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Can I ask for an explanation on this?

Sure. The main thing to remember is that your ship moves first, and then the drone moves to your new position. This means that you can move around grav-wells for example on the most efficient route and then force the drone to go through the middle. Similarly, you can force the drone to hit any mines that you've pre-laid.

This was pre-emp so you can now use that as well (although if you mis-judge it you may knock out to many engines for your next turn and still have a drone chasing you), or you can mimic which gives a reasonable chance of losing them.

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Just to check; the standard "small ship" under discussion are Frigates (size 2), not Fighters (size 1)?

Definitely frigates. Fighters have practically zero speed on any turn that they fire an effective combat shot and there is no design possible that corrects for that enough. This means they are all about the ambush, and while okay at skirmishes and harrassment of wounded enemies, they are poor at battles, and any system with a high percentage of beholders negates their primary advantage.

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Would {or how would} an increase in drone movement shift your mimic-outrun decision?

I wouldn't know for sure until the environment. If it was not tied in with unlimited burn then... a tentative yes, I could do that. I'd be maintaining a greater distance and trying to squeeze out what gains I could. The greatest problem there is that it makes it harder to isolate one enemy ship since an unexpected cross-fire has always been the greatest problem my designs have.

Mimics though aren't a valid strategy to compensate for increased speed on attack drones. You can easily calculate the probability that a drone will hit you if you're defending with mimics and it just isn't high enough for it to be your primary form of defense. I currently use mimics only on turns I'm certain I would be hit if targeted, or if I was noisey the previous turn and don't really have anything better to do. I expect this would continue.

For enemy ships though, I've got the same 3 move attack as you. Since you couldn't dodge my 2 move drones before, you won't be able to dodge my 3 move ones either. This suggests that you're working on a faulty assumption Mortis, with my frigates I typically hold fire unless I can hit the target on the very next turn with my drones which gives the target no reaction time.

Mapmaker wrote:

For enemy ships though, I've got the same 3 move attack as you. Since you couldn't dodge my 2 move drones before, you won't be able to dodge my 3 move ones either. This suggests that you're working on a faulty assumption Mortis, with my frigates I typically hold fire unless I can hit the target on the very next turn with my drones which gives the target no reaction time.

I'm not sure what assumptions I'm working on you think are faulty;
1a) If you couldn't dodge a 2 move drone, you won't be able to dodge a 3 move drone- no change.
1b) If you could dodge/outrun a 2 move drone, outrunning a 3 move should be harder.

2) I usually assume that (barring particular cross-system weirdness I've pulled) most drones fired are intended to hit their target that turn or the next. Increasing drone speed won't change that, it only increases the distances and max target speed at which that calculation yields the desired answer. Increasing the max potential target speed where a given drone can obtain a hit is the desired effect. Increasing distance to target is fairly immaterial.

Hmmm, you're right Mortis, I misread your last statement about large/medium/small ships so my assumption about your assumption was based on an assumption I assumed unashamedly.

I can fire with a guaranteed hit at full power, and move my maximum speed away from the target on the same turn. So if I'm cautious/paranoid about move 3 attack drones, I'd be around 30 hexes away from the targetted enemy the first turn they can shoot back. Barring unexpected cross-fires, 30 hexes is enough space to lose/kill/dodge the retaliation.

So yes, I could survive then. Although I'd find systems to be a little to small sometimes for necessary survival maneouvres.

Mapmaker wrote:

Hmmm, you're right Mortis, I misread your last statement about large/medium/small ships so my assumption about your assumption was based on an assumption I assumed unashamedly.

*chuckling* well said.

Mapmaker wrote:

I can fire with a guaranteed hit at full power, and move my maximum speed away from the target on the same turn. So if I'm cautious/paranoid about move 3 attack drones, I'd be around 30 hexes away from the targetted enemy the first turn they can shoot back. Barring unexpected cross-fires, 30 hexes is enough space to lose/kill/dodge the retaliation.

but would this change the calculation for you from now?
I assume it would be enough to make drone speeds which exceed your ship speeds (and thus can actually hit your ships) within the realm of use for standard ships.
Does the difference between *all* attack drones at 3 move and *only* power 1 attack drones make a difference?

Mapmaker wrote:

So yes, I could survive then. Although I'd find systems to be a little to small sometimes for necessary survival maneouvres.

Setting aside system size for the moment does "I could survive" mean "peace of cake" or "it'd be an adventure"?
(only being asked because of conversations elsewhere) If increasing system size were an option, would you advise for or against it if this change were made for this reason?

Certainly not a piece of cake. Probably be more like the few 'fighter only' systems I played. They were quite difficult mentally, but it sure felt good when I won.

All drones means that a hit is a kill (or at least a flee from the system). All power 1 drones mean that I add a 'repair' ship into my fleet to keep me going longer.

wherever you go fighters are never -supposed- to be easy to hit... it's just the fact they are taking down stuff to quickly. if it took the other person 10 turns to do half damage to your 1 ship, how many fighters could you take out between mines, gravwell's and emps?

also... how about just increasing the speed of drones? it's gonna hurt in bigger ship battles more or less only by being able to hurt further away or more powerful shots... but if you can easily fire off power 3 speed 21 shots frigates are going to have a lot harder time dodging if they are found before or as they are firing

Thats more of a 'linearity' issue. Because of diminishing returns to power-level 2 smaller ships are always going to inflict more damage per turn than a single larger one.

Mapmaker wrote:

Thats more of a 'linearity' issue. Because of diminishing returns to power-level 2 smaller ships are always going to inflict more damage per turn than a single larger one.

Only true if you assume all damage is targeted to a single ship.

Summarising thoughts so far AGAIN

1) Get rid of stability bonus on small ships.
2) Each alive Swarm Gen on the ship will reduce the chance of explosion alot (eg 5%)
3) (maybe) Power 1 drones can move at rate of 3
4) EMP drones effects would last for 2 turns

Note I changed it from hab to swarm gen - it makes more sense to me.

And power 1 drones moving 3/pt is still up for discussion. i.e. Your discussions above are suggesting that it would not really solve anything.

And I'm throwing 4) back into the mix because it may be a better soln than 3).

2) perhaps any system with Swarm Gen should simply be immune to explosion for that turn?

3) I'm just trying to get a better grip on the real effect it would have. the feeling I'm getting is it wouldn't have horrid side effects and the positive effects may be what we're looking for (or not).

4) I think this is a good idea- I don't think it's a better solution than (3) because it won't ever *kill* small ships- simply make them pause and float in space.

I prefer 4 tactically. Emp just affects small ships more than larger ones due to system numbers, it prevents me from reliably using Emp as a defense mechanism, and the area of affect nature makes it harder to avoid.

Downside, I use '6' engines to shoot with. So unless emp took out more than 6 engines I'm still at max speed. (not an issue with fighters however).

Although, and this is 'nasty', you could make emp to a habitat disable that from contributing to active systems. Only have 1 hab, an emp shot that hit that, and I'm floating dead in space.

Mapmaker wrote:

I prefer 4 tactically. Emp just affects small ships more than larger ones due to system numbers, it prevents me from reliably using Emp as a defense mechanism, and the area of affect nature makes it harder to avoid.

don't get me wrong, I think (4) would be a great improvement to the tactical field. I just don't think it'll have quite the desired impact on the big v little conflicts.

Mapmaker wrote:

Downside, I use '6' engines to shoot with. So unless emp took out more than 6 engines I'm still at max speed. (not an issue with fighters however).

Part of my point. Actually, this is a stronger statement that adding duration to EMP isn't necessarily the solution- even IF you partially disable the target they simply become stealthy and wait it out.
As a note, we're discussing non-lethal measures against ships who's primary strength is speed and stealth.
As another note, EMP has a move of 3.

alternate, nastier, suggestions;
a) make EMP duration equal blast radius (if done, this should probably apply to both firer and targets).
b) make EMP duration equal the blast radius less the distance from the EMP center to the ship. Thus an EMP with a 5 radius, hitting an adjacent ship, would disable systems for 4 rounds while a ship one hex further out would only disable for 3.

Mapmaker wrote:

Although, and this is 'nasty', you could make emp to a habitat disable that from contributing to active systems. Only have 1 hab, an emp shot that hit that, and I'm floating dead in space.

Nastier; ships with no active hab don't "float," they get sucked down into the swirling mass of death that waits below...




Question; do/how do small ship v small ship battles work out?

Small ship vs Small ship is not really an issue at the moment. My guess is they are very quick and nasty

When we talk about EMP entending in time we are only talking about on the target vessel, the firer is only effected for 1 turn still.

Maybe EMP remains as is, but each effected system has a 50% chance each turn of recovering. AntiBody would also make them recover. I quite like that idea.

New IDEA: Very nice.
The Screamer attack drone. Designed like an attack drone it lands screamer nano rather than attack nano. This lands on the ships units - number determined by warheads (ie mass on the drone). These units become disabled. The Screamer nano also makes the target vessel visible unless it is in a scrambler. The screamer nano decrades by 1 per turn, or it can be removed with anti-body nano. Screamers move at 3 per turn.

What do you think?

GameAdmin wrote:

Small ship vs Small ship is not really an issue at the moment. My guess is they are very quick and nasty

I seem to remember a discussion when the speed shifts were done where the expectation was that small ships wouldn't be able to generate the drone-speed to hit other small ships.

GameAdmin wrote:

When we talk about EMP entending in time we are only talking about on the target vessel, the firer is only effected for 1 turn still.

I presumed, but the nastier an idea is the more I feel some sort of leveling effect is apropo.

GameAdmin wrote:

Maybe EMP remains as is, but each effected system has a 50% chance each turn of recovering. AntiBody would also make them recover. I quite like that idea.

I do like that idea quite a bit.

GameAdmin wrote:

New IDEA: Very nice. The Screamer attack drone. Designed like an attack drone it lands screamer nano rather than attack nano. This lands on the ships units - number determined by warheads (ie mass on the drone). These units become disabled. The Screamer nano also makes the target vessel visible unless it is in a scrambler. The screamer nano decrades by 1 per turn, or it can be removed with anti-body nano. Screamers move at 3 per turn. What do you think?

Its an interesting idea...



As a thing; the more I reflect on my encounters with the horde, the more I seem to recall that my biggest issue was simply getting the speed on each drone to make it count. I remember one battle in particular where there were several times that I had more mass than I could use, but the drone points had to go to making sure the drone could move fast enough to reach their target.

OK. Ditch screamer, cos it's complicated.

Mass can be converted to drone movement pts. Nice and simple.
Better yet. Mass can be converted to increase the move pts per turn of the drone.

BUT, and here is the problem. That means I can pretty much always hit the fighter, and so kill it.