how does battle computer ranges work?

[makaramus]

Wich one is it
1)if range says 90 ships will allways try to enter to range of 90 and shoot from there even if all their weapons god 200 range
2)if range says 90 it will be its "minimum" range to approach even if it has no weapon that can shoot from there

how are the rules? if its second how does "swarming" works with long range weapons? do they still maintain longest range possible or they get close as possible?
if its first one then whats reason to pick super long ranged weapons other than shooting first?

 

[Methone]

I believe it's 2. I've seen ships with very long range weapons fire at their max range, while still closing in to 90 range. 'Swarm' basically means 'they'll try to circle around the enemy ships from close range, regardless of the range their actual weapons have'. Though I don't have much practice with long range weapons on swarm ships.

 

[makaramus]

I believe it's 2. I've seen ships with very long range weapons fire at their max range, while still closing in to 90 range. 'Swarm' basically means 'they'll try to circle around the enemy ships from close range, regardless of the range their actual weapons have'. Though I don't have much practice with long range weapons on swarm ships.

I think you mean "1" because you literally saying what I said there
to make it over simplified
1:Ships try to approach to their pre designed range even when they can shoot all of their weapons
2:ships try to shoot from range they can shoot most but if fail will stop at where they designated to(in this case 90). but if they can shoot from 110 they will stop there and fire from there.

ok just say this: my ships got 160(with all modifiers including computer) range weapons ONLY on it... what will happen to it with artilarity computer

 

[Blurb]

I don't think they work at all.

 

[makaramus]

I don't think they work at all.

I doubt if anyone knows now O_O

 

[Methone]

I think you mean "1" because you literally saying what I said there
to make it over simplified
1:Ships try to approach to their pre designed range even when they can shoot all of their weapons
2:ships try to shoot from range they can shoot most but if fail will stop at where they designated to(in this case 90). but if they can shoot from 110 they will stop there and fire from there.

ok just say this: my ships got 160(with all modifiers including computer) range weapons ONLY on it... what will happen to it with artilarity computer

The way you worded it made 1 sound like "The ship, with a 160 range weapon, will not fire a shot until it enters range 90".

What happens is: Once the ship with 160 range enters 160 range, it will begin firing. It will approach to range 90 - though there is word of bugs that they treat '90' more as '9', though I've only seen this happen with mono-fleets - firing all the while. Once at 90 it stops and keeps firing. If it has range 60 weapons, I do not know what it will do, if it will just stay at 90 or instead close in to 60.

 

[makaramus]

The way you worded it made 1 sound like "The ship, with a 160 range weapon, will not fire a shot until it enters range 90".

What happens is: Once the ship with 160 range enters 160 range, it will begin firing. It will approach to range 90 - though there is word of bugs that they treat '90' more as '9', though I've only seen this happen with mono-fleets - firing all the while. Once at 90 it stops and keeps firing. If it has range 60 weapons, I do not know what it will do, if it will just stay at 90 or instead close in to 60.

thats sad then :/

 

[Derp]

i don't understand why the various computers don't work off the range of the equipped weapons instead of hardcoded numbers

you could do this in space empires IV which is like 19 years old now

 

[Longherin]

My number one thought when it comes to problems like this always falls back to "so what happens in a multiplayer game?"
Because if ships could engage from maximum range, then the dominant strategy would be to either
1] Spam Corvettes with only missiles/torpedoes and play keep-away (because PD weapons still count as having a range) <- Aka Space Empires V
or
2] Spam mono battleships and have them them constantly retreat.
In both instances, it'd look pretty silly to have two fleets of the same makeup constantly try to engage and retreat from each other at the same time for the sake of maintaining their maximum range.

Either way, I'm pretty sure the standard ship AI works like "upon engagement, find a position that is a distance of 90 from the enemy position and stay there", with the occasional update of "find a new position that's 90 distance from the target and stay there" as long as the ship hasn't anchored itself to its location or else have gone out of range.

Ships do engage from maximum range possible (that's why they had to patch the Titan cannon so it didn't just try to no-scope a Corvette).

 

[Foefaller]

My experience is that the range set by their battle computer is when they slow down. They will still coast in closer, but they won't go thrusters to max.

 

[Longherin]

For me, when the ships slow down is when they are getting close to their designated position. Given that this is a computer game, the individual ships don't really have a concept of individuality, so they only go where they're supposed to for cheaper updates.