Hi all,



I'm totally new to Endless Space, so please forgive the newbie question.



According to the in-game menus, Laser weapons are most effective at medium range. I am trying to design a Destroyer class ship with Synchrotron laser weapons. When I pick the range of the weapons, medium range actually seems to show the least accurate (70 vs 100 or 120 at long or melee range).



I'm confused about what determines this, since the game says laser weapons are best at medium range. Will I actually be better off picking melee range because of the increased accuracy? If so, what is better about lasers at medium range?



Thanks for your help!

A weapons accuracy is only for its Best Weapon Range Phase. In other phases they get a 50-90% penalty to accuracy depending on the weapon and range.

In the case of Medium Lasers, their accuracy is 17.5%, 70%, 17.5% for Long, Medium, and Short Range. Additionally, your chance to hit improves with successive shots meaning that a your effective accuracy increases with each additional weapon you have a ship. The actual amount it increases is dependent upon your target's evasion and how many other weapons are firing at that target. In general, every time you miss with a weapon (in each round of each range phase), you get a 5% bonus to hit the next shot. Assuming a 0% evasion ship being fired upon by medium lasers (and only medium lasers, with no additional accuracy or evasion effects), the attackers would only miss 6 times (per round, or up to 12 times per range phase for lasers (because they shoot twice per range phase)), before all other shots will hit.

thuvian wrote:
A weapons accuracy is only for its Best Weapon Range Phase. In other phases they get a 50-90% penalty to accuracy depending on the weapon and range.

In the case of Medium Lasers, their accuracy is 17.5%, 70%, 17.5% for Long, Medium, and Short Range.

Thanks for the quick response.



I'm still confused, though. Why does the game tell me the accuracy is 1.2 at long range and 0.7 at medium range, if it's actually 0.175 at long range and 0.7 at medium?

It depend on which version you are playing for the actual numbers, however:



There are 3 different versions of each weapon, long, medium, and short.

There are 3 different range phases, long, medium, and short.

Each weapon weapon's chance to hit is based on both its base accuracy and the particular range accuracy.



In the case of 1.1.15

Weapon Accuracy Progression

Missile (0.90, 0.65, 0.40, Short, Medium, Long)

Kinetic (1.00, 0.75, 0.50, Short, Medium, Long)

Laser (1.10, 0.85, 0.60, Short, Medium, Long)



So a medium range laser would have an accuracy of 85% (this is not the version you have).

Weapon Accuracy Range Progression

Long 1 :0.25:0.25 = 1.50

Medium 0.33: 1:0.33 = 1.66

Short 0.10:0.25:1 = 1.35



A Medium range weapon would be 33%, 100%, and 33% accurate in in Long Medium, and Short Range.



Combining these two, you'd get:

75% * 33% = 24.75% for Long Range

75% * 100% = 75% for Medium Range

75% * 33% = 24.75% for Short Range.



In contrast if we have a Long Range Laser its 60% at 100%, 25%, 25% for Long, Medium Short.

Combining these two, you'd get:

60% * 100% = 60% for Long Range

60% * 25% = 15%% for Medium Range

60% * 25% = 15% for Short Range.



There are other modifiers that further modify this. If you are curious I would suggest starting with the wiki and then browsing the various forums and threads since it is mostly already documented there.

Hi,



Re: The update that has > Increased long range accuracy and efficiency

Can someone please point out where we can read this in detail?



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11570-beta-patch-1-1-15-balance-update

and

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/10538-understanding-weapon-range

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Both are helpful and good references but that's for 1.1.15

Some help please? Can we get something like this for 1.1.27?

thuvian wrote:
It depend on which version you are playing for the actual numbers, however:



There are 3 different versions of each weapon, long, medium, and short.

There are 3 different range phases, long, medium, and short.

Each weapon weapon's chance to hit is based on both its base accuracy and the particular range accuracy.



In the case of 1.1.15

Weapon Accuracy Progression

Missile (0.90, 0.65, 0.40, Short, Medium, Long)

Kinetic (1.00, 0.75, 0.50, Short, Medium, Long)

Laser (1.10, 0.85, 0.60, Short, Medium, Long)



So a medium range laser would have an accuracy of 85% (this is not the version you have).

Weapon Accuracy Range Progression

Long 1 :0.25:0.25 = 1.50

Medium 0.33: 1:0.33 = 1.66

Short 0.10:0.25:1 = 1.35



A Medium range weapon would be 33%, 100%, and 33% accurate in in Long Medium, and Short Range.



Combining these two, you'd get:

75% * 33% = 24.75% for Long Range

75% * 100% = 75% for Medium Range

75% * 33% = 24.75% for Short Range.



In contrast if we have a Long Range Laser its 60% at 100%, 25%, 25% for Long, Medium Short.

Combining these two, you'd get:

60% * 100% = 60% for Long Range

60% * 25% = 15%% for Medium Range

60% * 25% = 15% for Short Range.



There are other modifiers that further modify this. If you are curious I would suggest starting with the wiki and then browsing the various forums and threads since it is mostly already documented there.

It is in BattleDescriptor.xml



Long Range Weapons

Long: Normal

Medium: 10% Accuracy, 50% damage

Melee: 10% Accuracy, 50% damage



Medium Range Weapons

Long: 33% Accuracy, 50% damage

Medium: Normal

Melee: 33% Accuracy, 50% damage



Melee Range Weapons

Long: 10% Accuracy, 50% damage

Medium: 10% Accuracy, 50% damage

Melee: Normal

So I would instinctively say, go for LR kinetics combined with LR missiles and add some MR beam to finish survivors of long range off. Forget about the melee phase.





Would you agree, thuvian?

I can't say yet what would be better. I'd need to check what they did with evasiondisorientation, the damage/tonnage/cost efficiency of the weapon and defense modules, and if anything else was changed.