Optimal Weapon Placement

Hey,
Both the game manual and any strategy guide I've read are a little confusing when describing ship combat. What I can't find out is: My question can best be asked by an example. If an attacking ship has 6 beam, 6 missile, and 6 mass driver, his attack rating will be 18. If the defending ship has 3 shield, 6 point defense, and 9 armor, will his defense rating be a straight 18, or will the game be able to apply the shield to the beam, and so on? The way the manual makes it sound, if beam is part of the attack rating at all, then the whole of the defender's shields is added to his defense rating. If this is true, then a ship with 18 beam weapon, or even 18 mass driver would be more effective than a ship with its attack rating spread among three weapon types, because it will only have one full defense type to punch through, and only gets the square root of the rest. Does anyone know how it really works?

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Not sure how it works either, but something is definitely wrong with the manual description - from the info in here, a battle between two ships each with 1 attack and 1 defence would never end! according to manual, attacker would roll a number between 1 and 1, so would the defender, and the difference 1-1=0 would be taken off the hit points until one ship
dies!!!

very fishy indeed - I'm sure I would have noticed if this was happening! must mean between 0 and attack rating, and same for def roll.

so, sorry not very helpful but at least you aren't the only one confused!

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Don't ask me for the exact numbers but here's a simple-ish explanation. There is behind the scenes 'dice-rolling' to determine if an attack gets through the defences.

attacking ship:
6 beam, 6 missile, and 6 mass driver

defending ship:
3 shield, 6 point defense, and 9 armor

Each weapon type is blocked by the corresponding defence type at 'full' effectiveness.

i.e. 6 missile vs 6 point defence will mean that the attacker struggles to deal damage. He will slowly get through as the defender fails a 'saving roll' but it won't be easy.

If the attack/defence ratings are not equal then one ship has the clear advantage.

6 mass driver vs 9 armour - the defender will absorb the majority of the attacks, the attcking ship will really struggle to make headway.

6 beam vs 3 shield - the attacker will be quite effective against this ship. Only half of his attack will be deflected on average.

Now, our example ships have mixed offence/defence. Simply put you compare like to like in isolation. Beam blocked by shield etc. But it's not quite so simple. The 'non-specific' defences also contribute to the defence but at much reduced value, I think 1/4 of full effect.

Let's say our defending ship is attacked by a beam weapon. It gets:

Shield 3 at 100% - 3 points
Point defence 6 at 25% - 1.5 points
Armour 9 at 25% - 2.25 points
Total defence - 6.75 points

So as you can see, if you have put the 'wrong' defence technology on your ships it isn't a total loss, they will give limited defence against anything but at much reduced effect.

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Basically each value represents a die, so with a beam of 6 you're rolling a D6 to get a score of between 1 and 6. The defender than rolls their relevant defence die, so say they had a beam defence of 5 they roll a D5 to get a score between 1 and 5 which they then deduct from your attack. This is then repeated for each weapon type.

Now, one area I'm hazy on, non-optimal defences still count (e.g. missile defences can block beams) but only at half value, but I don't know if they are rolled for each attack, or rolled once and applied to all the attacks in turn at the appropriate value (i.e. full and halved).

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I'm sure I would have noticed if this was happening! must mean between 0 and attack rating, and same for def roll.

I believe you are correct in that..

If this is true, then a ship with 18 beam weapon, or even 18 mass driver would be more effective than a ship with its attack rating spread among three weapon types, because it will only have one full defense type to punch through, and only gets the square root of the rest. Does anyone know how it really works?

I would like to know how this works as well.

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You can also factor in civ specialties for attack and defense bonuses, as well as hit point and ship strength bonuses you research. Finally, the attacking fleet gets to shoot first, which gives them at least one clear shot before they do a damage roll.

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I'm sure defense rolls between 1 and 0. Must be a misprint in the manual.

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It's the square root of the non-optimal defense used, so the total damage dealt (assuming you get perfect rolls) is:

Beam damage=Beam power - Shield Power - Sqrt(Armour Power) - Sqrt(Missile defense power)
Mass driver damage=Mass driver power - Sqrt(Shield Power) - Armour Power - Sqrt(Missile defense power)
Missile damage=Missile power - Sqrt(Shield Power) - Sqrt(Armour Power) - Missile defense power

Total damage=Beam damage + Mass Driver damage + Missile damage

Attack rolls are from 1-Max ( I think), defense rolls are from 0-Max. Non-integer values are rounded down.

So from all that, it seems you're better off picking all your weapons from one category. Although, at the beginning when you have less than three attack, and your opponents have no defenses, if you have all different weapons, you will hit a guaranteed 3 damage each time, wheras with all your weapons in one area, you'll get 1-3 damage (assuming I've got the attack rolls right, some people seem to say it's 0-Max like defense).

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There are a lot of opinions on the subject. (If only Stardock would actually release an accurate description of the combat mechanics...)

Here's my best guess, and the way my simulator works:

attack roll = random integer from 0 to (beam attack + missile attack + mass driver attack)

matched defense = min(attacker beam, defender shield) + min(attacker missile, defender point defense) + min(attacker massdriver, defender armor)

mismatched defense = (defender shield + defender missile + defender point defense) - matched defense

defense roll = (random integer from 0 to matched defense) + int(sqrt(random integer from 0 to mismatched defense))

(Note that sqrt(0-mismatched defense) has a different distribution than 0-sqrt(mismatched defense)... this is one of the details where it's nearly impossible to verify exactly what's going on.)

In practice, my ships always have just one attack type (except in rare special cases).

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How I understand it:

Each weapon type is calculated seperately. The attacker does a random amount of damage from 0 to the rating for that weapon type. (Not sure about the 0, but I'm sure I've seen a Beam 1 fighter do 0 damage against an unprotected ship)

The defence against that weapon will be the total of the defence rating against that attack type (shield for beam, and so on), plus the square root of the values for the other two defences. The Defender blocks a random amount of damage from 0 to the defence value.

So, in your example:

Attacker: 6 beam, 6 missile, and 6 mass driver
Defender: 3 shield, 6 point defense, and 9 armor

The attacker rolls for each weapon.

For Beam, he rolls 0-6. The Defender rolls (3 + 2 + 3) = 0-8 to block.
For Missile, he rolls 0-6. The Defender rolls (1 + 6 + 3) = 0-10 to block
For MD, he rolls 0-6. The Defender rolls (1 + 2 + 9) = 0-12 to block

The total damage is then applied, and assuming the defender survives, he gets his attack next.

(Note, the above assumes that fractional values are rounded down - I'm not 100% sure if that's the case, but I suspect so.)

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