Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Weapon range and firing order
| Weapon range and firing order |
Thu, 18 November 2004 17:48  |
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Leit tells me that weapon range has no affect on the order in which weapons fire.
The manuals says it does, with shorter range weapons of a given initiative firing first.
There are enough inaccuracies in the manual that I am happy to believe Leit here, but I'd like to know what others think as well.
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Thu, 18 November 2004 23:06  |
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Most of this is simple..
Battle round 1:
Highest init ship fires first - if in range. Next highest init ship 2nd - if in range - etc.
When a ship start to fire, highest init weaps fire first from that ship - again, if in range. Then next highest init weaps etc.
Lets take a wierd example:
Destroyer with 1 Pulsed Sapper, 1 Colloidal Phaser and 1 Gatling. Weapons inits 14, 5, 12.
What will happen with this destroyer is that the Pulsed Sapper will fire first. Then the Gatling should fire - but it's not likely to be in range so the Colloidal fires. If this destroyer closes to range 2 then the sapper, gatling and colloidal will fire in that order, and indeed, this is what does happen.
Battle round 2 repeats above.
Now, ships with the same init - I ran one test with the above design against another simple destroyer design with colloidals and a shield - both ships with init 5. In all runs of the battle, the ship with the sapper fired first when both ships were in range. This means that the selection of which ship was to fire first was not random. There are 2 possibilities;
1. The ship with the higher init weapon fired first or
2. The ship belonging to the lower player number fired first.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Thu, 18 November 2004 23:08]
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Thu, 18 November 2004 23:39 |
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| Kotk | 
 | Commander |
Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003 | |
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Dunno what you did there, Ptolemy, i tried it as well right now and all seems quite random.
"Just Col": DD enigma pulsar, 1 mega poly shell, 3 colloidals.
"Sap Col Gat": DD enigma pulsar, 1 mega poly shell, 1 sapper, 1 colloidal, 1 gatling.
IS with regen shields and nrse has 10 tokens of "Just Col".
HE with regen shields and nrse has 10 tokens of "Sap Col Gat".
All tokens in battle have "default" plan: max ratio, armed, any.
Tokens Close to range 3 at first round.
First "sap col gat"s sappers fire, then one token of "just col"s fire with colloidals, then 3 from "sap col gat"s fire with colloidals, then again one from "just col"s then 2 from "sap col gat"s and so on... completely random order for colloidals???
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 02:37 |
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Difference in my test was max damage orders set on both sides.
That's the only thing I can see that could cause it. I was only using 1 token for each side also.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Fri, 19 November 2004 02:39]
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 03:41 |
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 iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| Staz wrote on Thu, 18 November 2004 23:48 |
There are enough inaccuracies in the manual that I am happy to believe Leit here, but I'd like to know what others think as well.
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IMO the procudure goes approximately this way:
We have an array with 2 columns: firing init / (an array) token number and weap type
1. before battle starts:
- From first to last token
sum hull init and weap init to find the real init number,
if there isn't the array entry with such number then crate one,
store token # and weap type in the array's 2nd column of the appropriate init number.
- From 0 to 64 (all initiatives)
randomize positions of entries in 2nd column (random firing order for same init)
2. after battle starts
- Tokens move.
- Firing procedure starts:
from 64 to 0 (initiative)
from first to last entry in 2nd column
get token # and weap type,
check if there is more then 0 ships (dead tokens can't fire),
check if the weap is in range,
fire (damage calc, subtract destroyed ships...)There is a question to be answered for the above procedure to be valid:
- do weapons of the same type (e.g. Coloidals and Heavy Blasters or ARMs and Upsilon torps) fire at the same time (are really the same for the program)? I can't test this right now.
My  .
BR, Iztok
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 04:19 |
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Nope Iztok -
Your primary sum isn't valid since ship init and weaps init are entirely separate. Ship init takes precedence over weaps init.
i.e. one destroyer with a BSC gets init 5 - no BSC, init 3.
If you put only colloidals on the init 5 ship and only gatlings on the init 3 ship, the colloidal ship will fire first. That is init 5 + init 5. The init 3 ship has init 3 + init 12.
Weapons supposedly fire on a slot by slot basis. However, this does raise a curious question since I do not actually think that I have ever seen a single ship fire more than once per round when all weaps were the same type unless they were fired at separate targets - regardless of whether they were beams or missiles.
This needs some looking into.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Fri, 19 November 2004 04:25]
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 05:23 |
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So the concensus here seems to be that the manual is wrong and that weapon range is not a tie breaker in initiative comparisons.
From "guts of combat", "movement, initiative and firing in battle"...
| Quote: |
Weapons fire in order from highest to lowest initiative. Weapons fire on a weapon slot-by-weapon slot basis, the shortest range weapons of a given initiative firing first.
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[edit: removed a statatement that would make me look foolish  ]
[Updated on: Fri, 19 November 2004 05:29] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 06:31 |
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| mazda |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 655
Registered: April 2003
Location: Reading, UK | |
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However, I do have one question/observation about Iztoks algorithm.
Say you have 2 identical BBs with 20 Arms attacking each other.
Then one ship will fire all its 20 before the other one fires any.
So in Iztoks array you would have Ship A, 20 Arms listed before Ship B, 20 Arms.
That is fine.
However the 20 Arms don't all fire at once, so it must then go through the 20 on a slot by slot basis to get the damage result.
So although the randomizing order of equal init is not on a slot basis, but only on a weapon basis, it still has an effect when actually firing.
edit : added word "init"
[Updated on: Fri, 19 November 2004 06:32] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 08:38 |
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| Quote: |
Quick test.
A jihad on a BB with no comps or a Sapper on a CC.
Which fires first ?
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The answer to this one is simple - the BB will fire first - the CC won't be in range on the first round but the jihads will.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 09:26 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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I did a test with these ships:
Nubian, 3 Nexi, 2 SBC, 1 colloidal (Ship init 15, total 20)
Nubian, 6 Nexi, 1 Jihad (Ship init 20, total 20)
I ran ten tests at different locations.
The Jihads fired first 7 times, the Colloidals 3 times.
Barring some slight weighting for ship init, which you could only test with 1000's of battles, I have to say it's random if the total is tied.
An interesting test (that I didn't do) is to build a BB beamer with both range 3 beams and sappers, and have it fight an identical design. Does the tied init cointoss apply to the whole ship, or just the stack of weapons? Hmm, upon reflection, it has to apply to the whole ship, or you get cases where one BB fires it's 6 slot, and then the other BB fires, and then the first BB fires again, and that doesn't happen.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 15:55 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1206
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| mazda wrote on Fri, 19 November 2004 12:31 |
So although the randomizing order of equal init is not on a slot basis, but only on a weapon basis, it still has an effect when actually firing.
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Looks like randomizing goes by hull+weapon initiative. As there aren't any weapons of the same init and different types (beams and missiles that'd have the same init) I did a testbed with DDs having one tech-9 sapper (firing red stream) and one tech-21 sapper (blue stream). I sent in a battle 20 DDs and I've seen blue streams exclusively, not a single red stream.
I wanted to check that issue also with missiles and designed a DD with one ARM and one Upsilon torp, CPS, MPS and jammer-30 (to have longer battle). Same result: both weapons were fired in the same phase. As a by-product I found that DD fires the upper weapon slot before the lower one (targeting different ships because of different ranges).
Conclusion: when firing order is calculated, it is for a token and a group of weapons of the same int. Weapons, that have the same init are fired in the same phase of the battle, but by slot firing order.
My .
BR, Iztok
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 17:51 |
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Guys,
This is all excellent. Between the few of us that are willing to take a little time test-bedding we actually should be able to pick apart the battle engine. What is obvious is that it has never been truly done before.
I suggest that we concentrate on using low tech weaps first since the numbers are smaller.
We need to look at the first few basic scenarios
1) 1 ship against 1 ship (token vs. token) [or more than one ship in the same stack]
2) Multiple tokens - lets use 3 to start - different ship classes vs different ship classes.
3) Battle order combinations
4) More than 2 player cases
5) unarmed ships in a battle cases
If we do this together and split up the possible combinations for testing we should be able to get a more accurate picture of how the battle engine deals with war. It will certainly take us a couple months with all of us doing pieces.
I recommed we start a new thread for this since other players may also do some test beds and lighten the burden on those of us who have started.
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Weapon range and firing order |
Fri, 19 November 2004 18:00 |
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| iztok wrote on Fri, 19 November 2004 20:55 |
As a by-product I found that DD fires the upper weapon slot before the lower one (targeting different ships because of different ranges).
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Just out of interest, was the upper slot the Arm or the Upsilon ? Or did you mix it up ?
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