Attacking a System

[The_Nighthawk]

So I'm curious what is known about how BotF determines what kind of destruction occurs during a bombardment. How orbitals work in fairly well known, but what I do not know is how the game determines how orbitals are destroyed (hitpoints or random chance, or something in between), along with population and structures. Also how do Planetary shields affect all that?

I'm pretty sure most (or all) of this is currently unknown, but I thought a topic on it in the modding subforum may help prompt those who are good at figuring this stuff out to go find out.

[trevtones]

Im pretty sure orbitals have hit points and it plays out like a battle, torpedoes vs shields. which is why you need heavy ships to withstand the orbitals counter-attack.

I think I read this in an old post before the site changed.

[stardust]

They also have a set amount of firepower.

UDM III i'm often finding i'm taking systems and finding half the orbitals are still intact. i'm guessing they used up all their firepower on my dreadnaughts (and failing to leave a scratch) and them not having enough firepower to destroy all the orbitals in one go.

it does prove handy if your oppo decides they're going to try and retake their systmes becayse you'll have a reasonable amount of defense waiting for them

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

[Edit]

For base info on the subject: 2. Ground Combat Values & 3. Orbital Batteries

[Edit/]

In the case of transport assault seems the damage very large (pop-especial) if the invasion fails or succeeds by a narrow margin.

I remember unpowered orbitals mostly survive planetary assaults.

[The_Nighthawk]

Thought I'd give this topic a bump. With all the recent discoveries and bug fixes, I was hoping someone has discovered how ground assaults are figured out.

How does ground combat from TT's and systems factor into the decision of who wins? Is it linear or exponential?

How do ship weapons factor into how successful bombardment is? Do Orbital have hit points? How are pop lost and buildings destroyed calculated?

And finally, is it true that only torpedoes count in bombardment, or do phasers do anything?

Curious minds want to know!

[stardust]

as to those questions all i know is this: i once was playing an early tech ame forgot to turn the randoms off and had the Borg waltz up early.
So i got UE out and modded my maquis fighters to have 5000 torpedo damage.
Only thing is i forgot to undo the change after dealing with the borg and when attacking a system with them in the line up later on they wiped the entire population out

[Dr_Breen]

lol...


change the maquis now to have 0 torpedoes and 5000 phasers instead and check what happens...if' the population still reduces, the phasers do have an effect...otherwise not

[Turner]

Interesting idea Dr. Breen had. Here are the results:

• Phasers are completely useless for planetary attacks
• One ship can't attack more than one orbital battery per turn
• One ship attacks either a orbital battery(if available) AND civilians TOGETHER, OR it attacks only a single structure on the planet

In conclusion I can say, that this implementation is not really realistic^^
Perhaps they had had other reasons for programming this in that way.

EDIT: A single ship attacks an active orbital(if available) + a structure on the planet OR population on the planet

[The_Nighthawk]

Thanks Turner. That information is completely new, at least to me, and may lead the hex editor Greats on to more finds.

[Antni]

ohh right so the orbital bettereies act as back up generators if your power goes down abit? but also orbital turrents to fend of attacking ships etc

i didnt know that.

[The_Nighthawk]

Turner inspired me to conduct some tests of my own. The empirical results have given me the following conclusions (some of which duplicates Turner's findings):

- Only torpedoes are used to calculate ground attack results
- Unpowered orbitals are treated like standard structures
- A ship either destroys a single random structure(~1/3), or kills population (~2/3). If there are active orbitals, they are always attacked as well as the standard bombing damage to pop and structures.
- If a ship is facing a powered orbital, it is much more likely to kill population (~90-95%) than destroy a structure (~5-10%).
- Firepower used to kill an active orbital does NOT stop the torpedoes from killing population or a structure. The same population is killed regardless of whether an active orbital was also destroyed.
- 100 torpedo damage kills roughly 1 population if no structures are destroyed of course. There is also some weird rounding involved that makes pop killed less than what you would calculate.
- There is no overflow of damage from torpedos against active orbitals. Conversely, if the first ship doesn't kill the first active orbital, the second ship will also attack it, and so on until destroyed.
- Orbital hit points are somewhere between 225-240 OR they may have the same hit points as the damage they do (these did 240 damage in testing).
- Interesting quirk... if all ships attacking will be destroyed from a single orbital shot each, the ships don't get their attack in before they are destroyed. HOWEVER, even if the ships will be destroyed from follow up attacks, (ie 3 ships, 6 orbitals) but the first orbital to shoot them doesn't kill them, then they get their attack in, even if they are all destroyed by the second (or third) orbital shots. Strange.

[ketteringdave]

Here's what I'm reading from these tests (which are just awesome, by the way):

If you attack a system with a number of ships equal to the number of powered orbitals, and no ships are destroyed during the bombardment, then no buildings will be destroyed during the bombardment, only (possibly) orbitals and population.

First of all, is this correct?
Second, raiding a system displays the number of powered orbitals, right?

[Turner]

@The_Nighthawk: Nice tests with interesting results you've got. I ever thought, that unpowered orbitals were invulnerable in this game, because i've never destroyed one on those things. There is still the question, whether the hitpoints of the orbitals depends on their firepower (and the weapontech in this conclusion). More testing could give the answer here.

If you attack a system with a number of ships equal to the number of powered orbitals, and no ships are destroyed during the bombardment, then no buildings will be destroyed during the bombardment, only (possibly) orbitals and population.

I have to correct my upper post. It is possible to attack an active orbital + another structure on the planet with a single ship.

Second, raiding a system displays the number of powered orbitals, right?

I'm not sure, but its not rather important. You can see the actual number of active orbitals in the tooltip with the informations of the system. Indeed a scanpower of 1 or more is required.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Great research

What's your finding about shield generator yet?

-Is phaser fire useless against it too?

-If all (shielded) orbitals destroyed is the SH the first target or just one of the other random choise targetted buildings?


And an orbital battery can attack more than one ship per turn, right?


As to ground combat values of TT's and systems. By short tests I found a random value range (generated every turn) of -50% up to +100% (yet). Percentage means the needed cumulated TT combat value related to system value for successful invasion.

[The_Nighthawk]

@The_Nighthawk: Nice tests with interesting results you've got. I ever thought, that unpowered orbitals were invulnerable in this game, because i've never destroyed one on those things.

Indeed. The unpowered orbitals seem invulnerable just because the odds of one getting destroyed versus all the other structures on the system. The odds are very low most times.

If you attack a system with a number of ships equal to the number of powered orbitals, and no ships are destroyed during the bombardment, then no buildings will be destroyed during the bombardment, only (possibly) orbitals and population.

I have to correct my upper post. It is possible to attack an active orbital + another structure on the planet with a single ship.

I need to correct my post too. It happens infrequently, but yes, sometimes you destroy a structure instead of killing population when the ship also attacks an orbital. It happened maybe 5%. (6-8 ships attacking 7 oribtals 6 times. Only 1 structure destroyed in two of those 6 tests.)

Second, raiding a system displays the number of powered orbitals, right?

I'm not sure, but its not rather important. You can see the actual number of active orbitals in the tooltip with the informations of the system. Indeed a scanpower of 1 or more is required.

The raiding is correct, and it says it twice in the report usually. I didn't know about the tooltip. Thanks.

Also unknown at this time: How Shield Generators factor into all of this.