Do Small DUCs suck?

[Q]

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).]

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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And I also observed a higher hit rate than indicated (in my experience something about 10% effective hit rate when 1% is displayed).

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Q, that's because its a 1% chance for each weapon on the fighter group!

with 5 fighters, and 3 weapons each, 15 guns @ 1% give you a:
(0.99) ^ 15 chance of missing,
or: a 86% chance of missing with all = 14% chance to hit with any one gun.

2 weapons per fighter would give you roughly 10% chance to hit with a group of 5.

When you hit with just one or two guns, the damage should be lower than the total of all the weapon's damage Ratings. ie. 5 to 10 damage (1 or 2 hits) instead of all the weapons (15x5=75 damage)

If your fighters had 100 guns between them, at 1% each, you get a 63% chance of at least one hitting. (out of 100!!!)

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 17 May 2001).]

[Nethog]

suicide_junkie, what about the +50% to hit offenseive bonus and -80% defensive bonus for small fighters, i.e. net -30% to hit? This would make the hit chance even lower still? Or does the 1% already reflect this?

Anyway, regardless of the numbers don't you think that the hit chance should be higher when two equal sized Groups of small fighters are engaged in combat? Like I said earlier in this discussion thread it gets tedious fighting a battle between small fighters.

[Phoenix-D]

Nitram, I was going to suggest that myself, but is has a flaw.

The AI will put a LOT of cockpits on the fighter. Not bound by the "one per ship" restrictions, rememeber..

Phoenix-D

[Nitram Draw]

Maybe the ability won't stack if it is attached to a component.
I did a little test of it Last night and got more variety in the "to hit" numbers, both for the fighters to hit and a ship to hit fighters. I did not see an increase in the "to hit" if the fighter Groups were different sizes. I didn't do a thorough test but maybe I can this weekend, or someone else can sooner.
I think it will work as a short term solution.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Suicide_junkie, what about the +50% to hit offenseive bonus and -80% defensive bonus for small fighters, i.e. net -30% to hit? This would make the hit chance even lower still? Or does the 1% already reflect this?

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The uneven fighter bonuses force the minimum 1% to hit.
This applies to all the weapons on the stack of fighters, but they fire seperately. So, it rolls a 100 sided-dice. if it comes up one, the first fighter's first DUC hits. roll again for the first fighters decond DUC, and so on.
So, with 15 fighter weapons, you get 15 rolls to win the one-in-a-hundred chance of hitting. If any one of the stack's weapons hit, then the animation shows a hit, while doing one weapon's damage.

[Nitram Draw]

I think the only way to find out how fighters work is to remove all bonuses from the fighter and sample target ship and start observing the hit % of different size Groups.
If fighter weapons work like standard weapons then the lowest to hit for 1 fighter with 1 DUC will be 90% at range 2 and 99% at range 1.
Then start adding fighter to the group and adding bonuses.
There is definately something different about fighters.