Doing the math

[tbontob]

Less than a third.

Probably 15% to 20%.

[Phoenix-D]

"So realistically, where there are no adjustments, the best one can hope for is a 90% chance as it is impossible to be in the same combat sector."

If he has ECM and you have sensors of the same level, the best you can hope for is 95%. If he has stealth/scattering, the best you can hope for is 65%.

This presumes racial and ship experience are the same, -and- that you aren't using Incinerator Beams (10% bonus) or Wave-Motion Guns (30% bonus)

[Unknown_Enemy]

Ohhhh !
That guy must be really naughty.

[Pocus]

Forgive my total newbiness shining here

With some many spending in components which add to + attack roll, just to be able to get -50% malus to the to hit, why not reverting to missiles and fighters equipped with torpedoes?

Also, does ramming has a chance of missing if you get into his square? if not drones should be nasty with their to hit malus and good staying power?

I suppose the best to do is having the 3 kinds of weapons, to saturate his PD (which he has perhaps not in number btw).

[Andrés]

Yes, missiles never miss and fighters have large aditional attack and defense bonuses but they are very vulnerable to point defense cannons, often getting destroyed before they can hit even once.

[Fyron]

Unfortunately, PDC almost never misses (+70 to hit ) and does huge amounts of damage (something like 3.5 dmg/kT/turn), and so just a few per BB can nullify your fighter/missile/drone strategy fairly easy. And, 1 BB is a lot cheaper to build (taking much much less time) than 1 carrier filled with fighters, and even cheaper than a drone carrier filled with drones.

1 SYS and some repair ships can allow you to add a few extra PDCs to all your ships out in deep space in a short amount of time (1 turn). So, as soon as your enemy fights some missile/fighter/drone fleets, he can (if he is prepared) react immediately and neutralize your forces.

[ May 19, 2003, 01:10: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Slynky]

Sorry to wade in here since I'm not so up on this stuff. Boy, though, Asmala can rip those formulas right off his head.

Other than the items mentioned below:

Are you fighting in a location receiving any combat adjustments by a religious facility?

If his ships have scored a lot of kills, I think each ship goes up by 1% for each kill, so that may account for a percentage difference.

Same goes for fleet but it seems fleet experience doesn't go up any more...well, at least for me...

Also, a comment on the range calculations (again, I admit to not doing proper research and that others here know these things like the back of their hand)...I thought firing from the adjacent sector had a base chance to hit of 99%.

Finally, you mentioned testing. If you did some testing in the simulator, forget it!