Naval combat question

[Prospective]

Anyone/Everyone,

 

A question about your understanding of the naval combat system as it exists today.

 

Lets say I have a 1000ton scout armed with a single 100t weapon system. That scout encounters a simiarly sized/armed ship (or perhaps even an unarmed ship). If combat is initiated by either side, will it continue until one side is destroyed?

 

Do either of the fleets have a chance to break the engagement before one side is destroyed?

 

What ship design factors increase the chances of breaking (or maintaining) an engagement once it's started? Does the number of AP affect anything? Bridge systems?

 

Thanks.

[Ur Lord Tedric]

Anyone/Everyone,

 

A question about your understanding of the naval combat system as it exists today. 

 

Lets say I have a 1000ton scout armed with a single 100t weapon system.  That scout encounters a simiarly sized/armed ship (or perhaps even an unarmed ship).  If combat is initiated by either side, will it continue until one side is destroyed?

 

Do either of the fleets have a chance to break the engagement before one side is destroyed? 

 

What ship design factors increase the chances of breaking (or maintaining) an engagement once it's started?  Does the number of AP affect anything?  Bridge systems?

 

Thanks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Given the limitations of our current knowledge - which, whilst still a great deal more than when we started, is still a bit blurry for some important things...

 

Most battles, we understand, continue until one side (which could include multiple empires) is eliminated.

 

As far as we know there are no ways to break an engagement off - there are no retreats. (One reason is that movement can continue after a battle and there is no way to trap any fleets.)

 

A very few battles have been reported where ships remain on both sides at the end of a skirmish. These have always involved a very small number of ships - like one or two on each side - and seem only to occur after many combat rounds have passed (300?) and they are battling at long range with weak weapons causing minimal damage.....

 

In short, a battle only ends early, we believe, if it's absorbing too much processing time for the result to matter - having a couple of Pathfinders dual to the death from DL12 is just pointless...

 

So - space battles are ugly! There's only one winner and the victory could be rather Pyhrric....

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

[General Miles Avatar]

In short, a battle only ends early, we believe, if it's absorbing too much processing time for the result to matter - having a couple of Pathfinders dual to the death from DL12 is just pointless...

 

 

The very first battle I had and it could have been the very 1st of the game was one of my Pathfinders vs another players Pathfiner. The battle ended in a victory for our Pathfinder

but as Ur Lord Tedric has pointed out we gained very very little info about how conbat worked

other then verifying that there was combat.

 

The New Naval Combat Doc (soon to be released we all hope) will hopefully shed some light

on a rather dark area of the game.

[Prospective]

I understand that there is limited knowledge out there and that hopefully the "Naval Combat Primer" currently in development will answer these, but I have a few more questions:

 

1) What effect does AP have in a battle? If you have a 4AP warship vs a 0.00025 warship (of equivalent tech level/design other than in engines), will the faster ship be guaranteed of victory?

 

2) What effect does computers (or Bridge systems) have in a battle?

 

3) Is a ton of "Good" rated engines equally as beneficial as a ton of "Good" rated bridge systems? Is it better? Worse?

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[hobknob]

I have had battles end with the comment that my fleet was unable to inflict any real damage on the enemy. This was likely a pathfinder against a real ship that could not shoot back, else the pathfinder would have died.

 

In answer to your questions;

 

1) AP is a defense against missiles/drones/fighters/torpedos so the higher you are the better your defense. High AP will also help prevent capture.

 

2) Bridge systems allow a fleet to target multiple targets. With minimal bridge systems you faire at 1 target a shot. If you add enough bridge systems you can increase this number.

 

3) Weapons and bridge systems don't relate in the manner you are sugesting. Bridge systems have a fixed rating, which you now see on the ANZ, which tells you the rating. To find your Fire COntrol Rating simply add up the ratings of all bridge systems in your fleet and then divide by the total mass of your fleet. This will tell you how many different targets you get per volley. I would truncate the result to be on the safe side.

 

 

[Prospective]

Thanks Hobknob, the murk that is combat begins to clear a bit.

 

What you are saying is that engines are entirely a defensive system, and only effective against drons/fighters/missiles... So having a high AP ship vs a low AP will not improve your "% to hit" chance... interesting though strange. It seems that having an edge in AP would improve the liklihood of hitting a slower moving target, especially with large ship weapons (like the spinal mount type weapons which could be aimed more quickly).

 

But, if engines are strictly defensive systems in combat, then that's the way I need to plan in the future.

 

Steve

[hobknob]

Remember you have to park your brain and its common senses at the door when you come to play.

 

In SN II it was possible to make your ships fairly immune to enemy fire by making them more maneuverable. It was fairly unbalancing so was changed for SNROTE.

 

Engines are probably the best defensive system you get research since they have plenty of other uses outside of combat. Just think how nice it would be to have a 40 AP colonizer.

 

[ali-t-akua]

2) What effect does computers (or Bridge systems) have in a battle?

 

To add to Hobknob's comment, computers and other bridge systems have a rating. You multiply the rating by the number of systems and divide that by the tonnage of the fleet and that determines how many ships you can shoot at in a round. Don't forget that Naval Commanders add to that rating.