Questions about fighters.

[Cyrus]

It's been quite some time since I used fighters, several patches at least, but I was using them today and I noticed something that struck me as odd. I have a light cruiser design that contains a Combat Sensor 3 (+65% to hit). I match this ship against a light fighter (+80% to defense). Now, all things being equal the cruiser should always have at least a -15% chance to hit the fighter, right?
During my simultations I noticed that the cruiser had a 30% chance to hit the fighter at range 6 with a phased polaron beam. At range 1 it had an 80% chance to hit.
Even if I take away the combat sensor the cruiser still has a 15% chance to hit at range 1.

Now, perhaps my memory is failing, but I don't recall it being this easy to hit fighters.

[Will]

Maybe your race stats had a bonus for combat offense, and a penalty for combat defense? That's all I can think of.

[Cyrus]

Actually, the exact opposite. I've got +5% offence due to being a warrior race, but I've got +20% to defence from my racial traits. Anyone else care to test this with their race, or at least tell me this is the way it's supposed to be?

*edit*
Ok, I just ran a few more test.

I have a race that I modified with Normal defensiveness (100%), Improved defensiveness (110%), and Superior defensiveness (120%). None of these seem to make any difference.
In the simulator, at range 6 my Light Cruiser has a 20% chance to hit a Large Fighter at all three levels.

Outside the simulator, going from just the design screen, my Light Cruiser has a +65% to attack and +70% to defense. Whereas my Large Fighter has +80% to attack and +90% to defense.

I would have expected, at range 6, my fighter to get 150%-170% to defense (range bonus 60%, fighter bonus 90%, race bonus varying from 0%-20%) while the Light Cruiser would get 65% to attack. My fighter should have had between 85%-105% left over for defense against a ship's normal attack, which, if I remember correctly, would have meant that a ship had about a 1% chance to hit fighters with large weapons until they got into point blank range.

As it stands now, if a maximum technology Cruiser against a maximum technology fighter gets a 20%-30% chance to hit it in the simulator, does this mean that fighters are cannon fodder against a fleet that has any semblance of training? (As in Phased Polaron Beams having a 60%-70% chance to hit fighters at range 6 if you've trained them up with Ship and Fleet training facilites)

[This message has been edited by Cyrus (edited 09 November 2001).]

[DirectorTsaarx]

Part of the problem with predicting to-hit values is that the game engine doesn't just total up all the attacker's bonuses and then subtract all the defender's bonuses. The various bonuses are added/subtracted in a specific order; and, at some point, the actual to-hit is corrected to be a minimum of 1% or maximum of 99%. And THEN a couple more bonuses are added/subtracted and then the final to-hit is set to min 1%/max 99%. So, for instance, a weapon with a 10% bonus (like the Tachyon Cannon) will ALWAYS have a minimum to-hit of 11%, even if the defender has better defensive bonuses than the attacker's offensive bonuses. I'm not certain when other bonuses are added/subtracted, but I've seen other people on this forum explain the order for at least some of bonuses...

------------------
L++ GdY $ Fr>Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq-->Fq+ Nd>Nd+++++ Rp++ G+

[Cyrus]

Right, I knew that part and I'd completely expect a Wave Motion Gun (Though now that I think about it I don't know if it can target fighters) to have a minimum chance of 30% to hit anything. What I'm talking about though is Phased Polaron Beams, and Anti Proton Beams which is where I noticed this to begin with, which as far as I know don't have any bonus to hit.

The scenario where I first notice this was when I sent 60 fighters after a light cruiser and a destroyer. Neither of them had point defense, they were armed with missles and Anti-Proton beams. I lost 10% of my fighters before they got close enough to fire because the beam weapons could hit them so easily. And this is very early in the game, below turn 30.

[Commander G2]

Check to see if you have fleet or ship training. That will modify the to hit as well.

[Cyrus]

No ship or fleet training at all for me. Don't know about the enemy ship, though it's early in the game so I doubt it. The runs in the simulator don't use experience at all though so they should be valid.