Combat System

[Supamand]

Because planet can only hit 1 target per round.

That's not true. The planet will attack as many ships in a single round as it can with its attack value.

[making numbers up] So if a outpost has an attack of 11 and a probe has a defense of 1, then -each round- the planet will destroy 11 probes. Target selection continues until the attack value is all assigned.

That makes no sense if what Lee said is accurate:

ATK is a direct amount of damage dealt per round while DEF is half the total damage that can be taken per battle. So to take a 400mu planet with no other defenses in a single round you'd need 125 Dreadnaughts. (so you'd only loose 1 Dreadnaught.)

Because if the planets attack is continuous to all ships, you would actually loose ~20 Dreadnaughts (2800/137).

[JetJaguar2000]

Well, I just lost another fleet of 9 destroyers to this "undefended" outpost, and I'm done messing around with combat until I hear a reasonable explanation for why the combat system is so absurd. Destroyers and cruisers are useless units if they can't take an undefended outpost.

Also, the fact that damage to an outpost or colony does not appear to be cumulative after multiple attacks seems lame to me. The fact that you lose your entire attack force every time you don't bring enough to win is just silly. If the game is going to be set up that way, it should just tell you flat out before you attack that you won't win, so you don"t waste endless numbers of ships because you're one damage short.

[VanderLegion]

Well, I just lost another fleet of 9 destroyers to this "undefended" outpost, and I'm done messing around with combat until I hear a reasonable explanation for why the combat system is so absurd. Destroyers and cruisers are useless units if they can't take an undefended outpost.

Also, the fact that damage to an outpost or colony does not appear to be cumulative after multiple attacks seems lame to me. The fact that you lose your entire attack force every time you don't bring enough to win is just silly. If the game is going to be set up that way, it should just tell you flat out before you attack that you won't win, so you don"t waste endless numbers of ships because you're one damage short.

Are you sure it was an outpost you were attacking and not a colony? What type of planet was it? The first time I killed an outpost I'm pretty sure I only had like 5 destroyers. Since then I've had larger fleets so I can't say for sure, but I've definitely never had an issue killing an outpost. Haven't tried any colonies yet, not nearly a big enough fleet for THAT...

[Tsagoth]

I wonder if this is your fight I'm looking at. 9 somethings of ATK 5 going in on an outpost and getting flamed. It's a bug. I can see the attackers shooting but for some reason the planet is not taking the hits correctly.

I'm actively working on this now.

[JetJaguar2000]

Ok, I guess that is good to hear. Yes, 30 minutes ago or so I sent 9 destroyers there. Prior to that, 4 cruisers and 3 destroyers. All ships lost.

It is an outpost on a jovian world, zero population (got a chance to scan as my latest fleet was getting slaughtered).

[Supamand]

I wonder if this is your fight I'm looking at. 9 somethings of ATK 5 going in on an outpost and getting flamed. It's a bug. I can see the attackers shooting but for some reason the planet is not taking the hits correctly.

I'm actively working on this now.

Oh thank you, I had a similar thing where I lost a colony ship attacking an outpost...

[Tsagoth]

It looks to be some bad math in the modifiers being applied by skills. Although the destroyers are doing double damage, the same error is increasing the planet's mitigation and reducing the damage to 2.

I'm still working through the trace, but I'm thinking this will be patched tomorrow, assuming I don't uncover any other problems.

[Tsagoth]

I was wrong about the mitigation. Small ships do less damage vs a planet by design. This would predate the introduction of the Mining Outpost ship. So I'm going to change it such that if the colony is < 100Mu people, you do full damage. Otherwise the planet will mitigate most of the attack damage.

[JetJaguar2000]

Tsagoth, can you let us know when this is patched? I would like to continue my assault on this hardened fortress of a mining outpost.

[Tsagoth]

Yes, I will. Just been very busy looking into the push problem and it's worse than I thought.