Old_Sweep

Join Date 07/2006

How did my defense fail? I don't understand! Help!

Hello everyone. Surely the attack/defense topic has been discussed before. But I will write down a question again. My version is 1.3 beta...

I had the bad luck to be in the neighbourhood of the Drengin! So, they started war with me very soon with a massive fleet strikes.

I constantly upgraded my force with best point defense available as the Drengin always attack with missiles. Finally I researched Aereon Missile Defense (AMD) with its impressive armor of 10!

So I built medium ship (so I can built fast) with 3 AMD, several phasor guns. So my defense of 30 countered their attack missile power of 27 (their best ship).... In fact, nothing could happen to me, and my ships were also greatly enhanced by military starbases!

So, I attack and what happened? All my ships were destroyed! How did that happen? They have no military starbases to help them. I know this:
1. attack power is random --> Drengin attack range from 1 to 27 (only missiles!)
2. defense power is max --> my effective defense is thus minimal 30....

So, I should never have any damage!

How did this happen? I don't understand any more. Now my whole utopic civilization is under ruin and smoke of exploded missiles!!!!

Is this a bug?

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2. defense power is max --> my effective defense is thus minimal 30....

Wrong, defense power is random -> defense range from 0 to 30.

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Damn! Not funny!

Excuse me for my language...

The best solution for Drengin --> wipe them out as quick as possible!!!!

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Damn! Not funny!

Reasonably funny...

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Wrong, defense power is random -> defense range from 0 to 30.

Which is something i never really grasped with GCII

as i always thought that if you put a big metal plate in front of you then you are gonna know the capability of said lump of metal. If it has say a defense of 5 then against a known offensive item (IE rock) it will give you 5 points of defense and not a random generated number instead.
However like i said i never fully understood the principles in GCII so i maybe completely wrong

Anyone care to explain defense in layman's terms (not PC psychobabble that you need a degree to understand!)

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As far as I understand is that you have three different armor (not counting the telepath defense)...

If you have a defense NOT against the attack type, then you squareroot the defense:
--> For example: armor defense is 10 against missile. Thus effective armor is rounded down 3
If you have a defense against the attack, then you have the maximum available defense.
--> For example: point defense is 10 against missile. Thus effective armor is 10.

So, if you have three different kind of armor of 10 (armor/point/deflector) on your ship, then the total effective armor agianst missile (or any kind of weapon) is 16

But if "peace phoenix" is correct in his statement the defense will range from 0 to 16...

But I agree with you that the randomizing the number of defense should be less than the attacking force. If you attack an enemy, you can always miss him (thus randomize from 0 to maximum damage). But if you are hit, the armor should be able to take that out (so maybe randomize from 75% to 100% of effective armor; that should be more fair!)

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Which is something i never really grasped with GCII as i always thought that if you put a big metal plate in front of you then you are gonna know the capability of said lump of metal. If it has say a defense of 5 then against a known offensive item (IE rock) it will give you 5 points of defense and not a random generated number instead.
However like i said i never fully understood the principles in GCII so i maybe completely wrong
Anyone care to explain defense in layman's terms (not PC psychobabble that you need a degree to understand!)

I agree 100% dude, I guess whoever thought of it was thinking that luck is more fair than skill.

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Maybe they were thinking about "balance issues"??

You can always use 1 point at the begining for luck n e ways...

Monc34

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i always thought that if you put a big metal plate in front of you then you are gonna know the capability of said lump of metal. If it has say a defense of 5 then against a known offensive item (IE rock) it will give you 5 points of defense and not a random generated number instead.

Then you should try to play Role Playing Games like AD&D and others. There are generally 2 rolls made: one to see if you hit (read managing to reach the opponent with your weapon and breach the armor) and the other to see how much damage you have made (have you find a weak spot?). It is the same here

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Maybe the rock successfully misse the big metal plate, but failed to miss you, and did it's damage, but since it came from a different angle, it's damage wasn't as much as a direct hit, so the plate actually did indirectly reduce the damage?

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IRL defence items dont work always.

Chaff+ flare dont always knock a heat seaker off target.
Armor sometimes gets penatrated
Force Reactive Armor doesnt always work

Anti missle defences dont really work in RL yet

Scotty didnt give full power to the shields

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I would imagine that antennas, sensors, weapons tubes and parts of engines would need to be outside the "big metal plate". A hit in the right place could knock out your targeting sensors, or weapons capability, or maneuvering capability while weakening the "big metal plate". Then follow-on shots in the same area could do some real harm and kill you.

Remember World War II where battleships with their huge armor (24-36 inches of steel in places) were sunk quite frequently by projectiles! Same idea.

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The simple reason is so that you can't build invincible ships. Otherwise, you'd get battles that would never end, if both side's attack values are less than the other's defences.

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Lots of comment has been made on this before. I'm not a huge fan of the system either since it dramatically reduces the worth of defences at very high tech levels because hitpoints don't increase anywhere near as rapidly as weapons and defences. But you'll always need some random element for the reasons given above, and to give the AI with its weaker ship design skills a fighting chance. You could get that without a uniform distribution (all values equally likely) though...

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IRL, anti-missile defense DOES work, just not 100%. Even if you only knock out 2 of the 5 missiles comin at you, its still better than getting hit by all five. Chaff confuses the missile's targeting system, the missile mistakes the Chaff for a really big target. PD actually hit the missile destroying it before it makes impact. We don't have a working pd yet, I don't think so anyway.

The only time armor should be pierced is if the weapon is superior. Musket rounds should NEVER pierce the armor of an Abrahms, no matter how many you shoot at it.

Energy shields can't be bypassed by Directed Energy Weapons, or ANY weapons for that matter, only broken through.

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Energy shields can't be bypassed by Directed Energy Weapons, or ANY weapons for that matter, only broken through.

Has this been tested in some scientific experiment somewhere?

Er... no, because it's all made up. Hence, if one particular sci-fi wants to say that part of the beam energy may get through then there really isn't anything to stop them.

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IRL:
Most modern tanks can be equipped with PDs. Especially the Russian ones, they are decades ahead of the West in that particular technology. When a projectile is incoming, a PD bursts, and sends a metal plate to deflect the force of the explosion, and turn the penetrator away if there is one.
Aircraft anti-missile defenses are chaffs, AKA flares. Intense thermal, sonic and visual signaling that tries to steer the missile away from the target and into the chaff.
Emplacement anti-missile defense are missiles, such as the Patriot system. They actually launch several missiles with the objective to kill the incoming missile. Once again, the Russians are ahead with specially designed AA guns instead of missiles.
INGAME:
There are always places armor doesn't cover completely, and there are volatile places armor does cover. A missile can hit the chaff, or be detonated by the PD, or shot down by a droid sentry and still explode. The shockwave(normally none in space, but this is a universe with quantum torpedoes, black hole eruptors and other things that have powerful vacuum shockwaves) then damages the ship, but not as much as a direct hit would do. Energy beams' energy output might outdo the energy output of the shield for a second, and spill over to damage the hull.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Reactive armor is one thing. Actual point defense on tanks (detecting and intercepting incoming projectiles in flight) is still in its infancy (IIRC some companies were just doing field tests months ago, it's doubtful any have been deployed yet).

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You mean Metal Storm? US Navy is looking into that as a form of PD. I can't imagine why, it's a rapid-fire artillery primarily. Guess they were impressed by the 1.000.000 rounds-per-minute models

Other systems that might pass for a PD are Trophy and Phalanx guns, both deployed(Phalanx deployed on almost every US ship), but none have taken down a missile in flight in military operations. None, other than the aforementioned Russians, who's Shilka AA vehicles successfully brought down missiles using curtains.

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There is a difference between the D&D (i.e. d20) system and the GC2 system. The D&D system starts with a specific value and modifies that with a random number between 1 and 20. If you attack, you take your base attack and add 1d20... same for your defense: Armor Class + 1d20. That is significantly different than completely randomizing the entire stat.

To an extent, both systems seem to lump two different things into one score. Evasiveness and Damage Absorption.

There should be a randomized factor in each calculation, just not 100% of the stat. At some point, you gotta think that a huge technological gap between you and your enemy deserves more respect from the game system. This problem is prevalent in most turn-based strategy games, though (Civilization being the most notorious example).

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This problem is prevalent in most turn-based strategy games, though (Civilization being the most notorious example).

Like a phalanx killing a battleship ?

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Energy shields can't be bypassed by Directed Energy Weapons

One of the philosophies of energy shields is that it blocks evergy coming at it at SELECTED FREQUENCIES (hopefully a whole bunch of them). This is because of the old invisibility conumdrum - if you block ALL the light, YOU can't see. Hence the usual compromise (in advanced systems) of prostulating a narrow, rapidly shifting "window" through the spectrum. But a lucky hit or really good targeting/predictive computers can tune the energy weapon to hit the window.

Actual point defense on tanks (detecting and intercepting incoming projectiles in flight) is still in its infancy

I saw something recently on Discovery - I think it was a new SP Artillery piece that was using PD to cut down on the armor weight for air transportability reasons. Still in development....

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There is a lot of variability in the current system. In my last game I had a battle of 3 of my frigates with 3 Anorian battle armor against 7 Yor Frigates with heafty mass driver attack. The first 2 of my ships fell taking one each with them. The remaining ship then defeated the remaining 5 Yor ships and escaped with half it's hit points remaining! It earned the name "Invincible" for that feat. Sadly, the ship later fell to a 5 on 1 attack.

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Well, I don't like to admit defeat.
So, I built a large ship, dumped 5 Aeron Missile Defense on it, bought several of it, making myself almost bankrupt... and what happens? Drengin couldn't defeat it!

Hmmm, lesson for me. Don't be afraid to spent a LOT of money if necessary!

Finally I reconquered my old planets and wiped Drengin out! Lesson for them: If you dig a pit for me, you'll end up on the bottom yourself!

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PD actually hit the missile destroying it before it makes impact. We don't have a working pd yet, I don't think so anyway.

Ok then, wut do you say to this??

TROPHY IN ACTION">Link

TROPHY IN ACTION 2 ">Link

MTHEL ">Link

Laser Defense

Spike Missle(TOW-like)

Barak
Too bad the israelis didnt use this 1 in July to defend their ship, got damaged by a C-701 Chinese designed,Iranian built Missle, guess they turned it off

Enjoy
Monc34

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Ok then, wut do you say to this??

I say that I stand by my statement. Point defense is in its infancy--most of those videos are marketing/press release/demos/etc from a few months ago, and those systems that have actually been tested had only been tested in controlled circumstances. I haven't heard of any of these PD systems being deployed in real combat as yet.

AMMs such as the Barak and Patriot are something else. They've been around for more than fifteen years, but are not true PD in the sense used in sci-fi, etc. Plus, they're far more expensive and unreliable than the active laser and ballistic projectile based PD systems now in development.

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