Okay, here is what I understand, correct me if I am mistaken.



Combat has 3 actual engagement phases (long, medium, melee) and each phase is 4 rounds (kinetics and lasers fire 4 times per phase, missiles fire once per phase). That makes 12 rounds total.



Bombers spend 6 combat rounds (phase and a half) progressing towards the enemy fleet and the remaining 6 combat rounds attacking.



Fighters spend 2 combat rounds (half a phase) progressing, 4 combat rounds dogfitghting (full phase worth, offset by a half phase) and the remaining 6 split between bomber interception and bomber support.



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Here is what I am wondering because I haven't found answers anywhere:



Do bombers just completely ignore fighters?



If there are no hostile fighters or bombers, do fighters only take 2 rounds to reach enemy fleet or the same six as the bombers take?



If the enemy has bombers but no fighters, will fighters still take 6 rounds until they attack bombers?

Do the fighters have the ability to intercept bombers early?



Which gets priority to fighters, bomber support or bomber interception?

If the enemy has 2 bombers and you have 2 fighters, will the 2 fighters chase the 2 bombers, or do the fighters split with 1 chasing bombers and the other chasing the enemy fleet directly?

If the enemy has 6 bombers and you have 8 fighters, will the split be 4 bomber hunters and 4 fleet assaulters... or will every bomber have a fighter on its tail with 2 fighters hitting the enemy fleet?



Does combat victory require full kill (take out fighters and bombers) or is killing the the full size ships enough?

If a carrier is taken out in the first phase, to the fighters and bombers it released continue to the end of the fight?

If there are 3 carriers... all the fighters in Carrier A are destroyed and Carrier C is destroyed... will Carrier A take over the ships from Carrier C?

For that matter, if the fighters in a carrier are destroyed, do they take time to replace in the same way has repairing hull damage?



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That is all I can think of right now.

Please let me know if your response is opinion, tested or code supported.



Thank you,

-Esperologist

Good questions. I'm not sure about specific round behavior, but what you said seems to agree with the early game design docs, so...



1) Yep. They don't care at all.



2) In this scenario, the fighters will reach the enemy ships just 1 round before the bombers do



3) Yes. They will overshoot the enemy bombers and then have to turn around and pursue.



4) No, they do not have the ability to intercept early.



5,6,&7) Half of the squadrons (groups) will branch off to either task. And each group will select 1 bomber or ship to attack.



8) Killing the capital ships is enough



9) yes. They continue until the end of the fight.



10) No. Sadly, Orphan Squadrons are not possible in ES.



11) Yep. Thats called Module Repair.





All of my responses are backed up by well over 300 hrs in Disharmony, and a few of them are backed up by the subship xmls.

Cool... how do you guys know all that?



Would I actually see that play out if I watched the cut scenes? (not going to happen)



It is an interesting question though.

--- The spreadsheet gamer in me would love to see that kind of detail in the battle summary

--- The immersion gamer in me wonders if that would detract from 'the mystery of it all'



Figuring out what works is part of the fun... until you can't figure it out.

Stealth Hawk probably looked through the xml files that used by Endless Space. This allows users to make modes something are hard coded which cannot be changed.



DarkMeph

DarkMeph wrote:
Stealth Hawk probably looked through the xml files that used by Endless Space. This allows users to make modes something are hard coded which cannot be changed.



DarkMeph

Well, can only be changed by Amp's programmers anyway.



And yeah, I am more of a browsing modder, I tend to look through xmls, but rarely make changes. lol

Reading XML is cool, but I tend to avoid it cause it removes the mystery. XMLing the rounds and phases of combat is pretty deep parameter based programming considering all the displayable widgets that could hinge on those parameters.



But I guess that explains why my fleet officers suck when it comes to telling me what worked and what didn't when I ask them to summarize the battles for me. Typical middle management types who give me some percentages and assume that has any meaning or yields any insight. I would fire all of them if I could, but it generates too many pink thumbs down!

So you only battle in Auto mode I take it?

Oh heavens yes. Even so, I would put fighting battles at 50% of my screen time. I keep trying to remember to put a fair fight on the big screen to watch it play out, but muscle memory keeps forgetting. The few times I have remembered I have seen lots of cool dials and stuff. Pretty flashes and all. My engineers keep trying to explain it to me, but I can be a bit dense at times.



It is interesting, because they have done such a good job streamlining all the other aspects that it feels like its all battles all the time. I have been trying to think what could eliminate the tedium of the minor skirmishes



--- I trapped your fleets, now I must eliminate them one by one by one by one by one by...



--- and of course the perpetual... 'My star system, you can stop sacrificing your fleets here now'...

That one is clearly an AI weakness as the fleet strength metric is clearly not an accurate measure of fleet strength. (should be easily fixable) and the challenge of fleet limitations when is it reasonable to sacrifice Fleet A so that fleet B can win its battle. (not so easy)

This is how the fighter/bomber is supposed to move in stock game:



Bomber:

1) Move from friendly fleet to enemy fleet, 4 rounds

2) Attack enemy fleet, 1 attack per 2 rounds, last until fight ends or all bombers eliminated



Fighter:

1) Move from friendly fleet to midpoint between two fleets (there is a defined location in the hard code for this), 2 rounds

2) If enemy fighter present, start dogfight, 1 attack per round, max 4 rounds (in practice I have never seen a fight where both side survives longer than 4 rounds, so I'm not sure if the cap works properly); if no enemy fighter skip this step

3) If fighters remain after dogfight, and if enemy bomber present, split into two groups of roughly equal number of squadrons, one group chase bomber, the other group chase enemy fleet; if enemy bomber not present, all remaining fighter chase enemy fleet; takes 2 round to move from midpoint to either fleet

4) If enemy bomber present, bomber-chasing fighter group start attack bombers (which will be at your fleet at this point), 1 attack per round, 1 round to switch targetted squadron (since each bomber squadron is 1 bomber, this effectively means fighter takes 1 round to switch after killing each bomber);

4a) If all enemy bomber destroyed, bomber-chasing fighter group move to enemy fleet; it should still take 4 round for them to move from friendly fleet to enemy fleet, however, the xml file does not specify it this way; I cannot recall the exact behavior when I was experimenting with it.

5) At the same time as step 4, fleet-chasing fighter group attack enemy fleet, 1 attack per 2 round, until the battle is over or all fighters are destroyed.



In practice, since fighter and bomber move at the same speed between fleet, in the case where side A has only fighters and side B has only bombers, what will appear to happen is that A-fighter and B-bomber move to midpoint, then half of A-fighter move with the B-bomber to fleet A, and then the fighter start attacking the bomber.



All the steps above are direct translation of the xml file. Note that I prefaced by saying this is how fighter/bomber is supposed to move because some of the xml tags have additional hardcode behavior that are not transparent in xml file. Nevertheless, my experience more or less match that description.



All the other questions are as Stealth Hawk answered.