How is defence calculated for multiple weapons

from GalCiv2 Forums
Suppose my ship have beam attack of 2 and mass driver attack of 3, and I am attacking the ship which have 1 deflector, 4 armor and 9 point defence. The attack value is then supposedly just a sum of my 2 and 3, but what is the defence value?
20,161 views 34 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
When your beam fires...his defense is: 1+2+3=6
When your mass driver fires: 1+4+3=8
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
In manual it is said that "All available beam weapons,
mass driver weapons, and missile weapons are grouped into single
attacks. When firing, the weapons roll a value between 1 and
their combined attack rating." Is not that true?
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
What the manual means in that case is if you have for example two beam weapons and two mass drivers on your ship, with each individual weapon having a power of 2, it would fire like so:

Beam fires for 1-4 damage versus enemy defense.
Mass fires for 1-4 damage versus enemy defense.

So all weapons of each type get grouped into one roll.

It's generally not a good idea to mix weapon types at any rate, because then you give the enemy two or three defensive rolls, instead of just one (since each weapon type is rolled against all availalbe defense).
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Are you saying that 2 beam, 2 mass is worse than 4 beam if you attack someone with 2 deflector?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Generally speaking, yes.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Generally speaking, yes.


Interesting.
I though that having 2 weapons class on the ship would make one of them at least more efficient against the enemy's ship defense (if it had only shields against the combined lazer and massD)
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I would like to add that focusing on a single weapon (missiles) and two defenses seems to work out really well.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
4 beam vs 4 deflector would be a straight-up 1d4 vs 1d4 roll (result: 0 to 3 damage). Whereas if you had 2 beam and 2 mass, it would be two rolls: 1d2 vs 1d4, and 1d2 vs 1d2 (total result: 0 to 2 damage).
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
We can write the table of damages. a(i,j) = i-j, but 0 if negative.

0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0
2 1 0 0
3 2 1 0

so we have 16 elements, the total sum is 3*1+2*2+3 = 10, so the average damage is 10/16

with 2 attack and 4 defence (as in 2 beam vs 4 deflector) we have:

0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0

Basically the average damage is 1/8

with 2 attack and 2 defence (as for 2 mass vs 4 deflector)

0 0
1 0

so the average is 1/4.

so the total average damage of 2 beam and 2 mass vs 4 deflector is only 3/8, which is of cause less (about 2 times) than 10/16. Waw!
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
4 beam vs 4 deflector would be a straight-up 1d4 vs 1d4 roll (result: 0 to 3 damage). Whereas if you had 2 beam and 2 mass, it would be two rolls: 1d2 vs 1d4, and 1d2 vs 1d2 (total result: 0 to 2 damage).


Indeed, indeed.

Basic mathematics failed me again...
So the best defense is having one main as high as possible and two others of level one or two (on the bigger ships I mean?
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
MxM111

If you are right, then I don't understand anything

According to your demonstration, a beem of the same level as the shields would be much more effective than a mass driver. What does that do to the theoretical aspect that supposedly a defense not optimum to the weapon is less effective?
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hm, wait.
I believe that it's also possibel for the defense systems to roll a zero. Else a ship with defense 1 would be impossible to kill with an attack of 1, which would be kinda silly. But I'm not wuite sure.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
4 beam vs 4 shields:

attack roll (4): 4 3 2 1 0
attack roll (3): 3 2 1 0 0
attack roll (2): 2 1 0 0 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0

-->average: 20/20 = 1


2 beam& 2 mass vs 4 shields:

(a) beam attack - shields

attack roll (2): 2 1 0 0 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0

-->average: 4/10 = 0.4


(b) mass attack - shields only protect with square root, which is 2:

attack roll (2): 2 1 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0

--> average: 4/6 = 0.6666

---> total average of combined attack: 1.066666


So, in this case the combind approach would only be SLIGHTLY better.
However, the higher you go with the values, the larger the difference gets.-
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Wait, weapons AND defenses can roll a zero:
https://www.galciv2.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=164&AID=92779
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
4 beam vs 4 shields:

attack roll (4): 4 3 2 1 0
attack roll (3): 3 2 1 0 0
attack roll (2): 2 1 0 0 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0
attack roll (0): 0 0 0 0 0

-->average: 20/25 = 0.8


2 beam& 2 mass vs 4 shields:

(a) beam attack - shields

attack roll (2): 2 1 0 0 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0
attack roll (0): 0 0 0 0 0

-->average: 4/15 = 0.2666


(b) mass attack - shields only protect with square root, which is 2:

attack roll (2): 2 1 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0
attack roll (1): 0 0 0

--> average: 4/9 = 0.4444

---> total average of combined attack: 0.711111

Okay, against 4 shields, 4 beams are really stronger than 2 beams and 2 mass drivers.
But I guess with higher values, that will change. (Let me calculate...)
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Isn't there a ship combat simulator someplace on the website. I can't seem to find the link for it.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
6 beam vs 6 shields: 1.14
3 beam, 3 mass driver: 1.19

8 beam vs 8 shields: 1.31
4 beam, 4 mass vs 8 shields: 2.11


...if I'm not mistaken.
Hm, should feed this into Mathematica when I find the time and make some nice plots.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Is it certain that attack can roll a 0?


Well, at least Brad describes it that way in the article I linked... but can we trust him?
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
The combat simulator was taken down as it was determined it was not calculating correctly.

Tony
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
When we have non-optimum defence, and have to take the square root, do we round it down?
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Case #1.a beam 4 vs deflector 1
attack roll (4): 4 3
attack roll (3): 3 2
attack roll (2): 2 1
attack roll (1): 1 0
attack roll (0): 0 0

16/10 = 1.6

case #1.b beam 2, mass 2 vs deflector 1
attack roll (1): 1 0
attack roll (0): 0 0

1/4
total = 0.5

Conclusion: for total attack much larger than shield, it is better to have single weapon.

case #2.a beam 2 vs deflector 4

attack roll (2): 2 1 0 0 0
attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0
attack roll (0): 0 0 0 0 0

4/15 = 0.27

case #2.b beam 1, mass 1 vs. deflector 4

attack roll (1): 1 0 0 0 0
attack roll (0): 0 0 0 0 0

1/10

attack roll (1): 1 0 0
attack roll (0): 0 0 0

1/6 = 0.17

total 0.27

Conclusion: It is not better to have single weapon for small attack, large defence. I suspect that for larger attack and defence values (but still attack smaller than defence), it will be even much better to have 2 weapons. The reason: for large numbers sqrt(X) << X/2, which is not true for small numbers
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Conclusion: It is not better to have single weapon for small attack, large defence. I suspect that for larger attack and defence values (but still attack smaller than defence), it will be even much better to have 2 weapons. The reason: for large numbers sqrt(X) << X/2, which is not true for small numbers


That's what I thought too. Apparently yellow sign's calculations confirmed it, if our hypothesis are correct.

Well, at least Brad describes it that way in the article I linked... but can we trust him?


I guess that's a reliable source