DL Campaign, dread lord HP regeneration bug?

Hi Everyone,

I'm playing through the DL campaign and I'm on achilles heel. I think I have the DL pretty much in check, but I have an issue where I'm only able to defeat their ships if my ships are in orbit defending my planet. I'm having trouble with his Cruisers, which have 42 hp and about 170 attack. My most common ship has 9 hp and 9 attack, and I have fleets of 5 of them. Individually, each of my ships takes off 4-5 hp from his cruiser, so I've sent in multiple waves to get him all the way down to 1 hp. But if I do that, the next time I attack, I lose my ship and he suddenly his HP jumps up to 18. When I first ran into this, even a fleet of 3 (combined attack of 18) won't take out his cruiser with just 1 hp left. Since I have the economic advantage, I've just continued to build, and even a fleet with attack of 80 would often not destroy the cruiser with 1 hp.

Is this a bug? Do the DL ships have some sort of hp regeneration ability? Will I ever be able to defeat him attacking? These battles are in open space. If I send multiple waves on his home planet, will it behave differently? Or, do I need ships with more HP, or more attack? I'd like to know what I'll need to take them out... Seems to me that 2 fleets with 45 attack each should be able to do the job on a cruiser with just 42 hp and no shields, yet that doesn't seem to be the case...

I'd appreciate any insight anyone might have...

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There's no such thing as HP regeneration in any battle in DL, it might be a bug, yes.

Maybe I understand this not right now, but I think you are wrong in assuming that 45 attack will destroy a ship with 42 HP. (Very simplified now) The way how battle works is that your weapon-roll is from 0 to 45 - in most cases the DL ship isn't destroyed in the first round. He then fires back, which will probably result in the destruction of your ships.... bigger fleets will help you probably.

Your "economic advantage" aside - l'll say, have fast ships, circumvent his space vessels, and sneak to his planet(s), destroy the guard and invade.

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The wiki has more info (specifically combat, also fleet combat), with regards to why you're not winning.

You specify you're playing the DL campaign, but you don't specify which version you used to start it. My understanding is if you launched DA or TA and went to play the DL campaign from there, that it would use DA/TA mechanics, respectively. (I remember trying to play the DL campaign in DA, and spies complicated matters...)

This is really the only instance that I can think of that would cause what you're observing to happen-and that is the tie rule, which is only in DA and TA, as the attacker fires first in DL.

tie rule #1: if in last round of combat surviving ship(s) destroy each other, the strongest ship still survives (the strongest seems to be the ship with highest attack).

tie rule #2: if in 50 combat rounds (300 for fleets) the battle is not resolved, the the game determines which side is 'tougher' by the formula sqrt( ( 2 * Attack ) + Defense + ( Current HP / 2 ) ). The side with the highest number automatically destroys all opposition.

Would you mind describing the battles you fight with them in orbit? I imagine they're not the same ships...you're probably just defeating transports and marginally armed escorts there, yes?

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Thanks for the thoughts guys; much appreciated. Regarding the questions that were raised, I'm playing with the Ultimate Edition which has all 3 together, so I assume I'm actually playing the TA game mechanics then (Don't know for sure as this is the first I've played GalCivII). Although, they've clearly disabled espoinage for the campaign (except to assign agents to the whole race) so maybe it's tweaked from TA somewhat. What I meant by only having success in orbit is that up to that point I'd only had success while I was defending my own planet (never attacking), and that was with the orbital command center...

Clearly it would seem that the tie rule is what's causing it. When I attack with him down to 1 HP, obviously with 20+ attack I'll knock it down, but then he gets his shots and naturally my ships all die too. Then he has the stronger ship with his 200 attack, and I die. I imagine with the original "attacker shoots first" rule in the original version that wouldn't have happened; I guess it's just a matter of the new engine not really playing nice with the old scenarios. I was eventually able to win regardless; throwing fleets of 5 small ships at his 1 HP with combined attack of 80 seemed to result in about a 1/4 chance that I'd knock him out. I still think there might be a bug on account of my attacking him with 1 HP and after the battle looking to see he's back up to 14 or so.

As it turned out, in the next Apocalypse scenario I gained even more familiarity with handling them. I'd built up to phasors and had about 120 attack in a fleet of 5 small ships, and it seemed like escorts and scouts could be taken down as you'd expect, but the cruisers had the same issue; about a 1 in 4 success rate. I think there's more to the tougher ship calculation though, than just attack power. What I found was that if I built a medium hull loaded with extra HP, even taking a single ship in with 16 attack, if he was down to 1 HP my medium ship would survive with 5-15 HP left out of 50 or so... Considering his attack is something like 180, I'm suprised he wasn't taking out my 50 HP in one shot; maybe he was but I was getting the benefit of the tie rule... Who knows... It would be nice to know the exact mechanics at work though...

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and that was with the orbital command center...

That would do it-if you had sufficient ships in orbit.

The tie rule only applies once combat is resolved; you're seeing the effects of the RNG going your way (sometimes). More importantly, what you're seeing is that he's not destroying you in the first round, but you're destroying him. (All his weapons have fired and you're still alive = tie rule doesn't come into effect if you kill him that round.)

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Hi!

I was eventually able to win regardless; throwing fleets of 5 small ships at his 1 HP with combined attack of 80 seemed to result in about a 1/4 chance that I'd knock him out.

Did you count actual weapons on the DL's ship? One of solutions to these OP DL ships is also to attack them with a fleet of tiny ships, whose number is larger than that ship has weapons. The catch being: each weapon would (if it would hit) destroy one tiny ship, but having larger number of them, some would survive, so the tie rule wouldn't apply.

BR, Iztok

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