Combat simulator and racial combat modifiers
 

When using the combat simulator, will it take into account your racial combat modifiers? If so, when chosing an opponent with the same order number will it take into account his combat modifiers?

In a PBW game I'm in the simulator seems to have changed from a "maximum range" strategy to more of an optimal or point blank strategy when using ships designed by an opponent. Will it use the default strategy for ships set by the opponent and change the strategy if the opponent changes it? (If so this could be a way to see what default strategy your opponent is using).

Re: Combat simulator and racial combat modifiers
 

The combat simulator uses the racial combat modifiers of the first ship added to a particular side for all the ships on that side. Once you know any ship design at all of an enemy, you can determine that enemy's exact racial combat modifiers by putting that ship in the enemy force first, followed by one of your own warship designs, and observing the to-hit chances in tactical simulation. You can even remove the enemy-designed ship from the force, and as long as you don't exit the simulator completely, it will still use the enemy's racial combat modifiers for that side.

I believe the simulator uses the actual strategies that the designs are set to, and may actually use the enemy's customizations of strategies when you set an enemy fleet's strategy in the simulator. In simultaneous movement games, the strategies you see in the simulator will lag one turn behind any changes your opponents make, but it can still be pretty useful sometimes.

Re: Combat simulator and racial combat modifiers
 

I hope you're right, because when I right click on a ship in the simulator and then click on "Ability", only the ship size modifier is displayed, not any of the cultural or racial modifiers.

Re: Combat simulator and racial combat modifiers
 

Cultural and racial combat modifiers are never shown anywhere except in the actual to-hit chance, which you can see in tactical combat if you turn on the option for it. Once you have the to-hit chance at a particular range, you can reverse-engineer the calculation to arrive at the racial modifiers. I have used this in a PBW game to determine that an enemy's "Impressive" aggressiveness and defensiveness were actually quite a bit higher than the minimum for that label - 117% and 119% in that particular case.