Do we need the "One-Hitpoint Rule"? » Forum Post by Entropy Avatar

Actually, the rule is not "the stronger fleet win with 1hp", but "the attacking fleet win with 1hp".

Successfully updated karma reason!

Probably because the attacking fleet is 'getting the jump on' the defending fleet.

Successfully updated karma reason!

There's a rule in the game where if two fleet annihilate each other, the fleet that's deemed stronger in terms of total attack and defence will instead survive with one hitpoint.

I think this rule is unrealistic and unneccessary. It undermines the value of defence and creates some really cheesy situations. What's wrong with letting them both die? That seems like a very possible sci-fi outcome. If two egg-shells wielding sledgehammers meet, the result should be two broken eggshells.

I disagree...I find it more realistic than the alternative. Some hollywood movies/TV shows aside, its generally highly unlikely that two attackers can simultaneously wipe each other out. The attacker may later eventually "die" from injururies sustained (or be dead in space with an imminent warp core breach from damage), but those phenomena are not within the scope of the game's combat system.

Tie goes to the runner.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Actually, the rule is not "the stronger fleet win with 1hp", but "the attacking fleet win with 1hp".

Well, that can't be it, because I lost several combats attacking single-hitpoint battleships. It's why I decided to adopt the 1-hitpoint huge tactic myself.

I disagree...I find it more realistic than the alternative.

It's more realistic if a 1-hitpoint ship with no defences can continually wipe out attacking fleets? If a ship is dead in space with an imminent warp core breach, the best way to represent that in the game is to kill it, not let it move around at full speed and weapons and fight five more fleet engagements.

Successfully updated karma reason!

It's more realistic if a 1-hitpoint ship with no defences can continually wipe out attacking fleets? If a ship is dead in space with an imminent warp core breach, the best way to represent that in the game is to kill it, not let it move around at full speed and weapons and fight five more fleet engagements.

A single ship with 1 hitpoint will not survive an encounter against another fleet (unless youre the arceans using your powerful first strike ability). My remark was meant to address the alternative of there being "no winner" in any particular engagement.

Id be open to a rule , though, that reduced the attack/defense score (if any) of any ship that won a victory in this manner to zero until it was fully repaired, to simulate critical damage.

Successfully updated karma reason!

A single ship with 1 hitpoint will not survive an encounter against another fleet (unless youre the arceans using your powerful first strike ability).

In the first post, Entropy Avatar described a situation where a 1hp ship won many battles in a row, and super warrior wouldn't have made any difference.

I vote for mutual destruction.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Id be open to a rule , though, that reduced the attack/defense score (if any) of any ship that won a victory in this manner to zero until it was fully repaired, to simulate critical damage.

Well, something like that could work. I'm mostly against a ship that should be dead going on a rampage due to it's 1-hitpoint-rule armor. Believe me, it can happen. I lost 14 tiny fighters trying and failing to take out a battleship that was already down to 1 hitpoint from the previous fight. A large hull with Yor miniaturization can pack a lot of black hole eruptors. I built my own huge hull that won 5 fights even though it had no defences and had only 1 hitpoint after the first battle. The only reason I lost it is because I foolishly grouped it with a couple of other fighters.

Successfully updated karma reason!

A single ship with 1 hitpoint will not survive an encounter against another fleet (unless youre the arceans using your powerful first strike ability).

In the first post, Entropy Avatar described a situation where a 1hp ship won many battles in a row, and super warrior wouldn't have made any difference.

I vote for mutual destruction.

His ship had a 650 missle attack, fer chrissake. Cheesy ships are going to make for cheesy situations. That was far and away an exception, not the rule. If youve got 650+attack ships, youve already won the game many times over, and youre just driving enemy ships before you in any event.

The attacker is understood to have a "slight" (nothing compared to the way it wa in 1.0 Gc2 where everyone had first strike) advantage in surviveability. Take that away, you remove an entire aspect of strategic decision making from the game....i.e., if youre evenly matched, you better manuver to attack first. Better instead, to deal with whatever let the player make a 650 Missle attack ship in the game...

Successfully updated karma reason!

Id be open to a rule , though, that reduced the attack/defense score (if any) of any ship that won a victory in this manner to zero until it was fully repaired, to simulate critical damage.

Well, something like that could work. I'm mostly against a ship that should be dead going on a rampage due to it's 1-hitpoint-rule armor. Believe me, it can happen. I lost 14 tiny fighters trying and failing to take out a battleship that was already down to 1 hitpoint from the previous fight.

This is by design in DA...larger hulls ships are supposed to eat handfulls of smaller ships for breakfast. The best you can hope for it to sacrifice entire fleets of small/tiny ships to take out a single large hulled behemoth.

I think what youve really uncovered here, is yet more evidence on how offensive power is much more telling that defensive power in the game, and an overwhwleming attack score isa worht much more than high defense.

Successfully updated karma reason!

His ship had a 650 missle attack, fer chrissake. Cheesy ships are going to make for cheesy situations. That was far and away an exception, not the rule.

i've watched this conversation with interest. i agree to an extent that mutual destruction makes more sense, but 'making sense' in a fantasy game shouldn't be the bottom line: fun and balance should. i'm not sure how much this rule would unbalance the game, except that it allows for such cheesy tactics as those described above. i suppose the realism that the rules reflect can only go so far as the realism with which one's willing to play.

Entropy Avatar, i don't see medals, so i assume you're not worried about this for the sake of MV scoring. though I agree with your point, if it really bothers you, don't play with ships like the one you describe. otherwise, congrats on finding an effective strategy.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The attacker is understood to have a "slight" (nothing compared to the way it wa in 1.0 Gc2 where everyone had first strike) advantage in surviveability. Take that away, you remove an entire aspect of strategic decision making from the game....i.e., if youre evenly matched, you better manuver to attack first. Better instead, to deal with whatever let the player make a 650 Missle attack ship in the game...

Actually, the Yor had vastly superior firepower for almost the entire duration of the war. When I started fighting them their frigates had 157 attack and their battleships had over 250 and engines. Their next model battleship had about 350 missile attack. The tiny ships I used to fight them had about 16 attack, though that got upgraded to 24 and then 35 or so as I conquered their planets.

Also, if the one-hitpoint rule is the basis for an entire layer of strategic decision-making, I've got bad news for you. The rule doesn't favor the attacker. I was usually the attacker. It's the one with the highest attack + def rating that survives.

Successfully updated karma reason!

His ship had a 650 missle attack, fer chrissake. Cheesy ships are going to make for cheesy situations. That was far and away an exception, not the rule.

i've watched this conversation with interest. i agree to an extent that mutual destruction makes more sense, but 'making sense' in a fantasy game shouldn't be the bottom line: fun and balance should. i'm not sure how much this rule would unbalance the game, except that it allows for such cheesy tactics as those described above. i suppose the realism that the rules reflect can only go so far as the realism with which one's willing to play. Entropy Avatar, though I agree with your point, if it really bothers you, don't play with ships like the one you describe.

I think his problem would be solved by simply playign on a more challenging difficulty where he wouldnt be able to run this far ahead on tech(unitl the games already over), and the situation would never be an issue....you'd even be glad for the rule.

Still, as I said, some sort of "critical damage" rule, forcing ships that won a squeaker to limp back to port and repair themselves before they were functional again would still keep the slight strategic advantage (tie goes to the runner) of attacking first intact, while keeping a powerful single hp ship from going on a murder spree, wouldnt hurt.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think his problem would be solved by simply playign on a more challenging difficulty where he wouldnt be able to run this far ahead on tech(unitl the games already over), and the situation would never be an issue....you'd even be glad for the rule.

Still, as I said, some sort of "critical damage" rule, forcing ships that won a squeaker to limp back to port and repair themselves before they were functional again would still keep the slight strategic advantage (tie goes to the runner) of attacking first intact, while keeping a powerful single hp ship from going on a murder spree, wouldnt hurt.

1. I wasn't running ahead of the AI, I was way, way behind the AI (though still winning the war).

2. The tie does not go to the runner.

3. The 650-attack ship is not my new strategy. It was just my best design choice in that particular situation. I had very advanced missile technology from conquering Yor worlds and I couldn't possibly field ships with enough defence to stand up to what they would dish out.

Given that the tie doesn't go to the runner, what's the gameplay benefit of the one-hitpoint rule? As far as I can tell, it only makes very-high attack ships immune to being taken out by small groups of much cheaper ships. As far as I'm concerned, if you build a 2-trillion credit ship with absolutely no defences, a vulnerability to the suicide attack of a couple of cheap ships should be the price you pay.

Edit: BTW, I lost that game. My plan was to ally with the Altarians and win a diplomatic victory once I had finished eliminating the Yor. However, the Altarians were on the verge of tech victory. I got the alliance with the Altarians, but the Yor refused to surrender, even when they were down to one world. I was about three turns away from taking Iconia when the Altarians ascended. I had a really bad starting position and no tech trading, so that's why they got so far ahead. Probably the most gripping game of GC2 I've played.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think I have to agree with Entropy on this one -- there's definitely something off with this situation. On the surface, it makes sense for a massive battleship to have a tactical advantage over a swarm of smaller ships. This is as it should be, but I think the 1-hp thing takes it too far. To see how bizarre it is, look at the battles more carefully:

Large, heavily armed battleship with paper-thin armor, heavily damaged (1HP left) approaches a fleet of moderately armed fighters. As the ships approach each other, both sides let loose with their weapons. The battleship's weapons independently target the fighters, guaranteeing their destruction. Meanwhile, each fighter independently lets loose on the battleship.

That last sentence is key: the fighters get their shots in, presumably some of them hitting the battleship, yet in the end, despite having sustained potentially hundreds of HP worth of damage against absolutely no defenses, the battleship wins to fight another day. This is not a reasonable outcome.

The only way a 1hp ship should win in a situation where the enemy can and does inflict damage is if it is fielded by a Super Warrior, and dispatches all the enemies before they can fire.

Of course, single powerful battleships being allowed to survive were not the intention of the devs when they created this rule. I imagine it was meant more with the idea that there would almost always be a "survivor" among a pitched fleet vs. fleet battle, ie. that fundamentally, somebody would be there to "shoot the last shot." We can argue about whether that's fundamentally sound, but it would miss the point of this post.

The powerful-single-ship fleet is a special case that should be addressed separately in this rule.

As an aside, this could happen at a variety of technological levels, not just the "end game uber ship" level. This is something that can happen anytime you pit a large ship vs. a swarm of smaller ships, which is something the game should handle.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Sir_On_The_Edge

Join Date 07/2006

+7

With projectile weaponry and long distances it is very fesable for two things to wipe each other out at the same time.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I agree, but that slightly misses the point here -- maybe we should have the 1hp rule, maybe we shouldn't, there are pros and cons both ways (There are definitely very reasonable scenarios for each outcome -- maybe a bit of randomness should be entered into the equation? Sometimes a single ship survives?).

Either way, the 1hp battleship loophole shouldn't exist.

Successfully updated karma reason!

With projectile weaponry and long distances it is very fesable for two things to wipe each other out at the same time.

Not just that, when you consider the firepower of high end weaponry verses hitpoints, you know, the whole thing is like, 'one shot, one kill'.

Defence technology fails to keep up with weaponry, and even if it did, with the combat system the way it is, you can still end up 'rolling a zero' on defence. That aspect is truely the stupidest part of the whole thing. It should be capped to a minimum roll no less than 50%. or as low as 10% just to help weaker ships keep up, whatever works... but at least not zero

Successfully updated karma reason!

Ah, so that's why that Dread Lords ship with 1hp kept wiping out my fleets. I was just about to post on this as if it were an error in the DA campaign.

I'm not sure what to think about that rule. It's certainly counterintuitive, if you're considering hit points as raw numbers. My strategy was to run a few seriously underpowered fleets into one DL ship on the same turn to take it out. It didn't work.

Successfully updated karma reason!