Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

Greetings all, I have some questions about stacking abilities on units and whatnot. First off, I apologize for asking a question that has been discussed many times before; I have conducted several searches on this topic, but I'm having a hard time dividing the pre-Gold responses from the Gold responses, and the Gold responses from the latest-patch responses, etc. So, many thanks to whoever can set me straight here.

My question is this: in Gold v. 1.67 (? whatever the Lastest patch is), do combat abilities possessed by one unit/WP/fighter/sat apply to all others in the same stack or fighter group? By "combat abilities" I mean things like combat sensors, religious talismans, ECMs, etc. If so, is this a bug, or is it a deliberate feature?

Also, is there any particular order in which the units are damaged when they are struck in combat? I've read a lot about the strategies involving stacking "shield WPs" in front of "weapon WPs" and whatnot, but again, I've read conflicting reports about whether or not this is a bug, works in Gold, etc.

BTW, I know that this is a kind of newbie-question, and it feels funny to ask it, since I'm not at all a newbie. It's just that my normal playing style makes absolutely no use of combat involving these types of units. I have a very fastidious, neurotic playing style: I eschew ground combat and insist upon glassing all planets and building them up anew; I use mobile fleets as system defenses rather than satellites; I prefer capital-ship warfare to fighter combat, etc. I've never really dabbled with units and whatnot, hence my ignorance.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

Try searching for SAT and Multi thread.

The bonus to the whole stack for talisman, and combat sensor should work. I tried testing it tactical combat and, it did not work (first) time but then worked later and kept on working.

As far as I can tell the unit being damaged is random. It used to be the first SAT type laid was first hit.
Some people say the weakest one is hit first, just like ship componants. I don't believe this, as it would mean a ships Bridge, Crew Quaters, and Life Support are destroyed before engines.

Unit Shields: Right now (v1.67) units do not have shields, even though they may have a blue shield indicator. The shield points are added to the total damage resistance kt of the unit. I did test and confirm this to see if the Crystaline shield boosting facility would help fighters. Well the facility didn't help the fighters at all but did add 60 to the useless blue shield bar, not 60 per fighter but 60 per fighter group.

Unit damage resistance:
Simply add up the damage resistance of all the unit componants and then add in the shield points.
The WP larger mounts also beef up direct fire weapons damage resistance and can be a better deal than armor.

Unit Armor: "Armor is hit first" makes no difference to units. Armor points (actually damage resistance) is part of units total damage resistance kt. Unit componants are not damaged and unit performance is all or nothing. Unit damage is kept track of and totalled until it is high enough to kill the unit. Do not expect emissive armor to work on units, even if it gets fixed for ships in the next patch.

Only X or special weapons, (ex. Computer Virus, Ionic dispersers, etc) do not do special damage but will do normal damage, within reason. Obviously boarding parties and Alliegance subverters have no effect.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have to admit that is not like ship components as the weakest ship component isn't hit first. The comparison was only to get the idea. However, the weakest unit is always destroyed first. Its easy to test. Take a WP with high and one with low hit points and apply enough damage to destroy the low hit point WP. It will always get destroyed. The only difference might be when you apply enough hit points to destroy any of the two WP. Then the destroyed WP is chosen randomly.
Example: WP A has 600 HP, WP B has 700 HP.
Apply 599 damage points and nothing will happen.
Apply 600 and WP A will be destroyed.
Or apply 601 and WP A will be destroyed and 1 DP stored.
If you apply 599 DP and then 200 more, either WP might get destroyed.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

On ships, the weakest Armor component is most likely to be hit first, and the strongest "internal" (non-Armor) component is most likely to be hit first once all armor is down.

[ July 30, 2002, 22:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You need to re-run your test. Take 5 fighters, and put no shielding on them. Fire at them with a massive mount anti-proton beam. All 5 fighters will be destroyed. Then, take 5 fighters and put any amount of shielding on them. Fire the same anti-proton beam. Only one fighter will be destroyed no matter how much damage you do.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

Graeme Dice,

Shields do make the fighters tougher, I never said they did not. The shields add damage resistance kt (points) to the red bar, the blue shield bar is bogus.

I also mentioned a shield boost facility that is only available to the Crystaline race. It gives a a shield bonus to ships but not units. It does add to the fighters bogus blue shield bar.

I did my testing with Groups of 1, 2, and 5 fighters against a point defense V.

[ July 31, 2002, 01:35: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

The Crystalline shield facility definitely does help fighters. And it gives those points to every fighter in the stack. I think they still work out as hitpoints, rather than shield points.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I did, many times. The problem was that I couldn't sort the pre-Gold material from Gold material, even when posters agreed on what they were saying.

Thanks for all the responses, folks. Let me see if I'm straight on this. I'd appreciate it if someone would run down this checklist and "grade" me as being correct or incorrect.

1. Abilities from ECM, Talisman, etc. do apply to an entire stack if just one unit has the components. So I can equip one fighter/WP with a small ECM (or whatever) and it will affect the entire stack.

2. For combat purposes, units are not considered to have components that are damaged individually. Therefore armor offers no better protection than any other component with the same tonnage (in which case unit armor would seem to be a waste).

3. Unit shields are not treated as shields, but rather as extra tonnage, even though the unit display will show blue shield points. Therefore weapons that will skip shields have no real effect on units, since the shield points count as kT points and must all be destroyed anyway. (Question: does this mean that a shield generator component gives damage resistance both for the component's kT and for the "shield kT" generated by the component?)

4. The Crystalline Restructuring facility does add to "shield kT", either to each individual fighter or to a stack of fighters, depending on whose advice I listen to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Is this also true for other units?

One Last thing: can someone tell me whether the stacking of abilities in number 1 above is an intentional feature or a bug? If it is a bug, I would prefer not to take advantage of it.

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

1. Abilities from ECM, Talisman, etc. do apply to an entire stack if just one unit has the components. So I can equip one fighter/WP with a small ECM (or whatever) and it will affect the entire stack.

Correct.

2. For combat purposes, units are not considered to have components that are damaged individually. Therefore armor offers no better protection than any other component with the same tonnage (in which case unit armor would seem to be a waste).

Close, but no cigar. We're talking about damage structure, not tonnage structure. Armor III, for example has a tonnage structure of 10kt, but a damage structure of 40kt, so one piece of Armor III donates 40kt of damage structure to the unit. Most components damage and tonnage structure are equal, but not armor. Thus the advantage of armor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

3. Unit shields are not treated as shields, but rather as extra tonnage, even though the unit display will show blue shield points. Therefore weapons that will skip shields have no real effect on units, since the shield points count as kT points and must all be destroyed anyway. (Question: does this mean that a shield generator component gives damage resistance both for the component's kT and for the "shield kT" generated by the component?)

Correct. A shield donates both it's damage structure and it's shield points to the total unit damage structure. (Shield points are converted 1:1 into damage structure. Am I correct?)

4. The Crystalline Restructuring facility does add to "shield kT", either to each individual fighter or to a stack of fighters, depending on whose advice I listen to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Is this also true for other units?

I think so. I'm not sure about WPs, though... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

One Last thing: can someone tell me whether the stacking of abilities in number 1 above is an intentional feature or a bug? If it is a bug, I would prefer not to take advantage of it.

Not a clue. Sorry. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.
 

1) Yes. "Brain sats" with Talisman/Sensors/ECM/etc will provide fire control for all the sats in the stack.

2) Yes and no. Armor is still useful, since it is dirt cheap, and provides 5 hp/kt. Modest-level shielding is better, with up to 8 hp/kt. Almost all other components are 1 hp/kt.
The unit remains fully operational until all of its combined hitpoints are gone.

Think of a unit as being one component, and a stack of units as being the ship.

3) Yes. Shields, armor and internals are combined into one unit "component" for the unit stack "ship". All defense strength is treated as physical/armor type hitpoints. The shield points and generator hitpoints add.

4) I only tried it for fighters, but it provided hitpoints to all of the units. I suspect it would work for sats too, and maybe drones, but I doubt it would work on troops or platforms.

Re: #1 intentional?
Well, MM has already fiddled with the unit ability stacking, so I would say that it is intended until told otherwise.

[ July 31, 2002, 14:40: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]