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IztokBitenc

Join Date 03/2003

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DA new combat system: are right defenses really right?

Hi!
I remeber quite good how hot were debates about usefullnes of ship defeses in GC2 Drad Lords. But there's not a word about that theme in Dark Avatar with its new combat system.

I've finished some DA games, got quite some experience and am ready to make a statement:

IMO defenses in Dark Avatar need a mayor rework.

Let me explain that statement. In DL defenses always worked, what was not so usefull against a small number of high-attack ships, but changed battles with big number of low-attack ships tremendously. I remember defeating with no losses on my side big fleets of small-hull attack 3-10 AIs' ships with only a handfull of my mediums with 5-15 proper defenses on them. With proper defenses was the war quite cheap at that time.

Now in Dark Avatar defenses work only until depleted. I especially remember killing the DL ship in orbit of the target planet in mission 5 of the DA campaign. It had an attack of 500+ and 56 beam defenses, while my medium ships had attack 46 from 3 psyonic beams. With a fleet of 5 of those ships in a DL game I'd barely be able to scratch away the first layer of paint from that behemoth, but in DA I went in a combat quite sure I'll win, and acutaly did. The first two ships striped away the shields, and the rest destroyed the cruiser. Despite I lost 4 of them in a return-fire, was the path for my troop transports cleared and the game was over in the same turn.

So where's the point? In COSTS for defenses. In DA buying defenses is actually buying hit points. When an armor costs 50 BC and takes away 4 points of a mass damage (2 points of other damage), I actually pay 50 BC for 4 hit points in best case, 2 in worst, so let's say 3 on average. At the same time an empty medium hull costs 80 BC for 16 hit points while I'd need 5.33 armors (263 BC) for the same amount of HPs. Even if I put on a medium hull an Impulse engine (50 BC) and two harpoons (costs 2*55) for 240 BC is the BC/DP ratio still in favor of an additional new ship.

Currently the keys to successfull battles in DA seem to be:
- LOTS of firepower,
- "rightsizing" attacking fleets (using only so many ships to clear the opponent's ships, saving the rest of your ships for the next battle) and
- for early battles, when firepower is low, a good HP bonus.
- Using right defenses matters no more, as no defenses are actually right anymore.

Comments as always welcome!

BR, Iztok

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I agree completely. Defenses were always expensive, but in some specific situations worthwhile. Now defense is expensive and always pointless. Your defense needs to equal the attack power of a combined enemy fleet, and that just isn't going to happen.

I do like to put 1 defense of something cheap (30bc ish) on my medium ships and larger, because 1 def in anything = 1 def in all three catagories (1 being the sqrt of 1), so you get 0-1 def from all kinds of weapons. For 30 bc I'm willing to pay for one more hp. Other than that, no point I have seen yet.

I tried messing around with the Krynn, and put everything in def and took universalists to pump up to a +90% def, then tried to go good. Meh. Still, the ships were too expensive, and died too fast. Better to go +weapon% and kill more enemies. I still can't make a low attack huge juggenaut that can wade through hundreds of tiny fighters in the new system (a good tactic at times in DL).

I think the prices for defense might have been justified under the old system. Under the new system, defenses really need to be re-priced to be relevant.

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I'm forced to agree. I've noticed that on my last game as well - ended up using the hull space for more weapons instead of defenses (what makes even more sense, since I was playing with the "Super Warrior" Arceans).

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Maybe you are right to say defenses are overpriced, yet it is not true that defenses = hp, because, as says Kyro in a post (https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=421&aid=139395), "the maximum defense rolls reset after each round", wich is not the case for hp.

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That would explain the AI's inclination towards firepower and no defenses, too.

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Maybe you are right to say defenses are overpriced, yet it is not true that defenses = hp, because, as says Kyro in a post (https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=421&aid=139395), "the maximum defense rolls reset after each round", wich is not the case for hp.

However, the defences don't reset if the ship is dead. Given the larger logistics allowance, people can field pretty large fleets, so, depending on hull size, only a small fraction of your fleet will be able to recharge. Most will either be untouched or dead.

However, it's not true that for the ship to survive it's defence has to equal the attack power of the entire fleet. For a high-defence ship, it will generally stop twice it's rating in the appropriate weapon. This is because weapons roll individually while defences roll collectively. So the defence roll will usually beat the attack roll, until the defences become depleted.

Still, it's very expensive to build a ship that will stand up to even a pretty small fleet of equivalent tech. Standing up to the large fleets made possible by logistics is simply not possible at equivalent tech. If it were possible, you'd be invulnerable.

Overall, I think defences are too expensive in the likely situation that they are only used once in a large battle.

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Hi!

"the maximum defense rolls reset after each round"

... for surviving ships. Here's the catch. Cram as many firepower into a ship and you'll for sure destroy several times the BC as that ship costed you. And that's the whole point of battle: inflict more damage than you receive, and you'll win the war. In DA defenses don't change that, but do the oposite.

BR, Iztok

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That would explain the AI's inclination towards firepower and no defenses, too.

That's good news because Ive never felt that AI was good at selecting suitable defences. And actually Ive always considered defences not really worth it compared to just put in more offense unless you know for sure that your enemies will always select one area of defence.

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Hmmmm, that seems like a dumb way to implement defenses...

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Cram as many firepower into a ship and you'll for sure destroy several times the BC as that ship costed you.

it makes sense when you look at is monetarily. but if you're economy can support well-defended ships, i think it's worth it. well-defended ships make more sense in the long run, since you'll likely lose fewer of them. but in the end, i think it's a question of balance.

i the question is based on the size of the ship to begin with. it makes no sense to equip a tiny fighter with defenses, because only a few hitpoints of damage need to get through and you've lost the investment. compare that to larger ships: even if your defenses don't stop an attack completely, they might spare you enough HP to fire in the next round, causing twice as much damage. i think it's a balancing game.

i think the root of this problem is that an entire fleet focuses on one ship until it's dead, then onto the next ship. this makes sense from a strategic point of view - reduce the number of weapons firing at you as quickly as possible. but in a battle played out in meaningful space, it wouldn't be possible to do that. but the combat simulator is just that, a simulation. i'm content with it, even though i would also love a combat system based more in physics, where ships' location and posture affects what weapons they can fire and on whom. perhaps in a sequal.

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Hmmmm...I'm no expert and I'm not a wiz GC/DA player, but I've found that ships heavy on defense are very very useful.

The best example I have was during the DA Campaign on the mission where you defend the Drengi homeworld. I was taking a beating. I couldn't field a single ship that could go toe to toe with the opposition, let alone opposing fleets. It was a battle of attrition and they were winning. Once they took down all my ships, waves of troop transports came in, etc. I knew I couldn't hold them off forever.

Lucky for me, I had researched up to Zero Point armor. The bad guys were using mostly ballistic weapons, but there were some beam and missile ships too. My biggest problem were the bad guy ships that had 255 of ballistic weaponry.

I designed a Large-hull ship with a defense of 180 in Zero Point Armor, and whatever was left I tacked on some weapons, some of whatever the best mass driver-class weapon I had at the time. I think my attack was pretty well under 20.

Once I fielded that ship, the bad guys actually turned thier fleets around, and took them to less well defended targets. And this ship was able to stand up to thier strongest fielded fleets at the time, and could even survive the attack by the 255 ballistic weapon ships.

Since this experience, and other stuff that happened later in that mission, I'll often use sheilds in combination with armor. This seems to be very effective combination, even against missle based weapons. Granted, my defenses often are much greater than the attack for many of my ships, but I use fewer ships and accomplish much more with them.

There is something to be said for disposable ships, but I wouldn't overlook the benefits of large superpowered ships either. Both have roles in my fleets, often the super-defended ship being the fleet centerpiece with the ancillary escorts for fire support and cannon fodder. YMMV.

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Hi!

if you're economy can support well-defended ships, i think it's worth it. well-defended ships make more sense in the long run

It did in DL, and on attack, where the attacker couldn't replace lost ships easily.
It also makes sense in DA if you face attack&defense balanced fleets. But most of AIs' fleets I've seen up to now were attack-heavy with only minor defense (attack 50, 1-3 defense). Against such fleets I WILL lose ships in EVERY battle, despite having PROPER defenses. And those proper defenses cost MORE as a new, fuly armed undefended ship. So where's the point of using defenses?

BR, Iztok

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I don't know whether defenses are really useful or not, but anyway I think one must keep in mind that :
1) the three weapons have very different tech cost. Missile is very tech cheap at the beginning and become very expensive pretty soon (it is 30% more expensive to research anti-matter torpedo III than disruptors, although these weapons are equivalent) ; this obtains also for mass drivers (if you use nano ripper) ; on the contrary, beam weapons are more expensive in the beginning but from the last phasors on they are the cheapest.
2) defenses are way cheaper to research (but at least quite as expensive to build). For instance, researching graviton driver IV (3 damage, size 5+4%) cost as much as researching zero-point armor (10 defense, size 3+2%) !
So I would think what was true in DL remains true in DA : 1) if you are lower on tech than on production and/or economy (or if you get unexpectedly attacked), go for defenses (or for nano rippers) ; 2) in you have to fight a good army (evil alignement for instance) in the beginning of the game, where 2000 tech are too long to research, go for defenses also. 3) Don't forget you can get a 20% bonus in overall research by researching Aeron missile defense (the ultimate point defense).
So imho the respective usefulness of weapons vs. defenses also depends on the general context of the game.

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Hi!

i think the root of this problem is that an entire fleet focuses on one ship until it's dead

What I'm doing on attack now is I'm sending one or two single ships to fight a fleet first, in order to kill their most dangerous ships. Only then I use a fleet to mop-up the remainging low-firepower ships. If I'm lucky, then sometimes that's not necessary. Sometimes my lone attacker kills a whole fleet, and by the rule "in mutuall destruction the attacker always has one survivor" it survives.

BR, Iztok

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