Master Of Orion Iii

[WarBlade]

It seems with the "Borg" mentioned above, that although you have a very good advantage (probably one of the best) early on, you'd need to win before the end game. I don't think assault shuttles would work well against a combo of lightning shields and the ultra-small point defense techs (like autofire pd phasers). Also, once morale bonuses start getting really high (with all the the tech they are about 80% IIRC) unification gov't would be a draw back.

Actually the Shuttles really come into their own at the end of the game. As soon as the Guardian is defeated, Death Rays come into play and from that point on you can nullify your enemy's onboard security completely, so you only need one shuttle to get through to take the ship. The Telepathic Race advantage also means you can keep the ship around to assist ie. you assimilate the enemy ships and then use them against the enemy in that same battle. At the very end of the game you can assimilate an entire enemy battle fleet of 100 ships in the space of about 2 or 3 combat turns. :blink:

Autofire PD Phasors don't get a look in either. The enemy just turns and runs without firing a shot (unless you're still on slow engine tech), so the real trick is to get the Assimilation Carriers close enough to get them before they run. At the end of the game teleporting ships and those time compression generators (whatever they're called) added to the fastest engine tech quickly fixes that. Transporters on enemy ships are fun too - Just wipe out the marines with death rays, slip the Assault Shuttles in and then leap frog those same forces to a second enemy ship with what was their own transporters! :blink: Add in Tractor beams and it's theoretically possible for one ship to capture 3 enemies in the space of a combat turn! :blink: