Possible ground combat bug??

[Q]

I experimented a little bit in the combat simulator with ground combat and troop designs (SE Version 1.49) and found some strange things:

1.) Shields seem not to work. If you make troops with identical weapons but one with 240 shield points and the other with 100 armor points, the armor troops will clearly win if in equal number.

2.) Weapons range seems without effect. It seems not to matter if you use the small incinerator beam with a range of 1 or a weapon with higher range with the same damage.

Because this is completely new for me, I would appreciate any confirmation or contrary observations before I mail it to MM.

[PvK]

1) Please try a test with units with stronger shields against units with weaker shields, and/or reverse sides in your ground units, to confirm. My impression had been that shields were working in ground combat.

2) Yes, I'm pretty sure ground combat ignores range (uses range 1). Range only comes into play when those weapons are mounted on a space combattant, like a fighter.

PvK

[Q]

That's what I did now in SE IV Gold demo:

Troop 1: Cockpit, 1x ground cannon I, 1x small shield III generating 60 shield points, 1x small combat sensor III, 1x small ECM III. Total damage resistance without shields 10kT, with shield 70kT!

Troop 2: Cockpit, 1x ground cannon I, 1x small armor, 1x small combat sensor III, 1x small ECM III. Total damage resistance 9 kT.

You must keep in mind that the shield generator has a damage resitance of 4kT besides its shield generation ability! So this design was the closest the equal damage resistance of the two designs I could imagine.

If the shields work, there should be an important difference in the performance of the two designs in ground combat: 9kT against 70kT resistance!!! However this is not the case.

[Phoenix-D]

You did it on the smallest planet you can find, testing each on attack then defense, right?

Just making sure you didn't forget about the militia

Phoenix-D

[Q]

Correct.

One more strange thing:
Shields on troops work if you attack from the space!!!
And if you have troops and weapon platforms on a planet an attack from space seems always to destroy troops first.

It is hard to believe for me that more than a year after the release of SE IV I am the first to realize this. So I am still uncertain if I made some mistakes and would really appreciate if someone could try this and confirm or refute my results.

[Mephisto]

Q, I have tested it and you are right, shields do not seem to work.

I have created the same designs you used. You slightly miscalculated, the Armor trooper has a health of 13 plus 3 points of emissive ability, so 16 in total (emissive armor always subtracts 3 points of damage, even if damage is greater then 3, as I found out)

In a battle 100 defenders plus 20 militia against 100 attackers the attacker always lost about 180 to 190 health points. This resulted in ~11 lost armor troopers and 18 lost shield troopers.
Conclusion: Shields are not working at the moment for troopers.

[Q]

Thank you very much Mephisto.
What do you think is this something that should be corrected or do we just keep this in mind when we design our troops?
The reason why I ask is that if shields will work in ground combat troops will be extremely powerful against the militia!
An other observation: if you use weapons with a reload of 2 for troops, damage is still done to the militia every turn.
About the emissive armor effect: I thought that the emissive armor was not working the way as you describe it (and as it should!) but once the damage goes beyond the limit the emissive effect gets completely lost. But this was only for the large ship components not for the small troop/fighter component. I never tested this myself but there is an long topic about it in this forum.

[Mephisto]

I think it is a bug and so it should be corrected. Else shields are nearly worthless.
I too thought that emissive wasn't working, but look at this:

Armor troopers have a health of 13:
I lost 11 of them in battle -> 143 hit points.

Shield troops have a health of 10:
I lost 18 of them in battle -> 180 health points.

Difference: 37. Ok, I know that this is not equal to 3x11 but it is quite close and I have no other explanation.

[mottlee]

not use shields on troop, I do use armor and such, I find the more guns the better Small troop GCIII = lotts O troops to be put down

[Q]

Well, I sent our observations to MM.
It's up to them to decide how it is supposed to work, but they should inform us.
Until now almost all troop designs had useless shield (unless you want to use the troops as cannon fodder for attacks from space).
For me it is clear not to use shields for troops anymore but armor instead of it.

Mephisto, I think there is always a chance for hit or miss. Therfore combat simulations hardly ever get exactely the same results. But perhaps you are right and the emissive ability works after all in small armors.