Phoenix Space Combat System for Dummies - Part Thirteen Test Battle Echo - Photon and Nova Cannons

Our next weapon test involves our original two ships which have gone away, re-equipped and then armed themselves with a single weapon so we can see how it is working.

Starter Broadsword - In the last battle this warship lost due to basically losing crew points and thus efficiency. It was not inaccurate though so the owning player has upped its armour to Mark II (increasing the armour depth from 80 to 100 allowing it to block a mean average of 50 damage versus the Mark I 40. The shields did not do much so they removed them entirely to make more space for weapons. Note that this means the actual ship's initial defence against laser weaponry is worse than before as the extra armour depth (+10) does not entirely replace the lost shield depth (-13). The shields were lost so quickly though that by round three this has switched and the ship would perform better. Since its opponent was so heavily shielded last time the owner has decided to arm itself with a Nova Cannon Mark I which is designed to function better versus ships with high shields/armour.

It also has increased its crew totals quite drastically to provide a cushion in case of loss of crew factors.

We can look this time at some of the ships base defensive stats which will allow us to look at a different section of the ship report.

|-Space Combat Report----------------------------------------------------------|

|                                                                              |

| Combat Efficiency: 100%               Your Target Silhouette: 2.53           |

| Combat Speed: 5.14 g                  Hard Points: 6 / 165                   |

| Flee Speed: 10.29 g                                                          |

|                                                                              |

| DEFENCE                                                                      |

| Armour: 100                           Scints: 20                             |

| Dodge: 7.27 g                         Manoeuvring Dodge: 8.9 g               |

| Shields: None                                                                |

So you can see that this ship is actually quite fast in warship terms. A combat speed of 5.14g is quick enough that the ship could (possibly) function as a boarder (and the fact its carrying a single tractor beam reinforces this) but its Dodge is 7.27g and manoeuvring dodge 8.9g. It is actually quite hard to hit (perhaps the opposing ship should not worry too much about its initial crap targeting). 

The final problem this ship encountered was that it lost a lot of internal items but had no accuracy issues so the officer in command has managed to train to level 2 in Damage Control which basically increases the advantages items have when hit inside (the defence multiplies from 3 to 3.5 for level 2)

We can look at the Nova Cannons Statistics on the report.

| SPACE WEAPONS                                                                |

|                                                              ACC  AF   HP        DMG      |

| 1       Nova Cannon (328)                       +8   0.7    5         80       |

| 1       Tractor Beam mkIII (342)            +12  1       1         0        |

A single tractor beam wont do bugger all so we can concentrate on the Nova Cannon. This weapon was designed  to cope far better with strong armour and shields than the Photon version. It has a decent accuracy of +8 and it takes up 5 Hard Points (Hard Points as noted elsewhere are a restriction on the amount of weaponry a ship can hold). Damage done is only 80 but the key thing to note here is the Armour Factor (AF) of 0.7. This means that defenses are weaker versus the attack. If you had an armour depth of 80 and a shot from this weapon hit with 80 points of damage the shield depth of 40 is multiplied by the armour factor which reduces it to 28. This means the mean damage blocked is only 14 damage whereas it was 20 damage to a Photon Cannon. When calculating the plates burnt (or shields lost) the damage caused it then divided by 0.7 so this attack burns of exactly the same amount of defences as a weapon with an AF of 1. It is not all good though as the damage does not carry on in the same way as a normal photon weapon so gets reduced.

Normal Hulled Warship - This ship had no issues with crew factors and no issues with protection or weaponry really but it did have issues hitting. The officer has trained to level 1 in Accuracy to help this (accuracy is a very common start point for naval officers followed by leadership which helps with crew factors). The ship has increased its level of targeting computers and is now equipped with 1 Photon Cannon III.

| SPACE WEAPONS                                                                |

|                                                                     ACC  AF   HP        DMG      |

| 1       Photon Cannon mkIII (310)               +10      1    5         110      |

The increased mark allows increased accuracy the weapon only takes up 1 hard point so you could potentially carry more of these that nova cannon equivalents and the base damage is a decent 110.

The Battle

Shields: 7655(61.5)

Scint Coverage: 20

Armour protection: 40

ENEMY TARGETS             SUPPORT TARGETS           DEFEND TARGETS

All MRC(91)               None                      None

Targeting MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####):

    MRC are on our enemy list.

Attacking MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####)

---------------------------------------

Round 1:  1 Photon Cannon mkIII

               - 1 hit - 45 [110] damage - 95%

Round 2:  1 Photon Cannon mkIII

               - 1 hit - 47 [110] damage - 95%

Round 3:  1 Photon Cannon mkIII

               - 1 hit - 47 [110] damage - 95%

Round 4:  1 Photon Cannon mkIII

               - 1 hit - 54 [110] damage - 95%

You can see how much more damage from the Photon Cannon gets through than previous Photon Weapons. Lack of shield simplifies things slightly so

Round 1 110 potential damage, 45 actual damage which must mean 65 damage was absorbed by scintillators and shields. The mean damage of both armour and shields of the defending ship is  60 so it did well

Round 2 110 potential damage 47 actual damage so 63 damage absorbed by scintillators and shields

Round 3 110 potential damage 47 actual damage so 63 damage absorbed by scintillators and shields

Round 4 110 potential damage 54 actual damage so 57 damage absorbed by scintillators and shields (the only round where the defenses did worse than average)

Incoming Fire from MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####)

------------------------------------------------

Round 1:  1 Nova Cannon

               - 1 hit - 22 (24) [80] damage - 91%

          1 Tractor Beam mkIII

               - 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 100%

               - Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.86%

Round 2:  1 Nova Cannon

               - 1 hit - 32 (34) [80] damage - 91%

          1 Tractor Beam mkIII

               - 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 100%

               - Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.86%

Round 3:  1 Nova Cannon

               - 1 hit - 30 (29) [80] damage - 91%

          1 Tractor Beam mkIII

               - 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 100%

               - Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.86%

Round 4:  1 Nova Cannon

               - 1 hit - 26 (27) [80] damage - 91%

          1 Tractor Beam mkIII

               - 1 hit - 0 [0] damage - 100%

               - Tractor beams reduced positions speed by 0.9%

The Nova Cannon needs closer look due to its low AF.

Round 1 80 potential damage is caused. 24 damage lost from shields so the shields only actually blocked 16 damage. 42 damage was absorbed by the armour and scintillators (the scintillators do not get affected by the AF but the armour would have) with 22 damage hitting home.

To put things a different way if this attack was from a Photon Cannon then the armour depth is 40 (medium armour) and the shield depth is a decent 63. Against the Nova Cannon the armour depth turns into 28 and the shield depth 44.1 so the default mean protection against a photon cannon would be 61.5 (10 scints, 20 armour, 31.5 shields) drops to 46 (10 scints, 14 armour and shield depth 22)

Round 2 80 potential damage with 23 absorbed by the shields and only 25 absorbed by armour and scintillators. 32 damage from the attack hit home

Round 3 80 potential damage with 20 absorbed by the shields and 30 absorbed by armour and scintillators. 30 damage from the attack hit home

Round 4 80 potential damage with the shields  blocking 18 and 36 absorbed by armour and scintillators with 26 damage hitting home.

Post Battle Summary

-------------------

Combat stress caused 4% integrity loss.

1 Susumu Kodai (#1) gained 1 experience.

Naval Damage:    1 Sensor mkII (104)

                 1 Shields mkIV (118)

Civilian Damage: 1 Combat Engine mkIV (167)

Ship hulls have taken 128 damage.

Total ship hull damage 128 (1.7%)

This is the loss from the Normal Hulled ship and you can again see the nastier combat stress loss from the normal hull at 4%. That single attack destroyed 3 items (and probably damaged a further 4-5 which we cannot see)

-----------------------MRC SHIP Furigeeto - Okami (#####)-----------------------

Shields are down

Scint Coverage: 20

Armour protection: 100

ENEMY TARGETS             SUPPORT TARGETS           DEFEND TARGETS

Furigeeto - Taka (62694)  None                      None

Targeting NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####):

    Position is on our enemy list.

Attacking NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####)

[COVERED ABOVE SO I WONT REPEAT]

  Post Battle Summary

-------------------

Combat stress caused 0.5% integrity loss.

1 Shogo Kawada (#1) gained 1 experience.

Naval Damage:    1 Scintillator (125)

Ship hulls have taken 100 damage.

Total ship hull damage 100 (1.3%)

Notice the damage differences now. Admittedly there is only as single weapon but even though the normal hull warship did more damage it destroyed less internals and the Heavy Hulled warship is much happier.

---------------------------------Battle Summary---------------------------------

NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####) - Ship

    Patrol Cruiser Class Destroyer [G] {Medium Armour}

    Armour: 40.0   Scints: 20.0   Shields: 7697(61.7)

    Hull Damage: 1.7%

    Targeted by MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####) - 107 [320] Damage

    Attacking MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####) - 190 [440] Damage

MRC Furigeeto - Okami (#####) - Ship

    Broadsword Class Heavy Cruiser [G] {Heavy Armour}

    Armour: 99.6   Scints: 20.0

    Hull Damage: 1.3%

    Targeted by NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####) - 190 [440] Damage

    Attacking NHS Furigeeto - Taka (#####) - 107 [320] Damage

Conclusion

We have covered some of the varied weapons available with the notable exception of rail guns (not that good in space combat - far better against imobile targets like platforms and outposts/bases) and the biggest laser weapon the Photon Battery. This is basically a bigger version of the Cannon so takes up much more space but does a huge amount of damage per shot. You now have enough information to run the numbers yourself to see what that and other weapon types might do.

We are not quite finished yet with the reports though as I want to show the difference that elite gear will do so I am going to try and get my Broadsword up to Mark IV armour and Mark III hulls and the a normal hulled warship to have Mark IV shields and then we shall refight the initial fight using as many Photon Guns as possible. This will hopefully show the impact that better gear can have on a fight.