Missiles used to hit on round 3 not matter what round they were fired at as late as 1.1.49

but with 1.1.51 missiles seem to now hit every round. Making them viable. Their tooltips still say though that it takes 3 rounds for them to hit and 3 rounds to reload.

Incidentally it makes the AI more viable because it only ever uses missiles because their alleged damage is best. (alleged because the tooltip appears to be wrong)

you know this description always confused me but maybe "rounds" is not the same as "combat segment" because Missiles have ALWAYS hit and deal damage in the same combat segment (long range, medium range, melee range) they were fired in. Its just that they fire at the start of each segment and hit at the END of the same segment. Then I was thinking maybe a single segment is splitted into 3 rounds but that wouldnt explain kinetics firing 4 times....hmmmmm



I ll take it as a faulty description

Really? I was sure that they didn't used to effectively deal damage before round 3... In fact, I verified it by watching the strategic combat with test ships and I saw them launch the missiles at long range, then shoot nothing more that battle, and at melee phase the missiles hit.

This is also why I started to completely dominate the game once I took the auto designed ship (nothing but missiles) and swapped them all for long range lasers. Killing enemies without taking damage in the first round

... although, maybe it varies based on the missile type? there are 3 generations of missiles after all.

I also noticed my laser ships are not nearly as effective anymore.



I also noticed that whenever an enemy escapes missiles dealt 0 damage, but lasers kill the enemy before it gets a chance to escape



For that matter, medium and short range missiles make no sense at all. The way it works is, each weapon has an optimal range and deviating it from reduces its damage. That is, short range missiles only fire in short and maybe melee range (skipping long range) and deal REDUCED DAMAGE because missiles are most effective at long range. Melee range missiles only fire at melee (doing nothing during long and short ranges) and deal even less damage. This makes it completely pointless!



With medium and short range lasers/guns you are at least dealing more damage, so it might be useful for breaking through a very heavily armored/shielded opponent (although my experience is that the balance on it is crap and you do not want to do that, you want long range for more shooting. also, killing enemies before they kill you.)

I am guessing you play the vanilla version of the game; because in Disharmony I have not observed the behavior you are describing. Missiles set out at the beginning of each phase (long range, medium range and melee) and arrive at their destination just before the end of each phase (you can follow that on the clock-like thing at the bottom). However if for some reason the enemy cannot get hit by missiles, they won't even fire (for example in case of successful retreat at 3/4 of a phase or because they are destroyed in the previous phase)

YucaFrita wrote:
I am guessing you play the vanilla version of the game

No, I play disharmony

YucaFrita wrote:
Missiles set out at the beginning of each phase (long range, medium range and melee) and arrive at their destination just before the end of each phase (you can follow that on the clock-like thing at the bottom).

The entire point I made is that this is how they work now. They didn't used to work that way in previous versions and their tooltips EXPLICITLY state otherwise (describing their previous method of working instead of current).



Incidentally, since missiles are optimal at long range, there is no reason to ever ever ever under any circumstance use a medium or short range missile. Since those actually REDUCE the damage of missiles in addition to making them skip phases of combat. (it at least made sense before if flak show down missiles every combat round, then firing them all at melee range gets you 1/3rd the flak of firing at long range)

YucaFrita wrote:
or because they are destroyed in the previous phase)

So you are saying that if 100% of the missiles shot at phase one are destroyed, then they won't fire again that combat? that is... odd behavior.

But what if your lasers kill enough enemies so that they become vulnerable to missiles? (if the top enemy stack is too well defended)

taltamir wrote:
Incidentally, since missiles are optimal at long range, there is no reason to ever ever ever under any circumstance use a medium or short range missile. Since those actually REDUCE the damage of missiles in addition to making them skip phases of combat. (it at least made sense before if flak show down missiles every combat round, then firing them all at melee range gets you 1/3rd the flak of firing at long range)

Hmm. From what the tooltips state, and from looking at the manual combat animation, it appears to me that combat is broken into three phases (long, medium, and short), with each phase broken into three rounds, so 9 rounds total. Kinetic weapons fire every round and hit every round, so 9 attacks in total. Beam weapons require one round to reload and two rounds to reach the target, so 4 attacks in total, firing on even rounds and hitting on odd rounds. Missile weapons require three rounds to reload and three rounds to reach the target, so 3 attacks in total, launching at the beginning of each phase of combat and hitting at the end of the phase.



Each type of armament can be tailored for a particular phase of combat, but nonetheless fires in _every_ phase of combat. Each type of armament also has an optimal phase of combat, but nonetheless can do some damage in every phase.



I think the reason why you might want a missile tailored for short-range combat (beyond the obvious fact that they weigh less, so you can carry more of them) is to counteract the enemy's card strategy; if your missiles are all long-range, then it makes sense for your opponent to try and sabotage them in the long-range phase, and disrupt your other weapons in the later stages. But if your weapons are all optimized for one particular stage of combat, there's apparently no perfect way to stop all three types of ordinance with a single card in a single phase.

taltamir wrote:
No, I play disharmony





The entire point I made is that this is how they work now. They didn't used to work that way in previous versions and their tooltips EXPLICITLY state otherwise (describing their previous method of working instead of current).



So you are saying that if 100% of the missiles shot at phase one are destroyed, then they won't fire again that combat? that is... odd behavior.

But what if your lasers kill enough enemies so that they become vulnerable to missiles? (if the top enemy stack is too well defended)

On the first point: The tooltip says they take 3 round to reload and 3 to reach. I don't remember them behaving differently before but that may well just be my bad memory. Can you specify from which update you observed a change?

On the second point all I meant is that if there is not point firing missiles, they won't. You can observe this for example in case of successful retreat (card block success required now since the last patch), since they won't arrive in time to hit, the enemy doesn't fire them. It's just a visual effect. Sorry if that is off the point.



Just a little remark: using capital letters in forums is commonly considered shouting and rude. Thought you might want to know that. The forum offers nice options for bold, italic and underlining.

I recall discussing the combat rounds a long time ago. The wiki shows what it was like in version 1.17. It doesn't seem to have changed.

Like vanilla, there are five phases of combat in Disharmony. Combat only occurs during the Long, Medium and Melee Range Phase. Like Classic, Melee Range is often referred to as Short Range or (just) Melee.



Phase 1 - Arrival

Phase 2 - Long Range

Phase 3 - Medium Range

Phase 4 - Melee Range

Phase 5 - Report

and

Each Combat Phase has four rounds. It takes one round for a weapon to fire and the weapon begins reloading the next round. In 1.1.17 the number of salvos per phase was set by weapon (instead of by range). Also note that while the Combat Phases are labelled Long, Medium, and Short, this is merely a label. There is an accuracy penalty for weapons firing outside of their range, but some weapons function very, very well outside of their optimal "range".



Weapon Salvos per phase Impact Round(s)

Kinetic 4 1, 2, 3, 4

Laser 2 2, 4

Missile 1 4

http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Combat_(Disharmony)

Ah, thank you for the quote from the wiki, 3vilTwin! Having four rounds per phase does make things a bit more sensible than what I had guessed (particularly with the beam weapons). I'll have to study the wiki a bit more...