Fight Dirty?

[tbontob]

Hmmmm.... In gold, it appears the aggressor appears to have a chance of shooting first. I just posted this in the thread "who shoots first?" a few days ago.

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It gets wierder.

Did some testing.

I had the enemy sit on the other side of the WP.

My ships were faster 13 vs 12.

On the next turn, my ships shot first.

Tested this a number of times and my ships always shot first.

Messed around and added some 12 movement ships to the fleet.

They shot first.

Went back to 13 movement ships and they shot first.

I suspect the defendor normally shoots first when sitting on the WP, but a random element sometimes gives the aggressor the right to shoot first when they are faster.

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The test was done in simultaneous mode.

I am making the assumption that a faster fleet may give them the right of shooting first at times.

Maybe if I tried a large number of tests, I would have an example of a equal speed fleet or slower fleet coming through a WP would shoot first.

[jimbob]

Ok, that's a relief. I hadn't read your position on the ladder in the description(s) you gave.

In that case, satelites should do you quite well, as should fighters. For the fighters you definitely want the heavy weapons, cause if you've got first shot at point blank range, you'll absolutely waste him Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahhahaahahhahahahahahahahahahaha
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(etc...)

Somebody else suggested it, but make sure you get those sensors up a few levels. It'll make a huge difference. Oh, and as to the discussion of the armors and cloaking; the 5% bonus to defence is not cummulative though. If you have one or twenty of the stealth armor on your ship, you'll still only get a 5% defence bonus (don't get me wrong, the 5% is definitely worth it though!). You'll want to put both the stealth (5%) and the other special armor (5%) on your ships. Just think - if he comes through the warp point you'll get first shot and destroy a chunk of his fleet, then he'll miss with ~10% of the shots he's got left.

[ May 09, 2003, 15:48: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Pooka]

Originally posted by jimbob:
Ok, that's a relief. I hadn't read your position on the ladder in the description(s) you gave.

In that case, satelites should do you quite well, as should fighters. For the fighters you definitely want the heavy weapons, cause if you've got first shot at point blank range, you'll absolutely waste him
Somebody else suggested it, but make sure you get those sensors up a few levels. It'll make a huge difference. Oh, and as to the discussion of the armors and cloaking; the 5% bonus to defence is not cummulative though. If you have one or twenty of the stealth armor on your ship, you'll still only get a 5% defence bonus (don't get me wrong, the 5% is definitely worth it though!). You'll want to put both the stealth (5%) and the other special armor (5%) on your ships. Just think - if he comes through the warp point you'll get first shot and destroy a chunk of his fleet, then he'll miss with ~10% of the shots he's got left.

About emissive armor, does it really mean that fighters using SmallDU3s can't hurt my ship? (They do less than the prevented damage.)

Does that mean that his group of 242 small fighters won't be able to hurt ships with that armor? (evil ideas brewing here)

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Pooka:
About emissive armor, does it really mean that fighters using SmallDU3s can't hurt my ship? (They do less than the prevented damage.)

Does that mean that his group of 242 small fighters won't be able to hurt ships with that armor? (evil ideas brewing here)

A single fighter would not be able to do any damage. However fighter stacks in SEIV add their damage together. So think of it as a ship with a big gun that does 242 times the damage of one single fighter. That will probably be enough to get past the emmisive armor.

Geoschmo

[Pooka]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pooka:
About emissive armor, does it really mean that fighters using SmallDU3s can't hurt my ship? (They do less than the prevented damage.)

Does that mean that his group of 242 small fighters won't be able to hurt ships with that armor? (evil ideas brewing here)

A single fighter would not be able to do any damage. However fighter stacks in SEIV add their damage together. So think of it as a ship with a big gun that does 242 times the damage of one single fighter. That will probably be enough to get past the emmisive armor.

Geoschmo

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That makes Emissive armor seem utterly pointless considering it's size, resistance, and a damage threshold of /10/ to start. 10?! Is there a gun that does as little as 10?

[Phoenix-D]

"That makes Emissive armor seem utterly pointless considering it's size, resistance, and a damage threshold of /10/ to start. 10?! Is there a gun that does as little as 10? "

No. But it -will- cut 10 points of damage off of every hit.

[Ed Kolis]

A gun that does as little as 10... hmm, you're right!

Seriously though, in Gold it's somewhat better, since the emissive rating is actually subtracted from the damage if the damage is greater - so if you get hit by a 280 HP Heavy Mount Wave Motion Gun you only take 270 damage

[jimbob]

But the emissive doesn't stack does it? Logically you should get more protection the more emissive armor you've got, but there needs to be an upper limit... which would be hard to introduce to the game.

Mmmmm, on second thought, maybe it would be good to have emissive armor effects stack, but then limit the number of this type of armor to (for example) 5 per ship. = subtract 50 off all incoming damage.

[Pooka]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
A gun that does as little as 10... hmm, you're right!

Seriously though, in Gold it's somewhat better, since the emissive rating is actually subtracted from the damage if the damage is greater - so if you get hit by a 280 HP Heavy Mount Wave Motion Gun you only take 270 damage

Yet again, I blame the confusing wording on the component "ignores all damage of 10 or less." does not mean the same thing as "subtracts 10 from inbound damage."

Grrrr.

I like emissive armor now, though.

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by Pooka:
That makes Emissive armor seem utterly pointless considering it's size, resistance, and a damage threshold of /10/ to start. 10?! Is there a gun that does as little as 10?

Just how many research points do you have? If you have enough, you really should consider upgrading your defenses.
For example:
Level 1 ECM (20%) +
Level 1 Scattering Armor (5%) +
Level 1 Stealth Armor (5%) +
Level 1 Emmisive Armor (10 or less) =
30% defense bonus,
-10 damage from all hits.

Au contraire:
Level 3 ECM (60%) +
Level 3 Scattering Armor (15%) +
Level 3 Stealth Armor (15%) +
Level 3 Emissive Armor (30 or less) =
90% defense bonus
-30 damage from all hits

In summa: Top-level ECM & Armor will give you an additional 60% defensive bonus, and subtract triple the damage

See that 90% defensive bonus? If you put Level Three Scattering, Stealth, and ECM on any ship that has a natural 10% or more defensive bonus, and assuming your enemy doesn't use Combat Sensors, Torpedos, Wave-Motion Guns, or Talismans, that ship will be ***Impossible*** to hit with direct Fire weapons ...all you'd have to worry about is Missiles.

And if you think it couldn't get any better , Upgrading all of that takes research in only two Tech Areas: Armor, and Combat Support.