I think it would be nice if "successfully defended" strikes did something like 20% normal damage, instead of 100%, and then lower overall damage. This would make the "all or nothing" defense less potent IMHO.

Open Office is a good solution too, yeah!



Good luck with dem lazerz, I'm going back to my C# Codes (and eventually to sleep)

Tredecim wrote:
Finally a proper use of Excel (i think you made it in Excel, the Graphs look like it)



Good Formulas - easy to handle, but still good results

Open Office, because it was the fastest. For a good plot I'd always use root.



Anyways, now that I look again at the laser damage formula, it can be done even more easily, since D'=D/2*(1+[D-S]/[D+S])=D[SUP]2[/SUP]/(D+S).



P.S.: And added in a missing "As long as D>0, it stays like the formula describes, otherwise it should stay 0." in the kinetics section, since I explicitly used an if in the formula for the OO table.

Finally a proper use of Excel (i think you made it in Excel, the Graphs look like it)



Good Formulas - easy to handle, but still good results

n18991c wrote:
Reading your posts in this thread, Nosferatiel, makes me wonder whether I've ever told you how I admire your train of thought?



Very informative and highly interesting

Tredecim wrote:
It seems like Nosferatiel just exploded with ideas



Great idea from OP and even greater one from Nos lol

People, don't make me blush. It is only very simple mathematics and a bit of trying around for a function and coming up with any kind of explanation.



Anyways, I've come up with an interesting idea for kinetics, although I'd need a squareroot on codelevel for that...

Basic idea: Each slug shower that hits the deflector dents and compresses it, damaging the underlying structure the more the deflector is bent into the ship. That groaning structure gets more and more damaged, but the pressurized deflector will be harder and harder to actually penetrate, until it gives finally in when you blow a hole into the hull.



For shot N, may the kinetic damage be K and the deflector strength be D, while the initial deflector strength is D[SUP]0[/SUP]. Then the damage done should be K'=K*(D[SUP]0[/SUP]-D)/(D[SUP]0[/SUP]+D) and the armor strength of the given round D is D=D[SUP]0[/SUP]-Sqrt(N)*K. As long as D>0, it stays like the formula describes, otherwise it should stay 0.



Again two similar tables for the outcome and two graphs to get a feeling for this:



[CODE]

shot kin defl dam kin eff. shot kin defl dam kin eff.

1 100 400 0 0% 1 200 400 0 0%

2 300 14 14% 2 200 67 33%

3 259 21 21% 3 117 109 55%

4 227 28 28% 4 54 153 76%

5 200 33 33% 5 0 200 100%

6 176 39 39% 6 0 200 100%

7 155 44 44% 7 0 200 100%

8 135 49 49% 8 0 200 100%

9 117 55 55% 9 0 200 100%

10 100 60 60% 10 0 200 100%

total damage 343,76 total damage 1528,79

[/CODE]







As you can see the outcome is quite similar for powerful weapons, but quite different for less powerful weapons and I'd like to think of kinetics as faster firing but less powerful per shot, so this should suffice.

It seems like Nosferatiel just exploded with ideas



Great idea from OP and even greater one from Nos lol

Reading your posts in this thread, Nosferatiel, makes me wonder whether I've ever told you how I admire your train of thought?



Very informative and highly interesting

Igncom1 wrote:
I love this, will we also be altering how often a shield can regenerate its HP?

I'd leave that at once per round, just to keep it simple. If we already change how damage is dealt, we don't have to mess with the round mechanics, for now. One big change at a time.



I'm curious enough how this mechanic would work out.

I love this, will we also be altering how often a shield can regenerate its HP?

Okay, the version with damage divided by 2 is better in my opinion, just for balancing reasons. It's counterintuitive to have ships without shields being hit by twice the damage right from the start. ^^'



Anyways, two updated calculations for two scenarios and plots to show you the effects of doubling laser damage. Please mind that in total the shield can only absorb its maximum strength, but firing stronger lasers at a shield means to have more penetration power early on!



[CODE]shot laser shield damage laser eff. shot laser shield damage laser eff.

1 100 400 20 20,00% 1 200 400 66,67 33,33%

2 320 23,81 23,81% 2 266,67 85,71 42,86%

3 243,81 29,09 29,09% 3 152,38 113,51 56,76%

4 172,9 36,64 36,64% 4 65,89 150,44 75,22%

5 109,54 47,72 47,72% 5 16,33 184,9 92,45%

6 57,26 63,59 63,59% 6 1,23 198,77 99,39%

7 20,85 82,75 82,75% 7 0,01 199,99 100,00%

8 3,6 96,53 96,53% 8 0 200 100,00%

9 0,12 99,88 99,88% 9 0 200 100,00%

10 0 100 100,00% 10 0 200 100,00%

total damage 600 total damage 1600

[/CODE]

Ail wrote:
I do not think that the implementation of that would take any of the Devs more than 5 minutes. If you know where to look at the code, it shall be really easy.

Let me propose some maths at the least for the lasers, then:



For each shot of a laser weapon with damage D at a ship with shields S in one round, the damage done D' shall be:

D'=D*(1+[D-S]/[D+S])



The shield shall be reduced by the absorbed amount D'-D, so the shield will have the strength S'=S+D'-D for the next shot.

Then you can just iterate this into oblivion.



A little example:

[CODE]Shot Laser Shield damage

1 100 400 40

2 340 45,45

3 285,45 51,89

4 237,34 59,29

5 196,63 67,42

6 164,05 75,74

7 139,8 83,4

8 123,2 89,61

9 112,81 93,98

10 106,79 96,72

[/CODE]



Doubling the laser damage with this equation is still more powerful than doubling the amount of lasers, by this equation (5 lasers with 200 vs shield of 400, cumulative damage: 814,4 vs 10 lasers with 100 vs shield of 400, cumulative damage 703,51), so the balancing should in principle be fine.

The only things you'd need to tweak, then, would be shield and laser strengths. Also this would harmonize a lot with the proposed damage malus at long distances we discussed earlier.



P.S.: An interesting side-effect occurs, if there is no shield/hardly any shield left. Then it does up to twice the damage. Perhaps D'=D*(1+[D-S]/[D+S])/2 might be the better option to make this more intuitive.

Ail wrote:
I do not think that the implementation of that would take any of the Devs more than 5 minutes. If you know where to look at the code, it shall be really easy.

True enough good sir, do you think we should make a official suggestion?

I do not think that the implementation of that would take any of the Devs more than 5 minutes. If you know where to look at the code, it shall be really easy.

Ail wrote:
I really like Bridgers idea. It should be extremely easy to implement without having to revamp everything but have a roundabout similar effect to what I suggested.



And let's be honest. How much of the uniqueness does one actually notice about the defenses? We know that they work differently because someone explained the different mechanics.

But if I ignore that knowledge, I pretty-much just see that the defenses prevent damage. They are even balanced to have a similar effect despite having different mechanics.



Also it does not seem that illogical to say:



Some of the deflected projectiles splinter into the direction of the ship and cause hull damage.

The shields cannot completely cover all frequencies of the beam so a small amount of energy get's through.

The short diestance between the ships and where missiles explode cannot prevent the damage completely.

True enough, But I am not sure how it would be implemented.

I really like Bridgers idea. It should be extremely easy to implement without having to revamp everything but have a roundabout similar effect to what I suggested.



And let's be honest. How much of the uniqueness does one actually notice about the defenses? We know that they work differently because someone explained the different mechanics.

But if I ignore that knowledge, I pretty-much just see that the defenses prevent damage. They are even balanced to have a similar effect despite having different mechanics.



Also it does not seem that illogical to say:



Some of the deflected projectiles splinter into the direction of the ship and cause hull damage.

The shields cannot completely cover all frequencies of the beam so a small amount of energy get's through.

The short diestance between the ships and where missiles explode cannot prevent the damage completely.

Bridger wrote:
I think it would be nice if "successfully defended" strikes did something like 20% normal damage, instead of 100%, and then lower overall damage. This would make the "all or nothing" defense less potent IMHO.

I like the idea but I feel it may reduce the uniqueness of each defense with them all responding in the same manner.



But keep thinking guys, If we can collectively come up with a number of important and good improvements to the combat system then this game can only grow!

(I love ES and this game is really the best 4X game out currently (In my opinion) and I totally love the game)



But with each phase of combat giving:



Long range accuracy:

20% Kinetic accuracy

50% Laser accuracy

90% Missile accuracy



Medium range accuracy:

40% Kinetic accuracy

90% Laser accuracy

70% Missile accuracy



Short range accuracy:

90% Kinetic accuracy

70% Laser accuracy

40% Missile accuracy



And defensive mods that can completely negate damage (Although with missiles I am fine with it)



I feel like combat has hit a point where you either do massive amounts of damage, or absolutely no damage what so ever. And this is absolutely pathetic and frustrating.



So I now wish to open a discussion on the subject of changing the combat to not be so ridiculous.



For the sake of Discussion I would suggest that the weapon accuracy's be changes to this:

Long range accuracy:

70% Kinetic accuracy

80% Laser accuracy

100% Missile accuracy



Medium range accuracy:

80% Kinetic accuracy

95% Laser accuracy

90% Missile accuracy



Short range accuracy:

95% Kinetic accuracy

80% Laser accuracy

80% Missile accuracy

Combat in this game has two major flaws.



Long to Medium to Short range of combat, I could see long/medium/long to show approach/close in/departure style fights. The second flaw is that regardless of the ship load out it can only engage one other ship at a time.





What I would prefer.



1) No range penalty.

2) All weapons have the same damage/ton ratio

3) Increased this weight cost of weapons.

4) Defense tonnage increases for each increment of that defense, basically it becomes too expensive to be "immune" to one type of attack.

5) Dreadnaughts should have both a defensive and offensive module bonus, perhaps 15%

I think that there are some good ideas here, but to really talk about combat you have to include the cards that are played before each battle phase.

The cards are what can make a real difference and take some of the predictable formula strategies out and replace them with real strategies that can be used in creative ways. I haven't played many games, but I can see the potential of the cards. I like to think of them as battle orders given in the heat of battle by a commanding fleet admiral. The cards can be used to turn the tide. For instance in one game I used the strategy to research repair strategies and use repair cards almost exclusively. It worked well despite the fact that I took a pounding, I could reuse the same fleet in multiple battles and win by out lasting, not out shooting my opponent



I can see a point where the cards could also represent one time special use weapons. For example maybe once every 3 turns you might get the chance to use a "black hole generator" type of weapon by playing a card in the long range phase (don't want to be close when that bad boy goes off). This would enhance the combat but prevent abuse of special weapons so as not to unbalance the game.



Just my 2 cents, but I think a lot of people dismiss the cards to quickly. Perhaps they are unfamiliar and dont want to learn something new, or perhaps they are just not as sexy as a big gun that fires whenever you want it to, but I hope the devs keep finding new and interesting ways to use them.

I actually don't see how the changes to accuracy solve anything about the "massive amounts of damage, or absolutely no damage what so ever"-problem.



While I don't really have a strong opinion on that accuracy-stuff, I think the issue is that defenses have the potential to completely negate any damage. In my opinion they should reduce incoming damage of a type instead.



I suggest a formula like that:



FinalDamage=RawDamage*WeaponLevel/DefenseLevel*0.85^NumberOfDefenseModules

Weapon- and Defense-Level could be an average if several types are used (1-9)

Attack- and Defense-Boni could be simply multiplied with Weapon-Level and Defense-Level



Example:



Level 1 Massdriver with a hero that boosts offense by +30% vs. Level 1 Deflectors. Let's say 7 of them.



10*(1*1.3/1)*0.85^7=4.168 Damage per shot that hits.

Nosferatiel wrote:
I just still don't get the difference between deflectors and armor, lorewise.

I'm just guessing here but I thought that (lorewise) deflectors generated a field/force field/barrier which blocks/protects but which needs to be powered, whereas armour simply consists of plating...?

Nosferatiel wrote:
No, you're right, I just still don't get the difference between deflectors and armor, lorewise.

Instead of armor I'd prefer structural integrity measures, additional segmentations of the hull, distributed energy supplies, etc, that really would make the ship harder to destroy.

Armors and deflectors just are the same, in principle, in my opinion.

True enough.

Igncom1 wrote:
I like your ideas, although you say armor you do mean deflectors right?



Or did I miss the point?

No, you're right, I just still don't get the difference between deflectors and armor, lorewise.

Instead of armor I'd prefer structural integrity measures, additional segmentations of the hull, distributed energy supplies, etc, that really would make the ship harder to destroy.

Armors and deflectors just are the same, in principle, in my opinion.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Okay, elaborating on this to make it physically more correct, let's ponder three scenarios for each weapon/counterweapon-pair:

1) weapon is much more powerful than defense

2) weapon and defense are equally powerful

3) weapon is basically harmless to defense

and see what happens.



Kinetic weapon vs armor:

1) Slug penetrates the armor, armor mitigates damage percentually, since it slows the slug proportional to it's thickness.

2) Slug hits armor, armor takes a dent, becoming less effective. Minor internal damage due to stress on structure behind the armor. (Scenario almost alike to the game-default, since the armor would have to be penetrated, before anything worthwhile happens.)

3) Slug hits armor, armor reflects slug, perhaps the lacquer gets scratched.



Laser weapons vs shields:

1) Laser passes shield with minimal disturbance, no further dispersion, full damage. Shield is basically undisturbed.

2) Laser hits shield, shield scatters a large part of the laser beam, mitigated damage, but still damage. This in turn scatters part of the shield, so it becomes less effective for the next shot.

3) Laser hits shield, shield scatters laser beam completely, no damage to the ship, still a part of the shield is scattered. (game scenario default)



Missiles vs flak:

1) Missiles lock on, warhead safety disabled, flak fire ineffective. Full damage.

2) Missiles lock on, warhead safety disabled, flak fire effective, only a few missiles hit.

3) Missiles do not lock on or warhead safety still enabled, flak fire effective: You're lucky if anything hits at all.



Actually the missile system is the only one I'm happy with, but I'd like the flak fire to have randomized probabilities to actually hit and kill a missile. Something like a good old gaussian flak damage distribution and a fixed value of damage a missiles "needs" to blow up.

For the lasers, overpowering lasers should practically ignore shields, while normal ones are mitigated and powerless ones completely dispersed. Best way to include this would be to give all shields a fixed damage-mitigation value.

For kinetics the armor should have HP in itself, but not regenerate during the phases. It also should have an offset, where it is impenetrable and only the leftover damage counts toward armor damage, but also a maximum value, where it only substracts the maximum and the rest directly hits the target.



Quite complicated, I admit, but this would really make the different weapons and defenses unique.

I like your ideas, although you say armor you do mean deflectors right?



Or did I miss the point?

Igncom1 wrote:
That is a fantastic idea, and I particularly love the idea of laser weapons always being accurate but having damage penalty's.



But how would you suggest we deal with the problem where ships can avoid all damage via their defenses? While shields kinda make sense (And I wish there was a visual indicator, something I might suggest) deflectors don't, why should a defense type (That isn't flak) be able to completely deny a weapon despite its accuracy and damage?



I feel like Deflectors and Shields should either function in the same way, or possibly allow deflectors to instead reduce the damage of a number of projectiles instead of just blocking them.



Somthing similar to: Deflector reduces damage of 3 kinetics per round by 50%



This way, shields can be brought down with enough fire (Possibly with the addition of a anti-shield card or EMP weapon) and deflectors can only reduce the firepower of a number of projectiles, thus making kinetics a solid weapon type even when faced by damage reducing defenses.

Okay, elaborating on this to make it physically more correct, let's ponder three scenarios for each weapon/counterweapon-pair:

1) weapon is much more powerful than defense

2) weapon and defense are equally powerful

3) weapon is basically harmless to defense

and see what happens.



Kinetic weapon vs armor:

1) Slug penetrates the armor, armor mitigates damage percentually, since it slows the slug proportional to it's thickness.

2) Slug hits armor, armor takes a dent, becoming less effective. Minor internal damage due to stress on structure behind the armor. (Scenario almost alike to the game-default, since the armor would have to be penetrated, before anything worthwhile happens.)

3) Slug hits armor, armor reflects slug, perhaps the lacquer gets scratched.



Laser weapons vs shields:

1) Laser passes shield with minimal disturbance, no further dispersion, full damage. Shield is basically undisturbed.

2) Laser hits shield, shield scatters a large part of the laser beam, mitigated damage, but still damage. This in turn scatters part of the shield, so it becomes less effective for the next shot.

3) Laser hits shield, shield scatters laser beam completely, no damage to the ship, still a part of the shield is scattered. (game scenario default)



Missiles vs flak:

1) Missiles lock on, warhead safety disabled, flak fire ineffective. Full damage.

2) Missiles lock on, warhead safety disabled, flak fire effective, only a few missiles hit.

3) Missiles do not lock on or warhead safety still enabled, flak fire effective: You're lucky if anything hits at all.



Actually the missile system is the only one I'm happy with, but I'd like the flak fire to have randomized probabilities to actually hit and kill a missile. Something like a good old gaussian flak damage distribution and a fixed value of damage a missiles "needs" to blow up.

For the lasers, overpowering lasers should practically ignore shields, while normal ones are mitigated and powerless ones completely dispersed. Best way to include this would be to give all shields a fixed damage-mitigation value.

For kinetics the armor should have HP in itself, but not regenerate during the phases. It also should have an offset, where it is impenetrable and only the leftover damage counts toward armor damage, but also a maximum value, where it only substracts the maximum and the rest directly hits the target.



Quite complicated, I admit, but this would really make the different weapons and defenses unique.



P.S.: Oh, almost forgot to make that clear: All of this counts per shot, not per phase. So 200 relatively powerless lasershots are worse off than 200 relatively powerless slugs denting away armor slug by slug, til the armor is gone.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Intruiging idea, but may I propose a little alteration of this, making it 2-dimensional and (for the sake of being a sake) physically more correct?



Long range accuracy/damage:

70%/100% Kinetic

100%/70% Laser

100%/100% Missile



Medium range accuracy/damage:

80%/100% Kinetic

100%/85% Laser

90%/100% Missile



Short range accuracy/damage:

95%/100% Kinetic

100%/100% Laser

80%/100% Missile



My reasoning behind this (values may be a bit arbitrary, but the trend is not):

The accuracy of kinetics has to be lowest for most stages, as kinetic weapons suffer from mechanical instabilities. The damage, though, must be 100% at all ranges, since there is no friction in space, so there is no reason for any mechanism declining their damage.

Lasers though should always hit (as they should also be beams and invisible to any observer :P ), since there is no reason why you should not be able to hit anything you can detect with light with a light beam in turn. But lasers suffer from dispersion, the collimation of any light beam is not perfect. Since the damage of a laser is proportional to the intensity per unit area and a longer range means essentially that the target area becomes larger, but the intensity is constant (imagine being in a dark room, holding a light bulb and lighting up the far end of the room (long range) and then the near end of the room (short range), then you've got an idea what I'm referring to), the damage should be antiproportional to range.

Finally for the missiles, I could imagine a mechanism not unlike for torpedoes. Basically a safety where the missiles begin locking on after some safety distance and can only then explode, not earlier. This would beautifully explain why the accuracy should go down at shorter ranges, even if you have guided weapon systems.

That is a fantastic idea, and I particularly love the idea of laser weapons always being accurate but having damage penalty's.



But how would you suggest we deal with the problem where ships can avoid all damage via their defenses? While shields kinda make sense (And I wish there was a visual indicator, something I might suggest) deflectors don't, why should a defense type (That isn't flak) be able to completely deny a weapon despite its accuracy and damage?



I feel like Deflectors and Shields should either function in the same way, or possibly allow deflectors to instead reduce the damage of a number of projectiles instead of just blocking them.



Somthing similar to: Deflector reduces damage of 3 kinetics per round by 50%



This way, shields can be brought down with enough fire (Possibly with the addition of a anti-shield card or EMP weapon) and deflectors can only reduce the firepower of a number of projectiles, thus making kinetics a solid weapon type even when faced by damage reducing defenses.

Igncom1 wrote:


For the sake of Discussion I would suggest that the weapon accuracy's be changes to this:

Long range accuracy:

70% Kinetic accuracy

80% Laser accuracy

100% Missile accuracy



Medium range accuracy:

80% Kinetic accuracy

95% Laser accuracy

90% Missile accuracy



Short range accuracy:

95% Kinetic accuracy

80% Laser accuracy

80% Missile accuracy

Intruiging idea, but may I propose a little alteration of this, making it 2-dimensional and (for the sake of being a sake) physically more correct?



Long range accuracy/damage:

70%/100% Kinetic

100%/70% Laser

100%/100% Missile



Medium range accuracy/damage:

80%/100% Kinetic

100%/85% Laser

90%/100% Missile



Short range accuracy/damage:

95%/100% Kinetic

100%/100% Laser

80%/100% Missile



My reasoning behind this (values may be a bit arbitrary, but the trend is not):

The accuracy of kinetics has to be lowest for most stages, as kinetic weapons suffer from mechanical instabilities. The damage, though, must be 100% at all ranges, since there is no friction in space, so there is no reason for any mechanism declining their damage.

Lasers though should always hit (as they should also be beams and invisible to any observer :P ), since there is no reason why you should not be able to hit anything you can detect with light with a light beam in turn. But lasers suffer from dispersion, the collimation of any light beam is not perfect. Since the damage of a laser is proportional to the intensity per unit area and a longer range means essentially that the target area becomes larger, but the intensity is constant (imagine being in a dark room, holding a light bulb and lighting up the far end of the room (long range) and then the near end of the room (short range), then you've got an idea what I'm referring to), the damage should be antiproportional to range.

Finally for the missiles, I could imagine a mechanism not unlike for torpedoes. Basically a safety where the missiles begin locking on after some safety distance and can only then explode, not earlier. This would beautifully explain why the accuracy should go down at shorter ranges, even if you have guided weapon systems.

n18991c wrote:
I actually like the idea, particularly with kinetics being strengthened/improved during long range phase...

20% accuracy is kind of a joke really, not as good accuracy sure but 20%? that's pointless.

I actually like the idea, particularly with kinetics being strengthened/improved during long range phase...

davea wrote:
It is very easy to make this as a mod. You may be interested to try it out, and see if you like it. I personally am not sure it would be an improvement; but YMMV.

I think I will, and thank you for being a fair forum moderator and hearing me out.

It is very easy to make this as a mod. You may be interested to try it out, and see if you like it. I personally am not sure it would be an improvement; but YMMV.