Effective use of Nenzui Younglings

[Kraiz]

So, I've never really used Nenzui ships.  I try to avoid them, as the concept never really interested me.

However, I figured I'd give them a try, since I felt I was limiting myself to some powerful fleet ship alternatives that I just didn't understand.

I tried using Mobile Space docks in my fleet to continuously build these in combat, but that became very annoying with constant explosions of the ships, and it ramped up reprisal waves from what I could tell, although I don't have any empirical evidence to back that up.

So, my two questions are this.

What benefit is there to using Nenzui Younglings?  What is so good about them that makes the self-attrition worth it?

And

What are some effective ways of using these?   Given the regeneration chamber, these seem like they would be superb defensive ships, but outside of that, I'm not really certain.

[keith.lamothe]

Neinzul Younglings can scour the galaxy clean in record time

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10154.0.html



Personally I tend to use them (especially tigers, but a combination is even more effective, especially with nanoswarms in a supporting role) in a "dock cannon" configuration:
- pick target AI planet
- get supply on a neighboring planet, bring in a big pile of engineers (IIIs work well for this rapid redeployment, but IIs can be built onsite too)
- build a bunch of space docks (preferably under forcefields) right next to the wormhole leading to the target
- select all the docks
- tab to the galaxy map
- v+right-click the target planet to set it to "all produced ships go here in FRD mode"
- tab back to the docks
- set it to loop
- queue desired youngling types
- switch view to target planet
- grab popcorn and watch the AI defenders die screaming


Nowadays, yes, the reprisal mechanic does add extra cost to doing stuff like that, but that's partly because the above tactic is so powerful that it needed some counterbalance.  Personally I still abuse it heavily and the reprisals aren't a huge concern.

[Kraiz]

I use that tactic judiciously with Railpods and Autobombs whenever I have them.

Reprisals are based on metal cost of units, I've noticed, and I'm guessing the low M cost of the younglings makes the Reprisals not so bad.

[keith.lamothe]

If you're already familiar with railpods then you'll fit right in here.  They'd work great together, too.  Railpods are fantastic to "break in" to a planet but can be extremely inefficient for "sweeping" that planet of objectives.  A tiger-flood is often great for sweeping (fast moving, good power against FFs, lasts long enough to get the job done) but against a really tough-nut planet can have a hard time getting out of the doorway.

And yes, the low metal cost is why throwing away 100 mk*caps of younglings doesn't result in an immediate reprisal murderwave.

[Kraiz]

I use that tactic judiciously with Railpods and Autobombs whenever I have them.

Reprisals are based on metal cost of units, I've noticed, and I'm guessing the low M cost of the younglings makes the Reprisals not so badI have unlocked the Tigers in the game I'm playing as I type this, and just used the Tiger swarm.  Works very well.

Are any of the others good for this purpose?  Do they have different niches?

[keith.lamothe]

The Tiger is the best sweeper since it gets bonuses against forcefields.

The Vulture also accelerates cleanup due to its bonus vs stuff with low % health, though I wouldn't want to do a Vulture flood just by itself if I could help it.

The Commando is similar to the tiger but with different bonuses; less useful for FFs and such but Tiger+Commando is much better than just Tigers when facing mixed large groups.

The Weasel also has different bonuses and (iirc) is a decent combatant.  But I'd probably get more use out of it as a support element to a main fleet: enough weasels (especially replaced on-demand by MSDs or whatever) and your whole fleet is essentially immune to missiles.  If I'm remembering correctly, at least.

The Nanoswarm is kind of like the ultimate-sower-of-chaos, though it does minimal damage by itself.  All those AOE debuffs, plus repainting the entire target system in reclamation-damage, can be great.  And the AI ships in general have a much harder time responding coherently to an attacking fleet when there's dozens of doomshrooms flying all over the place every second.  You've probably seen that from autobombs.

The Shrike is a much more recently added unit, and I haven't done much with it myself.  I figure the whole being-cloaked thing gives it its own niche, though

[Kraiz]

Interesting.  I'm enjoying the suggested usage of the Tigers.  I'll have to play with the others in an experiment game or if I get them in my current one.

[Bognor]

Given the regeneration chamber, these seem like they would be superb defensive ships

I've used them defensively, but not with regen chambers.  Build times are proportional to metal costs.  If you have half a dozen Space Docks on every planet you care about, plus a few engies for support, you can very rapidly summon up a cheap yet effective youngling army to deal with an unexpected marauder appearance/threat incursion/hybrid attack/whatever.  Works best if you set up alerts on each planet for >=1 hostile unit present.