Are battles always one sided?

[Spoo]

Regarding my poor 101 dead ships:

I had combat sensors 3.

Askan's fleet had Legendary status, while mine had no experience.

I had max tech in Quantum Torpedoes, he had max tech in PPB (but i had phased shields).

I only killed ONE ship! (I might have hit 3...)

All ships were set to break formation, optimal firing range.

So I guess it was the experience that did it. Looks like I'll be building training facilities from now on... And maxing out defense in my ratial traits... And maybe throw in religious talismans... Then I'll be invicible!

Doesn't seem balanced, does it?

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[Puke]

battles are always one sided if you plan well. for example, when planing your wormhole defense, try to plan ahead and join the game before anyone else

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Cyrus]

If his fleet was legendary I think it's at, at least, 30 Experience. Then you have to figure most of the ships in the fleet would probably be around 20 or so experience (the max you can train at a training facility). So, due to experience, his ships would gain a +50% to hit and a +50% to defense. This is a huge advantage, if he can keep your ships at max range you have something like a 1% chance to hit him while he would have something like a 50% or 60% chance to hit. I would imagine that this is why your 100 ships bit the dust. Also, keep in mind that Battle Cruisers probably have 20-25% more firepower than a Cruiser, so instead of him facing 3 - 1 odds it was more like 2 - 1 odds.

[rdouglass]

That's why I always play religious tech - that Talisman can be a HUGE factor in combat....

[Stone Mill]

askan,

Battles are lopsided, in my opinion and experience, at times without any discernable reason why. Especially with high tech fleets of 20 or 30+ or higher...
In simultaneous games I've played I was baffled at how two evenly matched fleets would clash- and one side would pretty much destroy the other while taking hardly any damage! The expectation would be that one side would win (because of and edge in technology or experience)... but in winning against that evenly matched opponent, the victor should take at least 50% losses. This never happens. It's always a butt-kicking!
After much investigation in trying to make sense of this, I asked my opponent, (who eventually won the upper hand in most of these battles) what it could be... And he said he tweaked the fleet orders much more. And I think there is much credence to this, I have watched combat replays with shock as many of my baseships and dreadnaughts broke formation at random and went off on their own while the bulk of my fleet whimsically engaged or chose not to engage.
It seems with simultaneous combat, unless you tweak your formation, fleet orders, and ship orders, you will be subjected to "Crazy Ivan" AI commanding your fleet. It is quite laughable to watch what the AI does with your ships when it goes into "idiot mode."

[This message has been edited by Stone Mill (edited 15 October 2001).]

[geoschmo]

Askan,

Not only were his ships bigger than yours, but he was using PBB, which take up 30 Kt of space and fire every turn, and you were using Quantum Torps, which take 40 Kt of space and fire every other turn. So your 3-1 numerical advantage in ships is now down really worse than 2- 1, to almost equal strength in terms of force of firepower.

In my experience, ship experience won't overcome a huge advantage by the other side, but it will turn an otherwise even fight into a complete rout. You didn't have the huge advantage you thought you did, because you were merely looking at the raw numbers of ships instead of the total amount of firepower in the fleet.

Had your fleets had similer levels of experience, then it would have most likely been an very even fight, and quite a blood bath. Probably high damage on both sides with very few ships from either side capable of leaving the field of battle undamaged.

Geoschmo

[CW]

Also try ordering your ships to fire at point blank range. Once I've seen my ships (with order to fire at optimum range) moving away from the enemies right next to them FIRST and THEN fire on them (and missed), after that fight point blank became my standard strategy.

Also any sort of modifier can be a REAL advantage. I was helping a newbie friend of mine to design his ships. He gave me a new cruiser of his to try out against my DN in the simulator. ONE single dreadnought of mine beat THIRTY of his cruisers, and I bet I would have won even if he threw 100 of those cruisers at me. Wonder why? Because he forgot to put in a combat sensor and in 30 turns I took only ONE hit out of the hundreds of shots his ships fired. Overwhelming firepower alone won't help you one bit unless you score hits...


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 15 October 2001).]