Question about stacking for units/fighters/sats/etc.

Mephisto · #1 July 30th, 2002, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wardad:
As far as I can tell the unit being damaged is random. It used to be the first SAT type laid was first hit. Some people say the weakest one is hit first, just like ship components. I don't believe this, as it would mean a ships Bridge, Crew Quaters, and Life Support are destroyed before engines.

I have to admit that is not like ship components as the weakest ship component isn't hit first. The comparison was only to get the idea. However, the weakest unit is always destroyed first. Its easy to test. Take a WP with high and one with low hit points and apply enough damage to destroy the low hit point WP. It will always get destroyed. The only difference might be when you apply enough hit points to destroy any of the two WP. Then the destroyed WP is chosen randomly.
Example: WP A has 600 HP, WP B has 700 HP.
Apply 599 damage points and nothing will happen.
Apply 600 and WP A will be destroyed.
Or apply 601 and WP A will be destroyed and 1 DP stored.
If you apply 599 DP and then 200 more, either WP might get destroyed.

Fyron · #2 July 30th, 2002, 11:18 PM

On ships, the weakest Armor component is most likely to be hit first, and the strongest "internal" (non-Armor) component is most likely to be hit first once all armor is down.

[ July 30, 2002, 22:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Graeme Dice · #3 July 31st, 2002, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wardad:
Unit Shields: Right now (v1.67) units do not have shields, even though they may have a blue shield indicator. The shield points are added to the total damage resistance kt of the unit. I did test and confirm this to see if the Crystaline shield boosting facility would help fighters. Well the facility didn't help the fighters at all but did add 60 to the useless blue shield bar, not 60 per fighter but 60 per fighter group.

You need to re-run your test. Take 5 fighters, and put no shielding on them. Fire at them with a massive mount anti-proton beam. All 5 fighters will be destroyed. Then, take 5 fighters and put any amount of shielding on them. Fire the same anti-proton beam. Only one fighter will be destroyed no matter how much damage you do.

Wardad · #4 July 31st, 2002, 02:31 AM

Graeme Dice,

Shields do make the fighters tougher, I never said they did not. The shields add damage resistance kt (points) to the red bar, the blue shield bar is bogus.

I also mentioned a shield boost facility that is only available to the Crystaline race. It gives a a shield bonus to ships but not units. It does add to the fighters bogus blue shield bar.

I did my testing with Groups of 1, 2, and 5 fighters against a point defense V.

[ July 31, 2002, 01:35: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Suicide Junkie · #5 July 31st, 2002, 03:51 AM

The Crystalline shield facility definitely does help fighters. And it gives those points to every fighter in the stack. I think they still work out as hitpoints, rather than shield points.

Singollo · #6 July 31st, 2002, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Try searching for SAT and Multi thread.

I did, many times. The problem was that I couldn't sort the pre-Gold material from Gold material, even when posters agreed on what they were saying.

Thanks for all the responses, folks. Let me see if I'm straight on this. I'd appreciate it if someone would run down this checklist and "grade" me as being correct or incorrect.

1. Abilities from ECM, Talisman, etc. do apply to an entire stack if just one unit has the components. So I can equip one fighter/WP with a small ECM (or whatever) and it will affect the entire stack.

2. For combat purposes, units are not considered to have components that are damaged individually. Therefore armor offers no better protection than any other component with the same tonnage (in which case unit armor would seem to be a waste).

3. Unit shields are not treated as shields, but rather as extra tonnage, even though the unit display will show blue shield points. Therefore weapons that will skip shields have no real effect on units, since the shield points count as kT points and must all be destroyed anyway. (Question: does this mean that a shield generator component gives damage resistance both for the component's kT and for the "shield kT" generated by the component?)

4. The Crystalline Restructuring facility does add to "shield kT", either to each individual fighter or to a stack of fighters, depending on whose advice I listen to.

Is this also true for other units?

One Last thing: can someone tell me whether the stacking of abilities in number 1 above is an intentional feature or a bug? If it is a bug, I would prefer not to take advantage of it.

dumbluck · #7 July 31st, 2002, 03:28 PM

1. Abilities from ECM, Talisman, etc. do apply to an entire stack if just one unit has the components. So I can equip one fighter/WP with a small ECM (or whatever) and it will affect the entire stack.

Correct.

2. For combat purposes, units are not considered to have components that are damaged individually. Therefore armor offers no better protection than any other component with the same tonnage (in which case unit armor would seem to be a waste).

Close, but no cigar. We're talking about damage structure, not tonnage structure. Armor III, for example has a tonnage structure of 10kt, but a damage structure of 40kt, so one piece of Armor III donates 40kt of damage structure to the unit. Most components damage and tonnage structure are equal, but not armor. Thus the advantage of armor.

3. Unit shields are not treated as shields, but rather as extra tonnage, even though the unit display will show blue shield points. Therefore weapons that will skip shields have no real effect on units, since the shield points count as kT points and must all be destroyed anyway. (Question: does this mean that a shield generator component gives damage resistance both for the component's kT and for the "shield kT" generated by the component?)

Correct. A shield donates both it's damage structure and it's shield points to the total unit damage structure. (Shield points are converted 1:1 into damage structure. Am I correct?)

4. The Crystalline Restructuring facility does add to "shield kT", either to each individual fighter or to a stack of fighters, depending on whose advice I listen to. Is this also true for other units?

I think so. I'm not sure about WPs, though...

One Last thing: can someone tell me whether the stacking of abilities in number 1 above is an intentional feature or a bug? If it is a bug, I would prefer not to take advantage of it.

Not a clue. Sorry.