[jim]

T. S. -

It's more than an exploit.

It is a basic problem for simul battle planning.

What it means is that any ship with PDCs simply cannot ever be trusted to follow it's individual strategy. It almost means - and I mean "almost - that one needs to mandate remaining in formations! That is, to have confidence that your fleet will follow a "max range" strategy, one must require remaining in formation AND must designate as a flagship one that has ZERO PDCs!

I only deduced this problem when I noticed my Talisman Max range BCs with Wave Motion guns kept getting run down by slower ships. The reason was that my BCs had PDCs and there were fighters launched against them. Instead of running, they died as I described. I had to watch several battles before dumb 'ol jim worked out what was going on!

Soooo, I tried the "exploit" in my original post as a test mechanism.

One major tenet has been always to direct fleets "to break formation." Now, if the intent is anything but a close range action, the possibility that your opponent has fighters can make one change to the otherwise less optimal strategy of staying in formations.

Of course, the corollary, especially if one is fighting a Religious race with the Talisman is ALWAYS to have some fighter platforms in every battle to prevent Talisman LR sniping.

In summary, I think it is a bug. PDCs should not be that way against fighters, or maybe even sats.

[ July 31, 2002, 04:11: Message edited by: jim ]