What about Energy/Projectile bonuses?

Straybow · October 11, 2002, 19:26

I've seen a couple of write-ups about combat resolution. The SMAC manual and alpha.txt mention a "bonus" when an energy weapon attacks projectile armor or vice versa. What is this bonus, and how is it factored in to combat?

Method · October 11, 2002, 20:04

AFAIK, it was not implemented

Clear Skies · October 12, 2002, 06:02

Would've been too much bother, IMHO. You'd have to have about four different sentinels in your bases to defend against every potential attack.

Straybow · October 12, 2002, 17:17

That's good, because armor being half the value of contemporary weapons already sucks. Why make it worse?

Lefty Scaevola · October 12, 2002, 23:30

Not implemented.

Mr. President · October 13, 2002, 00:20

Just as well it wasn't implemented. The last thing we need is more complication.

Lazerus · October 13, 2002, 07:46

The best form of defense is offense anyways

Clear Skies · October 13, 2002, 13:12

Which is why I squish Miriam ASAP. Some of the others I mgiht leave around for a bit longer though...makes it more fun

Straybow · October 14, 2002, 01:11

Miriam or Yang. And yes, offense is the best form of defense. That's why modeling the "defense" of a unit solely on armor is lousy. Do they suppose the defender doesn't return fire?

"We're just going to stand around, and maybe try to duck, but we're saving our ammo for our turn to attack."

Urban Ranger · October 14, 2002, 05:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Straybow
That's good, because armor being half the value of contemporary weapons already sucks. Why make it worse?

Since you can build perimeter defenses and tachyon fields, that means defense will be the same as offense. If you have defense the same as offense before these improvements are taken into consideration, you'll never get anywhere.

Straybow · October 14, 2002, 19:53

Civ2 only the toughest units attack at double the value of standard defenders, and the defensive bonuses (fortifying, walls, terrain) are higher. It should be damned hard to attack competent, dug-in defenders. Prevailing paradigm (WWII to present) is that fortified defenses slow advance and multiply casualties by a factor of 5.

In SMAC once you've got noodles you can attack many times and rarely loose a plane. Of course, once a plane with nontrivial damage is hanging in mid-air it will be picked off unless you can park a fighter over it.

CEO Aaron · October 14, 2002, 20:30

Expecting (debatable) WWII tactical realities to be prevalent in a _game_ about the near to far-flung future seems, to me, to be wishful thinking _at best_. The ratio between attack and defense was a gameplay decision, pure and simple and the attack/armor paradigm of attack and defense is just a convenient, easily understood shorthand of strategic battle. The object is creating a balanced model of gameplay, not mimicing the siege of the Maginot Line.

And as to the the prevailing paradigm, just as the Iraqis how their fortifications stood up to American air-power. The only way they slowed the advance was the time it took to accept their surrendur or bulldoze the trenches with their troops inside.

ir · October 15, 2002, 08:51

To Clear Skies:

It was fun to see two factions dead in first 30 turns playing as Sister. Huge map, transcend. Angels are history, Zakharov's doing all research. And strongest unit was 1-1-1... No time for making prototypes.. Damned Angels with their insta probe team..

P.S. Sorry for OT comment. Fun to play SMAX after 2 year's break.

ir · October 15, 2002, 08:54

To CEO Aaron:

You talk about situation comparable with conflict of bow and cannon. Very different tech level.

Straybow · October 15, 2002, 09:44

Nope, Desert Storm was not a case of competent entrenchment, Vietnam was. Nope, not talking about Maginot Line. Maginot Line was "fighting the last war." Mobile warfare is almost certainly here to stay, and anything else (like the WWI tactics of the Iran-Iraq war) would be worse as far as attack value is concerned.

Weapon = attack, Armor = defense is a shorthand of ballistics rather than strategic or tactical nature of combat. That is why it fails, IMO.

MariOne · October 15, 2002, 13:49

That's why I LOVE MoM's tactical combat model, where in melee mode both unit *simultaneously* swing their swords at each round.
The hits you land are still calculated by your swords against their shields.
But *at the same time* you'll get hit by their swords against your shields.
Then the surviving figures in the units will face next round.
It's *quite* possible that *both* units involved in a melee fight die at the same time.

Of course it's a design choice to avoid tactical combat and simplify the model.
Still, instead of an Attacker weapon vs Defender armor (Aw-Da) model, a combined (Aw-Da)-(Dw-Aa) would have still been with reach of a reasonably handled simplification.

I'm NOT one expecting realism from a game, but the thing that less makes sense in a too simplified model is:
HOW can the attacker GET DAMAGED by the defender's armor?

The flaw tho is more in the definitions than in the model.
If instead of callingit "armor", you call it "defensive fighting value", there you can imagine encompassed in that term all the set of equipment and skills you can deploy when defending, including the firepower you are able to put together when striking back at the attacker...

Sikander · October 21, 2002, 21:00

The problem with Civ, SMAC etc. is it's reliance on trying to model (however offhandedly) tactical units / soldiers on a strategic scale. It doesn't work. You need to depict units, not weapon systems. Weapon systems do not act independently (exception: WOMD) on this scale, not even in the caveman days. That's why I always had to laugh whenever I saw a catapult alone on a 100 square kilometer chunk of Mesopotamia while playing Civ. And they even penalized you for trying to use combined arms tactics and concentration, which has been a hallmark of good generalship since the ancient era.

SMAC is a little better because it moderates both the near prohibition against stacking a bit (collateral damage rather than one dies, all die), and it allows to a tiny extent a bit of combined arms capability by allowing you to design units with weapons, armor, movement etc. in whatever configuration you can afford.

I have to agree with Marione, Master of Magic was one of the best games to have come out in the last decade. If only someone would repackage it for new operating systems, fix a few bugs and update the graphics and sound, I would buy it (again) in a minute. The game concepts remain quite strong.

Straybow · October 23, 2002, 04:07

In Civ2 you see a shift from ancient units that have limited defense to modern units that have strong defense. It is the paradigm of the firearm that standoff defense is very strong. By the time you get to WWII-era infantry weapons defense is potentially stronger than offense (Rifleman is 4/5).

This reflects the "best defense is a strong offense" reality (which is not the same as realism). That trend could only continue with more and more powerful weapons a la SMAC. Energy weapons with electronic targetting and other such gizmos would be highly effective against any threat: armor, aircraft, even warships.