4D Pirates

HAHAHAHA! Uber-pirate rush!! Argh matey!

Better destroy any Metroids you have laying around on that starbase, and call Samus

The "Pirates!" I ran into were escapees from the Galactic Prison. Was that the event that introduced them into your game?

Uh oh...looks like some of the old numbers from GC1 trickled itnto the new GC2 system    We'll nerf any overwhelming values ASAP.

My pirate introduction event was a simple statement about the development of the galaxy reaching a point where pirates become a notable presence.

Update and interesting observation of combat: The uber pirate ship eventually made his slow way to my starbase, and destroyed it. He had 306 hp, 1 mass driver point, and 1 armour point. My starbase had 20 hp, 7 beam points, 7 mass driver points.

Now... I don't know the mechanics so this is pure speculation on my part.

Pirate: 1 attack point applied to 20 hp target = 20 iterations of combat dealing 1 point per iteration = 20hp damage delt to starbase.
Starbase: 13 attack points applied each of the 20 iterations = 260 hp damage delt to pirate.

Is that how it's supposed to play out?

Roughly, rogerano.

Each round, the pirate would do 0-1 points of damage for his attack, and the starbase would do (0 to 7) - (0-1) for the beam points, and a similar amount for mass driver points.

The pirate ship will average 0.5 points of damage to you per round, and you'll average 6.125 points of damage. So, the pirate ship should win, but be down to about 60HP by the time it's over.

Hehe, I had a prison break and one of their ships had 900 hps!, it took out my best starship

Hehe, I had a prison break and one of their ships had 900 hps!, it took out my best starship ... It only had 1 mass driver...

Pirates beware! the galaxy is filled with ships...That suck BAD.
hmm.... it looks like pirate ships have an HP 'vantage over Reg ships... but the ships they steal are much weaker (IE: at most capital ships may have 400 HP or so On average...).
it is time for a old fashioned (navy-like the singing in some shows...) American navy-like mopsinging...But for pirates!

Update: The pirate ship I mentioned was still lurking around after its encounter with my first startbase. Although I lost my starbase I damaged the ship for something like 160hp. He had 170hp when he arrived at my second starbase. This starbase was better equipped than the first with 15 attack points and 7 armour points.

Now the problem I have here is that this priate had 1(one) mass driver attack point. My starbase had 7 armour defense points. I destroyed the pirate ship, but my starbase went from 20/20hp to 13/20hp. I don't understand how that is possible according to the calculations provided in an earlier post.

It's certainly a realistic outcome (even though his attacks were weak, they still would have done _some_ damage over the time it took my starbase to destroy the ship), but it seems as though the provided calculation is wrong, incomplete, or the game is not behaving as intended.

Will (for example) a mass driver attack of 1(one) cause damage to a target with an armour rating of 100? Does mass driver attack damage seep through shield and point defenses?

Those numbers were averages, as there are random values in there. Even against 7 armor, with one mass driver, the pirate is still going to be doing an average of 0.062500 points of damage per round, and the damage that you're doing is going to vary widely depending on how that 15 attack breaks down. If it was 5 of each beam/missile/gun, you'd be doing 6.25 damage per round, which comes out to taking 27 rounds to kill the pirate on the average, during which time the pirate gets 26 chances to damage you. Yes, 7 points of damage is higher than I'd expect, but not totally unreasonable.

Ok thanks for the clarification. So damage is cumulative over the number of combat rounds? As in:

Round 1 damage: 0.5
Round 2 damage: 0.5
Round 3 damage 0.5

Total damage after 3 rounds: 1.5

Correct, though the actual damage would look more like
Round 1: 0
Round 2: 1
Round 3: 1
Round 4: 0

Total damage:2