VeryAngryDwarf

Join Date 02/2005

Info on combat?

Hi!

I recently read the journal detailing the small battle between the AI in an effort to tweak the AI, and I saw lots of shots of combat. How does combat work in this game? Is it like MOO2 in that it's ships taking a turn opening fire with equiped weapons, or is it more like MOO3 in that there are lots of ships flying around and attacking in real time with little input from the player?

Any information on this would be great!

Thanks!

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

There is no tactical combat; the battle shots you see are of the combat viewer, which gives you a real-time video representation of the number crunching process.

Basically, battles are resolved by a simple process: All attacking ships fire at defending ships, targetting them in an order determined by their threat/weakness ratio (i.e., they kill the most powerful ship that's easiest to kill first). Then the defenders return fire in teh same way, and so on until one side is destroyed. There is no player input in this process aside from what sort of equipment you put on your ships.

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the battles are also really pretty

. and there is a triangle based weapon/ defense system but not the usual kind. it means there are three different types of defense that can defend against three types of different offense. if it sounds complicated its not. its really helpful and can give a small ship a big advantage over a larger ship. one more reminder like darth kryo said theres no way to control the ships. i also think the attack is set by a random number 1-what ever the attack of the ship is stated.

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No, It is definatly not paper rock scissors like.

Rather it works like this:

Beams - Light but dont do as much damage

Mass Drivers - Heavy, More Damage

Missiles - Heavy as hell, But does even more damage.

(I could have MD and Missiles mixed up though.)

To counter them you have shields for beams, point defence for missiles and armor for MDrivers.

However its not as effective when say, Blocking a beam with point defence so there is a penalty for using the wrong defence against the wrong attack (defence less effective than it would be if they were matched).

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2412

No, that's not how it works my friend.

They all do relatively the same amount of damage.

Each one has a counter - shields against beam, armor against mass drivers, and point defense against missiles.

Missiles tend to do more damage but take up more space and cost more.

Mass drivers tend to cost less but take up more space.

Beams tend to be in the middle.

But the variations are pretty slight really. We have a bunch of spread sheets that look at the damage per space, damage per cost, etc. to make sure that they're pretty close.

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Thanks for the info Brad! I also have a question if you don't mind. Is the attacking advantage as powerful as it was in Galciv 1? In that game ships almost always had a much higher attack value than they did defense. It was pretty easy to maximize that advantage by simply pulling back your ships out of distance from the enemy ships, then letting them advance forward the next turn. This allowed you to attack them and thus gain the advantage. I was once able to defeat a Drengin armanda that was 4 times larger than my own simply because I made it so they could move in close to me but not close enough to attack, then I demolished them the next turn with a full amount of movement points for my ships and something like a 2/1 attack/defense advantage.

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Rule of thumb in combat is that the person who strikes the most swift and first usually has the best chance of winning with combat odds are less than 1.5 to 1. To ensure victory a 2 to 1 ratio is nice but a 3 to 1 normally gives the best chance of victory.

Although the exact code is unknown to me I can assure you the tactic you have deployed prior in GC1 works in GC2 as well. Speed and sensor can assist in avoidance of contact until you are ready to fight on your own terms. Remember though, once you commit thats it the combat viewer takes over and your the JAFO at that point.

Hitpoints play a small point but the attack first ask questions later philosophy works in that you get to fire first, if the bugger is Dead In Space, they can't fire back a definite disadvantage, but the only one that I can see that speed and sensors help on.

On that matter of AI combat tweaking:

1) Are the AI fleets now arriving at the same time to do back-to-back combat? (See paragraph one about odds). One of the big drawbacks to Beta 5 for the AI was arriving a fleet at a time if that giving me a chance at home world defense with a lot less firepower overall but the ability to return to starport for repairs on an alternating basis with a two fleet offense and a third in space dock in defense and repair.

2) If the AI or the human player has better sensors and better speed can a tweak be entered to give them slightly better roles on the opening attack, for instance: Frequently I plug in senor technology between researching to the end a specific set of attack or defense technology... laser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; sensor 1; miniball 1, 2, mass driver 1,2,3; sensor 2. If I kick in the speed factor of 4 or so an attacker who can see you and is faster than you should get an advantage when they come screaming in at battlestations with gunports open and torpedo firings while you are getting your 35 man crew up in their skivvies to man action stations against someone who just got into sensor range at the same time they opened fire on you. (Just a thought)

W/R
Suralle Straykat

PS: Just because I let you ruffle my fur does not mean I like you!

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