Does anyone else get the feeling that base hit points are too high, and attack-specific defenses are too low?
I get the idea behind the defenses-as-additional-hitpoints mechanic, and it's not a bad one - it's more straightforward than the modifier approach in GC2, and it makes ships a bit tougher against attacks they're built to withstand. But, as has been pointed out, it's generally better to ignore defenses altogether and just use as many weapons as possible. Most ships have enough tank to survive the firepower of a 'generalist' boat, while a generalist boat will not have enough tank to survive the firepower of a 100% beam/missile/gun ship, as his defense value won't cover the shortfall. Even though defense hit points are regenerated after every battle, they're still not valuable enough, because they cannot counter the full force of an attack.
I think that reducing 'structural' hip points by 50%, and increasing 'defense' hit points by 100% would fix this. A heavy PD boat would be able to withstand alpha strikes from missile boats, and would be able to take out a defense-free hull in the return salvo. Picking weapons to circumvent the enemy's defense tech would suddenly become important again, rather than just massively outweighing the def value with extra guns.
The basic hit points of a ship should basically account for the few millimetres of hull between the crew and outer space. Everything else is accounted for by armour, shields or PD. Anything getting through those should cause grievous damage to any ship, no matter the size. We shouldn't be seeing hulls with 5-6 times the basic tank of their defense mods, which currently is the default.
The GC2 system was better, I would like the system to be more complicated. I understand why they went the way they did. It's easier to calculate and understand. I just think it's too deterministic. X shields cancels X lasers. There's no mystery, just the RNG calculating hits and misses.
I think the damage system should work so that all defenses have an X% chance of negating the damage altogether and then a Y% chance of mitigating the damage as well as a Z% chance of getting eliminated. X-Y-Z being determined by the type of defense and the type of offense. (a ship with heavy shields would have a chance to mitigate kinetic and missile attacks.)
i'd also like to see that depleted defenses don't recover until the next turn.
it's acceptable the way it is.
Actually, you DO have an effective hp against each specific weapon type. That's exactly how defenses work in practice. They are bonus hp that only comes into play against a specific weapon type.
If we assume he was firing 1 point of each, then yes. But let's assume he's firing 27 points of laser at you with that first shot. You're now dead, in spite of your 58 total hit points. Because 48 of them only count against specific weapons. They are conditional; they are only worth 1/3rd of a hit point.
If we assume an infinite number of battles, and that the enemy is also attempting to tailor his ships toward YOUR weaknesses (rather than just you tailoring to his), then on average each point of defense is equal to 1.3 hit points.
It also requires that the enemy spends NO effort building weapons to target your weaknesses. You are critiquing my position based on the randomness of the defenses, while at the same time relying on the randomness of the enemy's weapon of choice.
Essentially, you're demanding the right to always be able to select the correct defense for the attack that you're about to suffer in order to buck the statistical average, but not granting your opponent the right to select the weapon that your ship is most vulnerable to. That's the specific circumstances. If both sides are tailoring, then over time you should find that it returns to the average. If neither side is tailoring (i.e., random selection), then over time it will again return to the statistical average.
As with lolpurple, you presume the enemy is just passively picking a weapon and type never changing it, so that you can always fight them with the correct defense in play. It also presumes that you won't fight 2 or more enemies at once, who have each picked different specializations.
Again, this is only true if the player also CANNOT pick attacks correctly to target his enemies weakness at a better-than-average rate. This probably works against the AI, but if we have a MP situation, you are now demanding that two opposing players are both better at selecting the other's weakness and preventing the other from doing so - it's a contradiction in terms. You're posing a paradox, basically. If one player is better-than-average at selecting the right weapon for the job, the other player is automatically worse-than-average for picking the right defense. And the best bit? It's a zero-sum game, so once we total up the battle wins of both players, we arrive at the average again.
Remember, this is a broad average over millions upon millions of fights, involving ALL players and AIs who ever play the game, ever. For the purposes of valuation, individual player skill is irrelevant, since for every better-than-average player there is, by definition, a worse-than-average player (or, more likely, AI), and so the average is unaffected. Individual fights where you've managed to get the drop on the enemy are also irrelevant, since once again every time someone gets the drop on someone else , the other person is being a drop-ee and so their contribution to the total average is reduced by exactly the amount your has raised by.
This requires you to only be fighting enemies who have kindly all agreed to use the same attack type. Otherwise, you need to spend those tech resources anyway. Also, note in the response to lolpurple, the effectively killed an enemy ship by circumventing more than half it's total dp+hp values; that may actually justify the tech expense (particularly since in a tech-trading game, you can acquire them easily enough).
This I agree with.
I'm still interested to see some test results with this, though; while it's a given that defenses are most effective when you have equal-or-more ships to the enemy, I'd like to know how effective 'most' actually is - if they're still <50%, then no defenses are worth buying and the all-weapon ship is always superior. Hell, given that fleets are easy enough to produce, even early on, it's questionable if 50% is good enough.
Everybody beats the AI. Mostly from having larger fleets. But OK, let's have a fight.
You spend your 10 points on 3 defense on all and 1 attack. Take any amount of hitpoints. I get 10 attack and no defense, with the same hitpoints. Maybe a bit less attack, but not much in the current state of the game. Early in the game we do not have those kind of hitpoints, but also not attack so see it as percentages.
First round, you hit 1 hitpoint. I destroy your shield with my 9 attack on your 3 shield. I ignore your other two shields, I only have one weapon type.
Second round and after, I deal 10 hitpoints and you 1. I win.
Note that even when you have 9 defense of the correct type, you will hit 1 point/turn. I will still kill the defense in a few turns and you still need a lot of turns to kill me. If it takes 3 or 4 (hardly inmaginable) to destroy the shield, I will make a fleet of slightly less strong weapons of another type, completely bypassing all your useless armor.
Your setup is probably one of the worst so I don't think it convinces anyone (you can drop your Nodor account now, Naselus), but the extreme example shows the case. The 1.3 is not realistic as devilish Maiden shows, but it does not matter if it is 1.5 or worse, you can only hope to get even. Concentration of power is all that counts.
Edit: this reply was to Nodor but Naselus was faster.
I'm mostly concerned with vs AI play, as this is what nearly everybody plays. If you prefer to have competitive matches against other people, more power to you. Still, you are wrong in implying the defender and attacker are on equal ground here. Defenses do not need to be perfectly tailored to attacks in order to be 100% effective, they can be off by quite a bit and still absorb 4 hp/dp.
Okay, you're right, but effective HP against weapon type isn't a very useful statistic unless you are facing only that weapon type.
This depends on defense vs attack mass values really; if you get more def for your buck (so 10 points buys 4 or 5 def in all 3) then eventually it balances out. And yes, checking in-game we see that defense values are generally a bit better than attack values at a given tech level, so it's not entirely 1-to-1 - in fact, as a per-mass thing, it seems more like 2-to-1 generally.
Speaking of which, does anyone else suspect that Kanvium Laminate armour may be bugged? It gives twice the armour of the previous component in the tree, and the next level up is only 2 points more (for actually more mass); it's also got 300% the mass-per-value than the equivalent kinetic weapon.
Yes, but once again on average it returns to 1.3. It may not be 1.3 in specific combats. For example, if you have a bunch of shields and I show up with kinetics, the value of the shields is nothing. If you have shields and I show up with lasers (never bring a knife to a gun fight), then they're worth 4. On average, they'll come to 1.3.
Well, that's arguable (I'd say it is quite handy to know it prior to combat actually, such as in the case of that combat we went through above - knowing that an enemy ship has enough laser power to break your shields and destroy your ship is useful information even if he also has other weapons that you CAN defend against), but I'm more interested in the average again - the 1.3 figure. Because if we know defenses are worth 1.3 health on average, then we can start to compare the real health value of hulls to the various defense modules, and then we can convert them into health-per-mass. That's a fairly key figure in determining if defenses are good enough, and also helps to determine if shifting health down and defenses up is a good idea - which was the original suggestion of this thread, if anyone remembers that far back
You assume that changing weapons is akin to changing defenses. But it's not. Probably only true in games with a heavy focus on techtrade with alot of AIs in order to be able to scoop up all weapon techs so that they are available for no real cost. To my eyes excessive techtrade (always have any techs once they're in game) feels cheesy & the AIs give away their stuff far too easily (but that's another discussion).
In a scenario where you have to do the research for your techs on your own it is a totally weak strategy to research multiple weapons. It is much better to focus on a single branch and continuously follow that branch - this will net much more firepower. And increase this further by researching into hulls, logistics etc. Going for additional weapons, which, at that point, would even be weaker than what you already have, is totally contraproductive to the incentive of measuring strength or good gameplay etc.
however, this is NOT true for defenses because when conquering the map you will always naturally meet different AI which will use different weapons so the decision to research defenses does generally include all defenses if a longer timespan is selected. In short, you'll need the different defenses anyway. The only argument that could be made here is if it's better to ignore defenses entirely and use the research instead to build even more lethal all attack fleets.
So in an MP scenario I'd expect that another player upgrades his ships to ontype defenses shortly after declaration of war, (with me doing the same) but if he goes to the additional length of starting with another weaponsbranch (making his ships not really powerful) I, in the meanwhile, can have enough time to get better logistics, mini etc and I could respond to his weapons-change to even ignore defenses (against his new low-yield weapons) and upgrade to all attack, with all of my research still contributing to my total military strength (even the defenses will come to use against another enemy) while your research into an additional weapon will have been totally pointless.
I have a hard time following your logic, and I suspect you've confused some stuff from my post. The post you quoted referred to AIs that researched all 3 branches of weapons equally...
Although I agree with your general conclusion I think this example is a bit extreme. The defense ship has the smallest attack possible in game, which increases it's number of turns to defeat any hostile ship to a maximum number. Such a ship can ONLY ever be successful in a fight if the number of turns during a fight don't matter - which only is the case when this ship could absorb all income fire via its defenses (on all turns). Which won't happen with splitting defenses.
Instead, take a more balanced approach to focus 70-80% on weapons & 20-30% on ontype defenses. I think such a ship will blow away all all-attack ships when simulated in a 1-vs-1 combat. And if it will survives it will be much better able to have an impact in the next battle (because the defense instantly reloads) while the all-attack ship has to wait to repair back.
Was more or less the same also in GC2. I suspect this is being done intentionally to introduce chaotic fluctuations to the military might.
Ok let's for the sake of the argument constitute the 1.3 ratio is right - how much would this have to go up in your opinion so that, on average, defenses would become worthwile. Because, the problem or danger I see is, that, if defenses become much stronger then they become a no-brainer and the only thing a player has to care about is to maximize them and always be ontype. the latter is something where the AI sucks BTW.
Defense makes total sense when you are playing more than one ship. This is almost always going to be the case.
Take a simple example which I tested tonight. (using version 1.03)
Fleet 1: Ship 1 is medium hull 12 laser 0 defense. Ship 2 is medium hull 12 laser 0 defense.
Fleet 2: Ship 1 is medium hull 12 laser 0 defense. Ship 2 is medium hull 2 laser 36 defense.
This is how 2 medium ships can be outfitted at baseline. No capacity increasers and no engines. Guess which fleet wins?
...
The answer is Fleet 2 using defenses. The defensive ship is an escort ship and the attack ship is a capital ship. This demonstrates that defense has some utility.
I just looked at the GalCiv II .xml and Kanvium is perfectly in line with the rest, no weird jump in effectiveness.
In GalCiv III I honestly just assumed it is a one-digit typo.
Up until Kanvium, and directly after, armor follows PD in lockstep. Pretty sure it is just that that "30" should be a 20.
This is only really an issue with escort-capital pairings because for some reason the developers chose to make it so that not one ship role preferentially targets capital ships before escorts. Not even capital ships, which traditionally prioritize engaging other capital ships when present, prioritize engaging capital ships over escorts, nor do assaults, which seem to be the game's bomber equivalents. This flaw isn't present for any of the other primary combat ship roles (i.e. escort, assault, guardian, interceptor); each of the other roles is the primary target of at least one other ship type and so there's always at least one way to get your ships to prioritize a particularly threatening ship type as long as it's not a capital ship accompanied by escorts.
If it were the case that there was at least one ship type that actually prioritized going after capital ships, or if ships would act a bit more intelligently when faced by such an extreme difference in the capabilities of their potential targets (yeah, I'm sure that since the targeting priorities says "escorts first" it's appropriate to target the 2-36 escort when there's a 12-0 capital ship sitting right next to it when there's not even a significant HP disparity to help justify engaging the 2-36 over the 12-0), I suspect your example scenario would have played out in a much different manner; even if the glass cannon fleet could not have won the engagement by being a bit smarter, they could probably have at least killed the capital ship and rendered the escort-capital pair a whole lot less threatening.
This is only really an issue with escort-capital pairings because for some reason the developers chose to make it so that not one ship role preferentially targets capital ships before escorts. Not even capital ships, which traditionally prioritize engaging other capital ships when present, prioritize engaging capital ships over escorts, nor do assaults, which seem to be the game's bomber equivalents. This flaw isn't present for any of the other primary combat ship roles (i.e. escort, assault, guardian, interceptor); each of the other roles is the primary target of at least one other ship type and so there's always at least one way to get your ships to prioritize a particularly threatening ship type as long as it's not a capital ship accompanied by escorts.If it were the case that there was at least one ship type that actually prioritized going after capital ships, or if ships would act a bit more intelligently when faced by such an extreme difference in the capabilities of their potential targets (yeah, I'm sure that since the targeting priorities says "escorts first" it's appropriate to target the 2-36 escort when there's a 12-0 capital ship sitting right next to it when there's not even a significant HP disparity to help justify engaging the 2-36 over the 12-0), I suspect your example scenario would have played out in a much different manner; even if the glass cannon fleet could not have won the engagement by being a bit smarter, they could probably have at least killed the capital ship and rendered the escort-capital pair a whole lot less threatening.
Actually 3 ship combos work, but only 2 are useful: capital-escort and guardian-support. (Escort-support just has too far a difference in starting positions to be useful.) The guardian-support combo is particularly helpful with base defense.
It is almost like the devs thought these ship roles would make defense play a role in actual fleet battles. While it is all good to claim that defense would not be as important if, if, and if... Right now the game favors using defense on at least some ships within a fleet.
Nice analysis.
I'm not exactly delighted with the idea of out-sourcing defenses to other ships (OK, it makes sense with PD, but with armour it's kinda harder to justify), but it does mean that defensive escorts can counter maiden's point about defenses not stacking fleet-wide like attack does.
I was disappointed when they removed the concept of each defense had value against other attacks.
Armor should apply to everything, but the increased armor reduces the speed and/or maneuvering. It should not be used over and over in a battle. IMO it should really just add hit points to the ship and be done with it.
Shields also could defend against each. It wouldn't add hit points, just reduce up to X damage a turn. Perhaps it would have to recharge by X each turn. You could perhaps have a module that allows for faster recharge or something like that.
Make point defense work against fighters or small ships nearby within a certain range (think of it as AA)
Then each would have a value.
Armor should be the cheapest and add HP
Shields the most expensive and reduce incoming damage.
Point defense could have a range longer than shields to help them stay up longer by intercepting missiles and little ships attacking in the area.
You can add durantium armor to your ship for increased hit points. Think of that as general armor which protects against all types of attacks, whereas the defense type armor is more like armor protecting vital parts of the ship.
Shields lore-wise should not affect anything but beam attacks.
Point defenses can already be used to protect all the ships in the fleet. There is a specific module for this. Same applies to shields protecting the entire fleet. Armor does not have such a module, but I think that is why there is a mass reduction option for armor as opposed to cost reduction for point/shield when selecting a defensive specialization in the tech tree.
I find it interesting that the more I delve into ship combat mechanics, the more I realize how long the devs must have thought about and debated the way things work to have evolved to its current state. I must say that I can find very little that I do not like about current combat mechanics. It seems very well balanced overall.
My only suggestion would be to lower weapon's defense takedown efficiency to 40% instead of 50%, and the upgraded defense takedown lowered from 100% to 80% efficiency. I think the lower efficiency would give a slight edge to defenses making the a bit more useful that the current state.
If it were the case that there was at least one ship type that actually prioritized going after capital ships, or if ships would act a bit more intelligently when faced by such an extreme difference in the capabilities of their potential targets
They probably did the first to make the escort type actually be an escort. If ships can just target capital ships willy nilly, what is the point of an escort to your big guns?
Your second point I think is the area to target. Priorities are nice, but probably too strong. Targetting an escort with some defense on it, makes sense. Targetting that same escort when its all defense, a bit extreme.
So I really did miss something. I misread Nordor's post, I did not see it was specific for the escort ship. There it does make sense to put on defense and nothing else, using it as a shield for the rest. I will try the tactic as soon as I can get myself to researching defense techs. Maybe I'll even put some extra hitpoints on it.
You can add durantium armor to your ship for increased hit points. Think of that as general armor which protects against all types of attacks, whereas the defense type armor is more like armor protecting vital parts of the ship.Shields lore-wise should not affect anything but beam attacks.Point defenses can already be used to protect all the ships in the fleet. There is a specific module for this. Same applies to shields protecting the entire fleet. Armor does not have such a module, but I think that is why there is a mass reduction option for armor as opposed to cost reduction for point/shield when selecting a defensive specialization in the tech tree....I find it interesting that the more I delve into ship combat mechanics, the more I realize how long the devs must have thought about and debated the way things work to have evolved to its current state. I must say that I can find very little that I do not like about current combat mechanics. It seems very well balanced overall.My only suggestion would be to lower weapon's defense takedown efficiency to 40% instead of 50%, and the upgraded defense takedown lowered from 100% to 80% efficiency. I think the lower efficiency would give a slight edge to defenses making the a bit more useful that the current state.
Well reasoned response, I am saying change the mechanics though.
I think defense is very useful so far.
I'm fighting the Drengin - they are clearly going down the Kinetic weapon tree, causing me to go down the Armour tree.They were using Armour too, so I opted for lasers.
My fleets absolutely blitz theirs (theirs are superior in firepower).
If I attack a fleet or 2-3 ships with my fleet of 8 (mostly mediums - some large) - I can come out almost completely damage free.Over the course of a war, all those times I've come out damage free is a MASSIVE boost - I don't have to wait all those turns for repairs.Without armour I would be suffering small damage every turn or two, which gradually mounts up and puts entire fleets out of action for 20-30 turns.
Also the more defense you have, the more effective it is.If you have a higher defense value than the attack value, then more often than not it's going to be hit for almost 0 damage. Again and again.All those 0's mount up to you killing them before you take any damage at all!
I meant to restrict my statement to the five roles intended for primary combatants. The support role fairly clearly is not intended for primary combatants; its movement type is 'stationary' (not that it behaves as would be expected from this), and the default support designs all have fairly minimal armaments and defenses. But yes, the support role can be paired with certain ship types to do the same thing. If it were up to me, though, the targeting priorities would be revised such that all roles are prioritized in such a manner that there is never a pairing where one type is always prioritized over the other.
I'd argue that the current setup is much more "willy nilly" than a setup which actually applies some logic to target selection. You are presented with two equally-large targets, one of which is little threat to your ships but can take a beating and the other of which is a considerable threat to your ships but cannot take too many hits. Gee, I think I should blindly follow the targeting priorities and go after the high-durability escort ship first, despite there being little good reason for me to do so and there not being a clear reason why I know that that ship is an "escort" as opposed to being a more durable "capital ship" like the other one, and also despite there being no obvious way to distinguish between an "escort" and a "capital ship" of the same size. Your ships will go after a Tiny-hull escort before they'll go after a Huge-hull capital ship despite having little good reason for doing so. The targeting priorities system was designed to create the illusion that escort ships actually defend things, but what it really does is make it obvious that your ship captains are idiots. Only a moron uses a huge capital ship to engage tiny fighters before the huge capital ship which is also in range just because the fighters are classed as "escorts." It's a completely inappropriate use of the capital ship's weapons, it's a completely idiotic target prioritization.
Beyond that, an escort is not there to be shot at first. An escort is there to deal with things that are not worth the escorted vessel's time, which are inappropriate targets for the escorted vessel, or which are too low on the priorities list for the escorted vessel to deal with in a large engagement. Battleships do not prioritize destroyers and cruisers when two battle fleets meet one another. Battleships prioritize other battleships when battle fleets meet, and the destroyers and cruisers fight one another and perhaps (attempt to) support their side's big ships against the other side's big ships. Carriers preferentially send their strike craft after other carriers and then after heavy warships or other high-value targets (e.g. transports and cargo vessels) while the fighters try to engage or run interference for the strike craft and the escort ships around the targeted carrier or other vessels attempt to destroy the strike craft or at least interfere with its ability to successfully attack the targeted vessel. Submarines, torpedo boats, and other surface raiders attacking convoys or collections of warships do not attempt to engage the escorts, they attempt to engage the transports, cargo ships, and large warships being protected by the escorts; the escorts attempt to force them off or force them to fight the escorts instead while the heavier or more valuable vessels remain at a safe distance.
Personally, I think the system would be improved by making the roles prioritize by target size rather than target role, with targeting priority between ships of a given size being determined by a threat/durability metric rather than the nonsense we have now where ships go after the big ship with all the shields and ignore the big ship with all the guns despite the targets both being the same size and thus of approximately the same value just because the big ship with all the shields happens to be designated as an "escort" while the big ship with all the guns is designated as a "capital ship."
Really?
One of the biggest downsides to missile based technology is that much of the energy is expended on the outer surface of enemy vessels. By including with our warheads a device which releases a high energy burst of photons at the moment of impact, we can achieve substantial penetration against both armor and shield systems, greatly increasing the destructive potential of our warheads.
From TechDefsText.XML.
By embedding a device in our warheads which releases a high energy burst of photons at the moment of impact, we can achieve substantial penetration against both armor and shield systems, greatly increasing the destructive potential of our warheads.
From TerranTechDefsText.XML.
From ThalanTechDefsText.XML.
Photonic warheads use a shell of photons to pierce the shields and armor of their target, making them more effective. A suiting metaphor for a well worked argument that slips pasts an unbeliever's defenses, finally opening their eyes.
From KrynnTechDefsText.XML.
A new system has come on the market which uses a high energy burst of photons at the moment of impact to pierce both shields and armor and shield systems. Called Photonic Warheads, these represent the state of the art in self defensive technology.
From IridiumTechDefsText.XML.
These are all for Photonic Warheads. It certainly sounds like shields and armor ought to be capable of offering some protection against missile weapons given that the warhead's increased effectiveness by comparison to earlier weapons is being credited to its improved ability to penetrate shields and armor. If shields are supposed to be incapable of affecting anything that isn't a beam weapon, don't you think it's rather inappropriate to credit a missile's increased effectiveness to its ability to penetrate shielding and armor?
There are also some other tech descriptions in the *TechDefsText.XML files that imply that shields/armor offer some protection against off-type weapons.
A better way to make defense play a role in battle would have been to make the fleets distribute their fire more evenly rather than focusing it. Yes, focus fire is mathematically optimal for a situation where being under fire does not result in a loss of offensive capability (but I doubt it would have been that difficult to add in an accuracy penalty or a firing rate penalty for being under fire), but it does tend to trivialize defenses when you have a dozen ships all hitting the same target at once unless the defenses are quite potent. This could also have been accomplished simply by spreading fleets out a bit more, getting ships to remain at something closer to their maximum engagement range, or reducing weapon ranges; it wouldn't necessarily have to involve new code. Fleets cannon concentrate their fire as much if the ships involved cannot all hit the same target. I also suspect that it would result in much more visually interesting battles if fire is spread out rather than all concentrated on one or two ships.
(Yes, there are situations currently where fire is distributed fairly evenly. Those situations normally occur when the targets can each be destroyed out by a fraction of the fleet's fire - almost like the fleet's choosing a target, running through ships until the target dies, choosing the next target, running through ships until that target dies, and so on until the fleet runs out of ships - or when the surviving vessels are sufficiently spread out that not all of them can fire on the same target. What a coincidence, don't you think?)
It might be a good idea to compare the mass needed for a weapon to deal 1 point of damage per time unit vs the mass needed for a defense to protect 1 point of damage (and assume that 1 defense point is worth 4 points of damage on average), then check how long the ship being shot at survives. Problem is... weapon and armor progression is different for each type, so there would be so many different cases to calculate.
But with values like that it should be possible to calculate a strongest ship layout.
Suppose 2 ships with the same tech, identical mass capacity and hitpoints fight it out. What attack/defense layout will work when the enemy only fits weapons? I'll pick some loose numbers here because it depends on tech choices, it's just an example, but it's roughly for Photonic Warhead with augment module vs ECM on a large hull.
Attack: 6 mass per 1 damage/time unit
Defense: 0.6 mass per 1 defense -> 0.15 mass per 1 bonus hitpoint
Ship capacity: lets say 100 mass to use for attack and defense (after engines and missile augment)
Ship hitpoints: 250
We can write two equations from this, 1) the attack and defense of the ship due to mass limit and 2) the time to death
1) (own Attack)*6 + (own Defense)*0.15 = 100
2) (250 + own Defense) / (enemy Attack) = own time to death
solve 1) for own Defense
own Defense = ( 100 - (own Attack)*6 ) / 0.15 = 667 - 40*(own Attack)
inserting into 2) gives
(250 + (667 - 40*(own Attack) ) / (enemy Attack) = own time to death
simplify
( 917 - 40*(own Attack) ) / (enemy Attack) = own time to death
Since it was declared from that start, that the enemy is all attack and no defense, enemy Attack is equal to 100/6=16.7 and hitpoints = 250, insert to get equation 3) and then get 4) from 2) with opposite labels
3) 54.9 - 2.40*(own Attack) = own time to death
I've seen this assumption throw around a lot, but does anyone really know how the defense decay rates work? Without that, we are all just grasping on how effective defenses actually are.
The wiki has an explanation that seems to be correct http://galciv3.gamepedia.com/Ship_combat, which says that damage done to a defense is on average half of 50%.
I have also tested this to make sure. By using the starting Survey ship on a new map, lots of anomalies to get many Graveyards, and set the ship "PirateAttacker" in ShipDefs.xml to use 1 railgun instead of 2 lasers, and in EncounterDefs.xml I placed 4 ships. Then I did 3 tests total: it took 30, 32 and 33 orange hits to break the armor. Since the Survey ship has 8 armor, each defense -> 4 hitpoints on average.
But there is one thing I don't know: What happens when a really strong attack hits a low defense value? Do any damage go through, or do the defense block it all?
Another kind of defense is Jamming. It's a little off-topic, but a kind of defense still.
Jamming can get a little too powerful it seems. On a game with a custom race (+2 agile) I had a escort/capital fleet where the escort ship had all 4 jamming modules, and a support ship added 2 more. And the battleviewer said my evasion was 143%. Thulium rules! But I only did one test fight with that fleet (my closest neighbours were my allies, and i kept giving them carriers, so they fought the bad guys while my people lived in peace) so I am not sure how capable it was in practice, but on paper it looked scary.
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