Combat problem...

[Suicide Junkie]

You're not being suckered in by missile fire, fighters or sats, are you?
(Ships like to close in and fire PDCs at those things)

[geoschmo]

Nope. My ships do have PDC, but he has no missles or fighters that should attract them. ANd they aren't closing to PDC range, they are just going one space closer than they need to to be in missle range.

The planet takes four space on the combat map. THe way I understand it missle ships at max range should never come any close than 16 spaces from the far side of the planet. That would keep them 13 spaces fomr the near side of the planet and keep them out of range of his beams. And that's how it works in the simulator. Every time.

But in the actual combat replay they close one square closer than nessecary, which brings them in range of his beams.

I can't figure it. Can't figure it at all.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

Has it anything to do with the bug fix a few patches back that solved the problem with ships not being able to hit planets becasue planets take up 4 combat squares.

I think there was something about ships closing an extra square or so in order to make sure they were in range of the whole planet and not just some of it.

It doesn't sound like a likely reason for your problem, but maybe..?

[geoschmo]

Well that is apparently what is happening D, but it's a little buggy. It can hit the far side from a certain point, but it's going one square closer than that. It could actually shoot at a target one square beyond the planet from that range. And that is what is bring them under the gun from the planet.

Guess I'll jsut have to deal with it.

Geoschmo

[Slick]

Shouldn't the problem then exist in both real combat and the simulator? It seems that there are many examples of the simulator not acting like real combat.

I am assuming that since you can't simulate planets outside your home system, you chose one of your planets of the same size as the enemy, and that you made your own weapon platform which is identical to the one you saw on the planet to load onto that planet. Maybe there are some differences that you can't simulate that make the difference. What about your ship's experience? If it is high, maybe it figured that it was "untouchable" at the closer range due to defense bonuses, which cannot be simulated in the simulator????

[Wardad]

I thought I read in some thread that max range was set to eight squares.

What is your secondary strategy?

[Grandpa Kim]

From the Version history:

Version 1.60:
1. Fixed - In Combat when targeting a planet, ships will move 1 square closer
so they can hit all 4 squares of the planet.

This is the only change I found, since v. 1.49, that might have anything to do with your problem, Geo. If this too is flaky, this could be the prob.

Has anyone else run into Geo's problem?

Kim