Combat

[GeeWhiz]

What is the simplest way to determine how much force to use to take a colony or homeworld. I am not straight on how to approximate.

[Parsons]

Currently you can take the size of the colony and multiply it by 18. This will give you the defense number to shoot for in terms of attack power. This of course can be affected by things they research but it will give you a rough ball park. Error on the safe side and build a force larger than what you need.

[GeeWhiz]

Thanks a lot!

[ChickenHawk07]

Very cool. I'll have to give that a try.

[Supamand]

It really depends on the losses you are willing to sustain. Because combat is done in rounds, you can use smaller fleet, but you will have more casualties.
We discussed this few weeks ago and it was determined by Devs that you would need 120 dreadnoughts to take over a planet with no casualties (if you are at peace with the target and have 0 skills trained that increase dmg)

Also the 18 value is correct, colony has 18 hp/def per 1mil population.

[harlan]

How does attack power combine in a fleet? If a single battleship has 31 ATK 46 DEF, would a fleet of 50 battleships have a combined ATK of 1550?
I am attempting to attack an unpopulated outpost with a single orbital in place which has 262 ATK and 188 DEF. Multiplying 188 DEF by two gives 376 which ought to be easily overpowered by a fleet of 50 battleships.

[zarkwizard]

That's pretty much about how it works now. There is another thread that discusses proposed changes, and now with the combat simulator completed it will go a long way to helping us run test cases.

We will probably be looking at adding the simulator to the game in the future to help people run test case scenarios.

[harlan]

Just sent 57 battleships against that outpost defended by an energy beam orbital. All died. I'm on Mareth, target was Planet 497, Tsagoth's monitor just happens to be visiting the system. Am interested to know if there's some other reason why that orbital won't die...

[Parsons]

Maybe the outpost was actually a colony?

[harlan]

Maybe the outpost was actually a colony?

Planet shows zero population.

Maybe there's a stealth orbital.

[BAC33]

Just sent 57 battleships against that outpost defended by an energy beam orbital. All died. I'm on Mareth, target was Planet 497, Tsagoth's monitor just happens to be visiting the system. Am interested to know if there's some other reason why that orbital won't die...

Does anyone know? The description for the beam array says that's it's best suited for defense against lighter attack craft. Shouldn't it have been less effective against battleships? Once you have missile defense is there any reason to keep or build beam defenses?

[ChickenHawk07]

Does anyone know? The description for the beam array says that's it's best suited for defense against lighter attack craft. Shouldn't it have been less effective against battleships? Once you have missile defense is there any reason to keep or build beam defenses?

I always keep both. But I normally have double the amount of Missile Arrays versus Energy Arrays. The next build of the game will favor mixed attack forces, so having both will definitely help.