Speed trumps Defense and it probably shouldn't

from GalCiv2 Forums
In most of the games I've been playing, it is far better to have good engine speed and good sensors (which can be offloaded onto a sensor boat) than defense. Since ships with a high attack power and the ability to attack first rip up the AI's ships, I can literally just sit outside their range, fly in kill a bunch of ships without taking damage and fly back out of their range.

Since speed and sensors are things you want anyways, it seems that defense really isn't as useful as either one and is usually both expensive and big. My goal in every game is simply to kill first always. The enemy usually never gets to strike back unless I'm unlucky and even then, it usually doesn't take out my ship.

And finally after I've done this enough times, my ships have so many hitpoints, the AI runs from them even if it could take them out if they just attacked first. At that point it's just a turkey shoot / shooting fish in a barrel.

Sooooo, perhaps defense could be made a little more useful.
13,304 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Since no one else has replied to this yet, I will, even though I haven't spent enough time in the game to verify what you're seeing. I did notice that the Wiki had the same analysis of combat that you do, and I would have to agree that this is not a good thing.

It certainly would make ship design more interesting if defense were vital, all the way through to the end game and I imagine this is something that wouldn't be too hard to tweak (I would guess that juicing up the defense benefits, or reducing the advantages of speed/sensors would not have complicated side effects).
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that defense is of negligible use. I tried using the Jedi combat simulator with various fleets of comparable cost to see what was best. I would setup a fleet on attack, run a few simulations, adding up the number of surviving ships on each side. Then I would reverse the attacker and defender and repeat. I haven't found any fleets yet where the one with defense ended up with more survivors overall than the one without. And this was in cases where I picked the optimal defense for against the attack.

So I can't see why you should even bother researching defense techs.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
So I can't see why you should even bother researching defense techs.


heh... ok guy play as you like. I'll stick to defense thank you
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think I figured it out, about speed and defense etc.
there comes a point where your average shot is sufficent to kill one of there fighters each turn. (2x there hp). after this point it is more effective to place defensive measures to prolong the life of your fighters. if he responds with his own defense, then up your attack untill it can on average kill in 1 shot. this becomes particularly important when say your battle ship can deal 200damage but on average 100 of it is wasted (since its opponent will be between 50-60hp most of the time) instead you should convert that 100damage thats wasted into defensive bonsus. speed is great too, never leave home without 5pc or more IMO.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The only reason engines and weapons are better than defense IMO is that the AI just doesn't use enough defense. If the AI invest in a ton of defense to completely neglect your weapons (completely possible), no amount of engines or weapons will help you. Personally I would like to see some of the AIs use this tactic, perhaps the Altarians or any of the 'good' races, because they get special defenses to compliment this strategy. The neutrals can be balanced, and the evil can be offense based since they have special weapons.

The only thing about defenses is that you have to use it right, that is, you have to focus your defense into one field and make ships like "beam defender" and "missile defender", etc... Or you have to look at this designs and see how many of each defenses to use. If he had 10 beam attack and 4 missile attack on his ships, put 10 shields and 4 point defense on yours. If you use those right, there's no way you can lose. I've parked defender ships in AI space and watch it take out their entire interstellar navy as they charge in to attack it, and found their weapons completely useless.

IMO, defenses in the player's hand are way overpowered, where as defenses in the AI's hands are not worth a grain of salt. This is probably a weakness in the AI's ship design more than because weapons and defenses are unbalanced.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If the battles went on for a good number of rounds, defences would be more useful than they are at the moment.

As long as you can get the first shot in and kill in one shot, there's no need for defences. Hopefully 1.1 with the AI's new found respect for speed this will change, though.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It very much depends who you're fighting and at what stage of the game you're at. For example if you're more technologically advanced than your foe then a few points of defense can stop your ships taking any damage and being worn down by superior numbers. Also it's a lot easier to crank up your defense using military starbases than it is to improve your attack.

The best example of this is the Dreadlords, they're chucking around ships with attack 50 defense 0. This makes them almost comically easy to destroy with a large fleet of small ships. If they went for attack 20 defense 20, say, then they would be almost impossible to defeat.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Basically, their defenses aren't as good as your weapons from the sound of things. I designed a really nasty little fighter with four disruptor III's, Zero point armor and Ultimate invulnerability shield. It got jumped by a huge fleet of pirates. There were 15 of them, 1 of me and my one fighter destroyed that entire fleet without damage. Their weapons just couldn't get through the shield. So, defense matters. It just has to be powerful enough to take a beating.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Okay, I put together the following match-up for Kryo's simulation:

Each side has medium-sized hulls, and has Laser V / Shields tech (equal distance down each path).

Player 1 is pure offense and his ships carry 9 lasers (9 attack, 0 defense). Each ship costs 305.
Player 2 is mixed and carries 5 lasers and 2 shields (5 attack 4 defense). Each ship also costs 305.

For the simulation I used fleets of 4 ships (shown as 9/0x4 and 5/4x4). I ran each simulation 16 times and added up the total number of survivors.

9/0x4 attacks 5/4x4: Attacker had 26 surviving ships vs. defender's 4.
5/4x4 attacks 9/0x4: Attacker had 22 surviving ships vs. defender's 10.
9/0x4 attacks 9/0x4: Attacker had 23 surviving ships vs. defender's 13.

The most obvious lesson is that first-strike is important. But it also seems clear that given the choice between these two ship configurations, you're better off with the 9/0. Even if you're being attacked, your expected survival rate is higher with the pure offense ships.

I'm sure there must be a configuration where some defense gives a slight edge, but I haven't found it. Add in the fact that if you get attacked by the wrong kind of weapon you're screwed, I just don't see the use of defense.

So here's the Pepsi challenge:

Find a match-up that demonstrates a clear advantage in choosing some defense vs. all offense in the simulator, testing both sides with first strike.
Use equivalent attack/defense tech levels.
Make sure each fleet configuration costs roughly the same and has the same number of ships.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If combat were more or less simultaneous (there are quite a few options here) then defense would shine more.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm sure there must be a configuration where some defense gives a slight edge, but I haven't found it. Add in the fact that if you get attacked by the wrong kind of weapon you're screwed, I just don't see the use of defense.


Well, you could try mixing up sizes a little. Defence is proportionately more powerful when you are facing smaller ships. I don't have time to cook up some specific examples, so I'll argue qualitatively here. Consider 3 fleets with approximately equal cost and logistics

Fleet A: small or tiny ships, all offence
Fleet B: large or huge ships, large commitment to defence
Fleet C: large or huge ships, all offence

Fleet B will beat Fleet A: This is because the larger ships can afford to put on enough defences to nearly negate the offence of the smaller ships. The penalty in attack value isn't as detrimental because a lot of the full attack would normally go into overkill.

Fleet C will beat Fleet B: This is because the ships in Fleet B can't carry enough defences to largely negate the attack of a ship of equivalent tech and equivalent size, without totally sacrificing offence. Fleet C isn't wasting that much firepower in overkill, because the hitpoints for fleet B come in larger chunks.

Fleet A will beat Fleet C: Much of Fleet C's firepower is wasted in overkill, while little of Fleet A's firepower is wasted, and it isn't blunted by defences.



So, to beat a ship that is all offence, either design a much smaller ship that is all offence, or a much larger ship that has a big commitment to defence.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Fleet A will beat Fleet C: Much of Fleet C's firepower is wasted in overkill, while little of Fleet A's firepower is wasted, and it isn't blunted by defences.


Actually as was posted elsewhere, this is unlikely given the relative values of logistics, though this could change with 1.1 and the new logistics values for big ships.

Currently you can have about 10-15 ships small ships late game and 4-6 big ships late game. Each round the big ships will likely take out your little ships each round. So that's 4-6 losses a round. The small ships will take out maybe 1 1/2 ships. Ultimately according to the tests run, the big ships will always win (at least in comparison to logistical costs). The small guys have a slim chance if they attack first and no chance if they attack second.

Though there are many ways around this by making minor changes to the combat algorithm.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually as was posted elsewhere, this is unlikely given the relative values of logistics, though this could change with 1.1 and the new logistics values for big ships.


Running the numbers, I think you are right. It SHOULD work out that way, but even 4 tiny ships can only really eat a huge at reasonably high tech level. 4 tiny ships getting attacked by a huge that can one-shot them easily will get off 6 shots. To take say a 60 hp huge (a couple of +hp effects), they need to have an attack around 20... that's tough to fit on a tiny at most tech levels.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Fleet A will beat Fleet C: Much of Fleet C's firepower is wasted in overkill, while little of Fleet A's firepower is wasted, and it isn't blunted by defences.


Actually, given fleets of comparable cost, fleet C will win because bigger ships provide economies of scale. For the cost of a huge ship with 13 Mark V lasers, you can only by 3 tiny ships with 5 Mark V lasers each. Even on defense, the huge ship won 10 out 10 simulations.

However, you seem to be right about a benefit of defense in certain "Little jumps Big" scenarios. Your fleet B will also win every time, and with more surviving hit points. In scenarios where the large ship is at a disadvantage (i.e., the small ship fleet gets more money than the large ship fleet) the large ship would be better off spending some on defense.

But it does seem the case in all(?) fights of equal cost & numbers, 100% offense is preferable.

Considering that: 1) The scenarios where some defense is better than all offense are few, 2) Defense must be researched in addition to offense, and 3) If your enemy changes weapon paths, you're hosed, I think the game would benefit from some tweaking to how defense can be improved.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Considering that: 1) The scenarios where some defense is better than all offense are few, 2) Defense must be researched in addition to offense, and 3) If your enemy changes weapon paths, you're hosed, I think the game would benefit from some tweaking to how defense can be improved.


I think you are right that defence could stand some additional improvement. Given that a high-defence, low-attack 'environment' only encourages a higher emphasis on attack, improving the efficiency of defence is unlikely to cause a run-away effect in the other direction.

The only place I would worry is the small-versus-large tradeoff. If high defence is too easy to acquire, relative to attack, then large ships can make themselves functionally immune to small ship attacks. Large ships are already a pretty good deal.

Basically, the designers need to decide if larger ships are supposed to be flat-out better for battle than small ships (an Honour Harrington, ship of the line universe) or whether small ships should be competitive.

If large are supposed to be substantially better, pound for pound, then they need to be less flexible. Right now, a huge is only 4 or 5 times the cost of a tiny. Given that to do any real fighting, you need a fleet of tiny ships anyway, the huges aren't THAT much less flexible in deployment. Tinies are only more flexible in deployment for fighting targets that can't shoot back, and in that case, you are almost better off with a cargo hull.

Flexibility of production is another matter, but 4 or 5x the cost isn't an insurmountable barrier, and it's not hard to build a navy of large ships quickly on a handfull of dedicated worlds. Considering potential starbase and captital bonuses, it's also cheaper than pushing out small ships from a starport on every world.

If Huge ships were more like 15 or 30x the cost of tiny ships, then you have a real difference in deployment flexibilities. That would also amplify the potential huge-ship problem of 'can't kill them fast enough', as a single huge fighting 15 tiny ships would suffer over 100 attacks.