Is there any explanation anywhere on how to read the ship combat battle log? Or how ship combat actually works?
I don't understand the >>< icons. And I am not sure what brownish-orange damage means, as opposed to red damage which I see is actual damage done.
Also are damage rolls random or always max? It seems that if a target has no defenses left of the appropriate type, that the damage done is always max damage.
Not that I've found.
Am pretty sure that orange damage is damage prevented by defences, though.
As far as I understand it the arrows indicate if an attack was blocked or not. You'll notice that when the arrows are facing each other you will see appropriate defense icon light up matching what weapon icon is on. If you see arrows in one direction than there was no defense and the attack did full damage. The orange numbers are damage prevented,
Every weapon type has a a range and fire rate. Missiles are long range and slow rate of fire. Beams are medium range and moderate rate of fire and kinetic are close range and have a high rate of fire.
The sequence in the battle log reflects these range and rate of fire values. Its hard to explain but after watching a few of battles it becomes a bit clearer.
Hope this helps.
I did a little testing. Orange numbers indicate the damage done to that defense. When viewing a battle in the battle viewed, there is a slight delay from when the entry appears in the battle log and when hovering over the damaged ship shows the damage it took to its defense, but the numbers match up nicely. (Sometimes it is off by 1 point from what is expected, probably because damage displayed is a rounded number, so you are seeing display issues due to rounding effects.)
It also appears that you have to reduce a defense to zero before any damage will start effecting the ship. If you shoot a 20 point missile attack at a ship with 1 point defense remaining, the damage to the defense might be high, resulting in the ship no having no further missile defense, but the ship still has full hit points until the next attack.
Adding to how defense works..
Say you have 16 missile attack - that always does 16 damage now (it used to be a 'roll' 1-16 in GC2)If the ship you're attacking has 16 missile defense, that performs an invisible 'roll', scoring 0-16.
That's subtracted from the damage, and the orange figure shown is what's left, taken off the armour for the remainder of the battle.It could be a negative number, in which case 0 damage is done and you're completely unharmed.Sometimes it will show 0, but still lose 1 point of defense - that's down to rounding, it was probably 0.5 damage or something.
If reduced to 0.0 armour, it's gone and you no longer have the defense roll.As long as it's at least 0.1 (will still show as a 'lit up' 0), you will have the full 0-16 roll against each attack.
All defenses are fully restored at the end of each battle.
Thanks CreepyD... How did you find out that information? I cannot find references to battle mechanics anywhere reliable.
Also checking my battle logs, that information must somehow be faulty...
Attacking a starbase using medium hull missile boat. I have missile attack of 20 points, and defense of starbase is 10 points. The most damage I have seen on multiple battles in testing is 9 damage. Nothing over 9. Usually the numbers are in the 4-5 range. This would not be the case if my ship does 20 damage and the starbase defends 0-10 points of that damage.
Could some of the other 2 defense types be contributing to the damage resistance roll?
Update on further testing of fleet combat mechanics:
I attacked a pirate starbase (8 missile attack) with a ship that had 37 points in missile defense. Looking only at the missile damage, my ship absorbed numerous hits, with the damage being done to my defenses ranging from 0-4 consistently. (A displayed orange damage number of zero reduced my point defense by 1 point, thus fractions are tracked.) It appears that defenses reduce incoming damage by 50% before the damage is applied to the defense.
So here is what appears to happen: When a ship attacks an enemy that has at least one point of applicable defense, the damage done is random number from 1 to attack points, then reduced by 50%, and the damage is then applied to the ship's defense.
There is a late tech which increases point defense efficiency by 100%... I wonder if that is going to reduce the incoming damage by a higher amount before it is applied to the defenses?
Are there any good pages that describes how combat actually works?
I have also not been able to make much sense of the combat logs, nor do I understand how things like speed/evasion/hullsize factor into the calculations.
Also, when a ship with 20 beam modules fires, does it count as 20 shots or one shot?
Does anyone have any actual information on how the ship roles actually work? It appears that ships with "defensive" roles will not enter combat at all until all ships with "offensive" roles have been destroyed. I have seen fighters circle the map continuously while showing "out of range", until all my capital/assault ships were destroyed, before the fighters fired a single shot. What????
(I sometimes use carriers, but I like to also mix my fleets for roleplaying reasons. Despite reading the tooltips, my understanding of roles doesn't seem to be the same as whoever wrote the combat engine.)
At one level, if you have a clear advantage in tech/damage/hull/defense there is no point in worrying about the details of combat, but when the numbers are close, it is worthwhile to understand how to put an effective fleet together, and the understanding of the combat system is just not there to be had from the information in the interface. Like, if i lost a few fighters, how would I know when they have been repaired/rebuilt? To be safe, if I lose a few fighters, I retreat the fleet for a few ticks, and cross fingers that its enough. The information might be out there somewhere, but it is NOT in the interface.
For an animation that is supposed to "data driven", the animations bear no resemblance to the actual data.
As a general outline, check out the Wiki page on ship combat on the wiki website. Let me know if you have further questions after reading that.
Thanks Pete. Explained a lot. Now I know why sometimes half my ships just sit there and wait for the other half to die .
A few tweaks to the combat viewer would help player understanding a LOT.
1) The starting positions appear more-or-less correct, but defensive ships (support/guardian) shouldn't be advancing into range while there are offensive ships in play, and it should be made visually clear that they are "out of range" or holding back.
2) I know they have gone for the "cinematic" look, but its actually confusing the issue. Would be much better to just arrange the ships in battle lines according to their roles (front, center, rear), and advance the lines as necessary. Would at least give the illusion of ships fighting in formation or a wall/line of battle, rather than the misleading melee that it is now.
3) Guardians/Escorts should be placed in formation with the ship they are "guarding", rather than randomly wandering the map.
If I was the admiral of one of those fleets I would be force-choking every second captain for their lack of discipline!
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