In DA a large ship can attack multiple ships at once, as damage is calculated per-weapon and not per-ship as in DL.

First a short run-down of how combat works:

1) Every ship will target an enemy and fire its weapons one by one. If it destroys its target, it will fire any unused weapons on its next target and so on. This means a big ship with many weapons may engage and destroy several ships at once.

2) Defenses now recharge per round rather than per attack. This means that one ship will have its defenses tested against every enemy in the opposing fleet. If it manages to survive the round, the defenses are recharged before the next firing cycle begins.

3) Unless you have the super-warrior ability, there is return-fire provided from defending ships that got destroyed. In DL, 'getting the charge' was very important because any ship you knocked out didn't get a chance to fire back. Now it can.

4) In case of a draw (both ships/fleets get destroyed), the side with the most starting hp wins.


How this affects conventional wisdom:

1) Combats get a lot bloodier. Whereas in DL a ships attack value was matched against the other's defense value this is now the fleet's attack value against one ships defense value. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that as logistic capabilities go up, so will casualties.

2) Defenses aren't so much used to keep a ship whole as to slow down the rate of destruction for your fleet. In DL I used defenses when I out-teched my opponent or when the general level of tech was low (low attack/defense versus hp ratio). In DA I use exclusively all-attack ships. Some use other rules but the bottom line is, defenses are optional, not necessary.

3) Logistics aren't necessarily a good thing. If you are facing very big fleets with a high attack power it may not be a good idea to send in a whole fleet of your own. Perhaps an example will make this clear:

- The enemy has 5 frigates (20 hp) with 70 attack and 0 defense each. These are typical ships the AI builds on Tough.
- You have 3 dreadnoughts (110 hp) with 300 attack and 0 defense.

Supposing for each that each scores maximum power you will see that both fleets would be wiped out.
Suppose you would send in your dreadnoughts one at a time. One ship would wipe out the opposing fleet with attack to spare. In the return fire, only that one ship would bite the dust instead of two.


Conclusions:

The changes in the combat system has led to players using the system in unintended ways. Defenses are optional and logistics can turn against you.

Obviously this is just my opinion and this wouldn't be a forum if there wouldn't be someone around who thinks otherwise.

I'm not sure whether this will change anything but the balance between small ship and larger ones. It won't necessarily encourage balanced ships in either size category.

One possible way to alleviate this could be to have a HP tech tree (in my humble, amateur opinion). One of the reasons defenses become less useful is because at high attack/defense versus HP ratios, a slight discrepancy will get your ships blasted out of space anyway. More HPs means a bad defense roll can be cushioned a bit and hence combat become less of a one-shot roll. Still, given the change in combat system, it has only nudged the balance more to an obliterating offense and denying return fire by just having not too many ships in your fleet.

Still, considering ship combat is being shrouded in silence in the beta, I'm guessing the devs consider the way it works good enough to suit the game's needs.

What I have found after playiing several games with the modified weapons, is that you or the AI cannot build fleet killing ships.
In a recent thread Waddawaxx stated that one ship with attack 160 beam is wiping out his fleet of 6 ships which has superior fire power.
With the moded weapons the AI may still be able to build a ship with the same fire power ( or it may not depending on hull size), but it will have less weapons (may have only one), thus it will kill less ships in the fleet.
You will now have to build a fleet to take on a fleet. More "realistic" IMO.

Any thoughts ?

By increasing size, mod size, power and cost, you are effectively trying to undo/cushion what Stardock did to the combat system, namely allowing multiple firing solutions. Before the change, offensive power lied with the attack power and the number of ships in a fleet. In the current system, it's basically just fleet attack, regardless of the number of ships in that fleet.

Another effect is that you are handicapping small vessels in favor of the larger ones.

Whether this is a good thing or not depends on what you think of the combat system as it is now. If you want bigger ships to be more important, you'll want to give them better chances at taking down a larger number of small vessels or reserve the best weapons just for them.

I don't mind if large ships would be more powerful compared to small vessels if only because you need to spend research points on the larger ones. The effort should come with a bonus.

Actually, the side with the higher attack wins. This is how you can build those unkillable huge hulls that spend the whole game at 1 HP toasting fleet after fleet. This is also true of the reverse tie - where both fleets survive after 50 rounds. In this case, the side with the lower attack is just deleted... even if it never took damage!



Several races in TA have hull improvement trees that both add +% to HP and give +HP ship modules. They are expensive, but small (My favorite is size 3, gives 8 hp but costs 80.... it'll be expensive, but throwing an extra 24 HP onto a cargo hull and suddenly you have an early game monster)


~ Wyndstar