The previous post on Tactics in Intercept dealt with the character skills of Ship and Fleet tactics. In this article we will talk about player tactics, how to play Intercept effectively.
Each scenario should have a clear objective for each side and the objective should never be ‘kill the enemy forces’. Real battles rarely work like that and they tend to be boring tests of ship capabilities with not many choices for the player to make. Instead, we want objectives where combat is a tool to realize them. Side A should land a ship on a planet, side B should stop them. Side A is escorting a trader from Earth to the moon and side B should stop them. Side A should take out an orbital station, side B should stop them etc
Intercept combat consist of two separate stages, before and after detection. Some scenarios may have one or both sides already detected but most of them will start double-blind.
Before detection
Spread your ships into separate boxes to avoid having them detected at the same time. If you have fission or fusion thrusting ships you must be really careful when to thrust, the fuel limit is one problem but the real killer with those drives is that you are almost guaranteed to become Tracked if they scan you when you thrust.
If you manage to stay undetected longer than your opponent you have an enormous advantage as you can see his moves before you do yours and your attacks will always go first. Beam attacks typically give away your position so it is important to not attack before you have a decent chance of hitting, but don’t wait too long, your opponent may have you detected and your advantage will have gained you nothing.
If you have cold start missiles launch a volley as soon as you got your opponent detected and have them drift closer him. Missile attacks does not automatically get you detected as beam attacks generally do.
After detection
Pay close attention to firing arcs and aft centerline. If you have more than one ship team them together to cover the wing mans cracks in his arcs, turning after thrusting really help here. Try to attack ships from the rear to hit the vulnerable thrust location and avoid hitting the hard to damage hull location. Concentrate firing on one ship until it is disabled as those pesky repair crews can revert minor damage in a jiffy.
If you think you might get attacked by missiles don’t use your lasers for attack. Lasers used to attack cannot later be used against missiles. Missiles are deadly in Intercept, don’t let them hit you. Facing towards the attacker increases the chance of hull hits and lessens the risk of vulnerable thrust hits, roll to bring any dorsal mounts to bear.
Always have the scenario objective in mind. Fighting is dangerous so avoid it if you can, and remember the motto of Space rouge pilots: “Keep the solar wind to your backside”.
Vector movement 