Combat

[UFB]

One thing I've been wondering about for a while is, does the way combat works make sense?

When two units fight, the attacker's weapon strength and the defender's armor strength are used against each other for the entire battle (correct?). But why does, say, a "defender with an armor of 6 and hand weapons" have better odds to *kill* an "attacker with an armor of 6 and particle impactors"?

[Sarxis]

Its just the style of the combat system. But I agree- I'd rather see weapon vs. armor for both Attacker and Defender.

[Jamski]

Some kind of counter-attack would be good, where the defender's weapons go against the attacker's armour. Dunno how that would work though.

-Jam

[Illuminatus]

Good point. This way it looks that the defenders are just moving targets for attackers, meaning that attack fails if attackers spend their ammunition and succeeds if moving targets aren`t moving anymore .
Maybe the game should switch "positions" of attacker and defender after each round of combat, meaning that it would be attackers weapons against defenders armor in first round, but defenders weapon against attackers armor in the next round, and so on until the combat ends.
In that case the attacker would be" attacker" in the first round (sound strange, doesn`t it but don`t be ).
I think it would work fine.
Guess it is hardcoded in the game (like some other bad things) so we can only hope for sequel or some skillful programers who will make a good mod.

[Illuminatus]

Another idea: maybe defenders with low morale would miss a chance for counterattack or gain a bonus one if they have high morale.
This sounds perhaps too similar to HOMM.
Maybe chance for counterattack should be set as 1 as normal value but would needed to be verified with ration of attackers and defenders morale (high moraled attackers negate counterattack for low moraled defenders or high moraled defenders affirm chance for counterattack and perhaps gain a bonus one if the ration is favorable enough for them).
I would like to see something like this.

[gwillybj]

The power reserve of the attacker's reactor is depleted while energizing its weapons to defeat the defender's armor.
The power reserve of the defender's reactor is depleted while energizing its armor to defeat the attacker's weapon.

The closer the defending armor value is to the attacking weapon, the more power expenditure is required to defeat it. This (and a little luck, aka the "fudge factor") is reflected in the "damage" taken by the attacker.

If in a single turn of combat the rounds alternated as

posted by obstructor:
Maybe the game should switch "positions" of attacker and defender after each round of combat, meaning that it would be attackers weapons against defenders armor in first round, but defenders weapon against attackers armor in the next round, and so on until the combat ends.

then players would stop building "best-weapon, 1-armor" assault units or "1-weapon, best-armor" garrison units, and all of everyone's units would have only "best-weapon, best-armor".

[CEO Aaron]

The combat system doesn't really make sense in tactical terms, but SMAC/X isn't really a tactical game. Strategically, the way combat works makes the unit designer possible, and keeps combat from being needlessly complicated.

If you want to play a strategy game where every unit you build has applicable tactical attributes that have legitimate meaning on the battlefield, I recommend you try the excellent Total War series of games, starting with Shogun:Total War. You can find their site here:

http://www.totalwar.com/

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by gwillybj
The power reserve of the attacker's reactor is depleted while energizing its weapons to defeat the defender's armor.
The power reserve of the defender's reactor is depleted while energizing its armor to defeat the attacker's weapon.

The closer the defending armor value is to the attacking weapon, the more power expenditure is required to defeat it. This (and a little luck, aka the "fudge factor") is reflected in the "damage" taken by the attacker.

Really?
Didn`t know that.
It seems that I didn`t think about Workshop. In my way defensive units would be too expensive and far too simillar to attackers . But still combat is weird. Maybe Firaxis originaly sought something like this but dismissed it.

By the way CEO Aaron I do not want to play such complex game - but tactic elements help a lot in strategy. But UFB made a good question. Some of things in SMAC/X don`t have sense even if they are not bugs but I don`t mind when I play the game. Luckly this isn`t CIV 3 - complete absence of any combat tactics or strategy - just two or three patterns for combat.

And I would like to try Total war series (I heard about them) but it is hard to find them for sale, especially in my country. Some hit games never get published because of the monopoly certain our publisher has, and some are ridicuosly expensive (like ?!*"$ mistake when I bought Civ 3 for such a sum). Some are never published in sufficient quantities (like SMAX which I searched for years and years because they ordered twenty or thirty freakin copies for whole country! can you imagine bloody *?!"#%$%)).
Hopefully they will remember a "newer" soldout
emission.
Perhaps someone here can help me?

[UFB]

Thanks for the replies.

I forgot to say that multiplayer SMAC is my favorite game of all time !

[gwillybj]

Originally posted by obstructor:
But still combat is weird. Maybe Firaxis originaly sought something like this but dismissed it.

Yes, it is, and yes, they did. If they had been able to implement it, combat would be even weirder.

From three sections of alphax.txt:
; Weapons & non-combat packages
; Mode = Offense mode (or noncombat package type)
; Combat modes: 0=Projectile, 1=Energy, 2 = Missile

; Armor
; Mode = Armor mode (0=Projectile, 1=Energy, 2=Binary)

; Combat modes
; Projectile weapons receive a bonus against Energy Armor.
; Energy weapons receive a bonus against Projectile Armor.
; No weapon receives a bonus against Binary Armor.
; Missile weapons never receive a bonus.

Those modes appear throughout the weapon and armor lists, but, alas, are meaningless in the game. Imagine having to deal not only with the strengths of 17 combat weapons and 14 armors, but also remembering which of the 3 modes each is? How much more fun we could have had!

[Sarxis]

I wouldn't have minded the 'types' having been implemented. I just hope there's a more interesting combat system for the next CIV game.

[Blake]

It's difficult to rationalize the weapon vs armor thing, the closest I've come is that attacker gets a massive first-shot benefit, they can get a good volley off before the defender even knows they under attack. The defenders armor is critical in asorbing this first volley, once the defenders have located their target any weapon will do for the defense. Prehaps all weapons only have enough charge/expensive ammo for a single powerfull volley, and after that everyone sheds their armor or leaves their (holed) vehicles and run around killing each other with hand weapons.