Announce: Galactic Battle Simulator

from Stardock Forums
Thanks to the clearly documented combat algorithms in the on-line GalCiv user manual ( http://www.galciv.com/docs/ ), it was possible to create a Battle Simulator to calculate starship combat odds. Brad has graciously hosted this Battle Simulator on the GalCiv Metaverse website.

To access the Galactic Battle Simulator, navigate to the Metaverse web page and select the "Simulator" link on the left hand side. You may enter combat values for the attacking and defending ships and view the results of a simulation. The ship templates may be used as a guide, but don't forget that for accurate results, the values should be modified to take into account ship level and attacker and defender military bonuses.

I use the simulator to help determine how strongly I should defend my starbases and planets from attack from my opponent's most powerful ship, and to decide how large an armada I might need to blast past the opponent's defenses. For example, did you know that it usually takes 3 Corvettes or a single Battle Cruiser to take out an unfortified Starbase, but add a simple Basic Defense Module to the Starbase and suddenly it will stand up to even a lone Battleship?

The current ship data in the Galactic Battle Simulator is derived from the 1.0.052 gamma build. Thanks to JavaScout for making this data available from his web site! http://webpages.charter.net/trevorpowdrell/
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Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I think this should be included in some "GalCiv update package" with everything in :)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Is the concept that a ship with a higher defence then attack gets half it's defence added to it's attack if it is defending still in the game? If so, is it in the simulator? Didn't seem like it but I'm not sure. Great tool regardless, nice work and thanks.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Arf, just when I contributed my Excel list of average results to the Library ... :sniff!: LOL LOL
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Matthew,
Sorry to be a pest but I've got a follow-up question. Can you walk me thru the calc's using a base Frigate(45,5,4) attacking a base Battle Axe(40,2,5)? My understanding is that the Frigate will attack with 5 vs the Battle Axe 5 followed by the the Battle Axe attacking with 4(2+5/2) vs the Frigate 4. My stat backround is shallow as well as rusty but is the 5 point hit point advantage, plus the advantage of attacking first, enough to push it to an 85% chance for the attacker? Or am I completely off track? Thanks again.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Where is this on the page? I can't find it, I just see a data dump of various techs/projects/etc
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Doh, nevermind, I should read more closely
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Mr. Lucky,

You make a very good observation. Without seeing the simulation results, I too would have assumed that a Frigate attacking a Battle Axe would win just a little more than half of the battles. But take a closer look at what happens each combat phase. The attacking Frigate is doing 0-5 hp of damage, while the defender is retailiating with 0-4 hp of damage. The attacker is damaging the defender at a quicker rate. I believe that this, more than the extra hp, results in the Frigate being victorious 85% of the time.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
When a ship with Attack 5 attacks a ship with Defense 5, the attacker expects to do 35/36 = .972 points of damage each phase.
When a ship with Attack 4 attacks a ship with Defense 4, the attacker expects to do 4/5 = .800 points of damage each phase.
This means in expectation, the ship with Attack 5 and Defense 4 will do 12.15 points of damage in the time it takes the Attack 4 and Defense 5 ship to do 10 points of damage. (So it's no surprise that the Frigate expects to win).

In general, when a ship with Attack X is attacking a ship with Defense X, the attacker expects to do (x^2 + 2x)/(6x + 6) points of damage each phase.

- Matt Lepinski :->

~SDC~