm probably just biased cuz bc rushing is one of my main strategies and is just so fun!

In conclusion, the only way to STOP a bc is with a gravwell, and if that bc doesn't have escorts, it should be easy picking. And if you let that thing crawl all the way to your base without doing anything, you deserve to be shot.

Killing one BC shouldn't be hard, you can either bomb the upper turret and attack above the centerline, or kill the engines and missile batteries and attack however. If you dont have bombers, merely keep your frigates/destroyers above the upper ion turret, and it cant turn up to hit them. Against Vay BCs, just keep your fleet moving so it can never fire the trinity.

Also with bombers, if you can knock out even one of the turrets or the missile battery, 4 marine frigates can capture it. 6 upgraded infils can capture a BC without the BC being touched beforehand.

Now, if the enemy has multiple Hiig BCs, you either need to have a large frigate or destroyer group and keep above the centerline so they can only strike with half their firepower, or you need to bomb some turrets beforehand. If there are multiple Vay BCs, you fight them as you would one: just keep everything moving. If you can bomb them out completely, or destroy one, capture again becomes an option.

What is a greater threat with BCs is that they can ignore your fleet entirely and delete a few carriers/MS/SY while you kill it. Thats why gravity wells, hyperspace sensors, and proximity sensors are there.

Though I mostly spoke of bombers, if you have mass interceptors/AC/Lances/Pulsars, you can kill off subsystems, it will just take a while. With Laser Corvettes, a full swarm can be set on a BC, and then just wait a couple of minutes for it to explode.

Now people will correctly say that most of these counter options cost more than the BC(s), with the exception of using manuver to evade sole BCs weapons. However, you should have those ships anyway, and after the battle you should have survivors to carry the fight to the enemy. Also, don't forget the infrastructure it takes to get BCs. Which do you think costs more, a BC and necessary infrastructure, or 5 DDs and infrastructure?

RM(1500)+ARM(2250)+Hypermod(1000)+SY(3500)+CapMod( 1800)+BC res(1800?)+BC(4000) = 15850

RM(1500)+CapMod(1800)+DD research(1800?)+DD(2000)*5 = 15100

I've used minelayers to some good effect before, although never against a BC. Minelayers were one of my favorite ways to pop a MS in HW1.

As Vaygr, Heavy missile frigates are probably the quickest way to knock out BCs. Having a swarm to disable turrets and engines helps a lot. Always go for engines first if they're getting close to your home base, and make sure you get hyperspace sensors up so you can spot jumps from the other side. Cloaked BCs are very popular.

BCs are anti-destroyer, just like 1 dd can take on 5 frigs because they are anti-frigate. Even so, if you're just letting your ships sit there and get fragged, you're doing something wrong.



To counter frigates and provide heavy assault fire without having to pay an excrutiating amount of rus.



....Same with destroyers, only with cheaper research and only a cap ship facility requirement. With a shipyard along with your MS you can double produce dds.



Highly unlikely, and I doubt they'd change the stats on that. With all the weaknesses of a BC that can be exploited, they better not change the cost.

As for countering BCs? How about not letting them build one at all. If you're leaving your foe alone long enough to build and research all the prerequisites, let alone build 2 or 3 of them, you're not being aggressive enough. BCs are endgame units/ game finishers, which is why they're so powerful. Take more time into knowing what you're enemy is building, and act on it.

Especially with Vaygr; their BCs suck.

But it should naturally be part of your fleet anyway.

Yes, the general idea would be not to let the enemy get bcs, but in the games i was talking about that person's ally was distracting me and my team enough (with things like resource op strikes and module strikes) that their ally could develop in relative safety



Yes, but i was focusing on strike craft and corvettes, my ally on frigs, DDs and BCs, and as such didn't have frig chassis researched....but i learned from that mistake.



The majority of the bc research and mods only have to be done once, as with the dd. but the cost of 5 dds is 10000 and 1 bc 4000. so if u forget researches, bc is much cheaper. alot of that stuff ull have anyway (RM, ARM, Hypemod etc)

and bcs can be pumped out for the rest of the game once that (admittedly high) start up price has been paid

my point is, that in the long run a bc WILL be cheaper than destroyers

Actually, I should say that the 5 DDs are definitely more than sufficient to hold off a BC or two. Just keep them out of the line of fire! If against Higgy BC, go up. If against Vaygr BC, go down! :P

Then there is the ultimate BC counter - repeated dozens of times in countless threads, we have the Bombers! Go go bombers! Bomb the crap out of the BCs and send in the Marines cloaked with a cloaked MS at full armor and speed! (Bizarre strat that's very risky. I did it in one game and literally sacrificed my MS for a newly-captured BC, turning the tide of battle!)

Bombers+DDs,or just large number of Torp Frigs(Hig) or HMFs(Vay)(or +Bombers).

Use Bomers take out their engines and weapon systems(Hvy Missile Battery for Vay BC,Ion Turret for Hig BC),also their modules if possible.then,it's just a sitting duck.

Say goodnight to BCs.

What you guys are forgetting is that any DDs given an attack order will do the most idiotic thing, they will go DOWN to the BC to be on the same damn plane as the BC and thus get eaten by both ions.

To get 5 DDs to take out a BC requires constant attention to keep them from doing the idiotic AI 'we want to die' dance.

It happens every time, you tell the DDs to move over the ion of the BC then tell em to attack, next thing you know they are sitting in front of the BC instead of over, like lambs to the slaughter.

The AI really sucks for a lot of the ships, it is almost as annoying as everyone in the game being able to kick a player instead of just the host. There are some serious flaws in the way the ships handle battle.

[Edit]
The truth is if you are so easily distracted by one or two allies and are unable to get your own BCs and bombers out, you were not going to win the game even without the BCs showing up.

Once you get overly distracted enough to not be harrassing their workers, the game is as well as over, I can assure you that if you are on the team that is losing workers and are not doing as much damage to the other team's workers as they do to yours, you lose.

I've been in 3v3 games that turn into 2v3, where my one ally and I have won because the other 3 person team could not get past us to attack our workers while we continually took out their workers with small raids.

I love to see the worker building in the stats list 20 for me and 30+ for my opponent.

Actually Alpha, what you do is order the attack, then order the move. They will then stay in that posistion. However, you will have to relocate them to keep them in the BC's blind spot if it moves significantly.

Watch them, as soon as you order them to attack, even when you order a move attack and they acknowledge, they start moving down again. You have to order them again and again to move to keep them from suiciding.

Never had it happen to me... I think my DD that got 3 BC kills can attest to that :)

That has never happened to me before, and I move my dds around quite a bit. Are you absolutely sure you're doing the move attack command correctly?



I guess you didn't read the beginning of the post when I said that BCs are anti-destroyer units. The BC is suppose to have an advantage over them, thus it is more cost effective. This is a principle used in most RTS games.

Let me try to give you a simple example on a basic model such as, say, Age of Empires. Archers and infantry cost 50 gold each, while cavalry costs 100 gold. Cavalry counters archers, archers counter infantry, and infantry counters cavalry. Cavalry, though expensive, is meant to counter archers, so 1 horseman can kill 5 archers. That is a 100 gold unit countering 250 gold of 5 units. Those same archers are anti-infantry, so 1 archer (50) can kill 3 infantry (150). They are cost effective like that because they are meant to counter specific units. In HW2, it's no different. The reason BCs are cost effective against dds is because they are meant to counter dds. But at the same time, a BC has weak defense against bombers and can be effectively shut down by losing its subsystems.

Plus, look at it this way, sapi. Although it costs 10000 ru for 5 dds, you have 5 seperate units that can be divided, organized, prioritized, and will keep firing until the bitter end. A BC is but one unit, and a lot of times they are declawed before they are destroyed. And 3 BCs amount to 12000 rus.



....So can dds, with a lesser start price. With the MS and shipyard you can double pump dds as well.

yes, thats probably why my dds were eaten alive - the bc hyped in



and 100 archers are unstoppable (i play AOE2)

Never played the first one. Besides, that unit counter system is actually from Empire Earth.

I like ion frigs for BC killing. You don't NEED a full 21 frig battlegroup, but that many frigs (if a mix of around 11 ions, 7 torps, and 3 flaks) work wonderfully at killing BC, and anything else the enemy throws at you.

21 ion frigs can kill 3 BC's with few losses IF you do the command moves as other people have told you. Anything in numbers can kill a BC, but the reason the ions are good is because of the SPEED that the BC's die. That many ion frigs will kill a fully upgraded BC in less than a minute (prob under 30 seconds), meaning all 3 BC's die before they get to fire 3-4 ion volleys...... meaning if you had a gravwell, 3 BC's might not even kill your MS, they certainly won't kill your MS, and all your carriers.

...........................

I am NOT saying always build masses of ion frigs (then they would be laser food), but they are the best anti cap option the hig have. the same fleet of ions works equally well against an opposing frig wall, or 5 DD's. I normally like to have one teammate build DD's while I build frigs and then donate to each other.

of course bombing the BC weapons/mods and then capturing it is even better, but that is a slightly more advanced counter. Try this first if you just CAN'T seem to ever counter BC's. I find they are actually easier to kill than 2-3 DD's because it is just one big, SLOW target. You get more time to bring in reinforcements and build that cloak mod.

If vaygr, you prob already have a swarm, put all fighters and missle vettes on the subsystems, start the lasers to pounding on it and either use HMF's to finish it off, or use infils. Upgrade infil speed then armor, so they latch on fast.

thanks all
 

btw,

you've just made my point stronger :nana:

Uh, no I didn't....

lol....
btw, have any of you witnessed the horror of 30 flaks? (high unit cap, of course)
theyre fast, and have a high fire rate, doing as much damage as possible
instance 1)
while alpha and i were testing out RBT i came in and decimated a comp in less than 5 mins, although granted they were ill prepared. i took a sy in about 15 secs and their 10 ions didnt stand a chance. fighters... well, enough said. all in all, i lost 1 frig, which was replaced fairly quickly. to be honest, i had more success with flaks v. everything than bombers v. ms! i had my bombers on mod stripping duty and before i knew it those peashooters on the ms made me comeback and dock/rebuild!
instance 2)
i had about 10 flaks take a bc with about 10-15 squadrons of bomber support from my ally- he decimated the engines and the turret and my flaks increased the amount of hp taken off while keeping the flies off our backs

this is just another instance of "more is better" as stated earlier in the thread

can somone one tell me how to download the files t beable to create my own maps and ships coz da stuff i get dont work

Welcome to the forums, aaron
first off, this prolly isnt the best spot to put your question. I'd suggest searching tanis, as there are many who have the same question as yourself.
and if and when you come across a topic that hasnt been mentioned before, it would be to your advantage to make a new thread so the community can find it and post their ideas.
since im at it, i'll point you to Mission boy SE for map making and for ship making, there's tons of stuff, but shipScript seems appropriate for the call.
happy posting!

look, dont talk about things u dont know - THERE IS NO COUNTER TO ARCHERS IN EE!!

back to hw2, frigs are good bc killers, but
a) i was vaygr, and hadn't researched frigs
b) nor did i have a frig facility

Don't let them build a BC in the first place is usually the best way of dealing with them...

agreed. there's nothing more horrifying than being 95% done on an early bc and getting the cap facil bombed out on a quick raid. of course, if they have cloak gens, you have to be sure to prox the area first

Did you even play the game longer than 5 minutes? Shock infantry (swordsman/clubman) and cavalry was the unit counter to archers. Archers countered pierce infantry, and pierce infantry countered cavalry.



That's a moot point. Your lack of aggression allowed the other team to build BCs in the first place.

BTW polaris, if the cloak gen in question is based on the SY, It offers no protection from raiding Strike craft, as the generator is weaker than those based elsewhere. I've surprsed many people with that fact...

Thats illogical. The SYs mass value translates into Hitpoints. Claiming that a certain module on a 80,000 hitpoint-to-massa value has more armour than the same module on a 160,000 hitpoint-to-massa value, would be illogical, if you consider the fact that the larger the hitpoint-to-massa value, then the tougher the armour of the subsystems respectively on the said vessel.

I don't mean weaker in armor, I mean weaker in field strength.

From the SY File:
addAbility(NewShipType,"CloakAbility",0,1,2000,4000,3,100,1,1000)

From the Carrier file:
addAbility(NewShipType,"CloakAbility",0,2,2000,4000,3,100,1,1000)

Note the difference in the second digit. That is the stealth strength of the cloaking. With the low stealth-strength of the SY generator, if the SY cloaks when you are next to it, or you know its posistion and go to it, it will reappear.


As for what Ilia was saying
From Carrier Cloak Generator Subsystem file:
NewSubSystemType.maxhealth = 20000
From MS Cloak Generator Subsystem file:
NewSubSystemType.maxhealth = 30000
(SY's use the MS module)

So while it is true that SY cloak gens have more armor, it has nothing to do with the mass or hitpoints of the host vessel. I believe that upgrades on a ship also effect all modules on with the same multiplier, so that would make MS modules capable of having much greater armor as the MS armor upgrades are so much better.

this is getting irritating - try mass archers, im talking 200+

Now, I've never played Empire Earth, but I'm willing to believe 200+ archers fits the same qualifications as 9 BCs: Yes, they are well nigh uncounterable, and no, there should NEVER be a situation where they exist.

lol good point, but in ee archers [longbowmen especially] build very fast and you can easily afford 200+ at the start of a dm.

bcs, on the other hand...... damm expensive but boy do they rock!

back to hw2:

ok, so all you do is run your bombers right where you saw the sy last? seriously? i was wondering why they kept attacking my sy while i was hiding and cloaked.... does that affect the ships around it too? or simply the sy?

In order:
Yes
Yes
Yes*
No

*It's the field generated by the SY. If you have a carrier floating over the SY with a cloak gen, and turn it on, It will cloak itself, the SY, and any nearby vessels with a field strong enough to require a prox sensor or its ilk.

so whats the time on the cloaking; how long can u remain cloaked before your energy runs out?

because if u had 3 ships next to each other, each with a cloaking generator, u culd relay the ships and maintain constant cloaking

yep, i do it all the time, esp in "survival mode"
i played a guy who kept his entire frig fleet under cloak so when we came after him with our lumbering bc's he suprised us.... it was hillarious....

I say the best counter is get bombers or a large intie swarm and kill the SYs capship facility so it cant build a bc to begin with.



-Later-04'
DivinerSage

No. It's quite simple to issue a move order to your DDs placing them above or below the BC, out of it's firing arc. I've taken BCs out with single destroyers. 5 armour upgraded destroyers will do a number on a BC as well, but will lose if the BC is also upgraded.

Also, it's possible to have your first DD in something like 8 minutes, whereas the fastest you can get a BC is 13 (that's with 14 int defense in both cases). Bombers are the bane of a BCs existence.

Any time you move out of the firing arc of the hiig BC, you will kill it. I've killed a BC with 5 ICFs before by keeping them above it. 15-21 ICFs will kill a BC, esp if you only allow the BC use of 1 or none of it's cannons.

Interceptors can also disable the turrets and engines, but not as fast as upgraded bombers can.

Cloak + bombers + infiltrator or marine frigates can surprize a BC, even if it has escorts.

Mines will kill a BC in numbers. For some reason, very few people use mines. 1 Mine will do as much damage as a vaygr heavy missle. I would place them in dust clouds, or at the edge of your gravwell field.



Nah. Also, don't hope for a 1.2...

Heh, anyone remember back in the day when "BCs are invincible!!1" was simple met with "What the hell does he have a BC for? You should have kicked his ass already."

I guess times have changed...

No shit. Currently, I see BCs olnly in long drown out games where the 2 sides amass each other, instead of attacking..

I see BCs regularly in team games. Usually one player tends to skip middle units for the BC. I've still seen plenty of 13 minute BCs happen. Meanwhile there is heavy interceptor and mid-unit fighting going on.

i agree that happens to me all the time - the two team mates of the bc player slow the enemy down just enough for the bc to get out, and then you're in trouble :nod: :nod: :!:

[QUOTE=Starfisher]Heh, anyone remember back in the day when "BCs are invincible!!1" was simple met with "What the hell does he have a BC for? You should have kicked his ass already."
QUOTE]


Thank you Star, that's what I've been thinking as I read through the anniversary 500th 'How To Counter BCs' thread in this forum.

Guys, check out some older threads. There are a few gems from the earlier days which exhaustively analyze in great depth (and from the basis of a lot more experience than I'm sensing here) the weaknesses and strengths of BC's.

In a nutshell, if you're playing the game right you shouldn't even be able to quote how much a BC costs, let alone have to work out complex strategies to defeat one with scouts and duct tape.

Hi Choppa!

Unforunatley, the number of ppl playing the game right has decreased, mainly becuase of the fact thatt the number of ppl who think that they play the game right, has increased appropriately...

I'm going to show an unusual degree of self restraint here Ilia.

oh well. once again the search button may have saved 49 posts of restatement

Restrain? from what? :smash: