[Taqwus]

For a concrete example with numbers drawn uselessly from my befuddled mind...

Consider a veteran (say, +20% -- reachable easily via the training facilities) ship in an elite fleet (+30%, say) belonging to a fairly aggressive race (+10%, it's expensive in race points) but a normal culture (no +/-). Let him fire a Wave Motion Gun (+30%) at somebody at range 6. Also, he's got Combat Sensors III (+65%).

That's something like +155% offense, ignoring range at the moment.

Say the victim is a cruiser (+10% def due to small size?), is legendary (+47%) but not in a fleet (no bonus -- moral: put warships in fleets, even if they're small). His race and culture are normal wrt combat (no bonus or penalty). His ship has ECM III (+60%), as well as scattering and stealth armor, both level III (something like +15% for each). Figure a total of +147%.

Suppose the base chance to hit at range 1 is 100% (don't remember if it is, but it's close). Subtract 50% for 5 more steps in range, so the base is 50%. Add offense bonus (except weapon bonus), for a total of 175%; subtract defense of 147% -- 28% net, which is in [1,99] so we don't need to adjust it. Then add weapon bonus of +30%, for a total of 58% to hit. If either side had an appropriate facility in the system, it could change further -- e.g. War Shrine III gives something like +15%, so the hit % might be 43% or 73% depending on whose shrine it is.

Morals:
- Put ships in fleets.
- Train ships and fleets. Ship and fleet experience each go up to +50%, if memory serves. Training alone (no combat) will get you to +20%/+20%, which is the equivalent of a lot of race points if your opponents haven't trained to equalize the field.
- Spending 10kt of space on ECM and sensors is *really* worth it. Your opponents will. Would you really miss out on a 65% hit/60% def? You'll a) miss a lot, and b) get pLastered.
- Researching armor high enough to get stealth and scattering armor can really be a good thing, to; w/o them, the defender would have been hit w/ prob 78%.
- The religious talisman is nice, because otherwise defending bonuses can readily deny you the nice certainty that your salvos will be effective. Likewise, fighting in Holy Space (by which I mean having both war and death shrines; +15% combat bonus, +15% or so damage bonus) makes a difference.