- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm a bit nervous about the teething phase of Yet Another New Combat Engine... some field testing with logs visible to everyone, on totally random made-up fleets, would probably be helpful.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
*Looks at Federation ship stats*
Excelsior 2287-Now [511m, 2.3m t]
C6 S5 H4 L5 P5 D6
Constitution-B 2310-Now [289m, 1m t]C5 S3 H3 L4 P3 D5
Miranda-A Now-Now [277m, 655k t]C3 S2 H2 L3 P1 D2
*Looks at Cardassian ship stats*
Lorgot ???-Now [???m, 1.8m t]
C7 S3 H3 L5 P? D5
Jaldun ???-Now [405m, 1.2m t]C4 S3 H4 L4 P3 D4
Takaaki (Combat) ???-Now [285m, 740k t]C4 S1 H3 L3 P1 D2
I guess it's time to show the Cardassians the Power of Science! Although this doesn't bode well for our battles with the Licori.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
You realize your Devas and Asuras trick with Endurance sucking torpedoes into another dimension is actually now a part of the combat system?
It's all your fault!
Run the GBZ battles again?
On the contrary, this is where pulling Science 9 Enterprise and Science 8 Sarek off EC duty shows its stuff. We'll out-Science them!
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
On the one hand, behold the power of Science unleashmongrels!people who make war and not friendship!
Then, on the other hand, our previous rolls when it comes to combat.
And on the third appendage Samyr Kanil is now the scariest Captain in the quadrant.
I would agree with the request to see some test battles with the new engine. Replaying some of the GBZ battles wouldn't be a terrible idea.
I don't know; I'm fairly sure she already was the scariest Captain in the quadrant after Exercise Silent Fury.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
She had to work for it last time. Now reality has got her back.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I was trying to recapture the... unique... feel of fighting Starfleet. From the Sydraxians' standards, WE are the bizarre scary people with esoteric superweapons and strange technology. And there are at least two more instances like that the Sydraxians smack into in the rest of the story. Starfleet is going to fight in accordance with the best AND worst traditions of Starfleet.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Some analysis of this "3.x combat engine" from what's known so far:
Huh... So Oberths have more general use, albeit still a diminished role with all the Excelsiors we have.
Important question: Does this mean that Centaur-As are now more effective combatants than Miranda-As?
Previously, Miranda-As arguably had slightly higher evasion than the Centaur-A due to smaller size and around the same amount of impulse engine power (and the engine actually doesn't make a huge difference relative to size), and thus slightly more effective fighters while also being significantly cheaper.
Now that science and sensors can help with evasion and countering evasion, this could flip things around so that Centaur-As are better in a fight. The additional improved science checks that they can perform (as a backup to Oberth/Excelsiors) is just another bonus.
So largest takeaways here are that:
a) Sticky targeting reduces the advantage of numbers, and thus improves the combat cost efficiency of our larger ships. For ex, the chances of a single C4 H4 L4 ship winning against a pair of C2 H2 L2 ships has increased. Even the increased evasion of the smaller ships could be partially countered by the larger ship if it has decent science. I expect smaller ships to still be much more combat cost efficient, just not to the same extent as before.
b) Combat stat should now be more "powerful" like it was in the old 1.x combat engine (back when it determined fleet hit chance and combat had an 1.15 exponent applied). Should rival shield stat for potency, and especially as shield burn-through techs advance. In the Connie-B vs Jaldun comparison, advantage now shifts to the Connie-B.
c) As headlined, battles are now more lethal. The increased damage variability does slightly nerf combat effectiveness of our smaller ships, since they aren't as capable at weathering random damage spikes.
d) Largest unknown here is the "subsystem damage": Are they just variants of critical hits or do they effect in-battle stats in some way? Does larger hull protect against this better, or are both smaller and larger ships (in size and/or hull stat) equally susceptible?
So this is by far the most novel part of this 3.x combat engine, and hence the one I'm most uncertain about.
Different types of ships participate differently in battle now, instead of a raw free-for-all. Well, this was already in the 2.x combat engine in with the way the Apiata Queenships stood back and let the Stingers take center stage, but this is now more fully realized. Some implications:
a) It's more important to have a varied force. In other words, a combined fleet of frigates, cruisers, and explorers/capital ships. (Not that this really buffs the usefulness of the combined fleet doctrine much though.)
b) Science ships or other ships that aren't designed for front-line combat can stay in the back. Perhaps they can still contribute in a way that reduces both their net damage dealt and net damage taken. Again, the Apiata skirmish near Sguirri showcased this with their Queenships (IIRC, weighed to 25% chance to be chosen to fire and chance to be targeted). This means it should be safer to send our fragile science ships into battle.
c) The above second point now implies that the tactical ship roles we've defined for our ship classes have differing combat behavior. That could mean Oneiros just defines the most obvious behavior for each tactical role, or we get to vote on them. Probably the former, since we never got the opportunity to vote on ROE per tactical ship roles.
Important question: How does ship retreating work now? The "pursuit" phase implies fleet-level retreating, but it's tactically advantageous to have ships retreat when necessary, rather than as a fleet as a whole. This was proven in the Battle at Deva IX, where fleets were forced to retreat as one, even when it would've been more optimal on both sides to retreat damaged ships earlier. Could this "pursuit" combat phase be applied to on a per-ship level, such that if a ship retreats, some enemy ships can shift gears to "pursuit"?
edit: some phrasing and elaboration
Huh... So Oberths have more general use, albeit still a diminished role with all the Excelsiors we have.
Important question: Does this mean that Centaur-As are now more effective combatants than Miranda-As?
Previously, Miranda-As arguably had slightly higher evasion than the Centaur-A due to smaller size and around the same amount of impulse engine power (and the engine actually doesn't make a huge difference relative to size), and thus slightly more effective fighters while also being significantly cheaper.
Now that science and sensors can help with evasion and countering evasion, this could flip things around so that Centaur-As are better in a fight. The additional improved science checks that they can perform (as a backup to Oberth/Excelsiors) is just another bonus.
So largest takeaways here are that:
a) Sticky targeting reduces the advantage of numbers, and thus improves the combat cost efficiency of our larger ships. For ex, the chances of a single C4 H4 L4 ship winning against a pair of C2 H2 L2 ships has increased. Even the increased evasion of the smaller ships could be partially countered by the larger ship if it has decent science. I expect smaller ships to still be much more combat cost efficient, just not to the same extent as before.
b) Combat stat should now be more "powerful" like it was in the old 1.x combat engine (back when it determined fleet hit chance and combat had an 1.15 exponent applied). Should rival shield stat for potency, and especially as shield burn-through techs advance. In the Connie-B vs Jaldun comparison, advantage now shifts to the Connie-B.
c) As headlined, battles are now more lethal. The increased damage variability does slightly nerf combat effectiveness of our smaller ships, since they aren't as capable at weathering random damage spikes.
d) Largest unknown here is the "subsystem damage": Are they just variants of critical hits or do they effect in-battle stats in some way? Does larger hull protect against this better, or are both smaller and larger ships (in size and/or hull stat) equally susceptible?
So this is by far the most novel part of this 3.x combat engine, and hence the one I'm most uncertain about.
Different types of ships participate differently in battle now, instead of a raw free-for-all. Well, this was already in the 2.x combat engine in with the way the Apiata Queenships stood back and let the Stingers take center stage, but this is now more fully realized. Some implications:
a) It's more important to have a varied force. In other words, a combined fleet of frigates, cruisers, and explorers/capital ships. (Not that this really buffs the usefulness of the combined fleet doctrine much though.)
b) Science ships or other ships that aren't designed for front-line combat can stay in the back. Perhaps they can still contribute in a way that reduces both their net damage dealt and net damage taken. Again, the Apiata skirmish near Sguirri showcased this with their Queenships (IIRC, weighed to 25% chance to be chosen to fire and chance to be targeted). This means it should be safer to send our fragile science ships into battle.
c) The above second point now implies that the tactical ship roles we've defined for our ship classes have differing combat behavior. That could mean Oneiros just defines the most obvious behavior for each tactical role, or we get to vote on them. Probably the former, since we never got the opportunity to vote on ROE per tactical ship roles.
Important question: How does ship retreating work now? The "pursuit" phase implies fleet-level retreating, but it's tactically advantageous to have ships retreat when necessary, rather than as a fleet as a whole. This was proven in the Battle at Deva IX, where fleets were forced to retreat as one, even when it would've been more optimal on both sides to retreat damaged ships earlier. Could this "pursuit" combat phase be applied to on a per-ship level, such that if a ship retreats, some enemy ships can shift gears to "pursuit"?
edit: some phrasing and elaboration
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Forgot to comment on this specifically.
I'm pretty sure this means that while the overall chance of victory across the whole engagement remains unchanged (all else being equal), this reduces the chances of a larger fleet coming out of such battles unscathed. The increased sticky targeting and damage variability also helps with this, but this particular change is probably the most impactful.
The intent is clear - larger fleets should still have the advantage, but it should not be that snowbally of an advantage. That it should be possible to attrit down a large massed deathball of ships. This encourages more strategic division of fleets instead of two doom stacks facing each other across borders.
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- Location
- Australia
I'd like to say that rather than making one or the other superior as combatants, it makes their respective trade-offs more important and, ideally, more complementary.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Well Centaur-As were always more useful in general, before these combat engine changes. They still are our ship of choice for escort duties and I already expected them to take an important role in the Licori conflict.
They just took a back foot to Miranda-As is sheer combat efficiency. It was just better to toss in Miranda-As into battle than Centaur-As, not only to save on potential costs and casualties, but also because Miranda-As were potentially slightly better than Centaur-As in combat.
Now, I'm wondering if a Centaur-A would beat a Miranda-A more than 50% of the time, in addition to its general utility advantages (that now also play a role in combat).
We've been having a hard time justifying building any more Centaur-As, since their SR cost and middling event response just made them not worth it, compared to the more specialized or larger ships: Miranda-A, Renaissance, Excelsior-A. Notice the near complete lack of Centaur-As in any build plan for at least the next several years. I'm hoping this change is sufficient to bring up the Centaur-A into build consideration again.
I very much hope not.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Care to elaborate on that? Why don't you want the Centaur-A to be competitive? It'll mess with our build plans, but having another option out of the paltry few we have is hardly a bad thing.
If science turns out to be pretty important in combat, then Centaur-As could be our most crew-efficient general combat ship. The SR cost still makes it compete with the Miranda-A (lower cost) and Renaissance (more capable), but it's now a closer trade-off.
If science turns out to be pretty important in combat, then Centaur-As could be our most crew-efficient general combat ship. The SR cost still makes it compete with the Miranda-A (lower cost) and Renaissance (more capable), but it's now a closer trade-off.
I am interested in the part about the Combat stat being powered up a little. Sounds like it's going to make our C5 Renaissances and C7 Excelsior-As more dangerous against more lightly-armed ships.
- Location
- Patriarchova
It also makes the Kaldars more dangerous, of course. And while they only have one or two Lorgots, we reaaaally don't want to get critted by one.
I'm curious about the odds of a Gun Takaaki versus a Centaur-A in the new system.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Given the stated importance of having at least one high science ship in a fleet, the Centaur-As are likely better than Miranda-As as solo combatants now, but Miranda-As are a more cost effective way to fill out a fleet that has command ships. That already sounds like how we are using them.
A few more Centaur-As for escort forces may make sense compared to the current mix.
A few more Centaur-As for escort forces may make sense compared to the current mix.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Huh, there actually are a decent number of Centaur-As in the Federation right now: 26. Though no one is building them anymore from what I can tell, but we could just be between builds. Amarki may start up another batch, Betazed should have the resources to start another one this year, and who knows what Human, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar will build.
My tally of Starfleet designed ships in the Federation as of start of 2315.Q1 but before any builds have commenced this quarter (we won't know until shipyard ops results):
<ship class>: <total #>[<total Starfleet #>] (...)
Oberth: 6[5] (0[0] under construction)
Soyuz: 2[0] (can no longer be built)
Miranda: 6[4] (can no longer be built)
Miranda-A: 25[7] (3[3] under construction, 3[2] Miranda under refit)
Centaur-A: 26[9] (0[0] under construction, all Centaur refit)
Constellation: 18[7] (0[0] under construction)
Constitution-B: 11[8] (2[1] under construction)
Renaissance: 1[1] (13[4] under construction)
Constitution-A: 1[1] (can no longer be built)
Excelsior: 16[13] (5[4] under construction)
Excelsior-A: 0[0] (0[0] under construction, 1[1] under refit)
Fun facts: including ships being constructed/refitted, 40% of our cruiser mass is under construction, and our total explorer mass more a bit greater than that of either our frigates or cruisers (but not both combined).
@Void Stalker, your spreadsheet is showing Starfleet having 9 Connie-Bs and 2 under construction, but we only have 8 Connie-Bs and 1 under construction (to be finished at end of this quarter).
edit: +1 oberth
My tally of Starfleet designed ships in the Federation as of start of 2315.Q1 but before any builds have commenced this quarter (we won't know until shipyard ops results):
<ship class>: <total #>[<total Starfleet #>] (...)
Oberth: 6[5] (0[0] under construction)
Soyuz: 2[0] (can no longer be built)
Miranda: 6[4] (can no longer be built)
Miranda-A: 25[7] (3[3] under construction, 3[2] Miranda under refit)
Centaur-A: 26[9] (0[0] under construction, all Centaur refit)
Constellation: 18[7] (0[0] under construction)
Constitution-B: 11[8] (2[1] under construction)
Renaissance: 1[1] (13[4] under construction)
Constitution-A: 1[1] (can no longer be built)
Excelsior: 16[13] (5[4] under construction)
Excelsior-A: 0[0] (0[0] under construction, 1[1] under refit)
Fun facts: including ships being constructed/refitted, 40% of our cruiser mass is under construction, and our total explorer mass more a bit greater than that of either our frigates or cruisers (but not both combined).
@Void Stalker, your spreadsheet is showing Starfleet having 9 Connie-Bs and 2 under construction, but we only have 8 Connie-Bs and 1 under construction (to be finished at end of this quarter).
edit: +1 oberth
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- Location
- somewhere
Unless the description here is very misleading this change doesn't help ships with high combat at all. Currently expected damage is 1/2 (bonus * C), variance is 1/12 (bonus * C)^2, not accounting for overkill (which disadvantages ship with high combat). If you take the max of two rolls expected damage is 2/3 (bonus * C), variance is 4/45 (bonus * C)^2. That means average damage is increased significantly, but proportionally for all ships, while variance only increases slightly. Increasing damage has the effect of making combat a bit faster, which nerfs shield regeneration and increases the rate of overkill, and thereby slightly nerfs ships with high combat. It also makes combat a little bit smoother since variance does not keep pace with expected damage.
If you actually want to help ships with high combat I suggest doing away with overkill at least on shields (i. e. hits that knock out the shields deal the remaining damage to hull).
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Yeah, that's about my estimation. Not sure how it will play out in practice. In theory, Centaur-As for their SR cost are justifiable for escorting and patrolling roles, and maybe as mini-wolfpacks. Large scale combat should still favor the Miranda-A because their science deficiencies are covered (and S2 compared to S3 isn't that bad) and raw cost efficiency, even if Centaur-As should be on par or slightly beat out Miranda-As in combat.
In terms of cost efficiency, one of the main considerations it the ratio of our two main bottlenecks: SR and crew (specifically O+E). Out of all the "member fleets" that produce Starfleet designs, Starfleet has the greatest SR to crew ratio, unsurprisingly. Problem is, we also have a lot of repair costs and crew casualties. So that ratio in effect swings wildly depending on whether we have more crew casualties to replenish (2313) or more repair costs (2314). If repair costs are light while crew casualties are heavy enough, we should build less Rennies and then fill up those 1mt berths with Miranda-As and Centaur-As depending on fleet needs.