recently i more or less found a new way to counter the most typical fighter -> ion with 14 cols steady build...
in many games, if neither player wants to do something fresh, it ends up going fighter to ions... then somehow start the fight and just rely on luck (+some skill) to end the game.

but when i think about it, going 14 cols means, adding just 2 more cols gets you almost triple pump... and if thats possible, you get to pump double ions AND dd... which sounds like a huge bonus in the ion battle...

to do that... it must meet certain conditions, for one, if other side does anything but fighter/ion with about 14 cols, then your luck of using this ends, since this is the slowest possible strat that is useable in shield. so, other side going fighter rush/torp or quick ions without maxing fighters, maybe better not do this...

but if your scout sees other side going 12 to 14 cols for fighter/ion... try getting 16 cols at some point while making fighters. the point is to count other side's cols and fighers. if you get too many more cols than other side, you're dead. if other side is docking fighters, count the col amount and just predict the amount of fighters docked. also, having 2 less fighters in place of 2 more cols than other side is possible, since if you stay and never attack, having 2 less fighter disadvantage can be overcome by fighting closer to own cap ships and by the time they come in, you will probably pop your next pair soon to fight fair.

so, if you can pump 16 cols without having too less fighters, then you might just win by keep pumping fighters while you get advanced res and cap fac on ms. when cap fac is done, pump a cc, and make sure the front cc starts pumping ions soon, because if not, early ion attack can just sink all ions and the game ends. now while making cc, do a dd research, so, ms can pump dd after cc is out. this strat has a VERY tough ru management, so you will need to sell every mod possible. when cc pops out, get a frig mod and a mob ref on it, and start moving ms and cc up to the first cc while getting dd.

now this is the important part, but get ion level 1 hull first. so you can start queueing up 'improved ms manufacture', 'improved cc manufacture', 'dd hull 1' and then finally 'ion hull level 2'. i think its not possible or very hard to get level 2 dd, so i forget about it. but once those are queued up, sell advanced res mod, and obviously sell fighter mods. and its probably a good idea to get a cloak on front cc to avoid early ion attacks and you can hide till the dd pops out and hope other side doesnt come in at the slight moment when you're a bit fragile right before dd is out with proxy.

after you get cloak and frig mod on second cc, sell res mod... yes you need to sell res mod or level 2 ion is impossible, and even with it sold, its slightly lagging, so you will probably have to pause the research to make sure the actual ship build does not stall.

i've somehow won several games with this ... only done it 3 times so far. maybe it actually works...

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after several try againt cpu, i figured level 2 ion is kinda too laggy. so might as well just drop it completely. and hope that fire power just exceeds the loss of some hull.

got it almost in a stable manner, except i havent still beaten people who beat this before it got better.
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ms - 1 scout, 2 cols, fighter mod straight to fighters. this is important to get fighters fast, so you will not get ganged early with 12 col rushers.

cc - fighter mod and plat mod bit by bit. no need to hurry on either of it. keep pumping cols until 15 or 16. though 15 still works. if other side goes less than 12, then stop this strat, do something else.

the good thing about this strat is you can also stop 1/0 fighter rush since plat mod and fighter mod are built on cc while ms has gone fast fighters. if other side does it, just stop cols at 9 or 10, do fighter and plat and u win.

if other side does some weird 10 cols rush, then just go 12, fighter mod and plat mod, get res mod, u still win.

so, the strat is based on that other side going over 12 cols.
once fighter mod is up on cc, just get fighters after going 15 cols. by the time other side starts to pump their 2 fighters, u already have 2 fighters from ms which can be sitting near cc.

the advanced method in here is not to pump many cols from ms, since if ms pumps cols it takes a long way to get to other side, so, only pumping 2 cols to go 8 cols on ms patch is minimizing the difference going 4 cols on ms against just pumping the rest from cc.

now, just keep pumping fighters and plat mod doesnt have to be complete any time soon either, it's merely a small insurance against fighter rushers but keep it about half done and start getting res mod. and try to finish plat mod at the same time the res mod on ms is done. once res mod is complete, queue intie speed 1 and ion plat and sell plat mod. the reason for selling is, to get some quick ru and to hide the fact that u're getting ion plats. now queue arm and cap fac on ms. and once again start plat mod on cc. at the same time, sell scout and get a probe. to get some extra ru and a space for another fighter.

by the time the inties are about 10 or so cc has plat mod complete, sell fighter mod and start pumping ion plats and also arm should be about complete too. get ion plat hull 1. now when arm is complete, queue intie speed 2, improved ms manufacture but dont go get improved ms manufacture yet, coz it'll probably lag. now when cap fac is complete, get a new cc, sell fighter mod, i usually even sell fighter mod even if i only have 13 fighters and not 14. queue dd research, cc improved manfacture and sell arm, so cc does not lag.

the second patch should be fairly safe looking with about 6 ion plats against 3 or so ion frigs. once cc pops out, the dd research should be about done. queue dd hull 1 and start getting dd and keep pausing research at necessary moments as they'll lag stuff. now get a frig mod and a mob from cc, start moving cc up, start moving ms up when mob is out. this moment is the most laggy moment, so handle well. better to get a cloak mod on first cc, so it'll help brilliant against fighter fights by hiding the docking ships as well as just cloak and hide against ion rushing attack. getting ion plat hull 2 is kinda tough to get, so i dont get it. now once cloak mod and frig mods are up, queue ion frig hull 1 and sell res mod...

this should kind of get most of the things without serious lag. and once all done, it'll have ion plat and ion frig and dd pumping against usually double ion frigs which would kinda annihilate them. well, mostly...

ok... after losing (though won some), a few more points to add.

- no need to sell plat mod... hiding the fact of going ion plat may be cool, but saving some small cash is better.
- build frig mod instead of keep pumping ion plats. plat hull is just too damn to keep using.
- if possible go 16 cols or 1 of the upgrade is nearly impossible. (usually cc improved manufacture since that needs to be the last upgrade or everything else lags)
- stay still... than attack.
- manage the damn fighters... (losing it means, losing cap mod... which is kinda gg)

You only have to build 6 ion plats before switching to ion frigs on that cc. Wouldn't bother upgrading those plats either. Only getting 6 ion plats also means corv counters will be less usefull for your opponent. But i'm still wondering why you didn't follow mini's lead and build corvs aswel, after all 12 corvs can pretty much anilate anything real fast w/ out a counter.

12 corvs... while i get my ass wiped with his double ions...
i've made vettes against sadend one day and keep pumping vette was kinda bad against double ions, since vettes doesnt do good on frigs, but maybe on cols. but i still like to win it by over powering other side...

yeah u prolly can switch with just about 6 plats or so.

ahh, just read this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=62&p=330#p330
Though he beat you w/ a ton of corvs. lol

Sounds like the only reason you lost was cause you attacked too early. Simple mistake.

and ... after theoretically losing (actually won since i just won the fighters...) against cloaked, i figured that having more ion plat is better.

having just 3 or so ion plat is bad but having over 10 starts to look better than going early ion frigs, since plats have this great range that can toast enemy ion frig before they can fire, thus, going early ion will get all enemy ion in range to kill own ion frigs, so, i'd say go over 10 ion plat then switch to ion frigs. dunno if level 2 hull is necessary, since 6 ion will toast a single plat with single burst and upgrading might make less sense. but whats good about plat is, if all ion frigs attack on it, the ion beam will be wasted instead of having full use, because plat just dies off fast.

so, thats another advantage on plats if other side doesnt target multiple ion plats at once.

after cloaked going bc in shield... which provoked me to go bc...
with 16 cols, its pretty possible, and somewhat usable, but if the other side knows that going vertical against ion plats, then all becomes suddenly bad...

and now, sy lord told me to get dd from sy instead of bc, now it looks better, yet at 10min, when there's only 10 ion plats and 1 ion frig but nothing else till 12 min till dd pops out from ms, that weak time is really bad.

i nearly gave up on sy build, but here's a rough queue.

do same as double cc, except dont go fighters on cc, only build plat mod, get ion plat research, just keep pumping it, while getting single fighter off ms. if other side rush fighters, get gun plats and u're safe, i think...

get cap fac on ms before arm, get dd research, but keep getting fighters at least up to 12. start arm, when arm is about done, get hyper mod on cc and when its done, get sy. cc should have 10 ion plats or so by then. queue bc, sy improved manufacture, ms improved manufacture and sell arm for sy cost.

when sy arrives, get mob and send it to ms, move ms up with dd building, sell fighter mod.
sell hyper mod and get cloak mod on cc and queue dd hull and when cloak mod is built, sell res mod, forget bc hull.

just hope other side doesnt move vertical over plats and u might have a chance...
dd move is simpler without getting bc research and sy improved manufacture. thus should less ru lagging and something should pop out of sy earlier. never played dd version against anyone, but still around 10 min, it looks semi weak with vertical double ion approach.

last those 2 bloody sy labs showed me a better build for double cc
now u guys are all going to bow down

won't write till i pwn everyone...

[edit, havent pwned everyone yet but, added queue : i need to do this againt my concept prover cloaked ]

ms - fighter mod, scout, 2 cols queued, pump 12 fighters.
cc - plat mod, 5 cols, sit on second patch doing nothing after that.

at 2 min, start res mod, when done, get ion plat research and fighter speed 1. start arm soon after.
on cc, queue a col and a mob, send mob to ms patch, advance ms and start pumping 6 ion plats.

when arm is 70% done, start frig mod on cc, sell plat mod when 6 plats are out.
queue cap fac on ms, when arm is done, queue fighter speed 2.
when cap fac is done, queue dd research, ms/cc improved manufacture, ion frig hull 1, sell arm.
get a new cc on ms and a cloak mod on cc.

when cc is out, queue 10 dd on ms and queue dd hull 1, get frig fac on that cc pump 2 cols and add on second patch.
when frig fac is built, sell res mod.

but at this point, if there's any chance of seeing hyper dd from other side, stop research and pause grav at 95%.
complete the grav when the dd enters hyper.

pause research or mod that isnt needed right away and nothing really lags.

also, this will only have 12 fighters, so, never try to fight at their cap ships or something or fighters will lose hard against 14 fighters. fighting at own 3 cap ships with cloak docking technique, lack of 2 fighters mean pretty much nothing.

go, double frig pump and dd and own.

[philosophy behind this move]

- the initial move is same as the one to protect against less than 10 col fighter rushers with fighter/plat, so they can easily be defended with 10-12 cols. which leads other side to go over 12 cols.

- the initial col is 14 col, which means, if other side goes over 12 cols (which is almost forced), this strat is good to go. until other side goes over 16 cols, then something more might need to be done (ex : bc)

- go only fighter on ms and plat on cc to save some waste, though if other side fighter rushes later, it can be a problem without gunplats.

- early ion plats protect early double ion attacks with 5 ion frigs or so.

- sell as much as one can sell and by forgetting some level 2 upgrades, one can go triple pump quite fast.

imo, this owns.

SY wins on Shield! woot!

lol, after a quick 'lab game. Turns out getting a sy to counter an extra cc, kinda pffts up 2xcc move bad. With Hideki going 16colls, int>6ionplats>2xcc>2xion pump>dd pump - I went 18colls, 9 on each patch (most u can put on shield effeciently) and did some rather cool double dd build:

First move ms to front patch, kept cc over home patch. This keeps your fragile cc out of harms way, and saves me an mob. Keeping cc in back is just fine as you'll be on the defense for the first 12mins of the game till your 2 dd pop. I always move ms ahead of my cc's in tight 3v3 games, so i'm starting to do the same on shield too.

I get res mod at 2:25, and then i get adv>frig mod on cc. When adv is half done i get hyp>cap mods on ms. When adv finishes start your sy. Sy only costs 1k more than another cc, and with the 800ru you save from skipping a mob, its not a problem. Make sure to sell your fighter mods once you get 12int and start lv2 speed, this will give u 1k to spend on that sy.

Your cap fac on ms will finish about when the sy is done. Start dd research and get cap on sy. You should be able to get 2 dd out at 12mins, with about 6ions from your cc - all lv2 hulls. Sell adv mod after que-ing lv2 dd, lv2 ions - and i always que bc too for fun.

Against hid's 2xcc move - he never had an advantage over me in the build. At 11:30 he tried attacking me with 1dd, 6ions, and 6ion plats, but at the same time I had 1 dd, 6ions, and a 2nd dd out shortly after.

I haven't tried doing this move strait up against anyone but hideki. But I'd say this has a fair shot at beating anyone going 16colls int>2xion pump. U really shouldn't be thinking of this move unless your opponent goes 16 colls tho, since you really need to have 18 colls to do this without lag. Double dd may be possible to do on 16 colls instead of 18 though, I'll have to try it. This is a risky move, but its just soo solid. Unless your opponent does old school int>torps, i don't see it being easy to beat. If you want somin less risky then you can get a frig mod on your ms instead of a cap fac and go 2x ion pump with late dd from sy. You'll only have 1 less ion that someone going int>ion, and you can always switch into double dd from ms too later in the game. 2xcc move is limited in that you can nvr go higher than a 1x dd pump - with this move, you can even get bc latter in game if you need it.

-I'm also thinking i need to add ion plats in this strat to protect from u going 2x ion pump and killing me.