Phoenix Space Combat System for Dummies - Part Fourteen Test Battle Foxtrot - re-fighting the first battle
The Red Ship - The Starter Broadsword lost the combat quite badly last time (and in a real fight would be lucky to escape). Since then her commanding officer, no doubt smarting under the embarrassment, has heavily reconfigured the ship. The most obvious problem was that losing a single AI Combat Navigator was enough to put the ship into efficiency difficulties which enforces four corrective options
- Do nothing, it was luck that the AI Combat Navigator was hit so losing space to up crew factors wastes combat potential
- Add more AI Combat Navigators for redundancy.
- Add more Crew for redundancy
- Reduce weaponry/items requiring crew factors
- Increase officer leadership
The last would be a mistake in a warship but it is listed as it 'is' an option and the first depends on your own attitude to risk. Crew are the safest response mainly as they are harder to destroy than items so in this case the crew total has been increased by by a couple of hundred giving some redundancy.
This is not all that was done to the ship. At vast expense (for me at least and wasting this on a broadsword is a little 'meh') the ship has upgraded no less than two armour levels to Heavy Armour Mark III. This ups the armour to 120 from 80 and thus the resultant mean damage protected from shot to 60 from 40. Each plate also has a defence of 1,500 from 1,000! Which means that it is 44% longer lasting so the plates take longer to destroy and the armour protection lasts longer.
In practical terms the loss of the shields from the first battle (26 shield depth so a mean protection per shot of 13) is only just slightly enhanced but those shields disappeared fast and this armour will not.
Not content with upping the armour the Captain has also upped the Hulls to Mark II Hulls. Since heavy hulled warships absorb 77% of damage that gets through the protective layers in their hulls this again increases a warships combat resilience. Mark I heavy hulls have a defence of 200 per hull and the Mark II increases this to 275. So hulls will go 'pop' with less frequency and as an added bonus integrity loss is less.
Weaponry has remained much the same with 11 Photon Gun Ivs but in terms of gear the Captain has managed to scrounge 30 Mark IV Scintillators. These increase the photon/nova weaponry defence from a mean blocked of 10 to 25.
Finally the officer has gained experience from those first few battles and has trained up his Damage Control to Level 2. This means that when internal items are hit their defence is multiplied by 3.5 as opposed to 3 which might not sound a lot. As an example an engine with defence of 20, if hit in a heavy hull, would have a defence of 70 with Damage Control II as opposed to 60 so it might help stop items going pop. The ship did not have accuracy concerns last time (which normally is the first choice for officers) the major alternative here is the Leadership skill which increases the crew factors of crew. Dodge is good for ships intended to use speed to avoid being hit.
The Blue Ship - The Blue ship was happy with the first combat where its main weakness was accuracy. To counter this her captain has upped the total and quality of targeting computers (by losing engines). She has also switched weaponry from Photon Gun Ivs to Photon Cannon IVs and one Photon Gun IV. This reduces the weapon count (which the officer hopes will increase the accuracy of his weapons because the ship has a better targeting computer>weapon total. The Photon Cannon IV also does 120 damage per shot as opposed to the 90 for the Photon Gun IV. In practical terms each shot should do more damage but less armour will be burnt.
The Captain has also trained up accuracy to level 1 which increases the ships accuracy by 0.5 again in an attempt to counter the weakness where most of the ships shots in the last engagement missed.
The Battle
Lets start with the Red Ships engagement
Targeting NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####):
Position is on our enemy list.
Attacking NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####)
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Round 1: 11 Photon Gun mkIVs
- 10 hits - 279 (329) [900] damage - 95%
1 Tractor Beam mkIII
- 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 99%
- Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.86%
Round 2: 11 Photon Gun mkIVs
- 10 hits - 244 (318) [900] damage - 95%
1 Tractor Beam mkIII
- 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 99%
- Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.91%
Round 3: 11 Photon Gun mkIVs
- 11 hits - 346 (310) [990] damage - 95%
1 Tractor Beam mkIII
- 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 99%
- Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.91%
Round 4: 11 Photon Gun mkIVs
- 11 hits - 367 (270) [990] damage - 95%
1 Tractor Beam mkIII
- 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 99%
- Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.98%
Not bad though whereas last time all weapons hit this time in Rounds 1 and 2 a Gun missed each time. Damage was decent really so we can break it down
Round 1 900 maximum damage with 329 blocked by shields, 292 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 279 hitting hulls and internals
Round 2 900 maximum damage with 318 blocked by shields, 338 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 244 hitting hulls and internals
Round 3 990 maximum damage with 310 blocked by shields, 334 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 346 hitting hulls and internals
Round 4 990 maximum damage with 270 blocked by shields, 353 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 367 hitting hulls and internals
Totals 3,780 maximum damage, 1,227 blocked by shields, 1,317 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 1,236 hitting hulls and armour (32% got through)
Now the attack by the Blue ship
Incoming Fire from NHS Furigeeto - Taka (######)
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Round 1: 9 Photon Cannon mkIVs
- 8 hits - 255 [960] damage - 95%
1 Photon Gun mkIV
- 1 hit - 0 [90] damage - 91%
Round 2: 9 Photon Cannon mkIVs
- 7 hits - 199 [840] damage - 95%
1 Photon Gun mkIV
- 1 hit - 20 [90] damage - 91%
Round 3: 9 Photon Cannon mkIVs
- 8 hits - 357 [960] damage - 95%
1 Photon Gun mkIV
- 1 hit - 0 [90] damage - 91%
Round 4: 8 Photon Cannon mkIVs
- 7 hits - 222 [840] damage - 95%
1 Photon Gun mkIV
- 1 hit - 28 [90] damage - 91%
Accuracy has improved from the last battle but in each round one or two weapons missed even with the targetting improvements. We can split the damage out the same way as above
Round 1 1050 maximum damage with 795 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 255 hitting hulls and internals
Round 2 930 maximum damage with 711 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 219 hitting hulls and internals
Round 3 1050 maximum damage with 693 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 357 hitting hulls and internals
Round 4 930 maximum damage with 680 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 250 hitting hulls and internals
Totals 3,960 maximum damage, 2,879 blocked by Scintillators and armour and 1,081 hitting hulls and armour (27% got through)
You can see how the improved armour and scintillators on the heavy hulled ship have done a better job at blocking the higher damage being caused by the normal hulled ship. Even so allowing for the better mark armour and scintillators this was still relatively close in terms of damage. If we look at what that damage caused next.
Red Ship Damage
Combat stress caused 0.4% integrity loss.
1 Shogo Kawada (#1) gained 1 experience.
1 troops promoted to veteran.
Naval Damage: 1 Gatling Laser (215)
1 Scintillator mkIV (128)
1 Targeting Computer mkIV (110)
Ship hulls have taken 125 damage.
Total ship hull damage 125 (1.7%)
In the last time the warship lost a lot of gear and actually lost crew factors to make the warship unworkable. This time it has lost three minor items and the hulls have taken a mere 125 damage. Here is it's post battle summary listing
Broadsword Class Heavy Cruiser [G] {Advanced Heavy Armour}
Armour: 119.6 Scints: 50.0
Hull Damage: 1.7%
So even with all that damage absorbed by the armourit's armour depth only dropped by 0.4.
We can also check the Command report section for a better list of defensive capabilities moving on
| Design: Broadsword (8) Class Heavy Cruiser [G] [Human] |
| Hulls: 75 (Heavy Hull mkII) Hull Damage: 1.7% (0.6 patch) |
| Integrity Mod: 0.4 Integrity: 99.6% (1.6 patches) |
| Armour: 119.55/120 Type: Armour Plate mkIII (452) |
| Armour Damage: 0.6% (0.5 patch)
And the Crew Report for crew effectiveness
| Crew Factors: 508 Required: 356 |
Therefore armour has hardly been touched and the crew is still effective. This warship was basically untroubled by this days fight.
Blue Ship Damage
Combat stress caused 4% integrity loss.
1 Susumu Kodai (#1) gained 1 experience.
2 troops promoted to veteran.
Naval Damage: 2 Photon Cannon mkIVs (311)
2 Scintillators (125)
4 Shields (115)
4 Shields mkIVs (118)
1 Targeting Computer mkIV (110)
Military Damage: 3 Human Crew (505)
1 Human Marine (506)
Civilian Damage: 3 AI Combat Navigator mkIVs (923)
1 Bunks (98)
1 Combat Engine mkIV (167)
2 Thrust Engine mkIVs (163)
Ship hulls have taken 846 damage.
Total ship hull damage 846 (11.3%)
Eek! This time the blue ship has lost. Even though the damage that got through was similar this ship lost a lot of items including two photon cannons. When adding to the 4% daily combat stress the hulls took 846 damage which is 11.3% of its total.
It's summary is equally worse
Patrol Cruiser Class Destroyer [G] {Medium Armour}
Armour: 39.9 Scints: 20.0 Shields: 6418(56.3)
Hull Damage: 11.3%
So in terms of armour lost it only lost 0.1 armour depth (the shields helped reduce the damage the armour absorbed)
We can look at the Command Report and crew as well
| Design: Patrol Cruiser (400) Class Destroyer [G] [Human] |
| Hulls: 75 (Normal Hull) Hull Damage: 11.3% (8.5 patches) |
| Integrity Mod: 1 Integrity: 96% (1.5 patches) |
| Armour: 39.92/40 Type: Armour Plate (450) |
| Crew Factors: 500 Required: 535 |
Due to the loss of 3! AI Combat Navigators you can see that the ship is now less efficient than it was before and now does not have enough crew factors to function efficiently.
Summary
The key things to note here is not that the red ship won. It is more that heavy hulls are better at absorbing and dealing with damage which makes warships effective for longer. The normal hulled warship could have upgraded its own armour and scintillators and received (probably) about exactly the same damage but would still have lost a lot more gear than the Heavy Hulled warship. This is why normal hulled warships are normally used for trade interferace and defence against pirates while navy fleets are mainly comprised of heavy hulled ships. The other thing to take note of is the vast difference increasing the Mark of weaponry and armour can do to ship survivability.
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