On the Importance of Using Seeker Vessels

Tonight while playing Sins of a Solar Empire I accidentally stumbled upon a pirate cove. Aside from feeling like I was one of The Hardy Boys, I also felt a tremendous new feeling: joy and sorrow, an emotion I shall heretofore call "jorrow". Jorrow is the feeling you get when you are about to watch your ships open a Costco-sized can of whoopass on an enemy, yet are abundantly aware that there is a good chance that none of your guys are going to walk away from that can and, in fact, it is most likely that your opponent will be the one to pick up your empty whoopass can and limp it over to Michigan for a ten cent return deposit.

Of course, had I just sent a lowly seeker, it would have been summarily blown up and all would have been right with the cosmos. I'd put an easy reference label on the planetoid — "Don't Ever Go Here" — and be on my merry way.

Of course, this just wasn't going to be the case.

No, instead I go and do something stupid. Punch drunk with the false bravado of having annihilated a few planets with an unstoppable killfleet of three capital ships stewing in a rich, soup-like slurry of auxiliary warcraft, I forged ahead ready to conquer whatever puny forces might dare to stand in my way.

This is pretty much exactly what happened that one time I drove sixteen siege tanks and a science vessel into uncharted Zerg territory back in college. No one came out of that one alive. Nobody human, at least.

So my righteous killfleet shows up at a new and unexplored world that, to my chagrin, is teeming with pirate ships. "Bacterial" would be how I'd describe their numbers. To say there were 50 would be an understatement, primarily because 50 is well below the number of ships that were left standing after they'd blown up all of my forces and were humbly waiting for my ill-fated light brigade of a second wave to show up. God love 'em, the ships in that second wave were so new they weren't even fully paid for yet.

Fortunately, we have this thing called a save game. My original assessment was simply, "stay the hell away from Pirateland", but upon further thought, I have to wonder if a two-tier assault with a large fleet of nothing but carriers and defensive vessels wouldn't be more helpful. Cluster attacks are obviously going to be critical, but I have to wonder if cracking this egg is worth the investment of time and strategy, or if I'm better off leaving it cordoned off and isolated until the end of the game.