Is Multiplex Tracking broken?

[rextorres]

I just tested this in strategic combat it seems that bases only fire on one target - I know that this was discussed before for 1.49, but I thought this would have been fixed by now. Maybe my testing is wrong so I am curious if anyone else has experienced this.

[tbontob]

Seems like great minds think alike http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif as just 10 minutes prior to this thread, I asked a similiar question in "missile firing question".

Germane to both of our questions is whether Weapon Platforms has some sort of "multiplex tracking system" built in Weapon Platforms without actually having the multiplex component installed.

[ October 07, 2002, 20:56: Message edited by: tbontob ]

[rextorres]

It seems that muliplex doesn't work for wps or bases.

[Arkcon]

Conventional wisdom is that the planet has built-in multiplex. Clicking on the planet will let you know exactly how many. IIRC, it was 99 targets. People have observed that it may peter out after 3 to 5 targets. Bases with multiplex 5 have likewise been known to stop after 2 or 3.

This part of the game may be a little buggy as yet. Since walling in your planets with weapon platforms and warp points with bases was not considered an important (useful?, efficient?, sporting?, successful?) tactic, it may not have been tested as much.

Now wth new mods that make defending your planets more important, its becoming a problem.

[ October 07, 2002, 22:42: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[rextorres]

Actually - from my tests it seems that bases and wps only target one target.

[geoschmo]

Arkcon, planets can target 10 ships, not 99. And it doesn't appear to be affected by multiplex on your designs.

Rex, planets with WP's will definetly target more than one ship. Although there have been some problems with them not firing all their weapons in strategic combat. Haven't qutie figured out what is causing that. It's not a multiplex issue though.

I haven't tested bases.

Geoschmo

[dumbluck]

Rex: Are your WPs/Bases armed with missles or Direct Fire weapons? Missle armed vessels will only target one ship at a time. The computer fires the first missle (which doesn't move yet), checks to see if the target is destroyed (obviously it hasn't been), then fires next missle, then checks for destruction of target, etc. etc. etc. (This is why, if you mix missles and DF weps on the same vessel, that you make sure that the DF weps come before the missles.)

[ October 08, 2002, 11:14: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[rextorres]

The test situation that I was using was ten BaseShips attacking a Star Base with Null weapons, Multiplex 5, and a Talisman to make sure that the SB always hits. I had the attacking fleet purposely set not to fire on the Base. What happens is that the Starbase destroys one of the BSs and then doesn't fire the rest of its weapons against another BS - instead the turn switches over.

I tried this with smaller ships and it did fire on more than one ship, but the SB never fired at five targets (even though they were in range) it always stopped at a number less than five.

Similarly with platforms the same sorts of things as above happened.

Obviously in tactical mode there wasn't a problem - unfortunately I haven't played a game in tactical mode in nearly a year so that doesn't do me any good.

BTW - this is not in simulation - what I do
is set up a one system test game.

[Suicide Junkie]

What about your strategies? Perhaps the 80% damage per ship thing, or the "only damage until weapons destroyed" is causing the base to stop and rethink its targetting for a turn?

[capnq]

Does this mean in the ship design from left to right the DF weapons should be added first? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">On most of my designs, I put the weapons with the shortest range first, and highest damage first if the ranges are equal.

Specialty weapons like point defense or shield damaging tend to be exceptions; they usually come before the other types.

[Gryphin]

dumbluck,
"DF weps come before the missles".
Does this mean in the ship design from left to right the DF weapons should be added first?
Eaxmple:
MC > MB > MB > CSM > CSM > Misc > engines.....

MC = Master Computer
CSM = Capital Ship Missles
MB = Meson BLaster
EN = Engines

Or did I missunderstand?
Edit: typo

[ October 08, 2002, 12:36: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[rextorres]

I tried with different strategies and still the same results. I was mostly curious to see if anyone else had noticed.

[Gryphin]

capnq ,
does the arrangement affect combat or? anything at all?

[capnq]

does the arrangement affect combat or? anything at all? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The weapons fire in the order they appear, left to right.

Putting the shortest ranged weapons first probably doesn't make much of a difference; I just prefer sorting them that way. It might let you waste fewer shots with multitargeting, if the short range weapons can kill the closer target.

Putting the higher damage weapons first can also save a few shots, because the higher damage weapons have a better chance of killing the target before the lower damage weapons fire.

Special damage weapons can hit their specific targets and leave the other components for the non-specialized weapons.

[dumbluck]

Oooooooo...

Do you think it matters if the Multiplex tracking comes before/after the weapons???

[capnq]

Do you think it matters if the Multiplex tracking comes before/after the weapons? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I doubt it. The only place I can imagine it mattering is if you have more than one component in the same Repair Priority Category, and can't repair all the damaged components in one turn.