What does "optimum range" mean?

[derb]

Do direct fire weapons get more accurate the closer you are? If so, my ideal range for a DF ship would be just outside the enemy's range if possible. If I couldn't out-range him then ideal range would be point blank. Is this what happens with "optimal" range? Is there any way to engineer this?

How is "optimal" range calculated?
(my full copy should arrive in a couple of weeks and the answers may be in there but meanwhile I have a PBEM demo game to win!)

[dumbluck]

Yes. For every square further away you are, there is a 10% loss in the to-hit percentage. IIRC, this is (along with everything else!) moddable.

Edit:

IMHO, I think it would be cool if the various distances for the movement strategies were moddable. For instance, say that you have researched missiles 20000 , which has a damage of 3000000 at max range of 30. You don't want your missle frigates closing to range 8 (the default range for "Max firing range", IIRC). Instead, you would want to adjust the strategy so that max weapons range = ... about 15 or 20.

[ 12 March 2002: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[derb]

So if you want to close to the closest range you can get while being outside the enemy's range, can you do that? If so, how? And how is optimum range calculated?

[Dragonlord]

This leads me to another question on missiles...CSM missiles have the same damage no matter the range, once they hit then poof. But Plasma millies apparantly do less damage the further away you are, just like many beam weapons. But they are seekers?! How can this be? Once they hit, does the damage for 0-range apply? or the damage based on the distance between the launcher and the target at the time of shooting?

Also does multiplexing help missiles? Can it auto seek another target if its orginal target is destroyed? (in strategic combat).

[Suicide Junkie]

A missile will disarm and vanish if its target is destroyed.
The plasma missile's damage depends only on how far the missile travels.
Think of it as using the plasma from the warhead to run the engines: the farther you go the lower the yield remaining in your warhead.
If you fire, move away, and your target moves directly on top of the missile before it has a chance to move, that "range zero" hit will do the same damage as a range one hit.

Multiplexing determines the number of targets the ship can attack in one combat turn using any or all of its weapons. Auto-firing Point-defense weapons do not count towards this limit, although manually firing point defense at, say a stack of sats will count against your multiplexing.

[capnq]

From the Gold manual:

quote:

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Optimal weapons Range: Ship moves to a range that enables it to inflict the maximum damage on the enemy while suffering the minimum damage in return.

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The exact formula isn't known, but it should involve both To Hit chances and damage at range.

Multiplex Tracking will allow a ship to launch missiles at different targets in the same turn; I'm not sure whether the AI is capable of using this to advantage, but a human in Tactical can judge how to divide fire.

[ 12 March 2002: Message edited by: capnq ]