There have been people on here that have been stating that battles have taken longer than they have calculated them to run. Pete has given mysterious answers. There have been hidden gems in the tech descriptions before so I headed back there again. When I setup my fleet spreadsheet to tell me how much FC is generated by each ship and so on, I was taking the total damage output of the fleet as gospel. I put each ship into the best DepLoc for their weapons and roles. What I failed to take into consideration is the DepLoc of the enemy ships. Another thing I failed to take into consideration is that my gunners cannot be 100% accurate all the time. There has to be a miss chance involved in there somewhere. The tech descriptions mention that "While misses cause no damage, hits are quite explosive" or something to that effect. So, how to calculate the hit/miss ratio of your gunners in your fleet?

I'm assuming that the following is a broad look at the black box combat system:

Step one: Determine Hit % for all weapons in the fleet. Insert random and horribly complex mathematical equation with hints of quantum mechanics.

Step two: Cycle through each weapon and see if it hits or misses .

Step three: Figure out total damage output for that fleet. Divide it into globs based on the FC. Assign the globs to enemy vessels and watch the pretty sparklies.

Another thing to consider, Pete said that every few pulses the DB refigures everything. Now, let's say I destroyed ships in positions 1 through 18 in the first pulse. Go me! Now, the DB doesn't refigure for another 4 pulses (That means every 5 pulses) [this is also an assumed number with no bearing on reality whatsoever]. During pulses 2 through 5 (before refigure), does the combat system assign globs of damage to the empty positions 1 through 18?

If the above THEORIES are true then that might go a long way towards explaining why battles take so long. Please discuss and comment to your hearts content.

Sakarissa
The Circle

I wasn't sure how it all worked before, and now, following your excellent summation, I've finally got it!


...................ummmm, I think.

I am more concerned with Pete's recent cryptic posting that seemed to say that the combat resolution routine changes if fleets reach a certain size, which he won't tell us. Now, I'm not fan of the swarm fleet strategy and did not like that aspect of the combat system, but since the system allows it, there should not be some magic and secret breakpoint where the combat routines change against it. I am concerned because we are not told exactly what changes or at what point the change occurs. If I knew I could trust the combat system to be 100% flawless I would be more accepting of such secrets. The game does loose something if every detail about the system is known by the players. But I do not trust it to be flawless and therefore want to be able to audit it at a reasonable level to watch for bugs. This is a game that people play for years and invest tremendous time in and not a little money. I would hate to see someone knocked out of the game due to a hidden bug in the combat system.

As any true programmer will tell you, there is no such things as "bugs". Oh sure, there are undocumented program features, or programs with incomplete designs due to failures in the specifications of requirements. But programmers NEVER, EVER, leave one of those mythical "bugs" in a program. Why, they're to perfect to do such a thing.

OH .. and a step was forgotten in the combat listing.

Step 2A - Magic occurs.

See, the whole thing is really simple to understand.

Whether globs hit or not was answered in snrote reader #18

"Question: In naval combat, do all shots or globs hit a target? Is there a potential to miss?
(I pointed the guy to the Naval Combat primer)
Pete: They all hit."


Lord Uriel

I believe that Pete has stated previously that destroyed ships are not being targeted. He has also mentioned that truly large battles may be adjusted by increasing the relevant factors by X just to speed things up. I am not sure of the details at the moment, but it seemed that if you increase FP and FC by a factor of X then the battle would be much faster without changing the results.

The break point for this may be the 1000 screen point. I have noticed on my own battles that large numbers of screens will push the report into condensed mode.