Mixed Size Fleets – Are smaller ships targeted first?

Hi,

I’m a relatively new player, but I’ve noticed that in fleet combat, smaller ships are targeted (and damaged) far more frequently than larger ones? Is this always the case?

If so, it makes for some interesting fleet and ship design ideas wherein a player may make heavily defended, but lightly armed, corvettes to protect battleships with a greater focus on armament. Any damaged corvettes could be fairly easily swapped out, given their relatively low cost, while maintaining the offensive power of the fleet.

-BvBPL

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Combat

Short answer: No.

Long answer: "Before the combat begins, each side determines the order it will fire on the opposing side's ships. This order is based on the formula Total Attack / (Total Defense + Hit Points) (not included in this formula are Starbase assist bonuses, however any improvement to Weapons or Defence from military resources do count); the higher the result, the higher priority the target will be given. All ships in the fleet will fire on that target. If the highest priority target is destroyed, the next ship to fire will begin targeting the next highest priority ship, and so on."

"The list of ships in a fleet actually reflects the order in which they will be targeted according to this priority formula."

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Interesting. Thanks for the info. This formula still makes it easy to manipulate fleet and ship compositions in a variety of ways. It remains pretty easy to force the focus of fleet attacks on smaller ships, but it is also easy to force attacks on a high-HP, front-loaded capital ship, allowing low-HP corvettes and such to zip around and do some damage while remaining safe.

It is also interesting how it focuses attacks on armed vessels ahead of utility ones, such as ship who’s armament is lower to accommodate a warp bubble or a sensor array.

While we are on the subject, if I have a fleet of two small warships, an armed star base, and a few unarmed, transport-hull troop carriers in the same square, how does the game decide what gets attacked first when the enemy sends a fleet into that square? Is the same sort of formula used?

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Maiden666

Join Date 12/2008

+62

Well, smaller ships have lesser HP, and lesser space, thus lesser ATT/DEF and most likely the game will consider them to be weaker; and in a fleet they will be attacked first. Actually I found it always more usefull to concentrate to get bigger ships to survive the battles, upgrading them to the same design to refill HP's, or giving them some rest in orbit. With time, they'll gain levels, and become increasingly strong. That's then that type of ship I'd update to most modern weapons usually.

Quoting BvBPL,

reply 2

Hard to say. Usually "specialized" ships that carry some kind of module are targetted, starbases, also unarmed ships. The AI will also target maxed-out fleets or SB's even when it's clear he won't survive that battle. The routines for this are somewhat strange....

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"Utility" ships are given a modifier in the targeting formula-but as it's only a modifier, i.e. a multiplier, if you don't put any attack on them, they will still always be targeted last.

But as far as I'm aware, this only applies to attack and defense modules-the warp bubble doesn't increase it.

I was under the impression it would choose the two warships first-I personally remember stationing fleets on SBs to protect them, although I recall hearing stories of it malfunctioning-but I haven't fully tested it.

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