So as of right now, there is no point in attacking planets, correct? I've been messing around in Aruru attacking someone's Colony to no avail. But I'm doing it more just to learn how the combat system works, rather than actually trying to acquire the colony. I mean, if I do acquire it, all the better, but no hard feelings if I don't.
Supamand - It turns out that my understanding of the combat system was flawed in a few pretty important ways so I've been spreading some disinformation. There are some systems in the game that I had a more direct hand in designing (trade / tech progressions / resource production) but combat isn't one of them. Anyhow, the big thing that I misunderstood was that an attackers ATK is distributed amongst targets until all it's damage has been dealt. For example if a ship with an ATK of 18 would destroy 9 ships with a DEF of 1 in a single attack. Previously my understanding was that attackers could only choose a single target per round so the ship with an ATK of 18 would only destroy 1 ship per round.
If you've ever played Magic the Gathering it's like the difference between how regular creatures attack and block vs. creatures with trample. In EotE ships attack as though they're all creature with trample.
Clearly I'll need to revise the tutorial, since there's demand for a written manual I'll create that first with the updated information and then go back and revise the videos.
Oh wow, ok. So because of this trample, a colony attacking with a large ATK would spread that damage down the line, like a domino effect, correct? Once one ship is killed, the remaining damage just moves on to the next target, and so on?
No wonder we're all losing so many ships when attacking planets.
Haha, come on. So in the previously described scenario, 125 dreads could kill the planet in one round, but you would lose ~10 dreads in the process, not just 1.
Conversely, an undefended planet wipes out any attacking fleet of defense equal to 10 dreads in a single round (factoring in 2x DEF rating). That's ~470 destroyers, or 155 cruisers, for those of you following along at home. That's just to SURVIVE a SINGLE ROUND of combat against the "undefended" planet. Of course every subsequent round that many ships get wiped out again. If there are actually defenses in place, who knows.
So obviously planets are not meant to be attacked by conventional means. I admit, it's still early in the game, but I still don't see how anyone is going to amass those kind of fleets by the end of the game, and that's not even taking in to consideration that planets will be much more populated and well "defended" as the game progresses.
I'll reserve final judgement until I've played through a game or two, but this sounds crazy to me. Theoretically, it seems like this guarantees no meaningful early to mid-game interactions between players, since early to mid-game ships are not capable of being a threat to anyone. I suppose outposts are still relatively vulnerable (once the bugs there are fixed), but stealing someone's outpost is not going to have much of an effect at all in this game. To really hurt someone, you are going to have to take out their shipyards and colonies, which you simply won't be able to do conventionally. Fifty bucks says the guy who wins the games is the guy who played almost by himself until he hit the victory condition. Trader win seems most likely, but I can imagine a guy not having any conventional encounters with other players ultimately coming out of nowhere with a planet killer or solar tap and just quickly blowing up 15 worlds unopposed.
I don't understand why you're so convinced that killing colonies is the only meaningful interaction in this game...Originally Posted by JetJaguar2000
Really? Look at your homeworld. How much mineral production is it getting you, 1k CO and maybe a little RO? I don't care how many shipyards/defenses you have, colonies alone aren't going to make you NEARLY enough ore to actually build anything. If you kill all of osmeone's outposts, they're pretty much going to be dead in the water unable to do anything with just their colonies.I suppose outposts are still relatively vulnerable (once the bugs there are fixed), but stealing someone's outpost is not going to have much of an effect at all in this game. To really hurt someone, you are going to have to take out their shipyards and colonies, which you simply won't be able to do conventionally.
^ Agreed. But I do see the point Jet is trying to make. If his math is correct, and I'm pretty sure it is, 470 destroyers to take a planet sounds crazy. And 125 Dreads is ALOT just to one shot a colony. If you think about it in real world terms (not that we have dreadnoughts in Space capable of doing planetary bombardments). It would probably only take 50 or so to completely obliterate the civilian population of an entire planet in a relatively short amount of time. Think of Halo and the Covenant "Glassing" whole planets in less than a day.
What makes these planets so special that they can take such a beating? I don't want people taking out colonies with a small band of Dreads, but if someone put their mind to it and really wanted to put together a planet killing force, I think it should be easier than 150 Dreads. You would need 900,000 units of RO to make 150 Dreads. Even with trading, that sounds like a lot.
Last edited by ChickenHawk07; 05-30-2012 at 05:24 PM.
It's not a lot. Trust me
You don't have anywhere near 900k RO, and if you do it just proves the game is even more bizarre than I thought. I'm not just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, and I have literally 500 RO. If there is some secret non-exploitative pathway to increasing that output by 3 orders of magnitude, the game can't be taken seriously.
Haha my bad, I thought he said 900k CO. I should have read that more carefully. Yes, 900k RO IS a lot.
Good luck.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote