In case you never bothered to look, this is the chart from the manual.



Accuracy by Phases

1st 2nd 3rd

Missile

90% 70% 40%

Laser

50% 90% 70%

Kinetic

20% 40% 90%



Here's the text from the manual:

"- Missiles have the advantage of being able to deal high damage early in the battle, and they have higher critical damage potential than other weapon types. They are slow, however, so there is also a higher chance that they will be intercepted before they hit.

- Lasers have a small accuracy advantage, and shields are less likely to be researched than other defense modules. But shields are more effective in reducing laser damage than other weapon/defense combinations.

- Kinetics are nearly useless at long range without accuracy boosts, but they can deal more damage per phase than other weapons.

- Kinetics and Lasers are fired 4 times per phase, whereas missiles are fired only once, but can deal 4 times the damage of other weapon types."



Ok, so .... here is what this to translates using stats from most advanced versions of each weapon and defense in the game (L9);



Kinetics: 6-8 dmg 42 projectiles 0% crit (x2) - 4 shots per phase



Average Damage Potential - 1176



1st 2nd 3rd

235 470 1058 - dmg

8.4 16.8 37.8 - average projectiles that should hit each phase

45 45 45 - L9 defense stops X projectiles 100% of the time

18.7 37.3 84 - % of defensive modules necessary to stop 1 weapon



Thoughts: Defenses work really well. Seriously effected by + and - accuracy buffs. Very hard to have enough kinetics to hurt someone and enough defenses to make it past the first phase.



Beam: 175-220 dmg 0% crit (x3) - 4 shots per phase



Average Damage Potential - 790



1st 2nd 3rd

390 711 553 - dmg

200 200 200 - L9 defense stops x dmg per phase 100% of the time

195 355 266 - % of defensive modules necessary to stop 1 weapon



Thoughts - Defenses work terribly. Still cheesy, even after the patch.



Missile: 500-650 dmg 25% crit (x3) - 1 shot per phase



Average Damage Potential - 960



1st 2nd 3rd

864 672 384 - dmg

.9 .7 .4 - number of projectiles to be stopped

90 70 40 - % of defensive modules necessary to stop 1 weapon, usually *



*(we really don't know, but this matches my results from direct testing)



Thoughts - Oh my.



Heroes, Modules, and Resources all effect the above in a linear manner (except maybe missiles). We think a defense gets 3 "rolls" to intercept a missile. It may be possible for a single defense to stop more then one missile. We do not really know the exact formula for this. A good guess is each defense usually stops one missile at equal level... Usually becomes a weird concept when one failure will destroy an average of 3 CP of hit points.





Even if you don't believe my results from testing, if we are correct that each defense can stop 3 missiles potential, here is the funny bit;



Using the 1st and cheapest missile in the game in a destroyer at the the same tech level we can mount 48 units of missiles and a +40% dmg mod. This whole package costs about 235 industry total assuming we have 4 Titanium. Here are the results for that:



L1 Missile - 35-50 dmg (+40%) 10% crit (x3) - 1 shot per phase (x48)



Average Damage Potential - 3718



1st 2nd 3rd

3346 2602 1487 - dmg *

43.2 33.6 19.2 - number of projectiles to be stopped

14.4 11.2 6.4 - number of L9 defenses necessary to stop (assuming each stops 3 missiles)**



* Number of impacts it takes to kill a 1 CP ship = 4 hits.

** It is possible to stick 16 L9 defenses and a +15% defense mod into a 1 CP ship and this costs 1000 industry.



This means by using destroyers like this your opponent has to use +75% of their CP to avoid certain death to ships that cost 1/4 of what a L9 ship generally costs.



Where this gets really funny (using either my test results or the 3 to one potential rule and abuse) is mixed with other weapons; how many beams does it take to guarantee a first volley kill on a CP that has to have 75% missile defense?



(its around 16 L9 beams or 20 L8 beams if you want to be cost efficient)



Conclusion:



Stuff is pretty broken.

Edited into shape. Shouldn't be news - more like I just got annoyed enough to show the math.

As I posted in the missile thread (and several others, I might add) unless flak hard-counters missiles, the entire combat system is broken. Flak has to be much more efficient than the other defenses simply because it is missiles, not beams or kinetics, that is strong in the first round of combat (as opposed to mid or final round). Flak needs to be the 'best' defense, shields need to be fairly strong still and only deflectors should be weak enough that kinetics can still somewhat effectively punch through them.



I have no idea how you intend to fit 48 missiles onto a Destroyer, however, so your math is off. It's also not Hyperium but Titanium so your post is rather confusing. Did you confuse the industry cost with the tonnage cost?



Edit: If nothing else, those quotes from the manual describe how the game should work with the exception that shields shouldn't be better than flak.

Your math is sloppy, that much is certain



Your Kinetics calcs assume only 1 round of firing, while your laser calcs are based on 4 rounds. It think defense applies "per round", which means your required tonnage for Shields is way too high.



Your math for Missiles is also a bit off.

Afaik a flak gives you 4 chances to intercept at intercept accuracy vs. rnd(0 to 4x intercept evasion). If I remember correctly at lv9, you have 360 Intercept vs. 280 evasion, so you get 4 chances of 32% to kill incoming missiles.

In the simple 1vs1 case, you have about 21% chance of the missile getting through.

For the case with lowlevel missile spam, you shouldn't get lv9 flak, any flak with intercept accuracy more than 4x the evasion score of a missile is always a guaranteed kill, for a total of 4 secure kills.



I'll try to elaborate further once I get home and can both log into the game and actively test some of the stuff I'm postilating

@ Apheirox - Trit vs Hyp - thanks for noticing. Corrected. As to the 48 missiles, the level 1 missiles weigh 6.4 tons each.....



@ Grubsnik - Actually, the kinetics calc is correct. Check it.



The tool tips are unclear at best, as well as the terms phase and round. In play, it is per phase. Go watch a beam/kinetic fleet overwhelm defenses. At the start of the phase, defenses hold. At the end of the phase, damage penetrates.



You seem to have a better formula for missiles - please share it when you get the time. I will certainly correct the post based on the best info I can find.

cheers mate, the missile interception math was quoted here:

/#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15715-adding-multiple-defenses-to-a-module



Both kinetics and shields work pr. round, not pr. phase, which is why your "tonnage" numbers were off. The Kinetics are right, the Lasers are off.. At least in theory.



I've been testing with a mate most of the evening. It would appear that not everything is "as it should be".



Kinetic defense actually deflects 6 + the stated value bullets pr. module (pr. combat round) So, lv1 kinetics deflect 9 bullets, while lv2 deflects 11 bullets.

Shields actually absorb 15 + the stated value laser damage pr. module (pr. combat round) again, lv1 shields absorb 30 damage, lv2 shields absorb 40 damage.

A flak module had x+1 chances to shoot down incoming missiles, where the x is the flight-time of the missiles. So a good flak module can shoot down 4 not 3 incoming missiles.



I did not find the time to check if flakmodules also have a hardcoded bonus to interception accuracy.



Anyhow, it would be very nice if someone else would try to redo these tests and possibly verify what I'm seeing.

All the tool tips say per round .....



I would like to test the above. Anyone in EST with the patience?

I've set up a new thread for this, with a bit more testing setup info.

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9453-defense-modules-not-behaving-as-expected

I don't understand why you think these numbers mean anything. If you're calculating with a maxed tech tree (that I assume the 48 lvl 1 missiles come from) do you really find it a fair comparison to assume the opponent shoots them down with the highest tech, bulkiest flak? You're massively stacking the numbers so the result is hardly surprising. Besides, I doubt a L9 tech ship can't take 3700 damage.

To be fair, the mechanics of the different defenses means a lot of weird stuff is going on. Flak is just the only defense type that can effectively be "countered" by crappy missiles.



My suggestion of a fix would be to let any interception accuracy the exceeds a 100% chance of elimination, overflow to another intercept chance, repeat until you run out of intercept accuracy.

This would let a lv9 flak demolish up to 9 lv1 missiles, pr. round, for a total of 36 missiles destroyed.

I disagree you can say there's 'a lot' of weird stuff going on. What else would you point to other than Copperwire's absurd example here? Shields work correctly, as do deflectors (other than those findings you posted about yourself of those having hidden modifiers... ugh - nice find though). Though you could indeed fix this by having flak overflow it really is a miniscule problem. Mass level 1 missiles would have trouble even chewing through the vast amounts of armor a L9 ship is going to have. Basically, low-level missiles deal so little damage it really wouldn't be worth building a strategy around abusing the limitations of flak.

Hi,



In the game I am playing, I had some big battles between my fleets and my enemy's ones. After each battles, I had this result : Missiles : 0% (all ships destroyed before the missiles could hit...), Beam 45%, Kinetics : 0%. And for my defense : mostly anti missile defense and sometimes a bit of shields.

I have changed my plans according to those results, and now, my ships only have lots and lots of beam weapons (last level). I'll see what it will do against my last enemies...