Are battles always one sided?

geoschmo · #1 October 15th, 2001, 10:48 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Lynx:
It is annoying when battles are repeatedly blowouts, particularly when there are large fleets of ships with seeming equal firepower. The combat sequence bug that the lower number player always goes first is something that ought to be fixed. I guess if the damage results would be simultaneous would be the most fair. Even adjusting for weapon types, accuracy, training and the like and strategies, the vast battle imbalances seems very odd and unfair.

True this is a problem, although it really only affects warp point battles

quote:
On the formations, I guess it would be nice if one fix could be made: A lead ship changing direction would cause the other ships to change relative positions in their fleet. How often does a fleet get demolished because the lead ship turns around, and the other ships get roasted as they change places.

I agree with you on this one. I hate this. I have started setting all ships to break formation. Every ship for itself seems to work better in large ship battles than trying to keep them in formation.

Geoschmo

Suicide Junkie · #2 October 15th, 2001, 11:24 PM

Yeah, running up against a fleet of Legendaries would have been trouble, but I had a minimum maintenance race, with over 2/3rds of my fleet in mothballs, so I could easily replace my 10-FG/DS WP patrol with a 50-LC/BC annihilator force for a few turns

Also, that was 1% at point blank, so moving to max torpedo range (6) would cancel the 50% legendary bonus

Dragonlord · #3 October 16th, 2001, 04:22 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Rich04:
Tweaking Ship/Fleet Strategy is very important.
In my 1st PBW game I lost several battles that looked even without inflicting significant losses to the enemy fleet. Upon viewing the battles I finally figured out what was happening. My ships were failing to kill off damaged ships. They would fire until the opponent was disabled and move on to the next target. The opponent had enough repair ships to fix his fleet each turn. This is the default setting for SE4 and what very often turns a battle into a one sided slaughter. If your opponent has more ships you will almost always lose without inflicting any losses, all else being equal.

Uhm AFAIK, repairs don't get made during combat. Only after combat. So I think it's a perfectly viable strategy to use the "fire till no more weapons" option, disable his ships, then hunt down the sitting ducks once none of them can fire back anymore.
In fact the only time I can imagine you would NOT want to use this option is if the fleets involved are so large (and/or slow) that you can't disable, hunt down and then destroy everything within 30 combat turns.

Anybody? Why is "fire until weapons gone" not turned on by default?

Rich04 · #4 October 16th, 2001, 04:42 AM

I never said they repaired during combat Dragonlord.

What was happening was my 30 ship fleet engaged a 50 ship fleet with enough repair ships to repair 40+ components each turn. Every time my fleet engaged they were wiped out without inflicting any losses or even slowing the opposing fleet. This happened 3 turns in a row. My ships even had the edge tech wise. Each engagement disabled a dozen or more enemy ships. If they had finished them off the attacking fleet would have been whittled down each turn rather than total blowouts. I might have won the second engagement and if not for sure the third one for by then 'I' would have had the larger fleet.

Gimboid · #5 October 16th, 2001, 04:59 AM

quote:
Of course that strategy can backfire on you. I tried something similer in a game once. I had Frigate's and a few destroyers with tailsman's. I figured I could stay at max range and with my defensive bonuses he wouldn't land many hits before my tailsman powered weapons had chewed him up.

What I didn't know was this was a fleet that had just returned from a succesful mission against a race that used a lot of missles. His fleet and ships were legendary which negated my defensive bonuses. So my disadvantage in ship size and tech shined through glaringly.

Geoschmo

True it backfired that time. But what if your fleet had had the legendary bonus (and mine hadn't)?

The word 'unstoppable' comes to mind... small ships (virtually) unhittable but that always hit with direct fire weapons.

My homeworlds would have died as fast as you could get your ships down to my homesystem.

Master Belisarius · #6 October 16th, 2001, 05:12 AM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Stealth and Scattering most definitely ARE cumulative

Yes, you're right and I was wrong!

I was confused, because in the past, the stealth and scattering bonus were not stacking with the ECM, and believed that when Aaron fixed it, also forced to stealth and scattering to doesn't stack between them.
Sorry.

Askan Nightbringer · #7 October 16th, 2001, 11:07 AM

Hello again,

I've run Spoo's 101 ships vs my 35 ships in the combat simulator several times and I lost convincly each time (although I kill about 30 ships).

So as my fleet wiped the floor against his 101 ships in the real world ("space") I assume it was all down to fleet and ship experience.

This doesn't quite seem satisfactory to me.
I reckon either
1) Tone down the effect of experience.
2) Give all weapons an innate bonus to hit like the WMG so at least any shots has 15-20% chance of hitting.
3) Make sure offensive bonuses grossly outsize the defence bonuses.

Askan