I've been playing Zorg Empire Generals for a little over a week now and have had it brought to my attention, painfully and thoroughly, that unless you play a fleet general and have predators there is absolutely no way to maintain any type of fleet with the hope of winning. I looked up the stats on the predator and the nearest comparable ship (destroyer) and ran the numbers. In a fight just between those two class of ships it would take 12 destroyers to beat 1 predator. That just seems completely overpowered. I could understand if the predator had double the destroyers stats without the rapid fire (kind of like the voyager compared to large transports) but as it is right now there is no possible way for a non-fleet general to fight against that except with Death Stars. At this point I'm prepared to say, "screw it" and move to another universe.

Is there any way to competitively fight against this ship type and/or changes to its stats going to be made, if so could you please tell me?

Regards,
Desmerit

Predators exist only in generals, you better try xtreme or speed

Predators are just that, better destroyers. Have you tried them against battleships? or RIP? Even LF,HF and SR should do fine against them.

Sure they are advantageous in the end but other generals have other advantages too.

Note: You can close this account on generals (put it in vmode) and create a new one to try fleet general. See if you can do as good as your opponents. See if you can do better than your current general. In short, find your play style.

So to reply to the title assumption, Predators = Win just like Star Raiders = Win and just like Storage Den = Win, etc. This is what I think.

Yeah, I've been crunching numbers and I'm working feverishly to get to Death Stars (rips) and establish a battleship fleet. I'm hoping I can finally be competitive here in the near future (assuming I can continue to hide my fleet). Thank you for the responses, its still going to be extremely difficult to win engagements against fleet generals but I at least can see the light at the end of the tunnel now ^_^

*note* It takes roughly 6 battle cruisers with same level of technology to efficiently eliminate 1 predator, while still unfavorable odds the actual cost ratio is very similar.

Battlecruisers suffer RF from Predators though. When you compare a ship that suffers RF towards another, it will always lose in the end. RF is a quick comparison way.

Combinations is what matters most.

Predators were very powerful in last round and many people suggested that we wimp them. And we did. So, predators are weaker than they were in last round. If you check the last round results ( http://generals.zorgempire.org/hof/t1.html ) you will only find 2 fleet generals in top 10.

This round, we expect more of them in top 10 because the round is longer and because RIP research cost (as well as LG) has been fixed.

Still, I will have to say that if having a fleet is your style, then you picked the wrong general. The general affects your playing style. I tried Raid General in my week-long test in this tournament but due to having few time, I could not do as well. I did far better with Defense general last tournament.

lets take a step back into history. the first fleet crash ever... dude scanes... sees a fleet of destroyers. he launched same number of battle ships. he lost the battle... wow them destroyers where way over powering... you know what happened later... that guy launched again.... with way more ships.. thus winning the battle and making profit...
so how do you beat a stronger ship.... by sending more ships...

what are predators?

Predator is the special Unit of Fleet General. It comes in as a bigger and better Destroyer in order to full fill what destroyer cannot do. It is cheap and has solid rapid fire against all top dogs while it receives rapid fire from none. Even without rapid fire, its firepower and shield values are very competitive. Any fleeter will find this ship useful and indeed in big scale battles, this ship may prove to be the winning point.


Structure points 220.000
Shield Strength 1.000
Attack Points 4.000
Cargo Capacity 2.000 Units
Base Speed 10.000
Fuel Consumption (Deuterium) 300

I am appalled that nobody has mentioned the deut consumption of a predator after all this time. That is the most OP stat I have ever seen in ZE. Forget the shields, rf, and weapons.

In order to get the same amount of firepower to an enemy that matches say 100 predators (30,000 deut) here's what you must sacrifice in deut to launch.

Let's start with the best non-rip ship that doesn't suffer rf to the mighty op predator.

B-ship: 200,000 deut (6.67 times as much deut cost to achieve the same firepower, while receiving less shielding)
BC: 142,000 deut (5.7 times as much deut to achieve same firepower, while getting owned by rf)
DSTRY: also 200,000 to achieve the same stats, while getting owned by rf


We get the point. The only option for these is to change deut consumption to a MINIMUM 1,500, or give either a BC, DS, or LG some rf against them.

Honestly the ridiculously cheap launch cost has made the little guys/miners much easier to farm. The margin of profit is much easier to achieve seeing as how this ship costs only a bit more than a BC to launch, while receiving over 5x the firepower, and 2.5x the shielding.

The fact that those are the final stats is a crime against humanity.

When the general server resets zorg will open a discussion/suggestion topic, their you can post your suggestion, i'm sure we all have some to give.