[Fyron]

Originally posted by Rigelian:
Replace attitive calculations with multiplication, to reflect actual probabilities; eliminate bizarre 'edge effects'.

This is best illustrated by example: I have a 25% chance to hit a ship at a certain range. If that ship is equipped with ECM-1, that gives him a 20% defence bonus. Logically I should be 20% less likely to hit him (.25*0.8), giving me a 20% chance to hit. Of course the mechanics in SE4 do not currently work like this. The percentages are simply subtracted, giving me a 5% chance to hit. In this situation his '20%' ECM is actually giving him more like 80% protection. There are examples like this wherever percentages are calculated.

To correctly implement probabilities, factors should _always_ be multiplied.

I'm sure Aaron was/is well aware of this fact. My strong suspicion is that the floating-point maths required to do this correctly, as opposed to much faster integer maths for addition, was one of the limiting factors. Given the massive increase in processor speeds since the original SE games, I think that the average PC could cope with this now. I would much, much rather have this than any whizz-bang rotating 3D maps..

And while I'm here.. can we have sizeable windows and right-click support back again? I'm sure the code is still out there somewhere

How can you be sure that MM does not prefer many of these bonuses/penalties to be additive instead of multiplicative? Additive values make sense in a lot of places. ECM does not alter the current chance to hit, it alters the base chance to hit.