There is that problem of choice. I personally don't research any ships computers except the Rangemaster until I get to the Molecular at the very end. I will give up a good bit to trade for some of the earlier ones. For the most part, I move along the reasearch ladders fairly evenly once I have acquired the autolab.

You can eliminate the need to choose by customizing a race and including the creative option. You get all of the picks lkie the Psilons. Frankly, I tried it a few times and thought that it took a lot of the fun out of it. I prefer to decide how I am going to build my fleet and fviguring out which technology I will need.

One other thing, I believe in settling every planet I can, no matter how puny. By the end of the game, I usually I need all the command points and research points I can get.

I can understand and relate to the frustration that someone new feels. All I can say is that as I got more familiar with the different facets of the game and worked out more things, it got easier, but never easy.

All though I now beat it fairly regularly, it is always challenging. I consider it tougher than chess. Sites such as this have been a big help over the years.

If I can be of any help in the future, don't hesitate to ask anyone here.

I defeat them with 5 armadas of battleships, consisting of 6 car, 4 IF, in inner ring, 3 LR and 3 Pt Def in escort ring and 2 Recce in the outer ring. I lose about 5 or 6 ships, but I get a cheap Solar System.

Thanks, I appreciate the help, but am unfamiliar with your terminolgy. (car, lf, lR, Pt DEFand Reece). I would appreciate it if you could help me out with it.

He's referring to the MOO3 guardian ships (there are five of them).

Those are all MOO3 terms for ship types (Carrier, Indirect Fire (missile), Long Range Attack, Point Defense, Reconnaissance). The hull types, fleet structures, etc, are also different than they are in MOO2.

Thanks. I played Moo 3 briefly when it first came out, but lost one of the disks in moving and then reverted back to Moo2. I thought that Moo 2 was better.

I did beat the defender in turn 3525.9 with Gyro Battleships. That is on the cusp. These are not stripped ships for maximum weapons, but fully equipped ships as outlined before. The only thing I left out was the Ecm Jammer.

I noticed that the only missles that the defender used were Plasma Torpedos and the Jammers weren't stopping them anyway. That is also different, the Defender is shooting 2 before the fight even starts, then 2 later. The one that he did shoot before was at the end and cost me my ship.

Taking the Ecm Jammer out allowed me to fit a 5th gyro on each ship. I sent 10 of them into battle and lost 5 but of course got the Avenger, Loknar, a lot of technology and of course the star system.

I think I am going to start to test your method of just over loading the shields and see if I can cut 10 more moves off of the time.

Any suggestions?

I have finally walked this thing up the levels of difficulty through Impossible and think that I have some understanding of the Defender of the Orion problem. It is true that all of the classification of ships carry less weapons and equipment. That means that it takes longer to build enough ships to kill the Defender. At the same time, they seem to have given the player longer to get there before one of the AI capture Orion.

I just used a Tornado battleship in the impossible mode and with the smaller ship and added aggravation of the Impossible mode captured Orion on the 3526.9 turn. In the original game, an AI would surely have captured it by the 3526.0 turn.

I use the Gyro Destabilizer because I don't get into the tactical aspects of the game and most of the missle ships depend on sequential firing of different types of missles in the proper sequence. Left to the mercy of the computer, it appears to fier them randomly.

If any one is interested in this Gyro ship, It had a Fusion drive, tritanium Armor, Class III shield, and a Positronic computer. Actually, the computer is not needed as the Gyro doesn't aim.

The weapons were 5 Gyro Destabilizers, that is all that is needed.

Special Systems is merely Battle Pod and a Reinforced Hull.

It is important to research the Force Fields through its 4th level(Electromagnetic Refraction) to miniaturize the Gyros enough to fit on the ship. I sent 10 of them and lost three before they killed the Defender.

There is one more thing, This ship has no defense against missles. You don't really need it against the defender, but as soon as the Orion is captured, I refit it to include the ECM Jammer. The AI opponents will have missles.