question bout priorities....

[derry]

this morning i had a small discussion with 1 of our BC's... it was about the priorities the defending ships should be send with, i said they should be send with ships-ship as priorities cause then they do mroe damage --> more distubunce --> less roids

the bc said that i should send em with ships-roids, the ships for the distubance, and the roids 2 protect the defending planets roids.

but i doubt it works that way, as far as i'm know bout the game is that as long as the distubance gets higher, the roids capped are less, and the way 2 get the disturbance higher is 2 kill more ships --> ships-ships as priority

so i was wondering what is the better setting of priorities according 2 you guys,

thnx in advance

derry

[Remy]

easy

in theory, setting roids might protect roids (i dunno exactly)

but if you set ships ships, then attacker will lose more ships, which will make the attacker get less roids, as you already said, so you kill more ships, making it less attractive to land anyway.

[Doorsdown]

derry if u use ships/ships and can only kill 50% of the ships then the other 50% can go for roids with no trouble at all.

Roid/Roids is more like the Ships sit by the roids and just fend off the ships going for roids

[Kal]

the attacker won;t know u r set to ships/ships though - so might land thinking its low def - there is then no guarantee that your ships set to kill ships will shoot at the ships actually set to roid.

for instance the other day i landed on someoen - he was set to ships/ships - i lost 131 BS - but i still capped 230 roids, this led to my score increasing.... so in theory I could ahve sya lost another 70 BS or so and still got roids - sure thay woudl ahve been expensive, but in my position worth it.


Some alliances say they send def until 20% of the attackers die... if they do this with their ships set to ships/ships then the attackers will still get roids if they land.

The real problem is that the attackers won;t know what your ships are set to, so might go for the risky expensive roids option - as I myself do - so based on that i'd send ships set to mixed/mixed - otherwise the defence side coudl end up with loosing a lot of roids and structures.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Remy

easy

in theory, setting roids might protect roids (i dunno exactly)

That's the first problem. The meaning of fleet priorities for defensive missions has never been adequately explained. The manual explains what the priorities mean for attacking missions but not what they mean for defensive missions (if, indeed, they mean anything at all).

[Doorsdown]

the do the same as attacking only they just prevent it rather than do it

[Kal]

the problem is that a dead ship can't cap roids obviosuly, so killing ships does prevent roid capping, but only if you kill enough ships.... the question is what is the perfect setting...

[derry]

Originally Posted by Doorsdown

the do the same as attacking only they just prevent it rather than do it

how do you know for sure?

cause spinner never told us anything bout deffing priorities, but looking at kalvirtus post putting deffing ships 2 roids-roids works, so IF it is like that i think ships-roids or roids-ships might indeed be best, but if it aint, ships-ships is the way

ps. it might even be possible deffing ships are send mixed-mixed just like ur base "fleet" settings, cause ur base fleet is pure deensive, and when u launch a mission it might change 2 that without any1 knowing :s

[dabult]

Originally Posted by derry

the bc said that i should send em with ships-roids, the ships for the distubance, and the roids 2 protect the defending planets roids.

First reaction was, what a dumbass.



Now that i read the rest through and thought about it...nah, I still think the same. :P

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by derry

how do you know for sure?

cause spinner never told us anything bout deffing priorities, but looking at kalvirtus post putting deffing ships 2 roids-roids works, so IF it is like that i think ships-roids or roids-ships might indeed be best, but if it aint, ships-ships is the way

ps. it might even be possible deffing ships are send mixed-mixed just like ur base "fleet" settings, cause ur base fleet is pure deensive, and when u launch a mission it might change 2 that without any1 knowing :s

It is true that spinner never told us but while doing defence, i have seen people get roids when defenders used ships/ships since not enough ships were destroyed

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Doorsdown

It is true that spinner never told us but while doing defence, i have seen people get roids when defenders used ships/ships since not enough ships were destroyed

However, that doesn't prove that a different defense mission would have made a difference.

It's probably not a difficult experiment to run, however. And of course, it would be trival for HQ to just tell us.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by KalVirtus

the attacker won;t know u r set to ships/ships though - so might land thinking its low def - there is then no guarantee that your ships set to kill ships will shoot at the ships actually set to roid.

for instance the other day i landed on someoen - he was set to ships/ships - i lost 131 BS - but i still capped 230 roids, this led to my score increasing.... so in theory I could ahve sya lost another 70 BS or so and still got roids - sure thay woudl ahve been expensive, but in my position worth it.


Some alliances say they send def until 20% of the attackers die... if they do this with their ships set to ships/ships then the attackers will still get roids if they land.

The real problem is that the attackers won;t know what your ships are set to, so might go for the risky expensive roids option - as I myself do - so based on that i'd send ships set to mixed/mixed - otherwise the defence side coudl end up with loosing a lot of roids and structures.

There seems to be some strange battle reports around at times ... but the idea of setting defence ships to roids, to 'protect' them, is the strangest thing I've heard this round.

You say you lost a lot of BS and still capped roids ... what you don't say is what % of BS were lost, or if there were other untargetted ships in the attack as well.

If alliances believe 20% ships loss is enough to prevent roid loss they could well be mistaken - particularly if the attacker has priorities set to roids/roids. I'd assume with more ships trying to grab roids, all the more 'disturbance' would be needed to stop them.

I would seriously like some more info on this tho ... especially if Tacitus is taking seriously the idea that DEFENCE ships should be set roids.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Breeze

I would seriously like some more info on this tho ... especially if Tacitus is taking seriously the idea that DEFENCE ships should be set roids.

Whoa, I never said that! I'm as confused on this issue as anyone.


More so, probably.

[dabult]

The Priorities in short:
- Support: Fleet is focussing on destroying factories.
- Structures: Fleet is focussing on destroying buildings other then factories
- Ships: Fleet is focussing on killing other ships
- Roids: Fleet is focussing on getting asteroids
- Mixed: All different priorities are divided evenly within the fleet

It couldnt be much clearer really, nothing about how you defend roids, with roids as prio.


But then again...I pasted that from the manual so who knows...:/

[derry]

from teh manual, in earlier rounds i wouldnt believe the manual, but since they had 2 rewrite it for PaX i geuss they manual should be more complete, so looking at this its ships-ships for priorities

[Zotnam]

I sent 4k frigs to attack with priorities roids/roids.. turns out I lose 600, under 20% of the amount sent, and still I get NO ROIDS! Maybe the fact that I didn´t kill anything matters? Certainly like that in the early beta, if you 'won' a battle, killing more ships than they killed of yours you got many roids if with 25% losses .. But tbh I think this should all be explained by a creator..

[derry]

i think thats 1 of the things whey won't tell us, they want us 2 find out everything bout the formula's oursellfs.

[mikay]

Zotnam can you show us the brep.

Sure you didn't go ships/ships by mistake

[Dr_Evil]

Clearly if you set priorities to other than ships/ships in defence, you wont kill the optimal number of ships, and the attacker is more likely to get roids.

What would you do if you were a captain on one of the defending ships, and you saw one of the enemy ships stealing an astroid; would you try to kill the ship to free the astroid, or would you try to steal the astroid from the ship? (if u select roid priorities, u basically try to steal back the roids instead of killing their ships)

[derry]

thasts the more logical approach, but since we all kno, this game aint about logics...

but if it theoriticly possible, then roids-ships (or ships-roids) might be handy

[Dr_Evil]

http://tools.visionhq.org/parser.php...868&section=pa

The attacker probably didn't count on me using ships/ships priorities.

[Morphose]

From what I have seen in my own battles and defenses,ships-ships Does kill more ships, but roids-roids protects more. I have defended against greater odds but still lost no roids because I have set my priorities on roids.

If you were looking at the defense priorities;
ships=destroy hostile ships
structures= protect structures
factories= protect factories
roids= protect roids
mixed= mixed protection

Doesn't that sound correct? Look at your next defense. If you defend someone smaller in your galaxy next time try sending a smaller fleet than you need to destroy the attacker and set your priorities to roids. I promise you they will lose less roids.

[dabult]

It's more fun to kill ships than just protect roids though :-P

[General Martok]

why kill an attacker for 10% and defend the roids with setting roids when you just can kill 25% of the attacker? I don't see the point...

[Ultimate Newbie]

I have to agree Martok - unless you loose (far?) less roids by having Roids/Roids as your priority.

I might to email MrBrick about this to see if he can clear it up (as he wrote the manual too afaik). For now though, i'd keep using ships/ships

Besides, killing ships is fun .

[Nadar]

What difference does it make? Kill 20% of the attacking ships and the attacker won't cap.. simple as that ;p

[Seed of Chaos]

Does this mean, that if you don't have the appropriate anti whatever ships, you can send def anyway and protect roids by setting priority at roids roids?

[Spinner]

Lets simulate a bit:
1000 FI's VS 300 FI's (we will say they all have 20 in armour and 10 in damage for simplicity)
Attacker comes in with ROIDS-ROIDS on priorities
Defender has SHIPS-SHIPS

From the manual:
The Primary priority will use up 40% of your ships focus, the second uses 20% of the focus and the remaining 40% of focus is ALWAYS reserved for conventional combat and dog-fighting, even when there are no hostiles present.
Attacker then has 600 ships going for roids, and 400 ships going for ships.
Defender has 300 ships going for ships.

First, we resolve ship vs ship combat:
400 FIs VS 300 FIs will result in 4000 damage from the attackers and 3000 damage from the defenders, which would kill 200 and 150 ships on the two sides. This means, the attacker looses 150 of its 400 FIGHTING SHIPS, and since he had more than 150, he doesnt lose any capping ships.
Which means, his CAPPING ships are completely undisturbed, and can cap up to max of their ability.

What had happened if the defender had ROIDS-ROIDS?

That would mean the defender reserves 60 % of his ships to deal with the cappers, and only the last 40% to try to kill. So his 40% killing ships would take down (40 % of 300 * 10 damage / 20 armour) of the attacking FI's, which is 60 dead attacking FIs. As the attacker would still kill 200 ships from the defender, he loses his 120 (the 40% with ships priority which couldnt be changed) and 80 of the ones trying to stop cappers, leaving the defender with just 100 ships wth a priority to stop capping.
But now, at least he has 100 ships disturbing the 600 ships, as opposed to none, and will reduce the number of capped roids. The 100 defending ships would match about 1 6th of the attackers (16,6%), so the capping ships would cap less, due to being disturbed.

Make any sense whatsoever?

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Spinner

What had happened if the defender had ROIDS-ROIDS?

That would mean the defender reserves 60 % of his ships to deal with the cappers, and only the last 40% to try to kill. So his 40% killing ships would take down (40 % of 300 * 10 damage / 20 armour) of the attacking FI's, which is 60 dead attacking FIs. As the attacker would still kill 200 ships from the defender, he loses his 120 (the 40% with ships priority which couldnt be changed) and 80 of the ones trying to stop cappers, leaving the defender with just 100 ships wth a priority to stop capping.

Erm, so the SHIPS-targeting ships will preferentially target the opposing SHIPS-targeting ships, and only after killing all the SHIPS-targeting ships will they target the ROIDS-targeting ships? That's a bit, ah, counter-intuitive. Also, you've kinda kept initiative in place, insofar as SHIPS-targeting ships effectively fire before ROIDS-targeting ships.

I assume SUPPORT-targeting and STRUCTURES-targeting ships are also targeted/killed after SHIPS-targeting ships? Are they targeting the same as ROIDS-targeted ships or is there an additional priority?

But now, at least he has 100 ships disturbing the 600 ships, as opposed to none, and will reduce the number of capped roids. The 100 defending ships would match about 1 6th of the attackers (16,6%), so the capping ships would cap less, due to being disturbed.

Hm, so tactically speaking, ROIDS-ROIDS is probably the best all-around defense. If the defender can't kill at least 40% of the attacker's ships he's probably better off defending with ROIDS-ROIDS--he'll lose more ships and kill fewer attacking ships, but he'll reduce the cap. If the defense has so few ships that they won't survive the SHIPS-targeting initiative phase, then they probably shouldn't be defending in the first place; and if they have so many ships that they'll kill more than 40% of the attacker, then the attacker will probably recall.

Make any sense whatsoever?

Well, now that you explain it, yes.

[Spinner]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Erm, so the SHIPS-targeting ships will preferentially target the opposing SHIPS-targeting ships, and only after killing all the SHIPS-targeting ships will they target the ROIDS-targeting ships? That's a bit, ah, counter-intuitive. Also, you've kinda kept initiative in place, insofar as SHIPS-targeting ships effectively fire before ROIDS-targeting ships.

I have to admit, I am actutally unsure whether the ships will prefer to target the ship-killing-ships, or whether the damage is distributed among ships with all priorities. The first option was what I intended, but I dont read fudge'd code all that well, and there have been inconsistencies before (:
And yes, the order is Ship-combat, Structure-combat, Roid-capping.

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I assume SUPPORT-targeting and STRUCTURES-targeting ships are also targeted/killed after SHIPS-targeting ships? Are they targeting the same as ROIDS-targeted ships or is there an additional priority?

Since I cant really find a place in the combat code about this, I think I must assume that all groups are targeted evenly. If that is the case though, it changes quite a bit. I will try go to get to the bottom of this.

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Hm, so tactically speaking, ROIDS-ROIDS is probably the best all-around defense. If the defender can't kill at least 40% of the attacker's ships he's probably better off defending with ROIDS-ROIDS--he'll lose more ships and kill fewer attacking ships, but he'll reduce the cap. If the defense has so few ships that they won't survive the SHIPS-targeting initiative phase, then they probably shouldn't be defending in the first place; and if they have so many ships that they'll kill more than 40% of the attacker, then the attacker will probably recall.
Well, now that you explain it, yes.

Well, if you try the same combat twice, defffing with Ships-Ships, and then Roids-Roids, you will see that you lose a lot less roids when deffing them. As intended, that was like THE idea (-:

[ArcChas]

It would have been useful if someone had actually made that clear before the start of R10 - if, in fact, it turns out to be the case.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Spinner

Well, if you try the same combat twice, defffing with Ships-Ships, and then Roids-Roids, you will see that you lose a lot less roids when deffing them. As intended, that was like THE idea (-:

No doubt; but it wasn't at all clear (at least to me, anyway) that Fleet Missions even worked on defense, since the manual only mentions what Fleet Missions do when attacking. Also, you need to have at least enough ships to survive the SHIPS-targeting combat step before you'd see any difference.

[Andy_r]

Spinner's description does make sense, but since no-one has noticed the effects of this in an entire round, I guess it's safe to say that it's either broken or rarely affects the outcome of battles.

I've always assumed disturbance was an on/off thing, so disturbing 16.6% of the ships as in the example above would not achieve anything, since 16.6 is less than the cut-off of approx 22%. I suppose this would only affect those rare situations where the opponent is undisturbed, but is not left with enough ship strength to cap the full percentage?

While Spinner is poking about in the combat code, maybe he could try to find out why FACTORIES/FACTORIES appears to target more structures than factories, and why STRUCTURES/STRUCTURES is noticeably better at hitting factories!