Combat

Combat occurs when one fleet encounters another as the result of an Attack. The attacker's ships immediately fire on the defender's ships and defenses, if there are any. If the attacker destroys all ships and defenses, and still has cargo space available, plunder will occur.

How it Works

Combat lasts until either the attacker's or defender's forces are completely destroyed or six rounds of combat take place. In each of the rounds, all of the attacker's and defender's units fire randomly at the opposing fleet's units simultaneously. If any unit strikes a unit against which it has Rapid Fire, that unit will get a chance at firing an extra shot, also randomly. This will repeat until all units fail on their random Rapid Fire chance or hit a unit against which they do not have Rapid Fire.

Weapons

The damage dealt from each shot is equal to the shooting ship's Weapons Rating. So for instance an Artemis Class has a Weapons Rating of 50. If it hits an Atlas Class it will deal that Atlas 50 damage.

Shield and Hull

Damage done to a ship in each round is first absorbed by that ship's Shield Rating and then the remaining damage subtracts from the ship's Hull Rating. An Atlas Class has a Shield Rating of 10 and a Hull Rating of 400, so if it were shot by an Artemis Class, which deals 50 damage, the first 10 would be absorbed by the shield and the remaining 40 would reduce the Atlas's hull to 360.

Shields replenish between rounds but Hull does not repair until the end of battle. So in our example above, in round 2 the Atlas would start with 10 Shield again and only 360 Hull. After round 2, if it survived, it would have a Hull of 320.

Ineffectiveness Rule

Any strike from a ship with a weapon rating which is less than or equal to 1% of the shielding capacity of the target is absorbed with no effect on the target. As an example, suppose a player with a Weapons Tech of 12 attacks a player with a Shield Tech of 9, and in the battle one of the attacker's Artemis Fighters targets the defender's Large Decoy. The fighter would have a weapon rating of 110 (50 + 5 * 12). The Large Decoy would have shield rating of 19,000 (10,000 + 1,000 * 9). Since 110 is less than 190 (1% of 19,000), the Artemis Fighter would do no damage; that shot is ineffective. Furthermore, it is essentially impossible that an attacker could research their Weapons Tech high enough that an Artemis would ever damage a Large Decoy. However, some units have base weapons ratings which are equal to 1% of other units' base shield ratings; in these cases the respective weapon and shield tech levels come into play.

Shots by the following ships are always effective (base weapon greater than 1500): Prometheus, Zeus; and in Nova: Thanatos.

Shots against the following units are always effective (base shield less than 100): Missile Battery, Laser Cannon, Hermes Probe, Helios Solar Satellite, Atlas Cargo, Dionysus Recycler, Hercules Cargo, Charon Transport, Artemis Fighter, Apollo Fighter, Poseidon Cruiser; and in Nova: Zagreus, Empusa, Space Mine.

Defenses have relatively high weapons ratings; their shots are effective against all attack ships, with the exception that “fodder” defenses (Missile Battery, Laser Cannon, Pulse Cannon, and Particle Cannon) are ineffective against Zeus. Also, in Nova, Missile Battery is ineffective and Laser Cannon may be ineffective against Thanatos.

The Nova-only Empusa is highly idiosyncratic. It is ineffective against defenses and when defending. It is effective on offense against most ships, with the exception of the Hephaestus.

For other pairings, consult the following table:

		x = Ship cannot damage target ? = No damage if Ship's Weapon tech ≤ target's Shield tech
	Target Base Shield
Ship Base Weapon		1	5	10	50	100	150	400	500	700	1k
	100	?
	200	x
	250	x
	400	x
	500	x	?
	1800	x	x	x
	10k	x	x	x	x	?
	50k	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	?
	150k	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
	100	?
	500	x	?
	200	x
	300	x
	2k	x	x	x
	10k	x	x	x	x	?

Destroying

At the end of each round, when all ships are done firing, any ship that has less than 70% of its initial Hull Rating has a chance to explode equal to the total hull reduction.

So in our above example after round 4 the Atlas class will have suffered 160 total Hull damage and have 240 Hull (out of its starting 400) left. That means it has lost 40% of its Hull ((160/400)*100) and will therefore have a 40% chance of being destroyed.

If it survives, at the end of round 5 it will have suffered another 40 Hull damage for a total of 200, giving it a 50% chance of destruction. At the end of round 6 it will have suffered 240 Hull damage and have a 60% chance of destruction. Thus it is actually possible for an Atlas Class to not be destroyed by an Artemis.

NOTE : Only defenses and ships are affected by combat. Buildings are NOT affected by combat.

Result

Attacker Wins

At the end of combat if all of the defender's ships and defenses have been destroyed, and the attacker has ships remaining, the attacker will have won the battle and will Plunder the defender's planet.

Defender Wins

At the end of combat if all of the attacker's ships are destroyed, and the defender has ships or defense remaining, the defender will have won combat. No Plunder will be received by the attacker.

Draw

If at the end of combat both sides have ships left, or all ships have been destroyed, the battle will have been a draw and no Plunder will be received by the attacker.

Special Rules for SFC Nova

DSP

In Starfleet Commander Nova DSP is awarded both proportionally to the number of ships a player has committed to the battle and relative to the ranks of the players taking part in the battle. Proportional DSP is calculated based on the RSP value of the pre-attack ship and defense counts. [Total DSP (1DSP per 1,000 Resources destroyed) x (The RSP Value of your Ships and defenders / RSP Value of all allied Ships and defenses)]. Allied ships and defenses being on the same side of the battle as your. This ensures that the player that commits the most ships and defenses to the attack or defense will receive the largest share of total DSP. After the battle the DSP is awarded relative to the rank of the players involved using with the following formula [Total Opponent's RSP / Total Allied RSP * .5]. The maximum relative values to be applied at .1 to 1.0. This means that attacking a player of equal size to you will result in 1 DSP per 2,000 resources destroyed, but attack a player twice your size will result in 1DSP per 1,000 resources destroyed.

Fleet Escape

If a defender is more than 100 RSP ranks lower than the attacker and the RSP value of the attacking fleet is more than 5x the RSP value (3x if the Defender has an Admiral) of the defending fleet, then the defending fleet, except for Hermes Probes, Shadow Probes, Helios Satellites, Genesis Satellites, Zeus, and an undeployed Hephaestus, will escape from combat if hydrogen is available on the planet. When calculating the RSP value of the defending fleet probes count for .25RSP and Satellites count for 0RSP. If the player is group defended, no fleet escape will be possible. No fleet escapes are possible after the player has 100,000RSP.

A spreadsheet to determine both DSP and whether a fleet escape is possible is available at http://bit.ly/HaJnoG.

See Also

• Rapid Fire
• Plunder
• Weapons Rating
• Shield Rating
• Hull Rating
• Ships
• Defenses