Category:The Battle Manual

From PlanetsWiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Switches 2.1 Ship Settings 2.1.1 Combat Initiation 2.1.2 Entering Combat 2.1.3 Weapon Specific 2.1.4 Movement And Combat Behavior 2.1.5 Target Preferences 2.1.6 Target Exclusions 2.1.7 Escort / Fleet 2.2 Wing Settings 2.2.1 General 2.2.2 Entering Combat 2.2.3 Movement and Combat Behavior 2.2.4 Target Preferences 2.2.5 Target Exclusions 2.2.6 Escort 2.2.7 Carrier 2.3 Base Settings 3 Targeting 4 Movement 4.1 Auto Stand Off Mode 5 Firing 6 Weapon Charging

[edit] Introduction

A quick glance at all those blinking lights

So there you sit in your brand new combat command center. It's likely that you will recognise some of the well-worn, lit-up buttons... but there's a whole new stack of new blinking gizmos to choose from now as well! To stop you from going insane in your command chair, we have thoughtfully provided this thing that we - in our high-handedness (actually it is just me:) - call THE Battle Manual. Of course all the new buttons need to be tried as quickly as possible. We know this and because of this there's a quick overview first-up covering the functions that underlie all those brightly lit, colored buttons. For most of our readers this will provide everything that you need, so we recommend that you proceed directly from here to the next section.

For the rest of you (i.e. the details-obsessed nerds) we have also written down all those chewy details that you're looking for. Really it's a brand new experience - even a brand new life (depending on your nerd-level!) - that will open up before you with the new combat system. Thus - like life - we'll start by describing how to move and what the new commands do in detail. Then, having (hopefully!) achieved that, we'll teach you the details about how the fight with the new combat system as well. Below are some details on how fighting works and some more details on how targeting works. Both are presented together because fighting without having a target is as pointless as targeting without having something to launch at your enemies.

What comes after that - well we're not sure yet... it's where no-one has gone before...

[edit] Switches

There are four different types of combat switches for ships:

• Targeting
• Movement and Combat Behavior
• Weapon Preferences - on/off switches for specialised weapons
• Fleet and Escort

There are four different types of combat switches for wings:

• Targeting
• Movement and Combat Behavior
• Escort
• Carrier

Targeting and movement are now independent. Whereas in old times most ships had only one officer to keep an eye on the enemy, now they have two - and a computer. Thus even here in this very short introduction we have to distinguish between movement and targeting/shooting.

It is important to note that if you don't set a specific movement or targeting switch then the computer takes over and will control your movement and assign targets for you. This may result in your ship not doing what you actually wanted it to do. You are advised therefore to always set at least one each of the movement and target switches.

First of course we need a description of what the switches do...

[edit] Ship Settings

Most of the following settings can be found on the Ship Command - Attack screen. The buttons should (hopefully) reflect the default values of the switches.

[edit] Combat Initiation

Button		Effect
	Aggressive	The ship will attack enemies (and will leave cloak for that).

[edit] Entering Combat

Button		Effect
Attack Vector		The attack vector is the general direction the ship will attempt to enter battle from. You can choose one of 8 vectors or have the ship enter from a random direction. By default this is set to "0" (random).
	Delay Ship (Second Wave)	Enter at combat tick 300. When only intact objects of an player/alliance are left, all 2nd wave objects of that player/alliance enter immediately.

[edit] Weapon Specific

Button		Effect
	Ion Cannon: Fire on Shields	Choose whether Ion Cannons will fire at ships with shield
	Sand Casters: Fire on Ships	Choose whether Sand Casters will fire at ships
	Sand Casters: Fire on Fighters	Choose whether Sand Casters will fire at wings
	Super Weapon	Choose whether the Super Weapon will fire during combat
	Allow Power Boost Mode	Power boost Mode for all large weapons except Blaster Cannons and Plasma Bolt Cannons
	Blaster Cannon / Plasma Bolt Cannon Boost	Power boost only for Blaster Cannons and Plasma Bolt Cannons

[edit] Movement And Combat Behavior

Movement Prefrences - note if none of these four switches are enabled your computer will be in charge of movement (and will use an 'Auto Stand Off' mode, see below for more).

Button		Effect
	Stay At Stand Off Range	Ship tries to hold the standoff range (value set using Stand Off Range slider) with respect to the top movement target.
	Retreat From Enemy Ships	The ship tries to flee from the enemy. It will not shoot first, but it will start shooting if shot at (mutually exclusive with "Hold The Line At Any Cost").
	Strike Through	Fire a full salvo, peel off, wait until all weapons are charged again. Then repeat the procedure.
	Ram!	Move with high speed towards target and try to ram, peel off and try again.

Other Combat Preferences

Button		Effect
	Stand Off Range (KM)	Goal for the distance to the top movement target. Only relevant if Stay At Stand Off Range switch is on.
	Hold The Line At Any Cost	The ship will obey the given orders until the end even if badly damaged (mutually exclusive with "Retreat From Enemy Ships").
	Guard Ground Base	Ships group around own and friendly bases if bases are under fire and leave guarding position if bases are no longer under fire (mutually exclusive with "Retreat From Enemy Ships").

[edit] Target Preferences

Button		Effect
	Kill target	Primary target number one! Overrides other target preferences and exclusions. (Actually this is not on the attack screen, but can be set using Ship Command - Overview, Ship Command - Nav or the menu bar at the top of the client.)
	Target Soft	The ship will try to fire at small ships, bases and wings first.
	Target Dangerous	The ship will try to fire at big ships, bases and wings first.
	Target Closest	The ship will prefer targets that are near.
	Anti-fighter Mode	Wings will be preferred as targets.
	Fire at Ground Targets	Bases will be preferred as targets.

[edit] Target Exclusions

Button		Effect
	Do not fire at Disabled	Ignore disabled objects. Works for bases too.
	Target Harmless Pods	The ship will consider (non assault) pods when looking for an appropriate target.
	Avoid Ground Base	If turned on, the ship will not shoot at enemy bases at all. If a direct course would bring the ship in distance to ICs then the ship will fly around the center. You can overwrite this by setting the base as kill target.

[edit] Escort / Fleet

Ships can now form fleets in space combat. The following switches can be found at the Ship Command - Fleet screen.

Button		Effect
	Escort Target	Source for sharing movement and/or weapon target. Possible fleet leader. (Actually this is not on the fleet screen, but can be set using Ship Command - Overview, Ship Command - Nav or the Menubar at the top of the screen.)
	Fleet Leader	Indicates that this object is also a leader of a fleet in a space combat
	Fleet Member	Indicates that the object is also a part of a fleet in a space combat
	Combat Firing Targets	Use the weapon targets of the escort target
	Combat Movement Targets	Use the movement targets of the escort target (mutually exclusive with the next switch).
	Firing Targets as Movement Targets	Use the escort target's firing targets as movement targets (mutually exclusive with the previous switch).

[edit] Wing Settings

Most of the following settings can be found on the Wing Command - Attack screen.

[edit] General

Button		Effect
	Attack Enemies	The wing will initiate a space combat.

[edit] Entering Combat

Button		Effect
	Do Not Launch	Choose whether the wing will fight in combat or not, if it is docked.
	Delay Wing (Second Wave)	Enter at combat tick 300. When only intact objects of an player/alliance are left, all 2nd wave objects of that player/alliance enter immediately.

[edit] Movement and Combat Behavior

Button		Effect
	Quick Strike and Run	Fire a full salvo, peel off, wait until all weapons are charged again. Then repeat the procedure.
	Close To Point Blank	Wing will try to keep away from enemies until it has enough energy to fire at least one missile and one beam.
	Guard Ground Base	Wings group around own and friendly bases if bases are under fire and leave guarding position if bases are no longer under fire anymore.

[edit] Target Preferences

Button		Effect
	Kill Target	Primary target number one!
	Target Deadly	The wing will try to fire at big ships, bases and wings first.
	Target Soft	The wing will try to fire at small ships, bases and wings first.
	Target Closest	The wing will prefer targets that are near.
	Anti Fighter (and intercept Wings)	Wings will be preferred as targets.
	Ground Strike	Bases will be preferred as targets.

[edit] Target Exclusions

Button		Effect
	Do Not Fire on Disabled	Ignore disabled objects. Works for bases too.
	Target/Intercept all Pods	The wing will consider (non assault) pods when looking for an appropriate target.
	Avoid Ground Base	If turned on, the wing will not shoot at enemy bases at all. If a direct course would bring the wing in distance to AA Guns then the wing will fly around the center. You can overwrite this by setting the base as kill target.

[edit] Escort

Button		Effect
	Escort Target	Source for sharing movement and/or weapon target.
	Group Together with Escort Target	Wing tries to stay close to the Escort Target.
	Fire at Escort's Targets	Use the weapon targets of the Escort Target.
	Move towards Escort's M Targets	Use the movement targets of the Escort Target (mutually exclusive with the next switch).
	Move towards Escort's F Targets	Use the Escort Target's weapon targets as movement targets (mutually exclusive with the previous switch).

[edit] Carrier

Button		Effect
	Dock Target	Possible target for re-charging and rearming. Wings run out of ord faster with the new code, but can return to their carrier to pick up more ord. If the wings' missiles are poor, you may prefer to just rely on their beams.
	Return Home	Choose whether the wing will return to its carrier/home base for replenishing batteries

[edit] Base Settings

Button		Effect
	Do Not Fire Ion Cannons at Disabled Ships	The base will ignore disabled objects when looking for targets for its Ion Cannons.

[edit] Targeting

Targeting as the act of choosing whom to kill is not an easy task. It can be influenced by the client switches described above. But even without doing anything, each commander has to choose a good target. So what is a good target?

• Hardness: You would confirm that an easy target is something that breaks into parts with the first knock.
• Threat: You will probably also agree on the statement that any object that poses a dangerous threat to you, needs to be removed from the sky before it can harm you.

Normally there are many objects around from which you have to choose your target. Each different and each more or less dangerous and more or less fragile. For choosing an target an object which is a great danger but is also very fragile should be preferred before an object that is a great danger but is hard to kill by yourself. Why? If the dangerous object is gone, it cannot fire any more and you can concentrate on what is left. Thus the quotient "Threat Level"/"Hardness-to-Kill" is used as a measure of whom to kill first (from now on called "Weight"). A dangerous object which is easy to kill gets a high weight according to the formula and a harmless object which is hard to kill a low weight. Regardless of any combat orders that you give, the targeting list will always be based on the weight.

The weights of all objects are calculated every few ticks and the object with the biggest weight will be stored in a target list. This list consists of ten targets with a max of 7 targets of each type (ship, wing, base, pod) and at least one spot for each type (this prevents that you captains could be blinded for example by too many pods).

There are two of such top ten target lists: one for the weapon fire (TTFL) and one for the movement (TTML).

Let's take an example to explain why there are two lists: There are several enemy ships with big weights outside your weapon range at the other end of the map and several minor weight ships inside your weapon range. The ship can now fly towards the ships with big weights while firing at the best target in weapon range. If there would be just one target list, it could happen that either the distant targets are in the list (leading to moving and not firing) or just the targets in range (leading firing only at the near targets and ignoring the targets with high weights).

Long Version of Targeting

[edit] Movement

[edit] Auto Stand Off Mode

If neither a Stand Off Range is given nor Strike Through, Ram! or Retreat from Enemy Ships is enabled, the ship goes into an auto-standoff mode:

• The attack setting will then be the same as setting the stand off range to 90% of the minimal range of the outfitted Large Weapons or Small Weapons.

Long Version of Movement

[edit] Firing

• New: Large weapons can be set to a special power boost state using energy from the power bank, which enables them to fire at extremely high rate, but also poses a danger that the ship may be damaged severely.
• New: Gatling Phasors can now fire at wings.
• New: There is a new system which allows how many fighters (ShotLimit) in a type can fire per tick:
  • There is a hconfig parameter "FiringFighterDivisor"
  • IF type's count < FiringFighterDivisor THEN
    • IF RND < type's count / FiringFighterDivisor THEN ShotLimit = 1 ELSE = 0
    • IF RND < OC(fighterGen - 10, 10) THEN shotLimit = ShotLimit + 2
  • IF FiringFighterDivisor <=type's count < 10000 THEN
    • ShotLimit = Round(type's count / FiringFighterDivisor)
  • IF type's count >= 10000 THEN ShotLimit = Round(10000 / FiringFighterDivisor)
  • New: There is a 50/50 chance which fighter weapon (beam or missile) will start the fire if both missiles and beams are present, ready to fire and able to hit something.

OC(p,q) is the OddsCompetition function, which is describe in the sandcaster section of the battle manual.

The additional allowed 2 shots per tick for smaller wings will lead to a bonus for generator values over 10.

Here is a table for the additional bonus per tick in the mean depending onthe generator value:

fighterGen bonus (mean)
1          0
4          0
5          0
10         0
11         0.1
15         0.5
20         1
25         1.33
30         1.5
110        1.9

IMPORTANT: The distance, fighter weapon type and exotic tech depending older fire rate is removed.

Long Version of Firing

[edit] Weapon Charging

• New: All objects start with empty systems but charge immediately when entering vcr.
• New: Even if an object "is there" but not visible it charges. I.e. re-docked wings and 2nd wave objects charge all the time even if they are waiting for (re-)entering combat.
• New: Except for the old power boost of the cloakers and the super weapons the power bank also starts empty and has to be charged by surplus energy which was left after normal charging.
• "PowerBoost Cloak" still takes place at tick 25.
• The old power boost of the super weapons still take place at tick 310 and tick 4000.
• New: Charging takes now place any single tick. There isn't a difference before or after tick 300 like it was till host212.

Long Version of Weapon Charging