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0.2% Minimum Damage Sat, 31 May 2014 05:12 Go to next message
nmid

 
Commander

Messages: 1608
Registered: January 2011
Location: GMT +5.5

nmid wrote on Sat, 31 May 2014 04:16
Coming back to the 0.2% Minimum Damage and quoting what Loucipher/m9m and others have pointed out earlier in this thread..
Quote:

0.2% Minimum Damage
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.computer.s tars/3G9VN_3jEz0
Jeff McBride -Oct 4 2000, 2:00 am on r.g.c.s.:
This is *not* a bug and will not change for 2.7k. It is part of the architecture of the original Stars! battle engine. If you don't want 500 alpha torpedoes to be able to destroy 30,000 Nubians, don't put your 30,000 Nubians all in one fleet.



I guess it's because it complicates checking by the host/ complicates attack plans / offers a Hail-Mary to players about to lose and can potentially kill a much superior fleet with a cheap disposable fleet... / increases MM..

Anyways, If we allow chaff then why not this?
Doesn't chaff remove the massive damage threat by missiles and acts as a game changer?
each player is guaranteed (256 / players present) number of tokens.

As long as the battle board overload isn't broken, I've changed my vote to allow the .2% min damage.


It's pretty late in my stars! life to really think about it, so I need someone to help me through this....
Why do we have .2% min damage banned?

Apart from my post above, I just have one comparison to add..
if we allow chaff to counter missile fleets.. why don't we have something to counter shield-stack beam fleets?
Doesn't the .2% min damage counter that to a certain extent?

I realise it has been discussed earlier on these forums (see http://starsautohost.org/sahforum2/index.php?t=msg&goto= 56546 for one..), but I'm still at a loss as to why we don't allow it..


[Updated on: Sat, 31 May 2014 05:17]




I know my minefields.. but I'm a chaff sweeper.
I used to curse when I got stuck in traffic... till I realised I AM traffic.

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Sun, 01 June 2014 15:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
nmid wrote on Sat, 31 May 2014 11:12
Why do we have .2% min damage banned?

Far as I know, common consensus. Also, IIRC, there's been games that allowed it not so long ago. But if the common consensus changes to consider it an useful quirk of the battle engine, I can imagine more games and players seeing/using/countering it. As long as they don't trigger the Battleboard Overload, ofc. Sherlock



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Mon, 02 June 2014 22:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LittleEddie is currently offline LittleEddie

 
Lieutenant
Helped track down one or more Stars bugs

Messages: 517
Registered: February 2011
Location: Delaware
I think because if it's allowed, in the late game, I would almost always have 128 fleets present for each battle. With the main battle fleet(s) in the lower numbered fleets, as in

# of players in range of battle / 256 = max battle fleet #.

So you would always want 256 tokens in the battle & you want your fair share. If there are 6 players in a battle that's only 42 slots per and the Alpha/Batas will be kind of useless.

And if you allow this you have to allow BBO to happen and maybe limit the number of fleets a player can have at a battle location.

Edit: Thinking on it, the battle fleets would be in 1, 2 or 3 and then 245 fleets of one chaff each.


[Updated on: Mon, 02 June 2014 22:12]

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Mon, 02 June 2014 23:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
nmid

 
Commander

Messages: 1608
Registered: January 2011
Location: GMT +5.5

LittleEddie wrote on Tue, 03 June 2014 07:37

Edit: Thinking on it, the battle fleets would be in 1, 2 or 3 and then 245 fleets of one chaff each.


That's a good idea.
In a 16 player game, you get a guaranteed 16 fleets (16*16=256).
So you'll have to have your main fleets in the starting 16 fleet ids with your .2% damage fleets/chaff in as many fleets below it.

You will have problems with the planet's fleet list (limited to 100 per planet) as the ending id players will have their fleets pushed out of the list.... no idea how to counter that.



I know my minefields.. but I'm a chaff sweeper.
I used to curse when I got stuck in traffic... till I realised I AM traffic.

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Tue, 03 June 2014 05:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
neilhoward

 
Commander

Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023
For clarification, BBO counts tokens, not fleets. Ships in a token are always the same design, so each ship design in a fleet gets its own token. The distinction of tokens or stacks is important for many types of damage (eg beam minimum damage, beam damage rounding, beam damage stack overflow) as well as attractiveness calculation and operations of battle orders. BBO distributes tokens by fleet ID first and design slot second (iff sombunall designs in a fleet are given tokens). Target list overload only counts fleet numbers.

Also note that 512 salvos hitting a stack of 3000 nubians will only kill 512 nubians and leave the rest at 99% damage. Successive salvos will only kill a number of nubians equal to the number of missile hits regardless of the amount of damage reported.

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Tue, 03 June 2014 08:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 957
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512 salvos of several missiles each will kill many more nubians.

A Salvo can contain many missiles - increasing the chance of at least one missile in the salvo hitting. The 0.2% is the smallest damage a salvo can do (assuming at least one missile hits)

The 1 missile one kill rule is per missile, not salvo.

Of course the real trick is to have some beam weapons in the mix as well.

.2% damage takes all the nubians down to 1 dp remaining, then the beamer shreds them all...

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Re: 0.2% Minimum Damage Tue, 03 June 2014 15:23 Go to previous message
neilhoward

 
Commander

Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023
That is a good distinction.

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