Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Mine Damage Dodge - bug or feature? (split from: Late game minesweeper)
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Tue, 05 May 2009 08:24   |
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| Micha wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 07:03 |
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m.a@stars[/email] wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 10:56]| Micha wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 09:00 |
But now that the beast is in the open, any name for it? I'll add it to the Bug list (leaving it at the hosts decission to ban it or not) ... and will split this thread.
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"Mine Damage Bug" ?
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Not specific enough I'd say. And it doesn't say what it does ... something like "dodging mine damage" would come closer ...
But I'm not particular talented when it comes to words ... and English isn't my first language so ...
mch
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I think your name is good Micha. I'd word it slightly differently as the "Mine Damage Dodge".
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Tue, 05 May 2009 18:00 |
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| AlexTheGreat wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 03:32 |
Is that generally considered an acceptable technique or not? I'd hate to use it if I'm likely to be called a cheat but if it's OK & others do it then .....
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I'd consider it as cheating.
| Micha wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 09:00 |
But now that the beast is in the open...
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An ugly beast, indeed. I've heard about it but never really realized the impact this ugly bug can have:
There are a lot of ship types which would usually blow up when hit by a standard minefield: mini bombers, b17, scouts, frigates... and thus one tends to act very carefully with such fleets because nobody likes to loose ALL bombers in a fleet plus ALL xports, scouts, chaff etc.
Is this all negated by this bug?
Perhaps, could anybody, please, give an example how mine-damage is alloacated in a fleet with
# 10 chaff (first design slot)
# 40 mini-bomber
# 55 destroyer
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Tue, 05 May 2009 20:51 |
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| Altruist wrote on Wed, 06 May 2009 10:00 |
Perhaps, could anybody, please, give an example how mine-damage is alloacated in a fleet with
# 10 chaff (first design slot)
# 40 mini-bomber
# 55 destroyer
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I did a test with fleets of 1-5 'different' designs with DDs and CCs(in fact all designs were identical except for the hull and name).Actual designs used were:
DD, FM, fuel tank, wolverine shield
CC, 2xFM, 4x wolverine shield
In all cases, every design in the fleet after the first received the minimum damage(125 per engine in this case as they all had FM engines). The first fleet recieved the remaining damage. The minimum damage happens to be 20% of the full damage, and the first fleet received the remaining percentage ie
with 2 designs: 80%
with 3 designs: 60%
with 4 designs: 40%
with 5 designs(and presumably 6 or more): 20%
My test only had one ship of each design per fleet, but I expect that in your case the chaff would take 60% of the damage(3x minimum damage) and the mini-bombers and destroyers would both take 100(or 125)dp/ship... the DD's survive when they wouldn't have if they'd been first, but the bombers die anyway.
Its worth nothing that the increased damage to the first design would be enough to destroy ships that otherwise might have survived had the damage been spread evenly.
[Updated on: Tue, 05 May 2009 20:53] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Tue, 05 May 2009 20:52 |
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| Altruist wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 18:00 |
| AlexTheGreat wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 03:32 |
Is that generally considered an acceptable technique or not? I'd hate to use it if I'm likely to be called a cheat but if it's OK & others do it then .....
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I'd consider it as cheating.
| Micha wrote on Tue, 05 May 2009 09:00 |
But now that the beast is in the open...
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An ugly beast, indeed. I've heard about it but never really realized the impact this ugly bug can have:
There are a lot of ship types which would usually blow up when hit by a standard minefield: mini bombers, b17, scouts, frigates... and thus one tends to act very carefully with such fleets because nobody likes to loose ALL bombers in a fleet plus ALL xports, scouts, chaff etc.
Is this all negated by this bug?
Perhaps, could anybody, please, give an example how mine-damage is alloacated in a fleet with
# 10 chaff (first design slot)
# 40 mini-bomber
# 55 destroyer
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It's not as bad as that.
Assuming that we're talking about standard mines.
All chaff & MBs would be destroyed. The DDs would suffer 100dp damage each if no Ram Scoop engine in the FLEET & 125dp damage each otherwise. If the DDs are shielded then up to 50% of the damage would be soaked up by them.
So, in fact, the fleet would suffer excactly the same losses & damages regarless of the design order.
We're only talking about using 1 chaff to protect 1 more expensive ship. In that case the effect is that the chaff is lost but the more expensive ship is damaged as if it were a fleet of 5.
Take a DD sweeper with Ramscoop, weapon, Wolverine. If the race has RS then:
............... Damage to each Sweeper
Fleet ....... With Chaff . Without Chaff
1 Sweeper ...... 31% ........ 100%
2 Sweepers ..... 31% ........ 100%
3 Sweepers ..... 31% ......... 58%
4 Sweepers ..... 31% ......... 37%
5+ Sweepers .... 31% ......... 31%
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Wed, 06 May 2009 07:07 |
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| iztok wrote on Wed, 06 May 2009 02:01 |
Hi!
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Damage to each Sweeper
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If I'm reading that correctly, and apply that to HEAVY mines, then it's possible to sweep them with 1 chaff + 2 CCs, CCs taking only 1000 damage when that fleet would hit minefield.
Assuming good shielding, CCs would be damaged only 28% instead destroyed. Assuming also a retreat with WP-1 merge with a SFX, they'd be fit for another sweeping in next turn. Now that would be an exploit. 
BR, Iztok
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Actually, without testing it, I believe you could do it with 1 chaff + 1 CC since damage to the CC would only be 500 or 600dp depending on Ramscoop or not. With 300dp of shields I calculate damage at 36% or 43% respectively regardless of how many CCs.
Does anyone know whether it works with Heavy mines?
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Wed, 06 May 2009 13:25 |
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 Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA | 
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I copied this to a draft email a while ago. Thought it was from starsfaq dot com in section 6.3, but now that reference is missing.
Minefield Damage
"The numbers in parentheses (...) should be used if *any* of the ships in the fleet have ramscoop engines (this includes the enigma pulsar and the settlers delight engine)
For fleets with more than 5 ships:
Each ship takes 100 (125) damage per engine it has.
For small fleets, 5 ships or less - all of a single design:
The fleet takes 500 (600) * # engines per ship, this is shared equally by all ships in the fleet
For small fleets, 5 ships or less - with multiple designs in fleet:
The first design in the fleet menu (sorted by F4 design order), takes damage as for a single design fleet, but the 500 (600) is modified first by the number of missing/gained engines * 100 (125). The rest of the ships in the fleet take 100 (125) per engine. Missing engines are compared to the number of engines the fleet would have, had all the designs had the same number of engines:
Example: 2 nubians [3 engines each - first design] and 2 DNs [5 engines each] = 4 gained engines.
( 500(600) + (100(125) * 4 [gained engines]) = 900(1100) ) * 3 [engines on a nubian] = 2700(3300) / 2 [nubians] = 1350 (1650)dp damage per nubian).
Shields can absorb upto half of the damage inflicted my a minefield (like a torpedo), the rest is applied to armour. But ship designs cannot benefit from the shields of other designs within the fleet.
For heavy minefields substitute 2000 (2500) and 500 (600) into the equations"
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Wed, 06 May 2009 16:07 |
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| GJScarritt |
 | Crewman 3rd Class |
Messages: 9
Registered: August 2008
Location: Kansas City, MO | |
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Yep, that's from StarsFaq. Guts of Minefields section. http://www.starsfaq.com/minefield.htm
That faq did say something that made me scratch my head:
"If traveling through overlapping fields, to-hit rolls will only be made vs one of the fields (randomly selected at start of movement)."
And here, I always thought overlapping fields increased the chances of hitting a mine, IE-both fields are checked with each movement. But if overlapping doesn't increase the chance of hitting a mine, what good is it to overlap (Other than to create a solid border around your empire/between empires).
[Updated on: Wed, 06 May 2009 16:11] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Wed, 06 May 2009 16:59 |
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| AlexTheGreat wrote on Wed, 06 May 2009 07:07 |
Actually, without testing it, I believe you could do it with 1 chaff + 1 CC since damage to the CC would only be 500 or 600dp depending on Ramscoop or not. With 300dp of shields I calculate damage at 36% or 43% respectively regardless of how many CCs.
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Oops, 2 engines on a CC so as I said but, for the CC to survive, it'd need 500/600dp shields & damage would be 72%/86% if my maths is right.
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| Re: Late game minesweeper |
Wed, 06 May 2009 22:30 |
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| Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA |
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Some of my pointless "spirit of the game" musings:
I think of Stars! as a universe siimilar to Star Trek. Travel is at warp speed, some of the random AI race names are generated from Star Trek characters, etc. Captains in the Star Trek world are bold, elite, daring tactitians - willing to take risks if dire situations require, but value their crews and their ships like their own kin.
When we talk about chaff sweeping, it like saying: "O.K. Kirk, Picardi, Janeway, Archer and 98% of you other captains, climb into these kamikaze rust buckets and race full speed into the nearest mine! We've crunched the numbers with our utilities and micro-managed all the fleet numbers so the big ships can go in unscathed!" 
Maybe I should just consider the chaff as automated drones.
And some other people have complained that minefields in general make the game too slow and defensive. So maybe chaff sweeping is equivalent to the "en passant" rule added to chess after hundreds of years to loosen up the game.
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), but have beam BBs and chaff. So I split some (1 BB + 1 chaff) in separate fleets and sent them sweeping. If this combo hits a MF, BB gets significantly less damage as it would get alone.
