Overview

• Lizards are the fourth "official" racepack to be released by Tim (September 2000). They have big, unsubtle ships and a couple of cloakers. They have special rules covering their ground combat, making them especially effective. Their cloaker can carry 3,000 assault troops and that's all they need to terrorise the galaxy.
• Any resemblance to Star Trek's Gorn is purely coincidental.
• As in VGAP3, they can Hiss (terrorise) planets to increase tax income to exceptional levels without incurring riots, so they're awash with cash.
• Unlike VGAP3, their cloakers can be effectively decloaked by Lokis.
• With a farming range of 48 to 95, they will compete with Crystals for farmable worlds. Possibly a natural ally for Lizards is the Stormers; they can't use each others' best farming worlds. (No conflict.) Because they're able to use the key 50 degree temperature to farm, most planets are suitable. (Because most tend towards 50 degrees as they heat up / cool down during the game. They eventually stabilise at a temperature determined mainly by their star type, and it's usually near 50 degrees).
• Training: Middle range training rates along with a 110% growth rate will allow them to field an adequate number of troops but not exceptional. Very few High Guard relative to the Stormers, but still more than the Federation.
• The low Spy (Psi?) rating makes it more difficult for them to aquire other races ship plans. The low PSI rating slows down gathering of goodies.
• Able to use most planetary structures.. Notable exceptions are: No Anti-Aircraft batteries, Laser Cannons, Ion Cannons or Under Cities. Can Terraform and build Base Shields and Resorts. No special structures yet.

Using special racial abilities

Using special ship devices

The Paticle Fountion also increases Planet Stress (but not as much as Mining Laser) Do NOT use on your own homeworld! On other worlds, be ready to ship out the natives and colonists before the world dies or else use a dampener.

DO use a Particle Fountain along with your Scaler Wave Amp on your enemy's homeworld. In fact, do it early and often.

S = Stress in Hoaglands
I = Inertia
B = Base Frequency in HoaglandHertz
DS = Delta Stress (Change in stress)
H = SquareRoot( I )
DS = B - SquareRoot( I )
S = S + DS

Recommended colonisation strategy

Lizards should take advantage of their 190 mining by strip mining. Don't worry about excess mines causing natives to be upset; build a cheap version of your tech 2 ship and start hissing.

The Particle Fountain is also effective at increasing the temperature of a planet. The Eros is intended to cool it back down to optimum farming level.

Strategy suggestions

• Attack Air 10
• Attack Ground Troops 50
• Attack Cities 30
• Attack Ground Units 50
• Defense From Air Attack 200
• Defense From Ground Troops 230
• Defense From Ground Units 240

This was thought very neat by the Beta Tester community, but an intense debate decided it was Too Good. And what about crew-transfers to enemy ships from the Lizard cloakers? A single Lizard could capture any ship(Nova, Cube or whatever) despite the fact that powerful hand weapons are (presumably) available to crew on a ship. So Tim changed the ground-combat thus:

• Lizards have 100% normal ship boarding party combat. They only have their special combat powers when there is a plentiful supply of large boulders to throw at the enemy.
• I will drop the immunity idea and replace it with:
• Lizards get a massive combat bonus when fighting enemy colonists, troops and crew in ground combat. They kill 30 times normal when fighting enemy colonists, troops and crew. They have no special advantages when fighting assault craft or fighters.
• They do not have any special advantages when fighting enemies during ship boarding actions.

Strategies against particular races:

If you run into Stormers, just upgrade your ships and send them their way; it won't be long until the Stomers cry "uncle". If they refuse then mine their home world from orbit with the Saurian Particle Foution, getting minerals while ruining the Stormers economy by global warming, and if you keep it up evenually the planet will explode.

Against Borg, drop your Lizard troops with Kill 3X orders so the Borg won't have time to assisulate them.

In very early game, the Feds are no match for you, but once they can build Lokis watch out! The best ship you have for taking out Lokis is another Loki; your other ships with attack bonuses to offset the Loki's 70% evasive bonus are very vulerable to Ion Cannons which everybody has by then.

Combat against Feds: Mix-in both your unique ship designs along with stolen Fed plans. His response is a win-win-win for you.

• He can just have just anti-armor weapons (Ion Cannons), which are very ineffective aginst the stolen fed design ships.
• He can just have just anti-shield weapons (Sand Casters), which are very ineffective against your iron clads.
• He can mix weapons types, which can make them easier for your point defense systems to shoot down.

Techs: Don't bother with Hyperdrives or Superweapons. You can't use either one.

• Shields is a low priority. (The best one you can use is 900 and that's on stolen Fed designs.)
• Weapons tech (both small & large) is a high priority. Large is a higher priority than small.
• Engine tech is a very high priority with you having low hull tech ships capiable of going 190.
• Hull tech is a medium priority. There's really no point advancing past Hull Tech 8 until you can build Turbo Weapons Arrays for your T-Rexs.

Lizard fighters:

Types 1 & 2 are Iron Clads with 40 Armor! Forget about Sandcasters. They are also very expensive, 300 & 350 MC a piece.

Type 1 appears designed for long range strikes on planets with the 120 ly range. The weapons have a very short range and are limited in numbers, but they are accurate and these fighters are 50% evasive. Type 2 has more weapons, longer ranges, but have zero evasive bonus like type 1. (Easy to shoot down by conventional PD & fighters) Type 3 is much more affordable (80 MC each) however the weapons are inaccurate in space, and not evasive. Perhaps it's for shooting down Enemy Lizards on your planet.

Miscellaneous notes

"A low PC rating may prove a hinderance with natives but the 90 PR is not much lower than normal." - David Ouimet

Jon Nunn: More imporantly, the non-PC gives them tax bonuses running the conservative (and ulta-conservative) economy and tax penalty running complex. The 90 Public Relations is still high enough to get a bonus running Liberal economy.

A high Leadership should help along with a good Lawfulness.

Yes, the Leadership also gives tax bonuses running conservative (and ultra-conservative.)

The good lawfulness prevents them from having happiness problems on liberal, and tax & happiness problems on enslavement.

Ships

David Ouimet's / Jon Nunn's Lizard Ship notes:

Common ships such as freighters are ignored. Note that the damage vulnerability is negligable and over all their ships are BASE LINE NO STRONGER than any other race as the key factors of BLAST and KILL do not seem to be modified in any way. All Lizard ships seem to have resonable scanner ranges and high repair making them sturdy and effective attack/patrol units. Most ships look to be fairly cheap, so the Lizards may prove to be an effectve Swarm Race like the Borg.

• Serpent Class Escort: As well as being an attractive looking ship it looks to be very effective. With a limited attack bonus and good weapon complement it should be effective in early fights. The high armor rating will allow them to make early pushes while other races are still trying to raise their shield tech. Tack on an early tractor beam and 1000 repair units and this is a very sturdy ship. Tack on the Psi Hisser and you have a good ship to build, and cheap. Build initally with the cheapest weapons for anti Borg Probe duty. If heavier stuff comes along, upgrade later. Watch out for enemy Ion Cannons. Limited ordance.
• Reptile Class Destroyer: Again a good combat ship. With double the Serpent's Small Weapons and Point Defense system its a good upgrade to your combat fleet. Again it has a Psi Hisser and is fairly cheap. Do note its 3000 ordnance capacity, and decent tractor beam. The Warp Drag of 30 does not mean its semi-cloaked.. it does mean it will burn less fuel than most other ships on long voyages.. The warp sig is 60, still fairly noticable.
• Eros: This ship will prove of limited use, as very few planets will be too hot for the Lizards, a ship with a Beo would have been more appropriate.
• Saurian Class Cruiser: With a warp drag signature of 90, the cloaking device seems pointless. Its weapon complement is not impressive so as a warship the ship is not a real upgrade from the Reptile. However this ship does have a Particle Fountain which will prove very useful in both mining and raising a planet's temperature. Again the Psi Hisser will prove a bonus, even helping them with natives.
• Lizard Class Cruiser: Not a good warship, but this ship does perform well in a support role. With a guest Capacity of 3000 colonists beware. Tack on a mine layer and mine sweeper and it is a very good support ship but a little ord shy. It also mounts an effective cloaking device.
• Vendetta Class Frigate: One of the few well shielded Lizard ships, it will still prove of limited use as most other Lizard ships will out perform it.
• Loki Class Destroyer: The Tachyon Emitter is a nice addition allowing them to keep cloaking races from sneaking up on the Lizards. Again fairly well shielded and armed and backed up with a good attack bonus and adequate defensive systems. It is ideal against ships with Soft Spots (because its abundance of Small Weapons give you many, many chances of hitting the opponent's critical Achille's Heel assuming you have worn down their shields and armour). It has a 70% evasive bonus which makes it very hard to hit unless the opponent has a big attack bonus so despite having no Large Weapons, it's a surprisingly effective fighting ship. Not much use against huge ships with no soft spot, though. Remember to keep Lokis away from your Lizard Class Cruisers. (You don't want to light up your OWN cloakers.)
• Madonnzila Class Carrier: A good mix between a medium carrier and a battleship. Heavly armored and fairly well armed backed up by a 1000 fighters may prove effective. Especially when it can replace combat losses on the fly with the fighter factories. - Only build if you can afford 1000 fighters, but most should be the relatively cheap Type 3. Can stand its own against light stuff, but in real combat, put it in the second wave, and arm with long range stuff (Photon Torpedos & Tachyon Beams)
• T-Rex Class Battleship: The Scalar Wave Damper is an interesting addition, but perhaps more fun is the Gravity Well Generator (so hyp ships can't get away).. It seems the Lizards have been working in some intersting technological fields. With 15 very heavy large weapon mounts and a hefty 5500 points of armor its a very durable ship with a limited punch. Perhaps more of a threat is the 8000 hissing lizards backed up by 4 pod bays and a boarding laser.. This ship is very fast and fairly cheap for its size but not as well armed or protected as I had expected. - But it seems designed for 15 Turbo Laser Arrays! Try that. Also bear in mind it only takes 30% normal damage to the hull and has no soft spot! Also has a Boarding laser. Close to point blank for optimum destruction of enemy ships. - Jon Nunn

Anti-Lizard tactics

• Use weapons which take out heaps of armour; forget about shields, they don't have any to speak of. Apart from the Vendetta and Loki, which are small Fed designs they copied (shield: 900; armour: 80 / 20 respectively), their best shield is the 400-pointer on the T-Rex, and if you're worried about 400 points of shield on a ship with 5500 armour you're really in trouble. Average armour on the actual fighting ships appears to be over 1,000 points.
• "For all you lizards out there, I have 2 words for you: Ion Cannon " - Christian Jadot. - I checked and he's right. To quote the Help Files: "The ion cannon ...does very little damage to the hull of the target, but has the nasty side effect of sending a electrical overload to the ship`s control systems, burning out control systems.... Ships which lose their control systems are unable to maneuver or fire back... The ion cannon is able to arc through 3000 units of armour and do damage to internal systems. It is very hard to shoot down an ion cannon bolt with point defense. The ion cannon`s bolts do no damage to armor .The ion bolts can not get past shields and drains a mere 4 shield power units with every hit." But: ion cannons will be little use against the top Lizard ships which have over 3,000 units of armour!
• Forget about Sandcasters: 1 : Lizard fighters are too heavily armored. 2 : Lizard ships have so little shields on them anyway.
• "Even better yet, a stormer with an Ion Cannon. 200 shield arc + the 3000 armor arc. It'll be intresting to see these 2 races fight it out. Since both of them will have barely any defence." - Christian Jadot
• Lizards will need loads of Duranium for their armour - can you deny them this resource? Destroying a Base will eliminate the ore and metal it mined too. Target ore pods?
• I suspect their massively armoured ships will need a lot of fuel, too - try to strip all planets of these
• Protect planets with assault craft (ground units) and fighters, not personnel
• Lay minefields to stop their cloakers getting near you
• Use Loki Class Destroyers (available from the Feds as well as Lizards) to decloak them
• Don't bother trying to capture their ships by transferring crew over!
• Apart from the Loki and Vendetta, their ships don't seem to have any Soft Spots, so Small Weapons are less useful against them than against most races.
• This is a bit complex, slow and probably won't work, but... I suspect their planets will have high HD Stress from all their specialist mining: so, a Scalar Wave Amp will be more effective at planet-busting Lizard worlds.
• Defending against Ground Assault: One lasercannon can kill up to 10 troops, 20 crew and 30 colonists a turn, whether they're Lizards or not.