Topic: Hull integrity stuff

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Hey,
I was wondering how tough all of the ships are, so I tried testing it: Flying a heavy cruiser from each race with a BPV of ~150-160, at green alert, against a K-C7 (game speed 11 to speed things up). Here are the results, in order from toughest to weakest. The number is the amount of damage it took for my ship to be destroyed.

G-CC+    =231  (So Gorn really are the toughest)
Z-CCH    =230  (Didn't know Mirak were so high up there)
I-CAP     =227
L-CC+    =222
F-CAD+  =220
H-CHA   =220   (I though Hydrans were supposed to be the hardiest race?)
K-D7W   =217
R-FHA    =212   (Still my favorite race though)

[Rod ONeal]

What you've "basically" done here is count internals. Kzinti are tough in your study because of all the phaser 3s add to its total internals. There are other things that make a ship tough in combat. Some worthless systems shield the valuable ones on the damage table. If you could do the same test, but count the number of internals before you loose 1/2 your weapons you'd get a slightly different result.

[FPF-DieHard]

that sounds about right, it normal takes 250 internals to crack a cruiser in half with D2 loadouts.

[Dizzy]

Some will take less internals to kill if massively alpha striked. All the excess damage may get tagged b4 other systems take damage. Mizia fire may take the longest to kill a target. You can bet all systems will go b4 the excess damage is all hit. Time will increase a ship's internal count. Ask Chuut and his war destroyer... 10 Spares will increase a ships internal count by 30 if used on engines and 20 or more if used on systems, especially those with multiple weapons in one hardpoint.

And then there is a bit of voodoo magic... like when you lag when you're hit and the packet is lost, hahahahaha.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

So the real test is how many hits on the hull boxes to see how resilient a ship is. One thing I'm confused about: What is the difference between forward hull, center hull, aft hull, etc. Is a ship with mostly center hull tougher?

[Dizzy]

Look up the SFB DAC. All your answers are there

[GE-Raven]

So the real test is how many hits on the hull boxes to see how resilient a ship is. One thing I'm confused about: What is the difference between forward hull, center hull, aft hull, etc. Is a ship with mostly center hull tougher?

in a nutshell (from memory).

If you are hit in the rear you lose rear hull and when that is gone you start cutting into center hull.  This is true for all directions.  So IF you could evenly space out your damage  the total number of hull combined would be optimal.  However in practice you tend to get all your damage from one of the four ways.... so in practice center hull (plus the hull of the direction you tend to take damage from) is the most important for longevity.

GE-Raven

[FPF-DieHard]

So the real test is how many hits on the hull boxes to see how resilient a ship is. One thing I'm confused about: What is the difference between forward hull, center hull, aft hull, etc. Is a ship with mostly center hull tougher?

"Hull" are the non-weapons and non-power areas of the ship.  Crew quarters, dining halls, Bowling alleys, etc.   Loosing all your hull simply means the non-essential systems have been hit.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Okay guys I think my original test is a dud. Tried it again on the G-CC+ and got 212 instead of 231. If there's that much variance, it doesn't really say much 

[Nemesis]

Okay guys I think my original test is a dud. Tried it again on the G-CC+ and got 212 instead of 231. If there's that much variance, it doesn't really say much 

Critically damage a ship so it has no weapons and then sit there watching.  Its hull integrity comes back.  This is partially accounted for by regenerating engines but I believe that some other systems also regenerate though I've never seen it documented.

[Panzergranate]

The order is which you make repairs is important too. Check out the repair power cost tables in SFB Volume.III. for details. The orderin which the AI decides to make repairs is unknown but probally logical in some sort of way.

If my oponent hasn't drone capability then I don't watse spares ion tractor hits or bother with shuttle/fighter if they're all ou in space.

Certain wepons system cost as much as 10 points of power to fix. Running at high speed and wondering why a repair is dragging so long  is probally because there isn't enough power available. You might have to drop speed slightly to fix it. Not always poosible if being pursued by a hostile posse!!

In SFB you could just choose not to charge or power up some weapons mounts, not so in SFC so far.

It's this complexity that makes SFC so much better than Legacy or Bridge Commander when comes to tactical and cunning play. SFC is the Chess to BC and L's Checkers.

[Lieutenant_Q]

You can chose not to power up weapons, just click the Hard Point and then click the "Offline" button.  Useful for Phasers that point the wrong way, Photons that are sucking way too much power, Plasmas that never charge...etc..

[Panzergranate]

Don't they stay charged but not under the fire button??

I do this sometimes, switch to monitor something and they come on again when I return. I only use this option to save drone ammo. My son is a compulsive button and control fidler in games, which always his downfall against human players. He's usually so busy setting and resetting ECM/ECCM, photons, power, etc. he's not playing attention to what the other players are doing and finds himself introuble alot or missing good tactical o;urunities.

Aparently a Plasma Torpedo launcher is the most power hungry thing to fix. I  notuced this with F-BCF, anything Romulan or Gorn.

I generally test out ships by reclassifying them  in shiplist.txt or SFCSPB13.txt as F-XXX, K-XXX, G-XXX, etc., settung up a serial game, loading up players A and B as thse ships and starting the game. Pressing T allows me to follow the actions of either computer controlled ship.

Any non-stock introduced designation ship will cause this interesting bug to occur. At least on ship must be a stock designation (F-FF, etc.) when using non-stock designated shipin a squadron, if you want to join in.

Gorn ships usually win in best if 3 computer vs computer games like this.

[Lieutenant_Q]

That depends, one of the "Tactical Tips" given in the Manual is the so-called 5th Weapon group, which is quite silly actually.  If you press the 'R' key as they suggest you will reactivate every weapons HP.  Also if you only take 2 Photons offline (on a 4 Photon Ship) if they are in the same weapon as the two active, and you switch between Proxie  and Normal, you will reactivate because switching will switch all 4 HPs.  You can leave weapons offline, and they won't suck any power, you just have to make sure that you don't do something that could accidentally reactivate them.

[Panzergranate]

I generally use the same tactics I used in SFB games and they work out quite well.

I usually back off, slow down to 1/3rd impulse,  (2/3rd impulse with the F6 or just stay flat out with a D15, L6 or L7) charge weapons and pick an oportunity to hit a target ship.

My son still hasn't learnt that his tactic of charging only shields facing an enemy only works ion the computer. I fly over him and fire at the oposite side.

Always the same settings: ECCM full up (If I fire anything I want it to have a good chance to hit!!), Shields to reinforce all, speed 19 to close, speed 11 or 9 in to finish the kill.

Tactics with an L6 or L7 are different due to the larger turning circle (E), movement costs (1.33) and 60 warp engine power available.

The main tactic is to move away from enemy, charge all weapons (torpedoes, drones, phasers, etc.), turn and approach the target. At a key moment drop a mine "early" so that the enemy breaks left/right to avoid. blast out enemy's forward shields, weapons, toilets, etc. with the 8 Disrupters, Topedoes, phasers.

Continue to head away from the target ship (and escorts), wait until the sucker turns to pursue and then fire drop a cluster pack or drones into the unshileded front of the target ship.

Turn and dispatch target ship, find new victim.

Because we run LAN games we can use full squadrons without the hastles of online games. I usually run an L7 with a  pair of D15 "Javelin" fast strike destroyers or F6 battle frigates, always on follow me. If they have to go deal with something then one escorts the other. D15s are fast, powerful but are spartan, poorly armed and poorly shielded.

The general rule with escorts is to let them never stray too far away and keep a close eye on them as they will come a cropper if you don't. Tactics to divide a squadron up and pick it off are key to multiplayer LAN games. If you realise that a player is deliberately luring away an escort(s), especially in team games, hit "follow me" immediately.

I'm giving away any of my escort luring tactics here but they can be developed in multiplayer games against the computer and refined on human players.

Luring away escorts was a popular tactic to play on inexperienced rookie players back in SFB days. In a campaign game another player and myself, flying a pair of F5Bs managed to lure 3 Fed DD+ right across the table until they realised that the dreadnaught they were supposed to be escorting was under attack by a C7 and D6D. By then they were too far away to help and when the turned around, we were there to harras sthem.

Team tactics win games!!

Individualism and glory hunting looses them!!


[ /b]