COMBAT

Ship To Planet Combat

Beams are fired:
a. Attacker's beams vs planet's fighters.
b. Planet's beams vs ½ attacker's fighters.
c. Attacker's remaining beams vs planet's shields.
d. Planet's remaining beams vs attacker's shields.
e. Planet's remaining beams vs attacker's armor.
Torpedos are fired:
a. Attacker's torpedoes vs planet's remaining fighters.
b. Planet's torpedoes vs ½ attacker's remaining fighters.
c. Planet's torpedoes vs attacker's remaining armor.
d. Attacker's remaining torpedoes vs planet's remaining fighters (see below).
Fighters are launched
a. Attacker's remaining fighters vs planet's remaining fighters.
b. Attacker's remaining fighters vs planet's remaining shields.
c. Planet's remaining fighters vs attacker's remaining armor.

Ship to Ship Combat

1. Ship to ship combat happens in a very straightforward manner. I'll be using the following method to determine who is the attacker and who is the defender. a_shields is attacker shields. d_shields is defender shields.

First, a_engines and d_engines are compared. A chance to attack is determined by this formula: success=(10-d_engines+a_engines)*5. This number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the random number is higher than the success number, the attack goes on. Otherwise you get a message saying "Target out maneuvered you!".

2. Here's an example. If your engines are 13 and his engines are 16, then we calculate the success rate as (10-16+13)*5. The result is 35. Hence, you have a 65% chance (35% chance to fail) to succeed.

Second, a_sensors and d_cloak are compared. A chance to attack is determined by this formula: success=(10-d_cloak+a_sensors)*5. This number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the random number is lower than the success number, the attack goes on. Otherwise you get a message saying "Unable to get a lock on target!".

Here's an example. If your sensors are 7 and his cloak is 3, then we calculate the success rate as (10-3+7)*5. This result is 70. This means you have a straight 70% chance of success.

I know this looks the same as the above engines check, but here you get the success percent right away. There you have to subtract from 100. Looks like two different people wrote this code. Incidentally, there's always at least a 5% success or 5% failure chance. Nothing is certain.

3 . Okay, now combat is a go. If the defender has an Emergency Warp Device, it is used and the defender is sent to a random sector between 1 and the max sector number, which is 5000 in this game. Combat, of course, would end. If the defender has no Emergency Warp Devices, combat is continued.

4. First, beams are exchanged against fighters. The a_beams will destroy up to half of the d_fighters and vice versa.

For example, you have 20,000 beams and he has 14,000 fighters. Your beams will take out 7,000 fighters (half) and leave you with 13,000 beams left over. If you had 20,000 beams and he had 47,000 fighters, you would take out 20,000 fighters. That would leave you with 0 beams and leave him with 27,000 fighters.

5. This step only happens if either player has any beams left. Assume we have beams left. The a_beams will go against d_shields. If the beams are higher, they will negate all of the shields and there will still be some beams left over. The same thing goes for the defender's beams against your shields.

For example, you have 7,000 beams left over from the previous step. Your opponent has 20,000 shields. Your beams would take away 7,000 shield points and your beams would be done. If he had had only 6,000 shields, your beams would have taken away all shields and left you with 1,000 beams left over.

6. This step also only happens if there are beams left over from the previous two steps. In this step, a_beams are matched up against d_armor. If your beams are greater than his armor, then he is going to die. If your beams aren't high enough, you just take away that many points of armor.

For example, you have 3,000 beams left over and the opponent has 40,000 armor. You'll take away 3,000, leaving him with 37,000 armor. If he had 3,000 armor or less, he would die in the conflict. Death equates to an armor rating of 0 or less.

7. Now we have an exchange of torpedoes. In this version of the game (blacknova.net 3/6/01) torps have a damage rating of 10. This is something that can be changed in the config file, so it might not always be the same. First off, torp damage is calculated by multiplying the number of torps you have by the torp damage rate. So, if you had 400 torps, your torp damage would be 4,000 (400*10).

If the defender has any fighters left, the torp damage will take out up to half of them. It's basically the same as with the beams. So, if your torp damage is 4,000 and d_fighters is 5,000, you will take out 2,500 fighters. That'll leave you with 1,500 worth of torp damage to work with. If he had had 10,000 fighters, you would have taken out a full 4,000 of them. You wouldn't have any torp damage left though.

8. If you have any torp damage left, it is applied to the defender's armor. So, if you had 4,000 torp damage left, you'd take away 4,000 armor.

9. Now, fighters attack. Your original fighters total is subtracted from his fighter total, and his original total is deleted from yours. This might not seem immediately intuitive, but it is. I'll give some examples.

You have 40,000 and he has 36,000. You'll end up with 4,000 left over and he'll end up with 0.
You have 20,000 and he has 20,000. You'll both end up with 0.
You have 15,000 and he has 27,000. You'll end up with 0 and he'll end up with 12,000.

10. If there are any fighters left, they are applied to the defender's armor. So, if you have 34,000 fighters left, you can do 34,000 damage to d_armor. If the defender doesn't have enough armor left, too bad.

11. The last step is to test whether or not either player is dead. If either player has armor of 0 or less, they are dead. If you die, life sucks. You learned a hard lesson. If your opponent dies and you live, you get some money based on salvaging his ship. If you want to know how much, look in the code. I'm tired.