What does "optimum range" mean?

[dumbluck]

Yes. For every square further away you are, there is a 10% loss in the to-hit percentage. IIRC, this is (along with everything else!) moddable.

Edit:

IMHO, I think it would be cool if the various distances for the movement strategies were moddable. For instance, say that you have researched missiles 20000 , which has a damage of 3000000 at max range of 30. You don't want your missle frigates closing to range 8 (the default range for "Max firing range", IIRC). Instead, you would want to adjust the strategy so that max weapons range = ... about 15 or 20.

[ 12 March 2002: Message edited by: dumbluck ]