Armor & Shields On Units...

[Aiken]

I was distressed by Posts which assert that non-space units ignore skipping damage type weapons (I'll explain why, later) and decided to test it myself. As I see now this test was useless, but I'll post it anyway.

So, indeed armor skipping, shield skipping, armor and shield skipping and "all shields skipping" weapons only inflict normal damage, and shield points act as normal hp. Shield depleters don't work at all. Damn, now I have to change significant part of my offensive strategy in one of the pbw games

But the Last test was the most interesting one. Description:
Side 1: 4 BA armed with PPBs (3000 dmg at point blank).
Side 2: sphereworld defended with 60 WP of 3 types:
1) 20 Med WP ("Type1") with Phased Shield Generators V (3000 phased shield points + 330 hp from comps = 3330 hp total);
2) 20 Sm WP ("Type2") with Shield Generators V (1200 shield points + 170 hp from comps = 1370 hp total);
3) 20 Lg WP ("Type3") without shields, but with weapons (910 hp total).

Battle:
--------
Turn 0. In cargo: 20 Type1, 20 Type2, 20 Type3. Destroyed WP: 0.
Turn 1. In cargo: 20 Type1, 20 Type2, 8 Type3. Destroyed WP: 12 Type3 (least hp).
Turn 2. In cargo: 20 Type1, 16 Type2. Destroyed WP: 8 Type3(destroyed first), 4 Type2 (with medium hp, destroyed later).
Turn 3. In cargo: 20 Type1, 8 Type2. Destroyed WP: 8 Type2.
Turn 4. In cargo: 20 Type1. Destroyed WP: 8 Type2.
Turn 5. In cargo: 19 Type1. Destroyed WP: 1 Type1 (most hp).
etc, untill all WP were destroyed.

I did another test with 2 BA, but with the same result: choice of unit on planet to destroy is not random at all and the rule "least hp - destroyed first" still works with no exceptions. Double damn, now have to change WP defenses for a few dozens of planets in another pbw game

[Cheeze]

Don't shield depleters work against fighters (even if only 1 fighter at a time)?

[Slick]

Aiken, I respectfully disagree with the theory that least hitpoint WP's are always destroyed first with no exceptions. Your test method actually (unintentionally) skews your results to imply that this is the case when it is not. Here's my post from a while ago where I tested the order of Weapon Platform damage; please feel free to validate my results:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started a new high tech game with 2 human controlled empires, turn based. On homeworld A I built Weapon Platforms. On homeworld B I built 2 dreads with heavy mounted APB's. I conducted tactical combat at homeworld A using 1 weapon at a time, checking for surviving WP's after each shot.

Series 1
On Homeworld A I built 6 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with only WP computer core
1 medium WP with only WP computer core
1 large WP with only WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 medium WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 large WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's

Result: the first shot would always kill the 3 empty WP's then the remaining would be successively killed in order from small to large. 20 tries, exact same result in all cases.

This result is what might lead one to believe that WP's are destroyed from weakest to strongest since there usually is a significant difference in WP hitpoints in real games. And at first, I thought I proved it worked this way.

But then I started wondering if my test method was valid. After consideration I realized that randomly applied damage would still show the same results. This is because a small amount of damage would destroy a weak WP while it would "accumulate against" the strong WP without destroying it. So this test series didn't really prove anything.

Series 2
On Homeworld A I built 10 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and 1 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 2 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 3 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 4 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 5 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 6 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 7 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 8 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 9 PDC 5

The idea here is that there is only 20 kt difference between successive WP's.

Result: 20 runs. The WP's were NOT destroyed in order from weakest to strongest. Weaker ones TENDED to be destroyed before stronger ones. But there were several cases where the stronger WP's were destroyed before weaker ones. This validates the "random damage" position. If you randomly apply damage, you would expect this result.

Conclusion: WP's are not destroyed randomly but are damaged randomly; WP's with less hit points tend to be destroyed first because it takes less random hits to destroy them. [edit] This makes the idea of "shield platforms" interesting. Shield WP's will help absorb random hits to keep your weapon WP's alive longer, but only so far as they add more targets for the random damage - NOT that they get hit before or after other WP's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Slick.

[Joachim]

Ok, thanks guys for this very useful discussion.

In defending a planet then I would be best to build large numbers of small armour and shield WPs with a moderate number of large weapon WPs with some of their own shielding? This would allow for the random damage to hit the larger number of small shield platforms more often than the weapon ones and give the weapon ones a little more survivablity? Or does one just build large mixed ones?

[Aiken]

Slick said:
But then I started wondering if my test method was valid. After consideration I realized that randomly applied damage would still show the same results. This is because a small amount of damage would destroy a weak WP while it would "accumulate against" the strong WP without destroying it. So this test series didn't really prove anything.
...
Conclusion: WP's are not destroyed randomly but are damaged randomly; WP's with less hit points tend to be destroyed first because it takes less random hits to destroy them. [edit] This makes the idea of "shield platforms" interesting. Shield WP's will help absorb random hits to keep your weapon WP's alive longer, but only so far as they add more targets for the random damage - NOT that they get hit before or after other WP's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slick.

As always my peremptory statements put me in a spot Thank you Slick, for pointing out the defect in my logic (I missed that 3000 dmg is actually 10x300 dmg). I guess there's another method to check this: to mod weapon causing huge amount of damage per hit (several thousands) and test it on a big variety of WPs with very different HPs (max hitpoints of WP should not exceed weapon damage, so any WP could be destroyed in 1 shot). Probably it will be possible to find some correlation. It will be my homework for this evening

[Slick]

Here's my advice on Weapon Platforms: Build them only when you can't build a ship to do the same job. Ships and fleets have many more advantages. WP's are good for using up excess income if you have all your Spaceyards working already; but this means you really should be building more spaceyards. If you are using WP's, this means you are fighting the war in your systems - this is bad - you should try to fight the war in the other guy's systems. They may make you feel like you have a security blanket, but a decent fleet can normally easily glass or capture even a well defended planet.

They can be used as an emergency means during early contact, or to establish an outpost where the enemy doesn't have a fleet around. But SE4 is rightfully biased in favor of ships. If planets could overcome fleets, games would end in gridlock. Planets have disadvantages in defense (-200%!!) and in cargo capacity. They have advantages in range and damage multipliers for WP mounts. These can be used temporarily as a stop-gap measure (as can other units like mines, fighters and drones (which are not very good)), but if you invest in WP's at the expense of spaceyards and ships, you are asking to have the war fought in your systems while the enemy flourishes and continues to expand.

I recommend reading section 17 of the Newbie FAQ, written almost 100% by Stone Mill (former King of the Hill) and respected PBW player. Specifically 17.3.7 "Economic Harmony" really opened my eyes after I started practicing these techniques. Previous to this, I had been building too few spaceyards on planets, using too many WP's and not developing my empires as efficiently as I could have.

edit: As far as what kind of WP's to build, I recommend building the largest you can (to take advantage of the range and damage bonuses from the better mounts and that they have more hitpoints before being destroyed) and designing them to have some shielding or armor so you can minimize the micromanagement of them.

Slick.

[Unco]

Thanks everyone! I now know that the Fighters and Weapons Platforms that I've been building to fight a Religous, Null-Space Weapon using enemy in a Devnull Mod game I am playing in are the best they can be. Whew!

I humbly suggest the following change in SEV or the next SEIV Gold Devnull Mod:

Fighters:
No Small Armor components, but equivalent size and damage resistance "Structural Integrity" components. Their description would say that they increase damage resistance of the Fighter and are not skipped by any weapons. These components would be gained through research at the same time as Small Armor components were.

Weapons Platforms:
Armor and Shield components cannot be used on Weapons Platforms, but equivalent "Surface Protection" and "Planetary Energy Barrier" components would be available. Their description would say that they increase damage resistance (and regenerate in the case of Energy Barriers) of the Weapons Platform and are not skipped by any weapons. These components would be gained through research at the same time as Armor and Shield components were.

This would maintain the combat balance of the game, but make it clear to players exactly how these components behave.

And a bug would be fixed!

Thanks again everyone!

[Mephisto]

Good findings, Slick!

[Suicide Junkie]

Their description would say that they increase damage resistance (and regenerate in the case of Energy Barriers) of the Weapons Platform and are not skipped by any weapons.

Unit and planetary shields can't regenerate during combat, and armor "regenerates" after combat since there is no partial damage.

[Q]

Some more test results from the combat simulator using shield depleters and null space weapons for attack:

Weapon platforms: Shield depleters: no effect
Null space weapon: only normal damage, no shield skipping.

Satellites: Shield depleter and null space weapon work normal as against ships.

Fighters: shield depleters are effective.
null space weapons: only normal damage, no shield skipping.

Drones: shield depleters and null space weapon work normal as against ships.

Time distortion bomb: only normal damage (no 4x damage to shields additionally) against all units.