Ship combat Q.

from Stardock Forums
In my 1st game (on easy) one of the other races got 38 precursor corvette class ships from some stash they found. Now I'm thinking to myself, is 38 a lot of ships? In CIV, 38 tanks would be pretty good. In MOO*2*, 38 ships would get squashed. So, I built 40 corvettes, put them in a fleet, and attacked the precursor ships. It appears I can attack on every move (I think they have 5,or so), so my fleet attacks 5 times, I destroy 4-5 ships, then the turn ends. They attack me 38 times, and my fleet gets reduced significantly. So, I reload the same, break the fleet up, and attack w/each individually. Now things are much better, I destroy most of the 38 w/very little losses.

Now my Q: What is the benefit of grouping ships into a fleet if they can only destory 1 enemy at most/turn. It does not make sense. I would think the computer would combine all my attack pts and combine all the stacked defense points, compute damages, and then apply damage to all ships in the stack. Also, if I attack a stack of 38 w/1 ship, should that one ship be able to destroy 1 ship in the stack every time it attacks? I'm not sure...
Comments?

Thamks,Matt
258 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the only reason for stacking ships together is so its easier to meve them around the map.

-TLA-Russian
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I had a similar thing happen to me. I attacked an enemy planet and their defenses wiped my ships out. Reloaded my test save (I know, I suck - but I'm trying to learn the game mechanics) and attacked again, but this time sent in each ship separately. In this second attempt, I not only destroyed the enemy planet's defenses, but ended up with plenty of ships left over. I'm guessing that perhaps if all the ships attack as one unit and happen to get a terrible roll, that might explain why sending in ships separately would be a bit more balanced. I'm not sure I like that. Anybody have any solid numbers or evidence as to why this happens on occasion?

~SDC~
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
If the only benefit of grouping ships into a fleet is for movement, then when I attack as a fleet, the computer should simulate each ship in the fleet attacking individually. It kinda sucks that I have to break apart the fleet to attack, then regroup to move on to my next target.

~SDC~
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I think combat with fleets SHOULD work as follows:

(1) If you attack as a fleet, you should get the combined attack rating of all the ships as your attack rating. This would ONLY be good if using a lot of small ships to attack a large ship with a lot of defense and a lot of hit points. In return the defending ship would handle it's counter-attack normally (if it gets one) using it's normal attack rating, if it does more than enough to destroy a ship in the fleet the damage should flow over to another ship, repeating this until all of it's damage has been applied to the fleet as a whole.

(2) The fleet is used only for each of movement. Then you break formation and attack individually. This would be the best method to attack a large number of equal strength ships since you get more individual attacks at a lesser attack rating and can choose more than one target or stack of targets.

I don't think the game does the "fleet attack" described above in (1). I do think it should give that option. It would make attacking a starbase more feasible and would simulate one mass, coordinated attack against a single target which limits it's ability to retaliate because everything is coming at the same time.

A defending fleet should have a small advantage. They should get the highest single defense rating of all ships in the fleet (with perhaps +1 per additional ship) against whatever attack is coming at them, all damage from that attack should then be distributed through the fleet as described in (2) above, start with one ship, if it goes boom, remaining damage is applied to the next ship, and so on until all damage points have been used. This would give a fleet launching a mass attack on another fleet a huge advantage however, so play balance issues might be a concern.

This is just my opinion however.... the way the combat system works now is just fine, but as someone stated above, the grouping of ships only helps with movement.

~SDC~