A technical question for you experts...

[Kyrie]

Okay, how is the following combat situation resolved, hypthetically?


Fleet of 15 ships is launched from A, targetting C at exactly with a trip time of exactly 6 hours to target.

Fleet of 35 is launched from B, exactly one hour later, targetting C, with a time-to-target of 5 hours.

In other words, two fleets are converging on C at theoretically the same moment, from two separate sources.

My first hypothesis is that no matter how fast one is on the mouse, there will always be a trivial gap in time that will make true convergence between A+B at C simply impossible, *unless* the code specifically allows for merging of converging fleets within say a minute of each other.

And, the second hypothesis (which is the one I HOPE is the case), that yes indeed -- A+B are added up and instead of two attacks (one of 15, and a later one of 35 or vice-versa), we have one single attack of 50.

Okay, so which is it? :-)

[Kyrie]

Erm, just for the sake clarity... its a One Warlord vs Another Warlord situation. Fleets of A+B belonging to player1, and star C with its ships belonging to player2.


But this begs the fascinating question.. what if 3 warlords converged on a single target owned by a 4th?

[Exael]

As GE:H works in real-time and not with 'ticks', attacking fleets are resolved in the order they hit a planet, even if the fraction that divides them is minimal. If two fleets happen to hit the same planet, then one goes first (presumably the one that was sent out first, though you'd have to ask one of the people who's looked at the code), and the next goes second, third, etc. If all attacking fleets belong to the same Emperor, well, problem solved. If they belong to different Emperors, then the currently active attacker fights the current owner, and the winner of that fight goes on to face the other attacker(s).

[Kyrie]

That does make sense, and it was what I'd assumed would be the case.

However, I was hoping that a more elegant option was available. Specifically, that I would like to be able to attack one star from two or more points, and have them converge as a single fleet on the target instead of "fleet #1 attacks, if it fails, then fleet #2 attacks."

After all, approaching the enemy from more than one direction is a classic tactic in war... but coding for it and its implications would not be quite as easy as it sounds I bet.

[ShannonA]

Originally posted by Exael
As GE:H works in real-time and not with 'ticks', attacking fleets are resolved in the order they hit a planet, even if the fraction that divides them is minimal.

Yes. You'd have to hit the exact same second for them to be truly simultaneous, and that's unlikely.

If two fleets happen to hit the same planet, then one goes first (presumably the one that was sent out first, though you'd have to ask one of the people who's looked at the code), and the next goes second, third, etc.

Actually, believe it or not, if two fleets happened to hit in the same second, they'd hit alphabetically be Overlord name, and if those were the same the smaller fleet would hit first.

(There's a simple sort function that gets run on the fleet list every once in a while.)

Shannon

[Quigg]

After all, approaching the enemy from more than one direction is a classic tactic in war... but coding for it and its implications would not be quite as easy as it sounds I bet.

If you think in terms of multiple stars as the "target" rather than a single star, then this tactic still applies - it is really a matter of granularity... what do stars and ships represent to you?

However, another way to look at it is that in the current design, you have an interesting trade-off... collect your force in a single large fleet, and you might suffer a DP, spread out for safety and you may give up that attacking bonus, etc.

This dilemma comes up in both attacking and defending situations and I think it makes the game quite interesting as it is.

[Kyrie]

Quigg,

That is a good point you raise, about the risks of DPs and so on. I should make it clear that I really have no *criticism* about the game play, it seems nice and well balanced.

Attacking multiple star systems is a given IMHO. But I can imagine that being able to capture that 50+ factory world instead of DP'ing it might be really important ;-). A huge cumulative net gain. Making the other guy spend $200 to DP it later. Making his net loss.... $200 + $250 + whatever cash value you assign his fleets in the system (interesting question -- what value DOES one assign to a fleet of X? )

Keeping this in mind, the opponent might invest in a DS, SS and keep a huge fleet stationed here as a safe point.

In other words, I am wondering how one deals with what would essentially be a fortress (resistant to DS+SS, and a huge fleet is present relative to overall level in the game). Where one individual battle might decide to outcome of the war. :-)

At this point the only logical option that I can see is to either ignore it (and live with the fact that more ships are being made there, lets stay to make it interesting.. right on the doorstep to your own worlds!) or try to capture it. It is for THIS situation that I am proposing a way for the attacker to gain an advantage in an individual battle.......

[shadow]

that is a standard tactic used by many people... u usually have to lure them off that world or just hit the planet with one big fleet

[Morat]

Or just let them build up the garrison fleet while their BP stays the same and yours climbs.

The huge garrison tactic only works if you're fighting (and gaining BP) elsewhere, or if you have enough cash to buy BP. Once you're far enough behind the other players, it's very hard and expensive to catch up, and your garrison can be decimated by a much smaller attacking fleet.

Morat

[Kyrie]

On Battle points, I'm not noticing any huge effect of this yet, probably because I'm still only in the opening phases of my games.


But a 20 bp difference doesnt seem to make much of a difference... and it takes a LOT of battles to get 20 points if one isnt buying it. Unless the combat roll vs. nobodys is totally different than that vs. human overlords?


I remain,

A combative Kyrie :-)

[Exael]

I'm not sure on the actual code, but it seems you have a chance to raise your BP during every battle. This chance is in relation to how many ships you lose. Ten ships lost in one single battle seem to get you an automatic BP. Obviously, player-player battles normally cost you more ships because larger number of ships are involved on both sides whereas nobody stars seldomly have enough ships to kill ten of yours (provided you attack with the standard 40 ships).

Then remember that every BP is a 1% increase in the efficiency of every single ship you own.

If your BP/Enemy's BP >= 1.5 you can tackle their homeworld with a fleet matching your enemy's in numbers and get an even break.

If your BP/Enemy's BP >= 2.4 you can take on fleets twice as large as yours and again expect an even break.

(And I guess at 3.6 you could take on a fleet twice as much as yours guarding the enemy homeworld... but that's hard to come by.)

Pretty efficient for something you pick up along the way. Even so, I've only seldomly bothered to buy BP before. Mostly in situations where a last minute SP revealed that a planet I was attacking had more defence than anticipated. 20 BP extra sure can help in that situation.