Information disclosure

[Laserwolf]

Ahhh the memories.... conditional orders... players love, GM hates

[Palladium Regency]

Ahhh the memories....  conditional orders... players love, GM hates

 

I disagree Laserwolf that the GM would have to hate it. I don't think it would be that difficult personally to program some parameters for players to set that could be checked prior to and during a battle which would require no GM intervention, but that is just me. Rather moot though as it doesn't exist.

[EternusIV]

Sorry for misunderstanidng you PR As soon as I responded I looked at your response again and thought...oh...wait...

 

 

"unless the attacker has a massive resource/technology advantage......[p]erhaps there is some magic technology that will nullify it"

 

Yup. It comes down to resource balance. I've done the spreadsheet numbers and it aint pretty....you already mentioned the cost of electronics v raw armor....

 

It seems the most direct way to overcome the resource disadvantage as an attacker is to have INSANE fire control. This reduces the ratio of resource:FC to a more favorable level for electronic-based devices. Luckily, it doesn't appear resource requirements increase as you move up the Fire Control tree.

 

Hobknobs counter fleet looks pretty effective!

 

Knowing what the defender has is crucial.....if you can completely defend yourself from the defenders firepower, you're in spades. The commander can sit back in his lounge chair and enjoy the fireworks.

 

But if the attacking fleet doesn't match up perfectly, the defender is back in business....especially if they invest as many resources as the attacking fleet in defending with screen ships.

 

Perhaps the tech advantage will come sooner than later for some attackers who can withstand X rounds of eating through screens.

 

I agree with you on probes: you won't find me relying 100% on probes! But if you send in a little gnat, or the Oracle's Mosquito, you can get a good idea on weapon systems. They might even be able to trick you once or twice as to what their weapon/defensive strengths are....but eventually you will figure it out and take the time to build the appropriate countersystems.

 

A safe bet for an attacker is to plod through one system at a time with 1,000 screen ships of your own at the front. Which brings up the importance of Jump Drives as Sakarissa mentioned........

 

Its not easy being a warmonger in this game!

 

I'm glad I decided to go the trade/colonize/defend route after all.

 

For those in the crosshairs now....time to build those junkers! [/b][/b]

 

Cliff Note Thoughts On What Attackers Can do to Counter Da'Big Screenie Defense:

 

(I'm sure you see the cons....but hey....who said war was cheap?)

 

1) Come in with Screens of your own! (And plod along 1-system at a time)

 

2) Probe the hell out of your enemy and build PLENTY of approporiate countersystems (lots of 'ifs'...and you have to have your hammer fleet around to follow through -- if the matchup works out)...or...send in the Romulans! (Claoked ships and a top-level espionage network can give you the info you need pretty effectively it seems!)

 

3) Build a massively expensive fleet with solid armor, excellent fire control, superior weapons and high APs.....(risky....VERY risky....and $$$$$$$$)

 

4) Stay home and build junkers of your own for now! You're guaranteed 'free parking' for at least a year of playing time until you can use that uber technology and fire control you have been working on for so long (not exactly the type a game a warmonger type longs to play)

 

5) Establish trade routes with allies to build up your tech advantage (those trade routes slow down the war machine...but might pay off in the long run!)

 

6) Send in a few screen sweeping ships over a few turns to eliminate Screens as the Oracle suggested(prepare to eliminate over several hundred screen ships per turn against a determined defnder though)

 

7) Hope they don't have any screen defenses at all!

 

Any other ideas?

[Palladium Regency]

Any other ideas?

 

It doesn't hurt to have bunches of SRP around to allow you to quickly fix say a computer hole that you weren't aware existed until recently. Which further emphasizes how big an advantage such races have with hidden tech trees.

 

Grrr, grumpy today didn't get much sleep last night, restless child that required attention.

[hobknob]

The best solution is to always attack when supported by several allies making sure you have an overwhelming force.

 

A single position should be able to hold off another single position for a very, very long time, or at least until there is a tech shift or the defender makes an error. You just have to be willing to do what is necessary to preserve your space.

 

[EternusIV]

OBTW-

 

You can build about 400 times more armor than you can fire control systems per turn.

 

Suppose the eceonomy of each player can maximize the following builds in one turn:

 

Defender: 1,000,000 Cordellium ---> 1,000 screenies

Attacker: 2,500 Battle Image Systems ....> 45,000 fire control*

 

*(I divided the tonnage of the FC unit already and room to spare for extra Mosquito components....see below)

 

Building the Mosquito:

 

Lets build a ship with nothing but weapons and fire control that is designed to go in and eliminate as many screen vessels as possible in one round. Lets give ourselves 1 turn to build the ship (so we can compare resources with the defender)

 

-- Calculate how much weaponry you will need to spread out of 1,000 ships to eliminate them (add tonnage...I'll use medium-high weapons system....tonnage to counter cordellium's integrity)

 

-- Calculate how far away you have to move the fleet (add tonnage) (variance here if you cleverly use fuel tanks etc)....lets say they are a convenient five systems away....through C class warp points....and you are only prodding along 1 turn at a time so you need only 1 engine (negligible tonnagE)

 

 

Rating of weapon: 5,000 (Roughly....its 'Adequate')

Integrity of each screenie: 300

Weapons needed: 6

Tonnage of Weapons: 2,500

Total Fleet Rating of Weapon: 30,000

 

Lets presume you can build 2500 of your Battle Image System per turn:

 

Tonnage of all BI Systems: 250,000

 

Throw in Fuel Tanks...(7,000 needed approx)

 

TOTAL TONNAGE: 261,600 (add engine and JD)

TOTAL BRIDGE CONTROL: 22.5 Million

 

FIRE CONTROL RATING!: 86 (can wipe out 86 screenies per turn)

 

Did we spread it out too much? (30,000/87) = 344...nice.

 

 

I *think* my presumptions about the weapon strength and Cordellium were right....

 

 

Mosquito can safely wipe out 86 screenies per turn

 

Can a defender really build 1,000 screenies per turn accounting for the high CM investment for shipyards? Not most empires....if an empire concentrated on CMs though....its possible. Lets presume a standard empire with 'average CMs.....

 

Max Shipyard Slips: 300

 

Typical Defender can realistically build 300 screenies per turn

 

(300/86) = 3.4

 

So it will take the attacker 4 turns to wipe out 300 screenies using BI Systems. (and in the meantime, the defender is building more screenies!)

 

Looks like an uphill battle against a defender who does nothing but crank out screenies every turn.

 

Lets throw in high end fire control (for at least right now )! 64,000 FC per unit!

 

Same analysis (had to build more weapons so we dont spread out too thin)

 

New Fire Control rating with improved fire control..................

 

the MK V Mosquito!!!! (with 64,000 bridge rating per FC unit) Can wipe out...................550 Screenies per turn!

 

Now we are talking.

 

But it took lots of fire control research to get there.....and the screenie strategy ahd better bump up its integrity....

 

 

Cliff Notes: What does this prove?

 

I think in the long run, the screenie strategy will die out as Fire Control numbers increase. Until then, tis a viable strategy.

[PhaseDragon]

My take on the fire control was to base the amount of "blobs" of damage to be able to destroy at least one ship per shot. Brad has listed the damage vs. integrity which quite effectively demonstrates that you have to design fire control equal to your weapon firepower. Too high and each blob of damage is too weak to do any damage. Of course they still all fire and multiple shots could hit the same screen ship and in that sense if shots are randomly generated as a hit or a miss then more shots is far better even if the damage of each shot is less. From what I have been reading though I perceive no randomness in the battle system which again leads back to balancing your fire control vs. the damage output of your weapons; the damage output per shot being the amount of damage needed to destroy a screen ship outright.

 

If I am way off here then I hope someone will tell me where I am wrong.

[EternusIV]

My take on the fire control was to base the amount of "blobs" of damage to be able to destroy at least one ship per shot. Brad has listed the damage vs. integrity which quite effectively demonstrates that you have to design fire control equal to your weapon firepower. Too high and each blob of damage is too weak to do any damage. Of course they still all fire and multiple shots could hit the same screen ship and in that sense if shots are randomly generated as a hit or a miss then more shots is far better even if the damage of each shot is less. From what I have been reading though I perceive no randomness in the battle system which again leads back to balancing your fire control vs. the damage output of your weapons; the damage output per shot being the amount of damage needed to destroy a screen ship outright.

 

If I am way off here then I hope someone will tell me where I am wrong.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My understanding is that 'globs' arefired sequentially and if a gob eliminates a target, the target is removed from the targetting process.

 

Pete - is this so? I recall seeing an email or something somewhere about this.

 

 

Oh.....and how do CIDS work? Do they still defend the entire fleet? If so...round by round?

[Ixitixl]

Eternus IV

 

I believe CIDS was never fleet wide... The same question was asked on the board some time ago and answered. Would be nice if I am incorrect.

[hobknob]

You can't expect for the defender to keep building the same ships every turn so they would also change. All it would take in your example would be for the size of the screenie to double and your kill ratio would go down by 1/2 or more depending on targeting.

 

As far as building shipyard slips goes - as your resources for slips goes up and you reach the limit of slips you would likely just increase the size of your screen and make them more useful. You also have to consider that the idea of a screen is just to hold off the attacker/defenders fire while the main ships are destroying the other side. The battle will never be one by simply destroying the scren, you also have to take out what sits behind it.

 

 

I would also point out that a screenie built of essentially 1000 Cordellium composite and an engine to move it would have an integrity of around 50k, not the 344 that was listed. In order to destory 100 of these in a given round you would have to be able to crank out about 5.5M damage which would take about 1.25M tons of weapons. Now if the defender chose to make these orbitals instead of ships then your destruction rate would drop to 1/3 since integrity of orbitals is tripled. So, while the defender is holding you off with 1/3 of his production he has the other 2/3's to build an offensive counter force.

 

BTW - as I understand it the formula for FC rating is something like

 

total bridge system rating/total fleet tonnage, this number is then divided into total fleet damage potential which will give you how much each glob of damage will can do before being acted upon by shields and other factors.

 

Assume you are building a ship at 1,000,000 tons. You would have to devote 50% of mass (500,000 tons which would be 5000 of them) to the BIS system just to get a FC rating of 45. Assuming adequate weapons and nothing else on the ship you would have a total firepower rating of around 2.2M and each glob would have about 45k of damage potential. As pointed out above this would not be enough to destroy a screenie witha single shot so you would actually only be able to destroy 22 screenies a turn. In the mean time the defender has cleaned your clock with somthign in the third rank that pounded you for lots. In the end the defender losses 20-40k in screenies and the attacker losses 1M tons of shipping.

 

If the defender really wanted it to be slow for you he would have made all of his screenies orbitals and then it would have taken 4 or more shots per screenie.

 

Looks to me that screens will be quite effective for some time to come.

 

Edited December 17, 2004 by hobknob

[EternusIV]

Hobknob - excellent points!

 

I was simply designing the Mosquito per the Oracle's suggested strategy of sending in a sacrificail lamb to wipe out sceen ships.

 

Its an extreme case, of course.

 

But I have to wonder....knowing how effective screen ships are at this stage of the game, who will actually start building them?

 

I'm not necessarily inspired by such a concept...but both my Minister of Defense and Minister of Economy are pushing hard for multiple screen-fleet-type defenses to secure the more valuable trade routes.

 

I plan to build lots more screenies for HW defense as resources allow (if a picket ship dies, I have about four-five turns to build nothing but HW defenses in th eevent my patroling fleets and negotiations fail...so I'm not too worried there )

[Laserwolf]

So if you had 4 ships, 1 with a single weapon that delivered 3 million damage and the other 3 with FC systems that resulted in the fleet having a FC rating of 10:

 

1) How many globs of damage would there be?

a) 1 for 3,000,000?

10 for 300,000?

 

2) How many ships would be targeted?

a) 1?

10?

 

3) At exactly what point in the fight do Force Shields "recharge"?

a) after each battle?

after each blob determination segement?

c) after each impulse?

[Kurassier]

I think the 'real' key is to have a 'balanced' fleet. Concentrating solely on one area is not good.

[RTGPete]

My understanding is that 'globs' arefired sequentially and if a gob eliminates a target, the target is removed from the targetting process.

 

Pete - is this so?  I recall seeing an email or something somewhere about this.

 

Oh.....and how do CIDS work?  Do they still defend the entire fleet?  If so...round by round?

 

Correct - targets are chosen in series, and if one is eliminated, it is no longer considered a valid target for remaining "gllobs".

 

CIDS provide point defense damage mitigation to the ship on which they are installed. They also provide umbrella coverage for the entire fleet, adding to the mitigation for other ships. The umbrella bonus is not as high as that given to the CIDS ship itself.

[RTGPete]

So if you had 4 ships, 1 with a single weapon that delivered 3 million damage and the other 3 with FC systems that resulted in the fleet having a FC rating of 10:

 

1) How many globs of damage would there be?

a) 1 for 3,000,000?

10 for 300,000?

 

2) How many ships would be targeted?

  a) 1?

  10?

 

3) At exactly what point in the fight do Force Shields "recharge"?

  a) after each battle?

  after each blob determination segement?

  c) after each impulse?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

1 - 10 globs of 300,000 damage each. Those 10 firing pulses target independently, but could target the same ship multiple times if it survives each shot.

 

2 - as 1 - could be 1, could be 10. The statistics depend on the number and placement of the enemy ships.

 

3 - at the beginning of the battle. Shields aren't as good as armor for pure structural integrity "hit point" efficiency. However, they do make the damage go away completely, not even damaging the ship. They might also have other effects. Sometimes you don't want to take any damage at all, and going pure armor means that your ships will by definition take some damage on their hulls. If you aren't sure what to do, you cannot go wrong with armor, since high tech armor can add a lot of structural integrity to a ship. Shields are less efficient but wipe away damage completely.