Fleet experiance, how is it earned.

[Ruatha]

I was thinking of updating the FAQ, but the newest Posts seems to be contradictory so I don't know what to write.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=005518
How IS fleet experiance really calculated, is it tonnage killed? Does fleet size matters?

All input welcome.

[Fyron]

Only Aaron Hall (or someone that has already asked him and remembers) would be able to answer that question. It is a relatively obtuse formula.

[Ruatha]

Should I write:
"5.7.10 Fleet experiance is earned by an relatively obtuse formula"

(edit spellcheck)

[ December 01, 2002, 09:53: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[PvK]

A good battle can give as much as +1%, but often it seems to be less than 1%, but greater than 0, and it adds up. Having more than one fleet in a combat either divides the gain, or negates it completely.

Note that if you have a fleet (or ship) with less than the experience to gain a whole point, and then you train that ship up to the max for your training facilities, it will still have it's fractional experience. I.e., a ship with 0.3 experience seems to be trainable up to 20.3 with a facility limted to 20 experience. At least, that's how it seems, by looking at the descriptions, because inexperienced but trained ships and fleets show as "Veteran +20", while those that have seen some action will train up to "Elite +20".

Not that it makes much difference.

PvK

[Krsqk]

I created a fleet of 5 cruisers armed with WMGs and pitted it against several enemy cruisers with no weapons (to make sure I didn't lose my fleet with experience ). It took 41 ships killed to get fleet experience up to 1%. Every ship had at least 4% ship experience.

I took a fleet of one frigate armed with a WMG. It took 40 of the same cruisers to get to fleet experience 1% (ship experience 40%).

I took a fleet of 19 of the above frigates armed with WMG. It took 47 of the same cruisers to get to fleet experience 1% (ship experience ranged from 0% to 4%).

Note that it took several battles to get the above results.

A battle between the 19 fleet (reconstituted with 0% fleet experience) and a group of 80 cruisers generated 2% fleet experience (combat turns extended to 999).

A battle between the 1 fleet (with 0% fleet experience) and 80 cruisers generated an integer overflow.

In other words, the answer is that fleet experience does not rely on tonnage, damage, fleet count, ship experience, or any other rational explanation. Rather, it is a random function triggered by unexplained cosmic phenomena.

[Will]

Originally posted by Krsqk:
In other words, the answer is that fleet experience does not rely on tonnage, damage, fleet count, ship experience, or any other rational explanation. Rather, it is a random function triggered by unexplained cosmic phenomena.

I have always suspected this... nice to have it confirmed

[Master Belisarius]

I'm 100% sure that to get experience, the ship must have direct fire weapons. Ships with seekers doesn't get experience.
Also, killing fighters and seekers, can generate experience.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally it didn't work, and ships using only seekers did not gain experience. For a while in the late pre-Gold patches you DID get experience for destroying the enemy with seekers. Which was nice. But it broke and hasn't been fixed again since.

It would be nice to have this back but it might be a lot of hassle to track what ship fired what seekers. I'd rather see experienced awarded for combat experience in general rather than the accident of the final kill anyway. Maybe 1 percent experience for every 100 turns in combat or something like that. Of course, this too can be a settable ratio in the text config files.

[Krsqk]

Correct. DF weaps are the only way to get ship and fleet experience. PDC firing on seekers and drones is included in this. In fact, fleet experience may be higher than average ship experience when facing missile-heavy enemies.

This experience stuff is weird.

[Kamog]

How do you get race experience, and what does it do? Does it have any effect at all?