Do Small DUCs suck?

Alpha Kodiak · #1 May 15th, 2001, 03:41 PM

I haven't seen small DUCs in use in 1.35 yet, but in previous Versions they worked great. They are typically my weapon of choice for fighters and troops.

geoschmo · #2 May 15th, 2001, 06:31 PM

Nethog, just curious. There is another thread describing a problem with percentages to hit fighters being ridiculously low for all weapons except point defense. Looks like its a bug with 1.35.

Are you sure your fighters are being shot down by his fighters and not by PDC on his planet or other ships? That would make sense if that bug is as reported.

Geo

nerfman · #3 May 15th, 2001, 06:43 PM

I used them on some fighters and they worked, although the defensive/offensive bonus stacking bug caused the engagements to have some qwerky differences.

A large group of fighters seems to be able to crush the same number of fighters broken up into smaller Groups, but the single invincible group also wastes a lot of firepower and doesn't cover as much area to protect your fleet. It gets wierd. Hope this gets fixed.

[This message has been edited by nerfman (edited 15 May 2001).]

Q · #4 May 15th, 2001, 06:44 PM

What are the fighter group sizes? The bug is related to fighter group size: The larger Groups will be extremely hard to hit and have a higher chance to hit the smaller Groups.

capnq · #5 May 15th, 2001, 08:43 PM

What do you have against DUClings? They're such cute little things...

Nethog · #6 May 16th, 2001, 01:47 AM

I attacked a Cryslonite planet with a bunch of ships and a Carrier loaded with 44 Small Fighters each configured with 2 Small DUC IIIs. The Cryslonites had around 25 fighters with Small Shard Cannons I. The Cryslonite fighters seem to hit my fighters on average every other shot. My fighters rarely seemed to hit the Cryslonite fighters (the hit chance displayed 1% at 1 square distance). So do Small DUCs have an inherit disadvantage when targeting fighters?

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Nethog

Nitram Draw · #7 May 16th, 2001, 01:52 AM

Don't think so.
Did the other fighters have any ECM or Combat sensors?
Also, there appears to be a bug with fighters, the attack and defense modifiers of all fighters in a group seem to be added together. Were the Groups about the same size?

Nethog · #8 May 16th, 2001, 02:28 PM

Both the Cryslonites and my fighters (Terran) were grouped in 5's. Neither the Cryslonites nor my fighters had ECM or Combat sensors, just the standard small fighter compnents, engines, and weapons as indicated in my original post below. By the way I am using SEIV v1.35. I went back and used a save game to replay the battle several times and have concluded that the fighter/fighter hit chance *does* appear to be the same for my fighters and the Cryslonites. The first time I did the battle I had a few escort class ships mixed in with my fighters (which when look almost identical in tactical mode using Terran), so I mistakingly thought that the Cryslonite fighters were hammering my fighters butts.

HOWEVER, one thing that IS clear to me is that the hit chance for small fighters at a range of 1 is still *very* low making small fighter/small fighter battles unnecessarily
tedious IMHO. The game displays "1%" for my fighters for a hit chance, however I think that the hit chance is actually a little higher. But most of the battle between the fighters is spent watching each fighter miss each other. Has anyone else experienced this or agree with this?

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Nethog

Nitram Draw · #9 May 16th, 2001, 02:42 PM

This is probably related to the bug in the fighters with the to hit/miss modifiers stacking.
Try removing these abilities from the hull and give them to the cockpit. See if the numbers change. Remember that ECM and Sensors won't be added unless they increase the chance above the cockpit rating, as they "should" not stack.

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 16 May 2001).]

Q · #10 May 16th, 2001, 07:12 PM

Nethog I observed the same things as you and it is defenitely a major bug, which affects all combats with fighters involved.
Im your example the low hit chance is due to the difference of the offensive (= 50%) and defensive (= 80%) modifier for small fighters. And I also observed a higher hit rate than indicated (in my experience something about 10% effective hit rate when 1% is displayed). I don't know what causes this but it seems not to be the racial characteristics because it's also happening with races that have no bonus in aggressivenes or defensivenes.
I don't see that we can fix this ourselves. The proposition of Nitram Draw to transfer the combat modifiers to the cockpit is excellent, but even this will probably not eleminate all problems. So we have to wait for the next patch.

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 16 May 2001).]