"New" Fleet Combat in DA - big ships useless???

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all!

Well, DA is worth the money. Thanks ...no a very big "thanks" to the Developers.
(my english is not good enough to express myself in the adequat manner - so please be patient).

I´m very surprised about Fleet Combat, or better to say the new combat calculation. In my present game i´m in a bitter, very long and mercyless war with the Koraths. Wow, they really hurt me (AI-Level challenging).

My problem is.....i researched big ship hulls (mainly large). So i invest a lot of resources and money into it...only to see, that they are "nearly useless"! Let me explain:
The Koraths are using maximal fleets (11 ships each) with medium ships. These ships are equipped with none or very low armor. They are not fast (moving only 3pc/turn) and each ship wears weapons at maximum. (in my game they use Mass-Drivers, i use beamweapons and armor againt massdrivers - i have the best armor and the best beamers).

My super-expensive large-hull Fleet (7 ships) meets this low-budget korath fleet. Well, my ships open fire, destroying every enemy ship - BUT, those enemy ships do fire back, BEVOR they explode. This means, one or two of my large ships WILL always be destroyed. The enemie could build much faster those medium-class ships, at lower costs than i can with my large ones. Well, so i changed my warfare-tactic. I built mixed fleets - 2-3 large ships, 3 medium the rest small ships. With this tactic, i loose my medium and small ships for shure!!! But my bigger ones will survive and get experience. I need with this tactic a lot of money (like in a real war)and/but have still the feeling to be outnumbered and overhelmed by the enemy, wich uses more and more stronger weapons in his cheap ships, wich will blow away every armor and destroyes more and more ships in my fleets.

To get me right - this is no critical post - i like this new system, cause it´s much harder to beat. But, is this only with the koraths or does every opponent race use this tactic? If so, it would not make any sense to research big ships. The best way is to rush your enemies by number with cheap fleets - what means to me, no strategical warfare is necessary....only the rush will bring you victory!

What do you say?

Greetings from Germany
Jochen
12,427 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I ran into a fairly similar situation in my last game. Remember that a fleet 11 max-weapon medium ships isn't all *that* cheap compared to a fleet of large ship, even ships with defences. If he's losing 11 mediums to your 1 or 2 large ships, I think you are coming out ahead dollar for dollar. Also, the research time invested to get to large ships from medium ships isn't very much compared to the time to research to the end of a weapons line.

Still, if the enemy is going to deploy all weapons and no defences, you need to make him pay. 11 medium ships at max tech are going to have something like 1600 attack but only about 250 hitpoint between them. Send in some small or tiny ships with all attack. Don't try to win the battle, just send in enough ships to totally gut his fleet in one turn. So if they have about 250 hitpoints, aim for about 500ish attack. At maximum weapons, a small ship can do 75ish damage easily, so you would only need to sacrifice 7 or so to bring him down to one or at most two ships remaining.

Then you bring a fleet of your large ships in to clean up the survivor. Due to the one-hitpoint rule, there will typically be one survivor left, and you would have to sacrifice another 5 or 6 small ships to kill it. A couple of large ships will take it out with negligible damage. Remember, a ship with 150 armour can expect to face a fleet with up to about 250 mass-driver attack without taking significant damage. You don't gain as much experience as you would using your mixed-fleet plan, but I think it's cheaper overall.

As the enemy starts to have to invest in defence to keep you from gutting him with much smaller fleets, your large, defensive ships will eventually become more effective than a throw-away fleet of all-attack ships.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Simultaneous firing by both attackers and defenders has actually been in the game since GC2 v1.2, as I recall.

You might find it helpful to your particular strategy if you play as Arceans or with a custom race using the Super Warrior ability. With that, when you attack another fleet you shoot first and they don't get to return fire unless they survive your opening volley.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi all!

Well, DA is worth the money. Thanks ...no a very big "thanks" to the Developers.
(my english is not good enough to express myself in the adequat manner - so please be patient).

I´m very surprised about Fleet Combat, or better to say the new combat calculation. In my present game i´m in a bitter, very long and mercyless war with the Koraths. Wow, they really hurt me (AI-Level challenging).

My problem is.....i researched big ship hulls (mainly large). So i invest a lot of resources and money into it...only to see, that they are "nearly useless"! Let me explain:
The Koraths are using maximal fleets (11 ships each) with medium ships. These ships are equipped with none or very low armor. They are not fast (moving only 3pc/turn) and each ship wears weapons at maximum. (in my game they use Mass-Drivers, i use beamweapons and armor againt massdrivers - i have the best armor and the best beamers).

My super-expensive large-hull Fleet (7 ships) meets this low-budget korath fleet. Well, my ships open fire, destroying every enemy ship - BUT, those enemy ships do fire back, BEVOR they explode. This means, one or two of my large ships WILL always be destroyed. The enemie could build much faster those medium-class ships, at lower costs than i can with my large ones. Well, so i changed my warfare-tactic. I built mixed fleets - 2-3 large ships, 3 medium the rest small ships. With this tactic, i loose my medium and small ships for shure!!! But my bigger ones will survive and get experience. I need with this tactic a lot of money (like in a real war)and/but have still the feeling to be outnumbered and overhelmed by the enemy, wich uses more and more stronger weapons in his cheap ships, wich will blow away every armor and destroyes more and more ships in my fleets.

To get me right - this is no critical post - i like this new system, cause it´s much harder to beat. But, is this only with the koraths or does every opponent race use this tactic? If so, it would not make any sense to research big ships. The best way is to rush your enemies by number with cheap fleets - what means to me, no strategical warfare is necessary....only the rush will bring you victory!

What do you say?

Greetings from Germany
Jochen

Actually, if anything, big ships are MORE powerful in DA than in DL. This is because the "fire back before they explode" thing that you mentioned was in DL as well: the ships actually all fire at the same time, and the battle on the screen is just a way to make a bunch of random dice rolls look cool. This fact becomes pretty obvious when both sides are using weapons that move really really slowly (like Photon Torpedoes). However, in DA, ships fire their weapons one at a time instead of all at once, meaning that a big ship with a ton of weaponry can take down a LOT of little ships in one volley, rather than doing 50 damage to a 6-hp Tiny and then having to wait until the next "round" of combat before moving on.

This changes if one side has the "Super Warrior" super ability: super-warriors get to fire first on the first round of combat, so they can take out several ships before their targets can return fire (after which it goes back to shooting at the same time like normal). But that's beside the point since I know the Korath don't have that and it seems that you don't either.


Advice on your war:

Like Entropy Avatar said, if the Korath are sacrificing 11 ships for every 1 or 2 that they destroy, then you are coming out WAY ahead. His strategy should work pretty well, but if you don't want to try something that complex, just go ahead and keep using your big ships like you were at the start of the war, and after a battle, pull any survivors back from the fighting for repairs while sending healthy ships forward into battle. As you keep building more and more ships, you'll keep getting stronger while the Korath are probably struggling just to replace what they lose. It could take a loooong time to grind down the Korath military this way, but unless they have something like five or ten times your industry (which I REALLY doubt they do), sooner or later they WILL be overwhelmed. Their navy will collapse, and you'll be free to start taking planets at your leisure
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi again,

thanks a lot for your anwers.

Well, the strategy to send in little "cheap" ships with plenty of weapons and no armor - i´m using in the meantime!!! After them, my bigger ships are closing in! This works fine, but....those f****** koraths are so strong, that i can´t stand any longer!

I countet 6-7 "11-ship" fleets, my losses are high, rebuild time for new ships is too long - i´ve seen, that the koraths are the strongest in military AND economy! I have researched "Eye of the universe", so i can see where their ships are - there are to many of them! Well, i´m destroying every space station they have, i´m intercepting all trade routes they own - without succuss. After i killed 2 of their fleets, the next wave is closing in. The Korx have surrendered to them now, so the koraths are going to be much stronger. My Allies (Arcanean) don´t attack them. Sigh!!!
After i´ve seen on such a raid mission against a starbase, a battleship with over 500 atackpoints, and after loosing some planets to their sphore ships i decided to restart.

Great game!!!

Jochen
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My experiance in my first game was the opposite. My small and medium ships were getting slaughtered in job lots. It was only when I got my large hull ships into battle that I was able to push the Korath back.

There is however, a problem for the AI (I've noticed that it's more than just the Korath that do this), they seem to tend to put no engines on the ships, so they are extremely slow, and very easy to maneouver around. This gives the human player plenty of time to counter them.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi again,

thanks a lot for your anwers.

Well, the strategy to send in little "cheap" ships with plenty of weapons and no armor - i´m using in the meantime!!! After them, my bigger ships are closing in! This works fine, but....those f****** koraths are so strong, that i can´t stand any longer!

I countet 6-7 "11-ship" fleets, my losses are high, rebuild time for new ships is too long - i´ve seen, that the koraths are the strongest in military AND economy! I have researched "Eye of the universe", so i can see where their ships are - there are to many of them! Well, i´m destroying every space station they have, i´m intercepting all trade routes they own - without succuss. After i killed 2 of their fleets, the next wave is closing in. The Korx have surrendered to them now, so the koraths are going to be much stronger. My Allies (Arcanean) don´t attack them. Sigh!!!
After i´ve seen on such a raid mission against a starbase, a battleship with over 500 atackpoints, and after loosing some planets to their sphore ships i decided to restart.

Great game!!!

Jochen

...guess I was wrong about them having enough industry to overwhelm you

Good luck in this next game!
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I have one gripe about the battles, actually.

The Peacekeepers mega event came. They have '1520' beam defence, but 0 in missile and armour. Perfect I think to myself. All I need are my ships with missiles and mass drivers...

How how very wrong I was. Even fleet total attacks of 130 in missile AND mass drivers hit 0 damage and on the odd occassion hit 1.

I never liked the idea of the seperation of weapon and defences like this. I don't like it even more when the advantage it, supposedly, should give me, if I use the right offensive, doesn't happen.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1520/0/0 for defense values is a bit misleading, according to how defense is calculated. That ship would actually have the square root of 1520 (rounded down to 38) for missle and mass driver defense, modified by any other other factors involved. Ie, a defense of a particular type isn't totally useless against other attacks, just much weaker. So such a ship would show as 1520/0/0 but for combat purposes it would really calculate to be 1520/38/38.

I think the manual fully explains how defense works - I couldn't find anything great via forum search, but it's probably here somewhere.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Then I am completely lost as to how to specialise in the three weapon and defense tech pathes.   I thought the seperation was to specifically create the situations I described.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You specialize just like normal. A defense of 38 against something with an offensive power of 200 or more in that category isn't going to do much at all in most cases, unless the one on offense gets really unlucky rolls and the defender gets really lucky rolls.

However, that being said, I have seen some strange things during the time I played the campaign. Like a DL ship with an attack rating of at least 160 attacking one my medium hulled ships with no armor whatsoever, and doing no damage. It actually happened more than once, and to me that seems mighty odd.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Depending on your strategy, larger ships do have a better advantage in DA than DL.

the problem you are having stems from the fact that weapons technology far exceeds hitpoints or defences. This as you say, does make it harder and yes, more fun!
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
I had to get attack ratings of over 130 to dent these 38 defences.

If each defence had 10. Does that mean they get an additional sqrt(10) also?
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There might have been other factors - it's hard to know. 38 would've been a base defense value but if there were any +defense modifiers the value would've been higher. Fleets compared to single ships makes a difference too.

If each defence had 10. Does that mean they get an additional sqrt(10) also?


Yes. You get the full value of the defense vs the appropriate damage type + the square root of the other types. All calculations in GC are rounded down. We're also talking square roots here, so there are somewhat of diminishing returns as values increase, like in your 1520 example where the square root is 38 - that's a huge difference in effectiveness.

Anyways.

A ship with 10/10/10 would have a calculated defense of 16 against any 1 particular damage type. (10 + 3 + 3)

Things are often more complicated, especially with the combat changes in DA. You might read about it here:

Combat Discussion/Explanation/Example Thread
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Peacekeepers mega event came. They have '1520' beam defence, but 0 in missile and armour. Perfect I think to myself. All I need are my ships with missiles and mass drivers...

How how very wrong I was. Even fleet total attacks of 130 in missile AND mass drivers hit 0 damage and on the odd occassion hit 1.


the others who've replied to you have been right, their 1520 defense would work as 38 against guns and missiles. however, since they fire individually now, you'll need to shoot at them multiple times to wear down their defense before you get a shot through.

but here's something i don't know about DA combat. each shot fired lowers defenses for that round. when they're being fired against an mis-matched defense, is it the base defense that goes down, or the square-rooted value that decreases? if that's the case, mis-matched defenses are actually more resiliant than the appropriate ones, if you can get them up high enough (good luck with that).
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


when they're
being fired against an mis-matched defense, is it the base defense that
goes down, or the square-rooted value that decreases?



You calculate your total defence for a type, so if your base defences were 25/0/4, you'd have 27/7/9 effective defence. These effective defences are then worn down individually. So a 5-point shot against the 9 defence would reduce it to 4.

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Although I think I understand the combat system in DA and DL, I fear that most players won't. In my opinion it has become too difficult for the average player to grasp the depth of the system.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The average player can just look at the attack/defense/HP values when comparing 2 fleets and decide based on that. Most of the time, that should give a fair indication of how the fleets compare even without going in-depth with dice rolls, ships hitting multiple targets, etc.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi all,

i´m back again and very surprised about the number of posts in this thread.

Well, another experience of mine is, from game to game, the basic atackweaponsystem is changing?! Let me explain, 1. game again koraths - they use mass drivers. Now, after several new games, in my actuall game they use rockets! Is this another change in DA?

Greetings
Jochen
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
oraths - they use mass drivers. Now, after several new games, in my actuall game they use rockets


The AI has always picked which weapons tree to use independently from game to game.