Kreios wrote:
Another possibility is that the damage multipliers from Neutrino Pulsion apply after the absorbers reduce incoming damage. Compare the following two cases for 1 Gluon Disruptor assisted by 22 Neutrino Pulsion vs. 1 Ablative Wave Shield (includes 85% accuracy):

In one of my other tests i used 8 neutrino and 14 fusion and with 9BS the 22DD couldn't get through the shields, whereas with 22 neutrino they can.

Hence it seems neutrino multiplies up the damage before absorbtion but crits take affect afterwards.

Am I the only one who finds entire fleets composed of the same ship with the same weapons really bland? I'd really like to see changes made that discourage this. I'd like to see a combat system that makes fleets look more like their modern counterparts in our real world.



BTW, thanks for doing all of this work.

Unikraken wrote:
Am I the only one who finds entire fleets composed of the same ship with the same weapons really bland? I'd really like to see changes made that discourage this. I'd like to see a combat system that makes fleets look more like their modern counterparts in our real world.



BTW, thanks for doing all of this work.

I quite agree. One of the things I noted in the analysis was that you can "punish" someone for taking all shields by putting a small amount of a tonnage towards kinetics. Missiles seem to have a psychological impact on the player, getting to watch as low-speed death approaches their fleet and knowing that there is nothing to be done about it. Filling out the ADN/BDN fleet with a pair of destroyers armed with at least 5x missile launchers could really mess with the enemy player.





@Kreios I didn't see the repair systems included in the calculations. Is that because these fights are not expected to reach into the second phase?

werewolf_nr wrote:
I quite agree. One of the things I noted in the analysis was that you can "punish" someone for taking all shields by putting a small amount of a tonnage towards kinetics. Missiles seem to have a psychological impact on the player, getting to watch as low-speed death approaches their fleet and knowing that there is nothing to be done about it. Filling out the ADN/BDN fleet with a pair of destroyers armed with at least 5x missile launchers could really mess with the enemy player.

After I did the round-by-round simulations in the dreadnought development, I started to suspect that the reverse of what you're suggesting might be a better way to go in general, at least against fleets with large numbers of attackers. Imagine that you're fighting 11 destroyers, armed with beams or kinetics (I'm hesitant to use missiles on destroyers because they can easily die before launching). Given the option of fielding an identical 11 destroyers and pray to the dice gods for victory, you could use 7 destroyers and 2 cruisers. Since you have fewer ships, the enemy destroyersare forced to double (or triple, etc) on some of your ships. If they focus fire a destroyer, it wastes all of the firepower on at least one of their ships, and it's still a one-for-one trade. If they double up on cruiser (which is made to withstand at least 2-on-1 odds), they lose a destroyer without causing a casuality in return, setting them back relative to your damage output thereafter. It might even scale up to dreadnoughts in fleets of 13-17, which might have a 1-2-X or 1-3-X split for 4Cp-2CP-1CP ships. However, the more big ships you add, especially dreadnoughts, the higher your chances of wasting a powerful volley on a destroyer. It's a delicate balance.



Long story short: it looks like mixed fleets have an important role to play in the current combat system. I haven't done a rigorous number crunch for the issue yet, but I'll update the guide when I do.

werewolf_nr wrote:
@Kreios I didn't see the repair systems included in the calculations. Is that because these fights are not expected to reach into the second phase?

Presently, weapon damage appears to be so high that the battles almost never reach a second phase of fighting (technically, Phase 3). A couple of possible solutions would be to make repair modules activate every round, to increase ship HP in general, or both at once.

I'm sorry but how is this at all practical? Even on Hard AI I've never come close to maxing out techs before having effectively won through Laser Destroyer Swarms let alone any of the AIs getting that far....

Realistically none of this *really* matters on AI as it is now. I have beaten games on serious was basic lasers aswell.



That said, combat can still be 'better' and can be *done* better by players. A guide like this is more appropriate for actual multiplayer games, than it is against the AI. Mostly though, I believe this is to show that these ships can matter at a more theoretical level, because of many complaints people have had about the combat system, and to show players that glass cannons don't have to be *entirely* dominant.

Ketobor wrote:
Realistically none of this *really* matters on AI as it is now. I have beaten games on serious was basic lasers aswell.



That said, combat can still be 'better' and can be *done* better by players. A guide like this is more appropriate for actual multiplayer games, than it is against the AI. Mostly though, I believe this is to show that these ships can matter at a more theoretical level, because of many complaints people have had about the combat system, and to show players that glass cannons don't have to be *entirely* dominant.

OK. I still think that assumption of a maxed out tech tree makes it impractical in use even in multiplayer, I've never seen a game last that long.

The maxed tech tree is irrelevant except to provide context for the technology used for the ship construction. It's the method that matters anyway.



Check out Experiment 2 at the bottom of the current guide, where no tech used exceeds 1800 science. Destroyers still aren't a trump card at that level.