G'Kar's Art of War

Preface

Once again, I find myself writing in my study. War is not something one should work towards, but it is sometimes a necessity, forced upon us by others. The universe forces us to take actions that we would rather not take, but when the universe decides to throw its worst at us, what choice do we have but to defend ourselves?

Table of contents

1. Basics
2. Raiders
3. Stationary Objects
4. Borg
5. War

1. Basics

Let us start with the basics. One must crawl before learning to walk. The first issue is the cloak. This is a useful device that will make you harder to see. It will not make you completely invisible but it will make it easier to escape when necessary. The efficiency of the cloak depends on two things. Different ships have different cloaking systems, with diferent degrees of efficiency. The cloak efficiency is also dependant on how much power you have in your energy banks. Energy is important. While you are cloaked, you can not use your weapons. This is a common error that rookies make. They panic and cloak and then die because they cannot fire their weapons. Do not make this misstake. Another thing to remember is that when you are cloaked, you can not use the shield!

The second basic thing that you need to understand is the shield. This device too is useful, but is potentially deadlier then your opponent! The shiled will protect your hull from taking damage. When the shield is hit, it uses a lot of power from the energy banks. This is good and bad. Protecting your hull integrity is good, but loosing power can be fatal. Power determines the efficiency of your cloak and your engine power. With no energy you can not fire your weapons either! If you loose power you are a sitting duck. You cannot cloak, move or shoot. Essentially, you are dead.

Weapons come basicly in two kinds. Projectile weapons, like torpedos, and Energy weapons, like phasers. Projectile weapons use little or no energy when they are fired, but you also have a limited amount of these. Energy weapons on the other hand can be fired an infinite amount of times, but will deplete your energy banks when fired. As mentioned above, loosing energy can be deadly, so be careful when using these weapons!

The damage control system is very useful. It repairs your hull automatically. The repairs are not very fast, but still it is useful. There is only one thing you must remember. The damage control system uses a lot of antimatter. If you run out of antimatter you loose power and by now you know what that means.

How much energy do you need? It is hard to answer this question. I myself like to keep my energy banks at 75% or above. When I get below 75% I turn the shield off and stop using energy weapons so the energy banks will recharge. This will mean that I am open for attacks and will most likely take hits and loose hull integrity. It is however better to take a few hits than it is to run out of energy. If you cloak as well, you may be able to escape for long enough to recharge your energy banks without taking hits.

2. Raiders

First of all, do not judge a raider by its apperance! A raider that looks small and harmless can be deadlier than a Rothkar. The raiders use whatever ships they can lay their hands on and have become experts in modifying them. Their hulls are usually stronger than most warships! As if this is not bad enough, their weapons also do more damage then ours. I suppose this is a down side of our mass production of weaponry. Quality loss.

Raiders just like yourself have both torpedos and energy weapons. The thing to remember here is to stay out of range of their energy weapons.Raiders aim well. Very well. If you come into range of their energy weapons you have a problem.

Raiders are quite easy to kill if you know what you are doing. I will give you a few guidelines to follow.

• First of all, keep your distance. Stay at least 3 au away from them. That way you are safe from their energy weapons. I personally feel that a distance of 8 to 10 au is best, as that will keep me out of photon torpedo range as well...
• Second, use the shield to absorb the damage from their torpedos, but when your energy runs too low, turn the shield off!
• Third, do not stop shooting. Keep launching torpedos at them as fast as you possibly can.

What about energy weapons then? Just don't use them. In order to use them, you must get close. When they are in range of your energy weapons, you are in range of theirs! You will almost certainly sustain more damage than you inflict.

Raiders also act a bit funny. If you uncloak, they uncloak. If you cloak, they cloak. Considering this, the only way to kill a raider is to stay visible. It is however easy to flee as long as you have enough energy to cloak and move. Remember this though: If your energy is low, or you are close to the raider, cloaking will have no effect. The raider will keep firing on you instead of cloaking. Keep your distance and the energy up and you should be able to escape any time you please.

Following these advice, you should (with a bit of practice) be able to destroy any raider. Remember that when you fight a raider, you will always be hit. I have not heard of anyone destroying a raider and not takling hits. You can however use the shield to keep safe from most of the damage.

Even with the improvements the raiders have done to their ships in the last few months, I am happy to report that it is indeed quite possible to take out a raider without being hit. It certainly is not easy, but it is indeed possible.

3. Stationary Objects

Stations and HQ's may seem hard in the beginning, but in fact they are much less dangerous to kill than your average raider. Once you know the tricks that is.

These objects have VERY good scanners. They will detect you at distances somewhere around 6 au when you are cloaked! When fighting these objects you must keep your distance. I usually stay around about 7 or 8 au away.

If the station or HQ fires at you, you can evade the torpedo or missile rather easily. The torpedo will aim in front of you. If you cloak, set power to zero and hit the dampers it should miss. You can also cloak and change your heading 180 degrees. This will ensure even further that the torpedo will miss. If a torpedo does lock on to you, you should uncloak and raise the shield. That way the shield will absorb the damage. Just after the torpedo impacts, cloak again and regenerate your energy.

Larger ships have access to cruise missiles. These are ideal for bombing stationary objects. The tactics when using these is a bit different. Heavy cruise missiles (HEC) have a tendency to miss the target if you fire them while moving so the circling tactic is not very good.

Use this tactic instead: Stop at about 8 au from the object. Make sure that your ship has a heading 90 degrees from the target bearing. Or to put it in other words: Make sure the station is straight to your right or left side.

Fire the missile and if you have the time, throw in a torpedo at the same time. The station or HQ will fire at you just as you uncloak. The incoming torpedo will not aim in front of you. It will aim straight at you, because you have no speed. To evade it, cloak and go to full speed. The torpedo should miss. If it does hit you, you could have done a few things wrong:

• You are too close to the station. Increase distance.
• You didn't cloak fast enough.
• You didn't accelerate fast enough. Use shift+accelerate.
• You didn't keep the station precisely to your left or right. In order to evade the missile you must leave its line of travel as soon as possible.

If you follow these tips and practice a bit, you should be able to bomb an HQ to the stoneage without being hit once. I have developed this tactic in a Rothkar Warship. It might not work with ships that have worse cloak and scanners. If you use anything but a Rothkar, attempt this at your own risk.

I recently found another way to destroy these stationary objects. This is how it works:

• First, take position outside of the stations scanner range.
• Arm your pulse weapons. This is a time when the polarons and disruptors work great.
• Then plot an intercept course to it. This will guide you straight at it.
• Set full speed.
• When you reach 3 AU distance, uncloak, raise the shields and start firing like mad. The intercept course will make sure that all shots hit on target.
• When you pass right over the station, disable the intercept course, or you will start circling the station.
• Run until you have reached a safe distance.
• Cloak and let the energy banks recharge.
• Repeat all over again.

4. Borg

First of all: Resistance is not futile. Only a moron lies down and awaits death. Borgs can die. If you know what you are doing, quite easily. But remember this: Engaging the borg in combat is never safe! I have seen the most respected admirals fall under the crushing heel of the borg.

Lets start with the basics on the borg vessels:

• Borgs have extremely powerful scanners. They can detect you several AUs away, even when you are cloaked.
• Borgs have very tough hulls. It takes a lot of damage to bring one down.
• Borgs are fast. They move a bit slower then your average warship, but not much.
• Borgs have horrible weapons. Their polaron pulses make more damage than any polarons in our universe. Same with the quantom torpedos. Their cutting beams however are your worst nightmare come true. These will slice you in half in a second!
• Borgs have no cloak, but still have a very low visibility.

First of all I will teach you how to avoid the borg. It is simple but not at all foolproof. Stay Cloaked. This is however not foolproof. I mentioned the borgs scanners didn't I? If you accidently get within six or seven AUs of a borg vessel, it will come after you, cloak or no cloak.

Second, you must know how to escape the borg. This is not as easy. If you happen to get close to a borg you have a serious problem, regarding the integrity of your own skin. They are fast and can scan you at a long distance. As far as fleeing goes, escaping the borg is a nightmare. The only way to survive is to get as far away as you can in as short a time as you can. If you turn, you loose speed. If you have shields up, they hit you and you loose speed. Loosing speed means death. If you however keep shields down, cloak up and a straight course, you may still die. It really is a bad situation, but it is your only chance. You must get out of their scanner range. To do this you need full energy, full speed and full cloak. Just pray they do not shoot your ship to pieces under your feet.

Third and final point. This is how you kill the bastards. There seems to be a few different techniques, but you can use the same tactic as for the stations and HQs. It is a slow painstaking process, but it works. Remember that the technique is designed for the Rothkar warship!

• Make sure you are good enough.
• Stay cloaked.
• Stay far away. 8-10 AUs is good.
• Uncloak, Fire, Cloak, Run.

5. War

This is the ultimate madness. Empires clash together for various reasons, the most common being occupation of each others territory. At this point you will face the deadliest enemy of all.

The pilots of the four empires all use different tactics. They are also skilled. Much more so than any raider. They know to use cloak, shield and weapons in the most efective way. Fighting a warship from an empire is very dangerous.

The empires communicate to achieve maximum efficiency. They coordinate assults and ambushes. You never know what to expect. If you attack a lonely freighter from an enemy empire, do not be surprised if warships suddenly charge at you from behind a nearby moon. On the other hand, you can coordinate your attacks with your empire members to give them a nasty surprise instead!

As far as tactics go there are a few similarities. Keep your energy high. Use cloak and shield to the best of your abilities. While the pilots of an empire are better trained in tactics and coordination than raiders, their aim is not as good. This is one of the few places where the energy weapons really can be useful. Apart from this, there is little advice to give. Unlike fighting raiders and stations, a battle with an empire is never the same. You never know what to expect.

Godspeed, Pilot. You'll need it.
Ambassador G'Kar