Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[Droll]

Has anyone ever done a more extensive DB edit, something like "adding 10 more engine research types" to reach a finer granularity between engine levels? If so, did it work in any way? Did something break?

I have successfully added both a single additional engine/reactor tier as well as an additional armor tier. The game successfully recognizes the tiers, the engine is applied to missile engines and stats shown correctly and the armor is not only applied correctly onto ships but also pushes the ground racial armor tech up, in my case beyond 45 and into 90 (ground weapon tech seems to be hardcoded to 45  max though).

When deciding the tier of the engine the game looks at the development cost as well as item cost. It expects higher tier armor and engines to be more expensive than its predecessor, both in RP and in BP cost (not necessarily mineral cost).

I've played both a 1.12 and 1.13 campaign with these edits with no issues encountered.

[TMaekler]

So one basically has to take the dependencies into account and "just" set up the additional levels - and voila?!?

[nakorkren]

I recently captured some enemy colony ships, and have no idea what to do with them.  I can't unload them anywhere because I don't have a colony of that species, and I can't create a colony of that species (I don't think).  What do you do with captured enemy colonists if you haven't captured one of their planets yet?

I've never gotten as far as capturing an enemy planet in my prior games, although I just did so now, so I may just dump the colonists back on their own planet for now.

[ISN]

I recently captured some enemy colony ships, and have no idea what to do with them.  I can't unload them anywhere because I don't have a colony of that species, and I can't create a colony of that species (I don't think).  What do you do with captured enemy colonists if you haven't captured one of their planets yet?

I've never gotten as far as capturing an enemy planet in my prior games, although I just did so now, so I may just dump the colonists back on their own planet for now.

I had that happen in one of my games as well. Actually I captured an alien luxury liner, so I only had a couple thousand of them, but I couldn't let such an opportunity go to waste. I couldn't figure out how to make a colony with the alien species either, so I ended up making a small database edit: make a normal colony on the chosen body, and then change the SpeciesID column in the population table entry for that colony to the new species. The game seemed to pick up correctly that I now had a colony of that species. It was rather fun imagining all the upper-class aliens going on a luxury cruise and ending up toiling away on a barren planet...

Of course if you've got one of the alien's planets now it should be much simpler.

[Elminster]

I recently captured some enemy colony ships, and have no idea what to do with them.  I can't unload them anywhere because I don't have a colony of that species, and I can't create a colony of that species (I don't think).  What do you do with captured enemy colonists if you haven't captured one of their planets yet?

I'm courious, what happens if you scrap that ship? Normally all colonists would be unloaded to the planet where the scrapping takes place.

[kilo]

I recently captured some enemy colony ships, and have no idea what to do with them.  I can't unload them anywhere because I don't have a colony of that species, and I can't create a colony of that species (I don't think).  What do you do with captured enemy colonists if you haven't captured one of their planets yet?

I've never gotten as far as capturing an enemy planet in my prior games, although I just did so now, so I may just dump the colonists back on their own planet for now.

I had the same problem in 1.12. You can only unload them after conquering a world on which this species already lives. Prior to that, there is not much you can do. I would not scrap them though. In have no idea what happens in the game, as stuff that is on board gets transferred. This might have some unintended results. If you want to scrap these ships you should abandon ship and send salvagers.

[kilo]

Back to the topic of scrapping: Does it transfer ground forces to the planet's surface? It would be a pretty convenient way to get the boarding units on the ground and replenished.

[nuclearslurpee]

Ground units question:

Suppose that I have a SP artillery formation with units built as VEH + MB/LAA, so on and so forth. Based on the weapon types these should fire in the bombardment support phase and then once again in the ground-to-air phase if any enemy fighters can be targeted.

From the wiki we are told that:

AA units take part in ground combat normally, using their ground combat values. If an AA unit takes part in both ground-ground and ground-air combat, it will draw supply twice.

The question here is regarding ambiguity in the definition of a "unit" in relation to the supply draw. The units I have specified have a supply draw of 18 (MB) + 2 (LAA) = 20 (total). If these units fire in the bombardment phase and then again in the AA firing phase, which of these will happen?

• Only the MB draws supply in the bombardment phase, and only the LAA draws supply in the AA firing phase, so a total of 20 GSP are drawn per ten rounds of combat.
• The vehicle draws 20 units of supply in the bombardment phase and another 20 units of supply in the AA firing phase, so a total of 40 GSP are drawn per ten rounds of combat.

[TMaekler]

Are there any postings which explain the cost to maintain ground units? I mean the financial costs not how to maintain their supply.

[nuclearslurpee]

Are there any postings which explain the cost to maintain ground units? I mean the financial costs not how to maintain their supply.

1/8 the BP cost per annum in wealth.

[ISN]

I just noticed that the main armament on my ships has a higher hit chance against missiles (around 22%) than the dedicated PD turrets (around 15%) on the same ship. The lasers have a BFC with a range of 320,000 km and a tracking speed of 6250 km/s (the ships are slightly faster). The Gauss cannon turrets have a tracking speed of 20,000 km/s; their fire controls have a range of 64,000 km and a tracking speed of 20,000 km/s. Both are firing at 10,000 km in Final Defensive Fire mode. The lasers have ECCM, but the missiles they're targeting don't have ECM so that shouldn't matter. The missiles are size 6, move at 39,333 km/s, and have a maneuver rating of 13. The ships just performed a squadron jump but that should affect both equally. I've played around with the accuracy calculations a bit but I can't get the numbers to work out.

Given this, I have two questions: What is the formula used to calculate hit chance against missiles? And how do you design your PD BFCs? Because clearly I'm doing something wrong with mine.

[nuclearslurpee]

I just noticed that the main armament on my ships has a higher hit chance against missiles (around 22%) than the dedicated PD turrets (around 15%) on the same ship. The lasers have a BFC with a range of 320,000 km and a tracking speed of 6250 km/s (the ships are slightly faster). The Gauss cannon turrets have a tracking speed of 20,000 km/s; their fire controls have a range of 64,000 km and a tracking speed of 20,000 km/s. Both are firing at 10,000 km in Final Defensive Fire mode. The lasers have ECCM, but the missiles they're targeting don't have ECM so that shouldn't matter. The missiles are size 6, move at 39,333 km/s, and have a maneuver rating of 13. The ships just performed a squadron jump but that should affect both equally. I've played around with the accuracy calculations a bit but I can't get the numbers to work out.

What size are your Gauss cannons? I can get these numbers to work out if I assume size-2 (33% base accuracy)

Given this, I have two questions: What is the formula used to calculate hit chance against missiles?

Code: [Select]

Accuracy = Aweap * [ (1 - Rt / Rfc) * (Vfc / Vt) * (1.0 + MTB) - 10 * (ECM - ECCM) ]
Leaving off some boundary conditions/limits for brevity. Parameters are:

• Aweap: weapon base accuracy, only matters for reduced-size Gauss weapons.
• Rt and Rfc are the range-to-target (10,000 km for beam PD) and BFC maximum range.
• Vfc and Vt are the BC tracking speed and target speed.
• MTB is the missile tracking bonus, with a maximum value set by your technology but the precise value depends on how long you have had the missile on sensors.
• ECM/ECCM are the target ECM and BFC ECCM level (1, 2, 3, ...).
• There is also a to-hit bonus from the Tactical skill of the ship commander (50%) and tactical officer (100%), which I believe is an extra multiplier to the above equation but I am not 100% certain on this.

And how do you design your PD BFCs? Because clearly I'm doing something wrong with mine.

Your PD BFC looks fine, I would probably use 80,000 km range at this tech level if not 100,000 km but the exact best value is going to depend on your ship design principles. Always make sure you use the maximum tracking speed though, I am not sure if that is the case here.

[El Pip]

Just want to check I'm not missing something important. Orbital Bombardment Support is basically a waste of time, correct?

If it's from ships then it's very few shots and a low chance to hit, same from fighters but with high levels of attrition as well. So it's something to do for flavour/RP, not in the expectation that it will make any significant difference.

I only ask as the rules post from Steve said it was a "powerful aid" and my experience has been that it really isn't. So maybe I am missing some subtle detail?

[Garfunkel]

Just want to check I'm not missing something important. Orbital Bombardment Support is basically a waste of time, correct?

If it's from ships then it's very few shots and a low chance to hit, same from fighters but with high levels of attrition as well. So it's something to do for flavour/RP, not in the expectation that it will make any significant difference.

I only ask as the rules post from Steve said it was a "powerful aid" and my experience has been that it really isn't. So maybe I am missing some subtle detail?

As long as you have FFD units on the ground then the orbital bombardment support should hit - though naturally if it's a jungle rift planet then nothing is going to help. And fighters shouldn't get hit by STO's anymore so unless the enemy has loads of AA units, it's feasible. People have gotten good results with fighters, they are just micro intensive.

[El Pip]

As long as you have FFD units on the ground then the orbital bombardment support should hit - though naturally if it's a jungle rift planet then nothing is going to help. And fighters shouldn't get hit by STO's anymore so unless the enemy has loads of AA units, it's feasible. People have gotten good results with fighters, they are just micro intensive.

Sure you can get some hits, but even if you give the supporting ships commanders with good Ground Support traits, a CIC with the same and a full Admin Command of great officers the hit percentage is still pretty low even on a barren planet. More seriously there just aren't many shots being fired.

Even a smallish force (say 100kT of vehicles with mostly CAP/MAV) is throwing out thousands of shots per round. In comparison to that a few dozen shots from orbiting ship is a rounding error. You can use gauss or rail guns to get more shots for the same tonnage, but it's still very few shots compared to the ground forces.


Fighters I agree you can load up the bombardment pods and get a decent number of shots, I also think they get a bonus - looks like 3x as many shots as weapons they have in the pod. But as you say it would be a micro-intensive horror to scale up and while enemy AA is not lethal, you are still going to lose a few fighters each round.