Question about combat in 1.61

from GalCiv4 Forums

Combat Rating has been a huge help simplifying comparisons between fleets.  But I wonder if it's over-valuing my survey ship here.  Here's the match-up.  In one corner:
My ship, Combat Rating 8
Beam 3
Missile 4
Shield 1
Evasion 1
Armor 1
Hit Points 63 (64 -1 point of current damage)

In the other corner:
Pirate "Paladin", Combat Rating 7
Beam 8
Missile 2
Kinetic 2
Armor 10
Hit Points 38

This guy mopped the floor with me.  I did 5 damage and was totally destroyed.  When you look at the actual stats, it doesn't seem shocking, but the combat rating seemed to indicate I *should* win?  I wasn't sure so I tried it.  Now I know that 7 ate 9 but uh, I bet GC4 combat isn't based on dad jokes.  (Tell me it's not based on dad jokes.)

Also the game really really didn't want to show me the battle prediction for some reason.

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3,073 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

The battle prediction sometimes takes a bit to calculate so if you wait a moment it will usually appear. Regarding the combat rating it really doesn't tell you much. I have gone into great detail on the discord how it's over simplification is problematic. 

Most peoples first experience with it is the one you outlined. Usually involving the survey ship. Probably one of the biggest factors in this example is AI has 10 armor which will allow them to get into kinetic range because it would initially block per attack 1-10 (average 5) and slowly degrade. But basically your doing partial or no damage and they are doing full damage. 

The AI is also using kinetics and stronger beams verses so has much higher dps.

I'm not pointing this out to show an error on your part but to show how I still believe combat rating is harmful in it's current form because if you have a higher rating and double the HP you should be able to reasonably expect that you should have won the combat instead of a blowout.

Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I don't like combat rating either. There are too many variables for a single number to be an accurate rating for ships.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

A couple more things:

The battle prediction not populating thing does not appear to be a time or processing issue.  It just doesn't appear sometimes no matter how long you wait.  Usually, but not always, looking at a different battle calculation, then coming back, fixes it.  FWIW, I've never seen the calculation take even a second to appear.  If it's not instantaneous, no amount of time (that I've waited for, which is a few minutes) will bring it up.

The battle viewer is misreporting damage in the summary at the end.  The combat log and my ending ship hit points will agree with each other, but the summary will say something else.  Like I may take 5 points of damage in the fight, and the summary will say I took 3.  It seems to always under-report the damage.

Ships are still showing damaged when they're not, and also vastly more damaged than they actually are.  As in their health bar might show them to be barely alive when really they've lost only 10% of their HP or something.

Unrelated but I really wanted to mention this somewhere: the Union Center building you get with the Egalitarian ideology says it adds +5 manufacturing but in 1.6 it added +5 manufacturing and +5 shipyard production.  Now in 1.61, it ONLY adds +5 shipyard production with no general manufacturing bonus.  Just FYI.

There are lots of great fixes in 1.61 though, and I'm really liking it!