The " who defends " bug

[Flubber]

This was in a PBEM ( the veterans 6 game over at CGN) where I experienced a weirdness I had not seen before.

I had ships in the area and my <5>-1-6 had just killed my opponents <2>-1-6. I suspected he had another of these in the area so I stacked my 1-3p-6 with it on the open seas. So on an attack my armour was better by about 3-2 and on bombard, I had him outgunned 5-2. I did not designate anyone as a defender.

My opponent attacked with his <2>-1-6 and to his suprise, my <5>-1-6 defended with its armour!!! His ship won the battle anmd took little damage. My opponent was so suprised at this result that he sent an email telling me of this and when the turn got around to me I confirmed that his <2>-1-6 killed my <5>-1-6 DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT WAS STACKED WITH A 1-3p-6.

Any idea what would cause this?? Is this a function of the pulse armour ( I only put on pulse to see what impacts it might have) ?? or the SAM attributes of the two ships involved ( both parties have a LOT of interceptors so ships need SAM to attack most things))??. I feared designating a defender in this situation since I feared the designated defender might defend in an artillery duel.

Any ideas

[RedFred]

Was the attack conventional or a SMACX to-the-death arty battle?

I can only say that I can vouch for the defender rule working correctly for land chassis like a 4-1-2 + 1-3-2 stack or even a 4-1-1 + 1-3-1 stack. But the program does have a very irritating habit of attacking my highest weapon when the defense is equal, so a 4-1-2 will often get nailed when a 1-1-1 is also present, but I have always assumed that this was due to experience differences without checking it too closely.

[Flubber]

Conventional-- If it was arty, then the loss would have been suprising but best-weapon versus best weapon would have been correct

[The Mad Monk]

We know aircraft-to-aircraft is weapon versus weapon, interceptor-to-aircraft is weapon versus armor, and interceptor-to-nonaircraft is 1/2weapon versus armor. Does interceptor-to-interceptor go back to weapon versus weapon, and if so, might that trump chassis type?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
We know aircraft-to-aircraft is weapon versus weapon, interceptor-to-aircraft is weapon versus armor, and interceptor-to-nonaircraft is 1/2weapon versus armor. Does interceptor-to-interceptor go back to weapon versus weapon, and if so, might that trump chassis type?

That is a possibility, but on weapon vs weapon I would have expected my 5 weapon to triumph over his 2. My opponent told me that it went weapon versus armour-- That part is ok . . . the question is why my unit with 1 armour defended rather than the one with 3p armour whn the two ships were stacked

[johndmuller]

Not that I am terribly convinced of the likihood of this, but could morale have factored into the selection? I don't think that the pulse armor does any good against ships, but I'm not totally sure about that; even so, it is still a level 3 basic armor at least.

I don't have many specifics at the tip of my tongue, but I am often annoyed at the choice of defenders (like I think NL units will often defend against other NL units, even if not the best choice), so I try to specify the defenders if I have any doubt - not that it necessarily helps. I've several times posted questions about who defends among non-combaat units also, but never gotten any responses IIRC.

If the common SAM attributes does indeed make it follow the interceptor weapon vs weapon rule, then one would expect the same thing to happen if you had SAM rovers - anyone know if a SAM rover would defend against another SAM rover even if stacked with a better defender?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by johndmuller
Not that I am terribly convinced of the likihood of this, but could morale have factored into the selection? I don't think that the pulse armor does any good against ships, but I'm not totally sure about that; even so, it is still a level 3 basic armor at least.

NO on the morale thing-- both were veterans IIRCand even if there was a morale difference, it would at most have been in the order of 25% and would never make 1 1 armour even remotely as strong as the 3.

Originally posted by johndmuller
I don't have many specifics at the tip of my tongue, but I am often annoyed at the choice of defenders (like I think NL units will often defend against other NL units, even if not the best choice), so I try to specify the defenders if I have any doubt - not that it necessarily helps. I've several times posted questions about who defends among non-combaat units also, but never gotten any responses IIRC..

THis thread had 90 views before anyone responded as well and it seems almost everyone is a bit confused on this.

Originally posted by johndmuller If the common SAM attributes does indeed make it follow the interceptor weapon vs weapon rule, then one would expect the same thing to happen if you had SAM rovers - anyone know if a SAM rover would defend against another SAM rover even if stacked with a better defender?

I would not have minded weapon versus weapon since my stack had a high weapon ship and and a high armour ship. What I did mind was my unarmoured ship defending with its armour. MY opponent was clear that that was what happened and his pretty much unscathed ship would seem to confirm that. I can imagine a 2 weapon beating a 5 but I can't conceive that it would do it without major damage.

I don't know the answer on your rover question for certain but I seem to recall a SAM rover defending with its armour against another SAM rover ( as it should).

I am beginning to think that I will have to run some tests on this to figure it out-- The only other option if I don't know how it works is to make best-best ships but those are expensive and die just as quick aginst this particular opponent

[Urban Ranger]

What reactors your ships had?

[Starfarer]

Maybe it was just a random bug? these things do happen when your computer loads the wrong thing up sometimes.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What reactors your ships had?

fission-- nobody had discovered fusionpower at this point . . . There was nothing that would make the 1 armour even remotely close to being as strong as the 3 armour of the ship it was stacked with

No it was quite clear that the weaker ship defended despite a stronger alternative

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Starfarer
Maybe it was just a random bug? these things do happen when your computer loads the wrong thing up sometimes.

Always possible that it is just a random glitch never to be repeated . . . BUT I am not ready to assume that yet. When I get a chance, I will test out ship behaviors with SAM weapons.

[Flubber]

I just did some testing stacking some <6>-1-4 ships with <1>-3p-4 and <1>-3r-4 units. I have not seen the better armoured ship be chosen to defend yet. Note I even tried using a conventional 6-1-4 as the attacker and it would still attack the weakest ( armour wise) ship. SAM on the attacker does not seem determinative-- I will have to check further to see if SAM on the defender matters

[Urban Ranger]

Have you tried a more conventional armour, like 2-2-4 or something?

[Flubber]

Yes--

I set up attackers with 4-1-4 and <4>-1-4 and had my defenders with <4>-1-4, <4>-2-4, 4-3-4 and 2-2-2 and my results were odd.

I made 2 stacks of 3 ships as defenders, a 4-3-4 with <4>-1-4 and a <4>-2-4 in each case. I started attacks in each case with both a 4--1-4 and a <4>-1-4 with the odds on to see which ship was chosen to defend but the attacker seemed irrelevant.

The odd part-- One stack defended each time with the 4-3-4 no matter which ship I attacked with. In the other stack, the <4>-1-4 defended each time. So different defenders defended in identically composed stacks . The only difference in the stacks as I think about it was in the color of the ship visible when first approached. NO defenders were designated or anything but the visible ship was a function of the order they were moved I believe.

Oh when I stacked a 2-2-2 with a 4-3-4, the the 4-3-4 defended every time but the 4-3-4 was the visible ship anyway.

All ships were generated using the scenario editor and were then moved to make stacks before being attacking by the opposing scenario editor generated ships.


If there is a major bug with naval combat I would be suprised that it has not been discovered before but then again, most PBEMers don't build much in the way of navies so they wouldn't have much cause to test it-- THe SP players probably don't see the AI stacking ships so they would have much cause to test it either.

Right now I have nothing to disprove the idea that the visible ship acts as a designated defender even in the absence of an express designation

[johndmuller]

The visible ship being the one moved into the tile first? - the one that would be leftmost in the strip of units shown at the bottom center of the screen when the tile is selected? - the one that would be at the top of the list of units to activate if you right clicked on that tile?

What could be going on is that it is making no attempt to decide which unit to use on the merits but is just picking the first one on its list of units in that tile; possibly it would weed out the non-coms as well, but maybe not even that. Anyway this seems like it would be easy enough to test out as just moving particular ships out and back should change their positions on the list.

OTOH, it could be some other list of units that is ordering them, like the list of all units built, which there is no way to see except insofar as you kept track of them as they were built; but if they were all built at the same base, the unit window at the bottom right of the base screen seems to be in that order (although rehoming stuff might generate a different position in one or the other lists).

On a related issue which may be coming into play here somehow, when is it that ships engage in artie-style battles to the death and when do they use regular combat - do you have to specify artie or does the game decide if you just attempt to move in from the neighboring tile? Other artie units don't have the ability to attack any other way, so warships would seem to be somewhat special this way. There is also the matter of artie-to-the-death versus limited-volley-artie, when does each of them apply?