Combat System

[ChickenHawk07]

Maybe by the end of two months you could get 900K even with Trading, but it still doesn't negate the fact that 1 Super Capital Ship could take out a force equal to its attack rating in One Shot. I like how Lee described the way combat works before he realized there was a Trample function in all combat. Just think about like this, for a mental reference:

Let's say a Super Dreadnaught has an attack of 200 and a Defense of 250 (I don't know what is is, as I'm a Trader and can't build them) and he's attacking a force of Destroyers. The Super Dread would be able to one-shot 66 Destroyers if he fired first and not take any damage. If combat is simultaneous than he could one-shot 49 Destroyers and not be Destroyed. 50 Destroyers all firing simultaneously would Kill a Dread in one round, but there would only be 1 left standing if battles are simultaneous. If it is in Rounds, then you would need 50 Destroyers to get the first shot to kill a Dread without retaliation.

[ChickenHawk07]

I think this Trample function needs to be looked at, as it doesn't make sense Logically. I don't know what type of weapons these units use as their main guns, but it just doesn't seem right that damage dealt to one unit which is destroyed should travel to the next unit in equal proportion. I understand fusion reactors going critical and taking out nearby ships, but even then, the damage dealt there would be more like Shrapnel and not focused on the next ship in line. As it stands right now, is that it's basically like the larger attacker (Planet or Super Dread) has a really high powered rifle and his targets are all lined up in a row. It can kill as many of those that are in a row as their defense stacks to, 66 in the case of a Super Dread with a theroretical ATK of 200.

The way I think it should work is this, the attacker can only one-shot as many weaker ships as he has guns to bear. Not sure how many that is in the game, but it would make sense logically.

[VanderLegion]

The way I look at it: in pretty much any sci-fi anything, capital ships don't just have 1 big weapon, they have lots of em. Look at star destroyers in Star Wars, they have tons of turbolasers. Basically, the crew of the ship know about what it takes to kill an enemy ship, so they can spread their fire across multiple targets instead of just focusing everything on one at a time.

[JetJaguar2000]

Yeah, don't think about it so literally. The ATK rating is just a measure of damage output per round. The specifics of how the damage is dealt are not relevant, except that they don't "waste" any attack power.

One simple way to imagine it is that they have a number of missiles to fire every round equal to their ATK value, and they only use as many missiles against a single target as it takes to destroy them.

[ChickenHawk07]

Right, but you're talking about a weapon built to destroy whole planets in one shot, versus a capital ship that could probably land in one of the Star Destroyers Bays. I can understand a planet having a crap ton of ground bassed batteries, but it still doesn't explain the Trample function. Damage shouldn't domino. There should be a formula for each ship that takes into account how many weapons they have and for ease of calculation make each weapon deal the same amount of damage, and apply that to the opposing force. It made sense when Lee originally stated that 1 super capital could be overwhelmed by a bunch of smaller attackers. That's the function Fighters are supposed to play in this game, getting in close where the super capital main guns can't be brought to bear on them, and relying on their small anti-fighter weapons. As it stands right now, Fighters have a base ATK value of 4 and no Defense rating. So if that is the case, any ship attacking a fighter group could kill an infinite number of fighters, because there is no defense to subtract from the Base ATK of the Dread. Even if they had a base Defense of 1' a Super Dread could one shot 200 fighter groups if they attack first. If its simultaneous then it would take 62.5 fighters to destroy one Ship with a defense of 250.

[ChickenHawk07]

One simple way to imagine it is that they have a number of missiles to fire every round equal to their ATK value, and they only use as many missiles against a single target as it takes to destroy them.

I don't think that's right. They attack 1 ship with all that power, and anything left over is applied directly to the next ship and so on and so forth down the line, until the total attack value has been used up. Just like Trample works in MTG.

[JetJaguar2000]

How is that functionally different than my model? They fire all their missiles every round, and only use the exact number of missiles against a target that it takes to destroy it. If something with ATK 10 is battling 2 ships with DEF 5, it shoots 5 missiles at the first target, destroying it, then 5 missiles at the next one. There is no concept of a target receiving more "attack power" than they have defense.

Anyways, you are looking for a physical model of the combat behavior, but there's no real reason for it. Just like in any game like this, you abstract certain concepts to make it simpler.

[ChickenHawk07]

Your model just sounds more complicate and scrambled my brain. In essence, we are saying the same thing I believe. Where we differ is that you seem to be fine with the Trample function, whereas I, am not. And I understand abstracting a concept, but to make small targets attacked at the same accuracy of a larger target just seems counter intuitive. Why use fighters at all, if they can be targeted by a super capital ship just as well as a Battleship. You'd be silly to use up your Unit Cap with fighters (that in the description say are better suited for fighting Capital Ships) than with larger heavy hitting units.

[JetJaguar2000]

Well, I assume there are modifiers to this system based on ship type, etc., as implied by the description of fighters and a couple of other ships and techs. Tsagoth mentioned a damage mitigation aspect to the equation, I'm guessing in some cases it is possible for a ship to "miss" the target (ie. in capital ship vs. fighter scenarios). One would hope there are at least some modifiers/randomness thrown in, so that combat isn't such a deterministic "rock-paper-scissors" affair.

Also, that would leave the door open to features like "hero" ships that have unique bonuses, etc.

[ChickenHawk07]

That's true, I suppose I did forget to take into account any modifiers that may be in place. Well, that makes me feel a little better about the Trample Function at least. I'd still like to see how the formula works for combat on all ships and their modifiers/mitigators. I think it would help paint a clearer picture as to how best utilize your fleets.