[Fyron]

This is the absolute heart of the disagreement here. Because I regard that effectiveness as being exactly the same _relative_ chances to hit with or without ECM.
So at range 1, if I fit ECM to my ship the enemies chance of hitting me is 0.8 times what it was...(80% / 100% )
At range 5 the enemies chance of hitting me is 0.8 times what it was... (48% / 60% )
At range X ... and so on.

You see the result as different because you are subtracting the percentages, and I think that is incorrect.

Yes, and your view is counter to how it should work.

But what do you think of the idea of a 'to hit' chart then? Base chance to hit depends on range _and_ weapon, all modifiers to that based on multiplicative maths.

I think that is a very, very bad idea. It makes things unnecessarily complicated, for no real gain.

I disagree on the relevance because a percentage and a decimal probability are synonymous in my view, and this implies that percentages should never be added, only multiplied.

Of course they are synonymous. But, there is no reason why probabilities can not be added. There are many benefits to doing so, which I have already enumerated.

I would implement them exactly as you have calculated, because I don't regard that as a stupid result, but a correct one. But I completely agree that the vast majority of people would not find that intuitive, and would expect a 20% bonus to cancel a 20% penalty. But ask the majority of people what 80% of 120% is and I suggest that they would get it wrong. That is, I guess, sufficient argument when we are talking about a game, not putting people on Mars here..

The point is that (in this example) the level 1 ECM is supposed to cancel out the level 1 CS, and vice versa. There is not supposed to be a net ECM bonus. To get this set up with multiplicative values is next to impossible when you take other modifiers into effect.

Agreeing to disagree on the additive modifiers then, what about 'to hit' charts? Base chance to hit depends on range _and_ weapon, all modifiers to that based on (multiplicative/additive) maths. I'd be interested in your views on that, because whether you add or multiply there is a huge 'edge effect' at maximum range with standard 10% penalty per square.

It is highly possible that those edge effects were intended, and not they are not necessarily a bad thing. At extremely long range, you should not have a very good chance to hit.

Overall, the additive system allows for much more flexibility and customization, with much less work involved in getting things balanced properly.

Originally posted by Ack:
I'm not terribly fond on how planets are arranged on the system maps.

It would be nice if the planets were in a more natural arrangement with each planet having its own elliptical orbit around the star(s) which would be updated each turn. The equations for an elliptical orbit with gravitational effects are not complex if done on a 2d plane.

No, the equation is not complex. But, the coding gets more complex and requires a lot of CPU clock cycles when you have several thousand (or more) planets on the map to move around each turn.