Planetarion Forums - Cathaar

Structural Integrity · 21 Jun 2003, 10:54

After having played all free rounds with races as Zik I decided to go as cath this round. Boy oh boy... this is too damn easy. I can roid about each non-xan target I pick with a fleet half their score and only one or two ships lost.

I went for the CR/BS combo this round. A crapload of Tarants and Mantis' make up my fleet. I mixed in a few Guardians, and Scorpions against those pesky little fighters.

I scan a planet that is of my score and see what race it is. If it's a xan I usually move on because they have tonns of those Sentinel thingies that shoot random. That's the only ship of the xans I saw and are built in bulk that actually target my CR (randomly).
When it's another race I take the stats table and look at all ships that target my pretty CR. If those ships are FI (corsairs) or CO (brig/Gryphon) I mix in a few Scorpions to neutralize them. If I send BS then ofcourse I also check for BS targetting ships. Though those are very rare.
If I can cover everything, I send my fleet, which is quite often.
It never was so damn easy to roid. I only have to concentrate on a very small set of shipclasses.

But anyway, how come that not more people chose cath? They are most cost-efficient when it comes to armor and also in disabeling ships, which is basically all you want when roiding.
OK, the ETA9 thingy is a biatch, but that is certainly compensated by the wide target choice.

Okies... I'm a relative n00b when it comes to playing cath, so I want some feedback.
Here are my ship ratios (in numbers, NOT resources)

Tarant: 6
Mantis: 2
Scorpion: 1
Guardian: 1.5

I also have a load of avengers, but I have doubts about that ship. It's very cost effective with its armor, but it only targets stuff that is already targetted by the tarant or guardian.
I also have a load of spids, but I never send them along because the FI is such a popular target. Though someday they might help me out against a Roach laden cath.

Any tips/comments?

bagg · 21 Jun 2003, 11:03

sounds like ur having fun - i hate cath as ppl like defending against them, but then if u have enough gaurds i guess u dont have that problem.

HK · 21 Jun 2003, 11:11

cath is a great race indeed, altho it has no chance in winning the round. xans forever.

cath can be a double edged sword tho, because people like to target you also, i doubt ure taras can neutralize a terran who is 3 times bigger than u and is attacking u with all his pegasi. ppl tend to like cath targets, cuz they are easy and they dont kill ure ships. if ure in a good gal tho and in a good alliance it shouldnt be a huge problem. dunno about the ratio, when i build ships i improvise and its gone quite well til now

SYMM · 21 Jun 2003, 12:03

I take it you don't play in an alliance SI?

ComradeRob · 21 Jun 2003, 12:16

Cath are great fun to play, probably my best round (r7) was as Cath.

Their main weakness is that, when looking for targets, people tend to choose the Cathaar first. Having said that, a Tarant/Guardian combo is pretty scary now - the tarants freezing out DE/CR roiding fleets easily, and Guardians killing FR/CO ridiculously easy.

Most people are just biased against Cath because of the perceived weakness of a race that can't kill much. Cath are always low-risk to attack and defend against for this reason. Some people simply enjoy being able to kill things, and so avoid Cath for that reason.

The biggest problem with Cath is that while they are very good at freezing a target's fleet, they quickly start to sustain high losses if the target gets defence. As such, it's a good race for mid-ranking players, who typically attack people who are not likely to get defence. It's not so good for big alliance players, whose targets tend to be the kind of people who will get defence if possible.

Le Mauvais Moine · 21 Jun 2003, 14:21

I was Cathaar last round and this round i am again. Difference only is, this round i chose to build a CR fleet - last round i used the usual beetle - BW based fleet.

Everyone said the CR fleet is crap, but i wanted to try out for myself. My conclusion of this experiment is:

The CR fleet IS actually crap ! There's 3 hours to get sentinels and corsair defence from the universe and 6 hours from gal. Any semi active gal can cover this.

Building beetles again now .. :/

Structural Integrity · 21 Jun 2003, 14:37

Quote:

Originally posted by SYMM
I take it you don't play in an alliance SI?

No.... Doing everything by myself and having fun in doing it that way

Cochese · 21 Jun 2003, 14:49

That explains the lack of Roaches then (assuming you haven't built many) which are worth their weight in gold when it comes to allied defense calls.

I'd say build some Roaches (more if you already have some) but I'm a big fan of those ships, having saved my ass countless times when a large mass of DE were inbound.

I've roided far too many Caths this round with such a pathetic amount of Roaches it's unreal. Not lowbie Caths either...these buggers are not more than 500k smaller than myself, and have loads of FI which just die against my far-too-many-unfrozen Pegs.

Of course, you have your Capital-ship based fleet, so the Tarantulas no doubt do just as good a job (if not better) at stopping DE, and a Corvette may not fit into your fleet design soley for the purpose of putting off potential Terran raiders.

Eventh · 21 Jun 2003, 20:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Structural Integrity
I also have a load of avengers, but I have doubts about that ship. It's very cost effective with its armor, but it only targets stuff that is already targetted by the tarant or guardian.
I also have a load of spids, but I never send them along because the FI is such a popular target. Though someday they might help me out against a Roach laden cath.

Any tips/comments?

building both avengers and tarantulas is no point. as they will attack both.. so dont build avengers...

building both guardians and scorpions is a bit the same.. i prefer guardians as they kill a bit.. and target 3 classes=)

i think beetle/spider is a bether anti fi/co fleet, as it can be used as ally defence also.. besides spiders are great c dump..

Le Mauvais Moine · 21 Jun 2003, 20:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Cochese
That explains the lack of Roaches then (assuming you haven't built many) which are worth their weight in gold when it comes to allied defense calls.

I'd say build some Roaches (more if you already have some) but I'm a big fan of those ships, having saved my ass countless times when a large mass of DE were inbound.

I've roided far too many Caths this round with such a pathetic amount of Roaches it's unreal. Not lowbie Caths either...these buggers are not more than 500k smaller than myself, and have loads of FI which just die against my far-too-many-unfrozen Pegs.

Of course, you have your Capital-ship based fleet, so the Tarantulas no doubt do just as good a job (if not better) at stopping DE, and a Corvette may not fit into your fleet design soley for the purpose of putting off potential Terran raiders.

Yep.

Not many roaches here, but relying on taras. Was a mistake.
Roaches > taras, because taras are useless in def. Besides there's far too many Terrans - Terrans just suck def as any other race and virtually have nothing to return the favour.

As i said before i'll return to the old style beetle bw roiding combo. Was fun for a while though to bash as a cathaar. But then again what's the point of paying 3k score per roid and just get like 10% cap last tick because your guardians have killed far too many chims ..

Le Mauvais Moine · 21 Jun 2003, 21:20

Quote:

Originally posted by ComradeRob

The biggest problem with Cath is that while they are very good at freezing a target's fleet, they quickly start to sustain high losses if the target gets defence. As such, it's a good race for mid-ranking players, who typically attack people who are not likely to get defence. It's not so good for big alliance players, whose targets tend to be the kind of people who will get defence if possible.

I disagree here, you can also play Cathaar as a big alliance player, actually every big alliance NEEDS big Cathaars. The fleets of one big cathaar players can change the odds significantly in big battles. Besides, big alliances need roaches and anti fi/co as any other alliance in def.

Roiding as a cathaar is admittedly not straight forward. You would need to guess the kind of defence you will get and adapt your fleet accordingly. Like "overfreeze" fi class when you hit a target with many xan in gal, send in some defenders (emp flak!) when you expect bw def. You may not grow your roid count as quickly as many other races, but when you get them the are usually for free or you just have minor losses.

Another good thing about cathaar is early round roiding. Many people think that xan has the monopoly for early round roiding, but i think cathaar are equally well suited for quick grow in the beginning. Often there's simply not enough fleet there to stop a decent amount of spids beetles and pods.

Zotnam · 22 Jun 2003, 05:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Le Mauvais Moine

Another good thing about cathaar is early round roiding. Many people think that xan has the monopoly for early round roiding, but i think cathaar are equally well suited for quick grow in the beginning. Often there's simply not enough fleet there to stop a decent amount of spids beetles and pods.

I did this in r7, worked as a charm untill a top5 xan came to visit

There are so many targets to roid as cath player, both with a cr fleet and a beetle/bw fleet... I´ve seen many calcs where attackers gain 400-500 roids and lose like 2 tullas.. problem is indeed the eta since 80% of the targets will get defence. But if you attack medium sized targets, your chances rises.. and like pointed out somewhere above me, with a cr fleet some defenders might not think and send ships that doesnt target big ships...

Ultimate Newbie · 22 Jun 2003, 22:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Zotnam
with a cr fleet some defenders might not think and send ships that doesnt target big ships...

Yeah, such as mistaking your CR fleet for a Xandathrii fleet as the shipcount is so low, and if you only notice the fleet at ETA 6 this is perfectly justifiable reasoning

.

Not that somone like me would have done that though...

Anyway, SI i reckon you have far too many Mantis, and perhaps too many Scorps for my liking. atm my Tarant:Mantis ratio is around 12:1 - though i intend on building some more mantis soon. I have no Scorpions, though i am going to be building some (perhaps 0.25 the number of Guardians). Also, my Guardian count is low, but that's more because they cost so much M than anything

.

So, yeah

Structural Integrity · 23 Jun 2003, 13:18

I think the Scorp is underestimated. With my 36 scorps I froze nearly 2k Sentinels today. These sentinels (and 1k bombers) were the only threat to my fleet in the attack on me. My losses would've been much higher if I didn't have those scorps.

Anyway, I really think that a capital cath fleet is underestimated by many. Or the guy attacking me didn't calc the battle before he attacked me, or he wanted to lose those 2200 corvettes for 60 roids.

Parthos · 27 Jun 2003, 16:59

Yes the eta9 roiding fleet gives oodles of time for defense. Maybe it's cause I'm one of those 'midsized' players this round, but often it seems that that defense is fake/doesn't target me/woefully inadequate. I've found that as a cath it does well to mil scan defense even there's a bunch of fleets. I'm not sure why so many people send stuff like harpys against cath cr/bs (and I don't mean in those kinds of situations where you're trying to keep t3 all fi unfrozen by scorps...just plain weird no reason harpys) - perhaps it's "they won't kill your ships and I don't have defense, so send your harpys and if I get enough green fleets maybe they won't feel like scanning" coming into play.

Stylez1877 · 28 Jun 2003, 21:43

While I agree that freezing isnt scary, I disagree that cath cant kick some arse.

Guardian/Widowmakers/Tarant/Mantis

Ultimate 0wnage fleet, you target everything

Guardian/widowmakers are also EXELLENT killing ships, about 1.7mil fleet score of guardians can kill about 3 mil fleet score of FR in 3 ticks.

and widowmakers are actually stronger than pegasus', which is also quite amazing. 1k widowmakers kills 9k FI in 3 ticks. Givin that, cath arnt so weak and fragile anymore.

Stylez1877 · 28 Jun 2003, 21:59

and about beetles 0wning widowmakers, yea its true, BUT wouldnt you rather scare your opponent/his defense off with a ship that kills him, or a ship that'll freeze em?

The_Fish · 28 Jun 2003, 22:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Stylez1877
and about beetles 0wning widowmakers, yea its true, BUT wouldnt you rather scare your opponent/his defense off with a ship that kills him, or a ship that'll freeze em?

I'd rather get 15% over 3 ticks myself

Stylez1877 · 29 Jun 2003, 08:16

two fleets

kill/roid

simply recall one if he runs, 15%

CrazyConrad · 29 Jun 2003, 08:46

Id like to see the cat player that could pick up a fight againt my fr/de zik fleet (unless hes alot bigger oc)

General Martok · 29 Jun 2003, 10:49

Quote:

Originally posted by CrazyConrad
Id like to see the cat player that could pick up a fight againt my fr/de zik fleet (unless hes alot bigger oc)

Piece of cake, he only needs roaches and BW (or tarantula/BW). Zik EMP-res aint that great....

Gerbie · 29 Jun 2003, 11:09

tara/manta can handle that. Leave the Fr unfrozen. Unless you agree fr/de is a sucky combination and start adding stuff.

Structural Integrity · 29 Jun 2003, 12:33

Quote:

Originally posted by CrazyConrad
Id like to see the cat player that could pick up a fight againt my fr/de zik fleet (unless hes alot bigger oc)

Tarants + Guardians in my combo, or only tarants as the frigates do nothing to my cruisers.

Ofcourse, you still need a good nr of tarants to freeze a bulk of DE (2/3rd of the amount of DE he has (assuming a BUC only fleet)). That is a bit more resources than the defender has in DE. Quite efficient, you disable a whole fleet with almost the same amount of resources. Try doing that with a killing fleet.

Ultimate Newbie · 29 Jun 2003, 15:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Structural Integrity
Quite efficient, you disable a whole fleet with almost the same amount of resources. Try doing that with a killing fleet.

more efficient if you were using Roaches though

Mind you, then you'd have to stun the FR.
heh

CrazyConrad · 29 Jun 2003, 16:53

Quote:

Originally posted by General Martok
Piece of cake, he only needs roaches and BW (or tarantula/BW). Zik EMP-res aint that great....

True but he still needs about 9-10k roaches or 1.4-1.5k taras to stop my de fleet and about 2-2.5k widows... to stop my fr...

I havent seen many cats out there my size having that amount of roaches/taras or widows...

Quote:

Originally posted by Gerbie
tara/manta can handle that. Leave the Fr unfrozen. Unless you agree fr/de is a sucky combination and start adding stuff.

Are you telling me that zik fr/de fleet sucks :/

Gerbie · 29 Jun 2003, 20:39

Quote:

Originally posted by CrazyConrad

Are you telling me that zik fr/de fleet sucks :/

Nah it's not a bad fleet. You are right about that. But it does have pro's and con's. I'm not sure what i'd pick if I were a Zik. Probably start like that too.

Ultimate Newbie · 29 Jun 2003, 23:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Gerbie
Leave the Fr unfrozen.

I just had a thought - wouldnt leaving the FR unfrozen would mean that Astropods would capture your roids - for free...

Gerbie · 30 Jun 2003, 05:03

If you turn the table and it's the zik attacking: yes.

That's why most caths build guardians as well.

LordNieminen · 1 Jul 2003, 16:13

hmm, mate will have in 3 days what.. 1k guardians.. escorting he's roiding fleet.. u try to get defence against that...what's willing to stay. xan's use they'r fi's to attack too.. so there can't be always huge amounts of those lying around..

I got myself bw/beetle fleet mainly because i like to roid xan's, and now and use ability to freeze all defence by sending eta6h fi coverage for my roiding fleet to freeze targets defence and enabling this way max cap for myself, works now and then.. *ripped off this idea from mandate of heaven(who ever was playing it in r6 when he tryed to use it on me)

Wandows · 1 Jul 2003, 17:59

Quote:

Originally posted by LordNieminen
hmm, mate will have in 3 days what.. 1k guardians.. escorting he's roiding fleet.. u try to get defence against that...what's willing to stay

that is if the attack is noticed @ eta 6, but @ eta 7 or preferably 8 (when the attack is first noticed) all u need is some tarantula's to block all the attacking cruisers and ur done

no one would care about the amoun't of guardians u sent, and with fighters all u need (yes yes, its all piss easy :P) is some corsairs who mess up the fire of guardians badly, since they waste a huge amount of fire power killing those lil buggers.

And if you are really desperate u can ignore the guardians and make sure u inflict enough damage to the attacking cruisers that its not worth for the attacker to stick around (as his own losses won't make up for the losses he causes in the defenders their fleets).

Rimmer · 1 Jul 2003, 22:38

the worst thing i find about being a heavy crusier cath is pds.
the stuff always takes my casualties into the higher numbers.

but otherwise roiding has never been easier using a bs/cr fleet of cath. even with eta9 (or 8 if you launch just before tick)

The_Fish · 1 Jul 2003, 22:43

and you cant send def to allies.

1k guardians?

I was about 22m last round with only 300 guardians, 6k chims dead in a tick, thats very tasty

Ultimate Newbie · 1 Jul 2003, 23:55

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Fish
and you cant send def to allies.

Many CR caths like me maintain a small FI fleet that uses whatever resource we have in excess - C = spids and M = Beetles. Thus, we can at least assist against xans.

Quote:

1k guardians? I was about 22m last round with only 300 guardians, 6k chims dead in a tick, thats very tasty

umm that's a bit much i think mate. I calced the other day for 100 guardians and they killed just short of 400 Chimera..

yeah, 300 Guardians can kill 1150 Chimera per tick - a touch short of your 6k...

Where can i get your Guardians?

LordNieminen · 2 Jul 2003, 00:51

xan fi's, pretty much stop a bs/cr fleet or corsairs.. but if u team up with xandarthii.. as he does.

btw he has 3-4k tarants too.. haven't asked lately updates of he's fleet due to he came back from usa just yesterday and is suffering hehe..

LHC · 2 Jul 2003, 11:18

A cruiser roiding fleet is absurdly easy to arrange defence against.

Hicks · 2 Jul 2003, 20:13

Cathaar players who build CR/BS based roiding fleets usually suck. Scan the large Cathaar planets for evidence of this, most have a small number (500 or so) CR/BS which they used early on for in P roiding however, they then moved to BW based roiding fleets.

As I said pre round if you want to play Cathaar at a high level (Especially if you are an alliance member and have an ounce of commitment to defending them) you have to use a FI/CO/FR based roiding fleet. However, if your a low or middle ranked player without an alliance then a CR/BS fleet is quite decent because the targets your going to be hitting are unlikely to have their own adequate CR cover and are unlikely to be able to get much defense against said fleets.

Parthos · 2 Jul 2003, 20:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Hicks
Cathaar players who build CR/BS based roiding fleets usually suck. Scan the large Cathaar planets for evidence of this, most have a small number (500 or so) CR/BS which they used early on for in P roiding however, they then moved to BW based roiding fleets.

As I said pre round if you want to play Cathaar at a high level (Especially if you are an alliance member and have an ounce of commitment to defending them) you have to use a FI/CO/FR based roiding fleet. However, if your a low or middle ranked player without an alliance then a CR/BS fleet is quite decent because the targets your going to be hitting are unlikely to have their own adequate CR cover and are unlikely to be able to get much defense against said fleets.

Big, active caths like the ones you mentioned who use a fi/co/fr roiding fleet have fk all to defend their alliance with, as their low eta ships tend to be out roiding. If anything, the cr/bs based caths make much better alliance members due to the availability of their spids/beetles/roaches for alliance defense while their scorps etc. handle fi/co on attack duties. Ofc, then they just have to hope no one finds out they're nekkid

Target type, especially in a free, random round, affects fleet composition enormously. At a high level you can't spare the +1 eta as due to cap limits your targets are likely to be active and have some active galmates, thereby forcing you to shift to an eta 8 fleet comp. That doesn't mean the fr/co/fi roiding fleet is any better, just that it is better suited for the mid to late game stages for large, ambitious players.

das_experiment · 3 Jul 2003, 00:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Parthos
Big, active caths like the ones you mentioned who use a fi/co/fr roiding fleet have fk all to defend their alliance with, as their low eta ships tend to be out roiding. If anything, the cr/bs based caths make much better alliance members due to the availability of their spids/beetles/roaches for alliance defense while their scorps etc. handle fi/co on attack duties. Ofc, then they just have to hope no one finds out they're nekkid

Target type, especially in a free, random round, affects fleet composition enormously. At a high level you can't spare the +1 eta as due to cap limits your targets are likely to be active and have some active galmates, thereby forcing you to shift to an eta 8 fleet comp. That doesn't mean the fr/co/fi roiding fleet is any better, just that it is better suited for the mid to late game stages for large, ambitious players.

Well put.

Thou i do think there is almost impossible for a CR\BS cath to end top 100, without 'pulling a ldk'

Hicks · 3 Jul 2003, 21:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Parthos
Big, active caths like the ones you mentioned who use a fi/co/fr roiding fleet have fk all to defend their alliance with, as their low eta ships tend to be out roiding. If anything, the cr/bs based caths make much better alliance members due to the availability of their spids/beetles/roaches for alliance defense while their scorps etc. handle fi/co on attack duties. Ofc, then they just have to hope no one finds out they're nekkid

People with FR based roiding fleet should tailor their fleets to different kinds of targets each night they should then end up with atleast one group of ships largely free. For example most Cathaar with FR based roiding fleets are either going to target Xands which will leave their Roachs free to defend or go for other Zik or Cathaar planets which leave their Beetles largely free. If Cathaar tailor their targets right they should always have one ship group free to defend with. As opposed to people who sink almost all their resources into their CR/BS roiding fleet and only have token other classes of ship coupled with the fact they are like 2 million because they invested in the said CR/BS.

You didn't Email me back either

The_Fish · 3 Jul 2003, 22:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie

umm that's a bit much i think mate. I calced the other day for 100 guardians and they killed just short of 400 Chimera..

yeah, 300 Guardians can kill 1150 Chimera per tick - a touch short of your 6k...

I meant for the 1k guardians, meh english sucks. My mistake then, I always thought 1 guardian killed 6 chims.

Parthos · 3 Jul 2003, 23:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Hicks
People with FR based roiding fleet should tailor their fleets to different kinds of targets each night they should then end up with atleast one group of ships largely free. For example most Cathaar with FR based roiding fleets are either going to target Xands which will leave their Roachs free to defend or go for other Zik or Cathaar planets which leave their Beetles largely free. If Cathaar tailor their targets right they should always have one ship group free to defend with. As opposed to people who sink almost all their resources into their CR/BS roiding fleet and only have token other classes of ship coupled with the fact they are like 2 million because they invested in the said CR/BS.

You didn't Email me back either

My mistake then. Whenever I have been targeted by caths in the past, they've always sent all their fr along with ALL of their fi/co, sometimes one fleet, often two. Maybe I just got 'lucky' enough to be attacked by huge caths who didn't defend their alliance.

I was trying to find out how to use that IM thingy, turns out Germ actually uses Trillian

LordNieminen · 7 Jul 2003, 00:36

hehe.. hmm mate is now top80 or so.. feel free to scan and find he's fleet from there and he has that 10-15k of defence ships for alliances always home, rest is for attacking.. i myself consider scorpions to be sucky.. guardians are much better because they kill, u can always team up with fi/co/fr cathaar, anyways u need to team up for every raid anyways these days.. too few players.. too active players etc

Ultimate Newbie · 7 Jul 2003, 05:45

Quote:

Originally posted by LordNieminen
and he has that 10-15k of defence ships for alliances always home,

They arent overly useful defensive ships if they are always home then, hey :\