How to trivially defeat anti-shield weapon equipped fleets

[Q]

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
To make "anti-shield weapons unable to target fighters", in the Component File change the below line to remove the fighters tag.
Don't forgot to change all types of Shield damaging weapons, including Tempory weapons

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat

Anyone tested what effect 'Anti-Shield weapons' have on a Planet with a Shield on it?

I would recommend that you change it to:

Weapon Target := Ships

Otherwise you will still have problems with satellites and weapon platforms on a planet. I do not know if shield depleter work against planetary shields (massive planetary shield facility or something like that, which is a unique ancient ruins technology). But they will not work against shields of weapon platforms.

[Zanthis]

Since I don't have Gold yet, I only did some small bit of testing on the matter of how fighters in particular accumulate damage. My tests were quite interesting however, and in hindsight the way it works is not surprising. The quick answer is shield-depleting weapons work just fine against fighters...sometimes.

Ok, the way a stack of fighters takes damage with respect to shields is only the top fighter is available to take damage. So if each fighter has 60 shields, once you've killed 60 points of shields, until the stack has at least one fighter killed, no more shields can be lost by any fighters in the stack. As soon as one or more fighters in the stack dies, a new fighter is on "top" and his shields are set to maximum.

Damage past shields works differently. The entire stack has one set of "hit points." Damage past shields is accumulated against this total. So, suppose a fighter has 60 shields and 28 structure. Hit by PDC V for 65, all 60 shields gone and the stack takes 5 damage. No fighter dead yet, because it takes 28 to kill one. Now the second PDC V hits doing 65 damage, and since the shields are down all 65 is structual. So the stack has taken 70 structual damage total, two fighters are destroyed by this hit and the shield value is rest to 60. Notice how damage was able to slip past the second fighter's shields and kill it as if it didn't have any shields at all!

As long as you can only kill 1 fighter per weapon shot, shields on fighters work fine. But shield depleting weapons cannot kill and so they can only ever drop the top fighter's shields to zero.

Again, I do not have Gold (although it shipped today!!! *cheer*) and I will rerun a more extensive set of tests once I get it to make sure everything still works in the same fashion.

[Q]

Zanthis which Version you used??
I cannot reproduce your results neither in Version 1.78 nor in Version 1.49. The shield depleter never had an effect on shielded fighters in my tests. In the combat simulator I do not see the detailed damage results you report. Only when a fighter is destroyed the shield value drops and the damage taken increases by the value of this single unit. Did you do your tests in real tactical combat??

[Zanthis]

Version 1.35 . Yes, I used real tactical combat. I find using strategic combat physically painful. Watching the AI control my ships causes me to suffer intense migraines. I only use it if I am extremely bored and I can be certain even the computer can win the battle for me without any damage to my fleet.

As far as shield depleting weapons, what kind are you using to hit fighters with? In 1.35, the only thing with better than 1% to hit is PDC. I think I'll mod them real quick to be shield depleting to test it for sure, but otherwise, ship-to-ship weapons never hit (although, guess I could use a talismon).

[ August 28, 2002, 18:47: Message edited by: Zanthis ]

[capnq]

v1.35 had a legendary game-killing bug with fighters (the individual attack and defense bonuses for fighters stacked when they were in a group).

You really need to upgrade to at least v1.49, if not Gold.

[oleg]

Originally posted by capnq:
v1.35 had a legendary game-killing bug with fighters (the individual attack and defense bonuses for fighters stacked when they were in a group).

You really need to upgrade to at least v1.49, if not Gold.

I actually enjoyed 1.35 for awhile - there were some epic dog-fight battles between fighters: The only reliable way to kill fighters was to have a larger stack of fighters. I even modded some AI to build lots and lots of fighter and carriers. Battles were almost like Pacific theater in WWII !

[Zanthis]

My Gold CD is on its way. I'm hoping to see it tomorrow...it shipped Weds via ground.

And while it is true, fighter to hit chances are all insane in 1.35, that doesn't actually change how damage is resolved. Since I'm running in tactical combat, I take note of the effects of each shot, including if it misses. I found it basically impossible to hit fighters with anything but PDC...but then again, I just modded PDC to have shield depleting damage and such.

So yes, fighters are screwed up in 1.35, but only, as far as I know, in how hard they are to hit. I didn't notice anything in the history about changes in how damage is assigned to them. May have missed it though.

Anyways, I'll rerun tests as soon as I have Gold.