Ramming Problem

[bearclaw]

Something I've done, which works quite well, is that I put a single warhead on all my non-combat ships. That way, if somthing like this happens and they end up on the losing side of a bad situation, they can at least do some damage back in the process. A single warhead isn't much but it can make a difference if you've got someone pirating your supply lines.

[Dravis]

I think shields should be counted... Thanks for the info though.

[dmm]

They had to do it this way to nullify my infamous "rammer" strategy, which was totally unbalancing to the game as it then was. Under the old rules, rammer ships with nothing but armor were more powerful than anything else for long enough to decide the outcome of a game. I used to be able to conquer an entire small galaxy with almost nothing but hordes of rammers and repairers. (See Posts from LONG ago -- 13 months or so.) So they changed armor amounts, changed the shield rules for ramming, and changed the initial techs. Even so, rammers can still be pretty deadly, depending on the enemy ship designs. (Example: rammers wipe out enemy shields, then boarders or special-weapon ships attack.)

[edit: changed # of months]

[ 04 December 2001: Message edited by: dmm ]</p>

[Dravis]

OK this is really bad. Once one of my transport ships got into combat with a light cruiser. My transport did not have any weapons or cargo so I gave it the order to ram, it had more Sheilds and armor but it rammed it not even damage the other ship!
I think that when you ram damage should be done on a one to one basis, eg. every point of sheilds that the ramming ship has should do 1 damage to the other ship.

[dogscoff]

It goes something like this...

The ramming ship's shields are NOT counted in the comparison. The target ship's shields *are* counted. The damage rating (Tonnage Structure) of all armour and other components are then added up for both ships and damage applied accordingly.

I thnk it's a fair system. If you want shields count or more when ramming, mod shield generators to have a higher Tonnage Structure. It's not a perfect fix but it will make a differnce.

[dogscoff]

OT: Hey Bearclaw, how do you manage that "align=left" effect with the image in your sig? I went through the UBBcode manual but couldn't find anything about it.

[Dravis]

Oh yeah, I rember that. That worked especially well when you are organic useing organic armor (no need for repair ships). maby they should count half of the sheilds so ramming isn't so worthless.