Advanced Combat Guide

Targeting Orders

GENERAL NOTE: Attack Orders apply when attacking an enemy planet. Defend Orders apply when defending a friendly system. So setting a 'DEFEND ORDER' when attacking an enemy system is superfluous. Likewise, setting an 'ATTACK ORDER' when defending a friendly system is superfluous. Some orders only apply to defense (attempt ambush, picket), while others only apply when attacking a planet (attempt stealth, bombard, raid).

SCOUT MISSION

1. The selected fleet will move to the selected system and return without engaging enemy forces or initiating battle.
2. On arrival in the enemy system, it will transmit back a report detailing the no. of ships, no. of buildings, and habitation info about the system.
3. Scout Missions can fail, if the enemy planet has sufficient sensors it will detect the scout and cause the premature return of the scout.
4. Increasing the amount of stealth on the scouting fleet will increase its chances of success.

ATTEMPT STEALTH

1. The selected fleet will attempt to move undetected into an enemy system. It will not engage enemy forces, but will reveal enemy starships and allow you to inspect them using the starships vierwer on the map.
2. To detect the incoming fleet, the target system must have at least 10 scanners on the planet, otherwise no possibility of detection exists.
3. The more scanners on the planet, the greater the chance of detecting incoming fleets using the 'Attempt Stealth' order.
4. To reduce the chance of detection, you can increase the average stealth of the incoming fleet, by including some stealth ships. Note that not all ships need to have stealth.
5. If the incoming fleet succeeds in evading detection for 3 ticks, then it only stands a chance of being detected every third tick after that.
6. Enemy fleets also stand a chance of detecting 'stealthed' fleets, and their average sensor score is rolled against the average stealth score of the 'stealthed' fleet.
7. Because no battle has been initiated on the enemy system, building and population growth proceeds as normal, and all ship movement to and from that system proceeds as normal.
8. STealthed fleets are not capable of detecting any information about the planet, such as minefields, population, buildings, habitation, shield strength. You still need to scout the planet for this information.

AMBUSH

1. Works exactly like 'Attempt Stealth', except this is used to hide ships in friendly systems, rather than hostile systems. Attacking fleets will not engage these hidden fleets, and may also conquer the planet while your fleet remains hidden.

BOMBARD

1. Used when attacking an enemy planet, your fleet firepower is split evenly between enemy fleets and the enemy planet.
2. This allows you to conquer a planet before having killed all enemy ships defending the planet.

PICKET

1. Picketing ships gain a sensor bonus in exchange for a penalty to damage output, provided they have a bigger hull than their target.
2. Risky in large fleet engagements because it reduces your damage output.
3. Best used against large numbers of small evasive ships, where there is a high chance the targeted ship will have a smaller hull than the firing ship.

RAID PLANET

1. After reducing the planets shields to zero, starships which have orders set to raid target the buildings on the planet before killing any population.
2. Only economic buildings are targeted (factories, ore-mines, laboratories).
3. Each building that is destroyed earns the raiding fleet salvage equivalent to the resource produced by that building. So labs yield research points, factories yield production, ore-mines yield ore.
4. All raiding ships take damage each tick that they are raiding.
5. Fighters gain double the amount of salvage per building as other weapon-types, and ships armed exclusively with fighters take no damage while they are raiding.
6. Once all economic buildings are destroyed, the remainder of the planet is conquered in the usual way.

STANDARD TARGETING

1. When a weapons-battery is fired, it targets three enemy ships at random, and fires at the most damaged of the three.
2. A hit/miss is determined by accuracy and evasion as discussed elsewhere.
3. It is possible to target and hit a dead ship (one which has been killed earlier in that tick). This is considered a debris shot. The battery is afforded a second chance, and if it scores a second debris shot, the shot is wasted.

TARGET SHIP-CLASS

1. A fleet may be ordered to target a specific ship-class (escorts, ships of the line, capital ships).
2. A minimum number of sensors is required for this order to work at all. (25 for escorts, 50 for ships of the line, 75 for capital ships). Otherwise Standard targeting is used.
3. The likelihood of success (to target a specific ship-class) is dependent solely on the amount of sensors on the firing ship.
4. It is possible for the attempt to fail, in which case standard targeting is used to select a target.
5. If class-targeting is successful at selecting a short-list of targets of the targeted class, then a target is selected out of the short-list based on its 'threat-level', with high-threat targets attracting more fire.
6. A hit/miss is still determined by weapon accuracy and evasion, so even if successful at selecting a target out of the targeted class, it is still possible that your shot may miss.

Combat Accuracy

NOTE: Although the 'Accuracy' displayed in the game is maxed out at 98%, this is against a target with ZERO EVASION.

DETERMINING YOUR TRUE ACCURACY

1. In the game, open the ship-design page (even if you don't intend designing a new ship).
2. Select the ship you wish to evaluate, and adjust the amount of sensor slots.
3. Enter various figures into the EVASION field, and the Accuracy will be recalculated for that level of evasion.
4. Adjust the amount of sensor slots until you are satisfied.
5. Please review the section on EVASION.

ACCURACY IN BRIEF

1. The important factors are Weapon Base Accuracy, Your ship's sensors, and enemy evasion versus your weapon type.
2. Accuracy is then determined as follows:- If your sensors is equal to the enemy evasion, then your chance of scoring a hit is equal to the base accuracy of that weapon.
3. As your sensors increase (over enemy evasion) so your chance to hit increases, up to a maximum of 98%.
4. If enemy evasion increases (over your sensors), so your chance to hit decreases, to a minimum of 2%.

EXAMPLE
You have missiles (45% base accuracy), with 50 sensors. You are targeting a ship with 50 evasion to missiles. Your chance to hit will be 45%. If the enemy evasion is less than 50, your chance to hit goes up SLOWLY from 45%. If the enemy evasion is more than 50, your accuracy drops RAPIDLY to 2%.

(**) The rate at which accuracy improves is dependent on the type of weapons. Missiles climb rapidly from 45% to 98%, fighter accuracy varies from 55% to 98%, and beams climb slowly from 65% to 98%. With 100 sensors, versus 0 evasion, all weapons have identical accuracy.

ACCURACY IN DETAIL

1. Each weapon type has its own 'base accuracy'.
2. To account for enemy evasion, you need to add sensors to your starships
3. The most critical factor in determining the final chance to hit is determined by the calculation SENSORS - EVASION.
4. If this result is positive, your minimum chance to score a hit is the Weapon Base Accuracy, and may be much higher if the result of SENSORS-EVASION is very large.
5. If the result is negative, then the weapon base accuracy is simply added to the negative figure to determine your final chance to hit. In any case, your chance to hit will always be less than the weapon base accuracy in such a case, and may even still be negative.
6. The chance to hit is limited to the range 2% - 98%. So regardless of the final result of the calculations, you always will hit at least 2% of the time, and at most 98% of the time.

Weapon Attributes

1. Beams: Weapon Base Accuracy = 65
2. Fighters: Weapon Base Accuracy = 55
3. Missiles: Weapon Base Accuracy = 45

The Formula
If SENSORS-EVASION returns a positive result, then ChanceToHit = WeaponBaseAccuracy + (100%-WeaponBaseAccuracy%) * (YourSensors - EnemyEvasion)
Translation: Chance to hit is minimum the weapon base accuracy, and improves proportionately to the number of sensors you have. The rate of the increase is determined by the weapon type, with missile accuracy increasing the fastest, and beam accuracy the slowest. Your maximum chance to hit is limited to 98%

If SENSORS-EVASION returns a negative result, then ChanceToHit = WeaponBaseAccuracy + YourSensors - EnemyEvasion
Translation: Chance to hit will always be less than the base accuracy, and may even still be negative, in which case you stand a 2% chance of scoring a hit.

Combat Initiative

Kreel First Strike
This is the Kreel racial bonus. In combat, the Kreel ships always fire first, and all of them fire before any of the enemy ships can return fire. This happens regardless of presence of unique ships (Mater ships). The Kreel Mater Ship extends this bonus for the ships it affects, in that they remain cloaked and cannot be targeted by the enemy's return fire. This can be a good thing or bad thing. The good thing is that the affected ships remain undamaged. The bad thing is that all enemy return fire is concentrated on the unaffected ships.

Kreel Alliance Bonus
If there is a Kreel ship present at the battle, then first strike applis to the whole alliance. So all alliance ships get to fire before the enemy returns fire.

Kreel vs Kreel
If both sides have a Kreel ship present at the battle, then the Kreel with the highest Stealth Technology wins the initiative roll and gets the first strike. If their stealth technologies are equal, then classic initiative is used (below)

Classic Initiative (no Kreel)
When two fleets encounter each other, individual ships tend to fire in a virtually alternating sequence. One random ship is selected from each side, and the two ships each have their initiative calculated. A dice is rolled with the ship with the higher initiative more likely to win the roll. This ship then fires all its batteries utilising the targeting orders assigned. The ship which lost the initiative roll then fires all its batteries. Then the next two random ships are selected. It's possible therefore that ships which fire later in the sequence have taken damage and so have lost efficiency by the time their turn comes. When one side runs out of ships, the remaining ships from the other side continues firing until all have fired.

Factors influencing the initiative score

1. The smaller fleet gets a bonus which is applied to all ships in the fleet.
2. Each ship gets a bonus determined by its weapon type. Beams have high initiative, while missiles have low initiative. Fighters and mixed weapons fall inbetween.
3. Your sensors contribute to your initiative score, so the more sensors you have, the greater your initiative score will be.
4. The enemy ship you are competing against is given a stealth score, and this is deducted from your initiative score. This stealth rating is given a stronger weighting than the sensor rating, so a ship with high stealth will influence the initiative roll more than a ship with high sensors.

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