Bug: ships gain experience from killing unarmed ships

I just noticed that my ships are gaining experience from killing enemy ships only equipped with defenses. This shouldn't happen, after all, even if a ship has 2000 defenses and 100000 hit points, as long as it has no offensive capabilities, it will always get destroyed by my 2 beam ship. It's just like attacking completely unarmed ships in that respect.

Well this isn't a bug, since it wasn't designed to do something else, it's an overlooked flaw or design. NOT A BUG.

Also, it's still a military ship. You're still shooting it. If things like paintball can improve weapon skill (not much admittedly), why not firing on unarmed ships? You're post implies that unarmed ships aren't involved in military affairs, which is naive. War is war, and a kill is a kill.

Double post again, aargh

It takes zero effort to blow up a barge at short range. You will not become an experienced marksman from shooting at a slow-moving, unarmed barge. Likewise, you should not gain experience in a game from putting no effort into a kill, otherwise you might as well be playing "monster-in-a-box" style Dungeons & Dragons.

It takes zero effort to blow up a barge at short range. You will not become an experienced marksman from shooting at a slow-moving, unarmed barge. Likewise, you should not gain experience in a game from putting no effort into a kill, otherwise you might as well be playing "monster-in-a-box" style Dungeons & Dragons.

Oh really? The only difference in space combat is whether or not they shoot back. You don't dodge or pilot while in combat, just fire. Which requires you to lock and fire. Same as it would without.

I concede that the real life concept was weak. But nothing is different about the way they move with or without weapons.

Well, the point is, I have been killing these unarmed defenders for a while. I'm using very slow research with the modified tech tree where each tech takes 8x longer to research, and the enemy hasn't researched weapons yet. Got no experience for it at all. Now, apparently, they have researched some defenses, and are cranking out defenders with 2 shield and 1 armor, and still no weapons. And now I do get experience points for killing them. Just seems so strange. I previously thought that experience was gained from killing enemies that actually posed some kind of threat.

Why do SWAT teams and other Military or Police teams TRAIN with blanks in "Mock" combat situations? Theres no chance of them being shot. But hey WOW!! IT IMPROVES THEIR SKILLS. Not as much as spending a year in Iraq on the gbroun but skills are skills. So I can see SOME skill gain from unarmed ships. *Shrug*

A kill is a kill. Ask any fighter pilot. Killing a great big zeppelin in WWI still counted as a kill and still let you make "Ace" if you popped 5 of them.

It takes zero effort to blow up a barge at short range. You will not become an experienced marksman from shooting at a slow-moving, unarmed barge.

Ummm....you still have to hit the barge and that is experience that will add up so that if a future target can shoot back you can hit it even more. It's like shooting at a target...no marksman got that way without shooting at targets. Last I saw targets don't shoot back.

Not to Mention that they could be practicing on their precision..

"Hey i bet you can't make a shot through that porthole."
"How much?"
"$20"
"Ok"
***Your Marksmen Skill goes up***
"Pay Up"

That sorta thing.....

Real life militaries practice against unarmed targets all the time... in fact during world war 2 nazi submarines main targets were unarmed freighters... experiance should definitely earnt for killing freighters.

The point is, in GC2 you get experience depending on how 'dangerous' the enemy is. They probably use one of those A+D+H/3.1415 formulas for that. The ships I'm killing have 2 shield and 1 armor, and I get a whole lot of experience points for shooting them. Probably much more than I would get if they were just 1 beam attack ships.

Yeah, experience should probably be calculated on attack power. even a 6hp 0 defense ship is dangerous if it has a black hole generator or 2. It can blow a few of your ships up before it dies.

IMO experience is fun in a game but comparing it to real life is plain silly. I mean really, you can now survive being stabbed 3 times with a spear every time it happens, and you spontaneously learned how to speak elvish, just because you killed some goblins?

War is war, and a kill is a kill.

i agree whole heartedly there Marcathonas, and robo, as well as unblinded1. now, i don't know how much xp you get, and weather or not it needs to be changed, but war is war, a kill is a kill, and if i have to destroy all my enimys freighters and transports, thereby forcing them into bankrupsy, it is still a win.

Target practice

I just noticed that my ships are gaining experience from killing enemy ships only equipped with defenses.

If anything, the bug is that the AI make ships with only defenses. They ships will still always lose, but they cost more.

It is not a bug in the AI, it was simply the result of modifying the tech tree so research is excruciatingly slow. They hadn't researched weapons yet, but apparently already had shields.