Race vs. Culture

[TacticDragon]

I would assume the boni are cumulative between race and culture characteristics.

Then I would assume that both space combat and ground combat use offense and defense values (this is certainly true for space combat but I'm not sure how ground combat works), breaking up the thing as follows:

..............GC off...GC def...SC off...SC def.

phys. str.......10%......10%
aggressiv...........................10%
defensiv........................................10 %
berserker.......10%......10%......10%......10%

TOTAL...........20%......20%......20%......20%

But, this is just how I interpret the rules.

You thus would have a 20% higher chance to hit an opponent in both space and ground combat, than a race with no modifiers. In addition, your opponents will suffer a 20% penalty (i.e. your defense value) to their attack values when trying to hit you.

Note that these only constitute your "base" attack and defense modifiers. Other things, like ship size and sensor technology (both your own and your opponents'), will further modify your chances to hit or be hit.

Note also that one ship component, the religous talisman, gives a 100% chance of hitting with direct fire space weapons. This is not a bonus: your chance to hit is 100%, no matter what. But hey, that's a rare component.

[ 05 December 2001: Message edited by: TacticDragon ]

[Taqwus]

For space combat, you can get bonuses to hit from...

- race (aggressiveness)
- culture (space combat bonus)
- ship experience
- fleet experience
- combat sensors
- war shrine in system (religious races)
- event predictor in system (temporal races)
- inherent bonus to weapon (e.g. certain 'Big Guns' like WMGs get a bonus, as do point defense)
- religious talisman (religious races, direct-fire always hits)
- being REALLY tiny and manueverable (fighters)
- weapon mount (for certain ones like base mounts; they get accuracy bonuses meaning that they can actually *hit* at the extended ranges)


Seekers are an exception; they either get shot down, run out of fuel, or hit. Hitting planets also seems to be an exception -- I don't remember seeing anything less than 99% for them (the normal maximum to-hit chance).


Defensive bonuses include...
- range to target (straight 10% to-hit penalty per square, IIRC)
- most of the above, except for weapon bonuses, talisman, combat sensors, and aggressiveness
- defensiveness racial bonus
- ECM
- ship size (small ships are better; a few big ships/bases have a penalty)
- stealth and scattering armor


Incidentally, minimum hit chance is 1% always if within range and weapon is loaded, functional and applicable (permitted to hit at all -- e.g. cap ship missiles can't target satellites). Inherent weapon bonuses, such as PD bonus of +70%, seem to get applied Last, and after the 1% rule is applied -- meaning that PDs hit w/ a minimum rate of 70%. At least, that's the way it seemed to work pre-1.49 -- I'm playing a religious race in my current game, and ubiquitious use of the Talisman means that most of these rules don't apply to me.

Oh, and base chance to hit. It's somewhere in Settings.text, if memory serves (as is the range penalty). I don't remember what it is, but it's high (at point-blank). Other numbers get placed in the individual files for Components, Facilities, Vehicle Types, and so forth.

On ground combat, well, it's much harder to figure out what's going on there. I'd be interested in a detailed explanation, m'self.

[Taqwus]

For a concrete example with numbers drawn uselessly from my befuddled mind...

Consider a veteran (say, +20% -- reachable easily via the training facilities) ship in an elite fleet (+30%, say) belonging to a fairly aggressive race (+10%, it's expensive in race points) but a normal culture (no +/-). Let him fire a Wave Motion Gun (+30%) at somebody at range 6. Also, he's got Combat Sensors III (+65%).

That's something like +155% offense, ignoring range at the moment.

Say the victim is a cruiser (+10% def due to small size?), is legendary (+47%) but not in a fleet (no bonus -- moral: put warships in fleets, even if they're small). His race and culture are normal wrt combat (no bonus or penalty). His ship has ECM III (+60%), as well as scattering and stealth armor, both level III (something like +15% for each). Figure a total of +147%.

Suppose the base chance to hit at range 1 is 100% (don't remember if it is, but it's close). Subtract 50% for 5 more steps in range, so the base is 50%. Add offense bonus (except weapon bonus), for a total of 175%; subtract defense of 147% -- 28% net, which is in [1,99] so we don't need to adjust it. Then add weapon bonus of +30%, for a total of 58% to hit. If either side had an appropriate facility in the system, it could change further -- e.g. War Shrine III gives something like +15%, so the hit % might be 43% or 73% depending on whose shrine it is.

Morals:
- Put ships in fleets.
- Train ships and fleets. Ship and fleet experience each go up to +50%, if memory serves. Training alone (no combat) will get you to +20%/+20%, which is the equivalent of a lot of race points if your opponents haven't trained to equalize the field.
- Spending 10kt of space on ECM and sensors is *really* worth it. Your opponents will. Would you really miss out on a 65% hit/60% def? You'll a) miss a lot, and b) get pLastered.
- Researching armor high enough to get stealth and scattering armor can really be a good thing, to; w/o them, the defender would have been hit w/ prob 78%.
- The religious talisman is nice, because otherwise defending bonuses can readily deny you the nice certainty that your salvos will be effective. Likewise, fighting in Holy Space (by which I mean having both war and death shrines; +15% combat bonus, +15% or so damage bonus) makes a difference.

[dmm]

You forgot ramming, which always hits. (Of course, you have to get right next to the enemy and have one movement left. And any shields you may have are worthless.)

[Torkle]

Thanks for all the quick answers.

I'm modifying the Cultures.txt file to be balanced with respect to the racial characteristic costs and needed to know how to compare all of them. For instance, each point in the cultural trait Space Combat should be four times more expensive than each point in Ground Combat since Space Combat is the equivalent of the racial characteristics Aggressiveness and Defensiveness, both of which are double-cost racial characteristics, while Ground Combat is equivalent to the racial characteristic Physical Strength (which is normal cost).

PS - I found the section in Settings.txt spoken of earlier in this thread:

Combat Base To Hit := 100
Combat To Hit Modifier Per Square := 10

[Jourin]

Torkle

I already did that. Check out the Excel spreadsheet included in my Culture.zip file. It balanced all the culture traits based on an equal amount of racial points. I used 800 points based on putting a 2 in all categories for neutral (making neutral a playable culture).

[Torkle]

And why not make Neutral culture the default (and still viable) at zero overall points? That seems more reasonable to me. Here's my revised list:

http://www.io.com/~torkle/spacemp.html#culture

Every culture balances out to zero points.