How does the game handle combat?

No.

In DL, all weapons fire as one.  In DA/TA, each weapon fires individually.  As such, a ship can only destroy as many ships per round as it has weapons.  Weapons roll from luck*max to max, which for luck=0 is 0 to max.  Defenses roll from 0 to max.  All ships on one side fire at one ship on the opposing side until it is destroyed; this ship is determined by the formula attack / (defense + hp).  Placing an atlas module (introduced in TA) on a ship increases the chance that it will be fired on in combat substantially by giving this formula a modifier, but if you don't place any weapons on your atlas module ship (think tiny hull, maxed miniaturization) it will be the last one targeted, as anything times zero is still zero.  If there is not a winner after 50 rounds, the ship with the highest attack survives, typically (always?) with 1 hp.  For fleet combat, this is 300 rounds.

More information here.

Sole Soul,

Just a quick thanks as I go and digest this information. Hopefully it will be such that I can live with it and thus support Stardock and their great business model.

I shall return!!

I read that link, thanks.  What was the reason for allowing destoryed ships to fire until the fleet battle is over?  That seems rather strange to me.

They don't fire for the entire battle, they fire for the round they are destroyed in. After that round ends, they are removed from the battle. This is designed to simulate simultaneous firing, rather than sequential.

Example (without numbers for simplicity): 4 Yor ships attacking 4 Terran ships of slightly lower tech:

Old method (DL and first round of a combat in DA or TA where the attacker has Super Warrior ability)

All 4 Yor ships fire, destroying one Terran ship and damaging a second. The three surviving Terrans fire back, destroying 1 Yor ship. In the second round of combat, the 3 surviving Yor ships destroy 1 Terran ship and damage another. The 2 surviving Terrans damage a Yor ship. Third round of combat, the 3 surviving Yor ships destroy both remaining Terrans.

New method (DA and TA, except in special case mentioned)

All 4 Yor ships fire, destroying one Terran ship and damaging a second. All four Terrans fire back (since this is intended to be simultaneous firing, the destroyed ship hasn't been killed yet), destroying one Yor ship and damaging a second. Second round, the 3 Yor ships destroy the damaged Terran ship and hurt another; the 3 Terrans returning fire does the same. Third round, the Yor finish the Terrans, and the Terrans destroy the damaged ship, with maybe some damage on the last ship.

The new method takes away the massive advantage the attacker had in DL, making closely matched fleets end in closely matched condition. With the DL system, even greatly inferior fleets could do far higher proportional damage if they were attacking.

That way sounds better and is how I though it worked until I read your link.  I read "in each combat round ALL (also destroyed) ships fire (no more first strike)" as to mean all ships ever destoryed not just the ones in the current combat round.

Hi!

If every detail would be specified, "instructions" would be so large no one would read them ever. If you'd watch just one battle in full battle viewer you'd not need to post more questions here.

BR,  Iztok

Online links about how combat should specifiy ever detail.  That is the point in them, to tell you what the "instructions" don't.  Plus not every one uses the battle viewer.  I do use it but when I posted that I was at work and couldn't check it out. So, I was wondering if I was remembing what it showed wrong, sense I have only had time to play it a few times since I got it not long ago.

Hi!

Since when? Did you pay for them to demand perfect service? Was ANYONE paid for them to be blamed for their incompletenes? Was there posted EVERY SINGLE change in each of so many game releases/patches? Did developers post all formulas and data? 

The answers are NO, NO, NO and NO. Most of what you can read about the game was collected VOLUNTARY by community with careful observation, testing, re-evaluation and research, so you can have at least SOME data to work with. Please consider that before you start demanding "every detail".   

BR,  Iztok

I know the wiki link is all voluntary.  I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that the goal of that site was to provide all the details that are known.  The site is a great resource if it provides less information than in the manual, the same amount of information than in the manual, or every detail about the game.  I thank everyone who has added content to it.  I didn't mean to upset anyone.

Iztok, I'm going to side with emedlin here.  It's a question that's been asked plenty of times before, but it's far less annoying (IMHO) than when everyone and their brother kept asking about how to fix the DA 1.80e fleet bug.

I know it's difficult to read exactly what people mean sometimes, but your posts honestly come off as a bit rude.  Are you all right?

emedlin, I would modify what you posted to say "every known detail", but otherwise I don't see a problem with your posts.

It'd be nice if more people updated the wiki more often, though.

...wait, I didn't mean me!

It is great to see that  they have made great strides in the way that combat is handled.

Please feel free to politely point me in the direction where all this is explained should there be somewhere and I have missed it.

Though combat is only a small portion of the game it is for me something that has great importance beyond.

Are the descriptions here and on that link regarding combat simplified to the simplest examples? That is, do they take into account all aspects of the combat engagement?

I do not like what I interpret as the ships going toe to toe with no ship retreating from the fight, nor have I not seen anything regarding speed and manouverbility discussed in the context of combat to determine if a hit is even made.

I read the examples to imply that every shot is a hit to be calculated to see if it causes damage. Misses do not seem to occur. I would prefer that there be a lot of misses rather than all hits.

The biggest sticking point is the "When the time limit is reached, the game determines which side is 'tougher' by the formula sqrt( ( 2 * Attack ) + Defense + ( Current HP / 2 ) ). Whichever side has the highest total result from that formula then proceeds to finish off the other side; each ship on the winning side fires one instant-death shot at one enemy until all the enemies are finished off."

This seems to imply that there is no retreat etc

How often in game might a player expect to be in this situation?

Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to answer my questions. I am still undecided in so far as I have not been convinced that the combat will be such that I can relate to it and be comfortable with it. I know there is a lot more in the game, but as mentioned previously, it is an important part of the game and if it fails then for me at least it removes the enjoyment.

No retreating, no MAD (mutually assured destruction), speed and size don't have an effect.  We can hope for GC3, though.

I can't really answer that-it depends on your playstyle and ship design style.  I rarely run into an instance where it isn't resolved after 50 rounds, though.  (This is your ship firing all of its weapons at the enemy ship 50 times-300 if it's fleet combat.)

Misses can occur, but they're not really prevalent, depending on what you call a "miss".  Firstly, attack can roll zero.  Secondly, defense can roll equal or higher than attack.  The first case is a true miss, and the second case causes no damage to be done (but in DA/TA the defense is depleted by the damage that would be done until the end of the round, at which point it is restored).

Sole Soul,
I guess I will also have to wait for GC3.

Thanks.

Hi!

Thanks for asking. Now I am. But at the time I wrote them I was in quite a bad mood. Some of it came from a hard working week, some from reading "demands" for every detail to be specified for a game that changes almost as fast as a weather. 

After re-reading my reply I really see it was harsh. Emedlin, if you've been offended I appologize.

Why not? Currently you look to me as the most knowledgeable person in our community about internal GC-2 working. If you'd update wiki you'd save a lot of repeated writing here in forums. But you'd not get so much karma just for a short line "check wiki here", despite that "here" was your contribution. Speaking from my own experience.

BR,  Iztok

I was being sarcastic, Iztok.  Adding to the wiki is on my list of things to do, but I never quite get around to it.

Glad to hear you're feeling more like yourself.