Ps, PBs and ODPs

[Mongoose]

Actually, flechettes are very valuable in some circumstances:

When you have an opponent who loves conventional missiles, for example.

**As defense for a forward PB basing base. Prevents, or inhibits an opponent neutralizing your PBs with conventional missiles. (Obviously must be combined with other defensive measures...Aerocomplex, AAA garrison, sensor, if possible geosynchrous pod.) By this point in the tech tree, at least silksteel armor is widely available, usually as high as probablility. It takes a LOT of conventional missiles to get through two or three 1-<6>-1*2 defenders with all of the above defensive facilities. Even XShard noodles and choppers are going to have trouble, if they have the range. You get the idea.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Under old smac, you could not PB a vacant base, is that still the case in fully pathed smac-x?

One of the quirks of a fungal payload is that it (fusion or higher reactor) can create fungus under an adjacient base square./ It does not affect production, but i was wonering if it added any defense to the base.

[Mongoose]

Still can't PB an empty base. I doubt the fungus in the base square adds anything to base defense. Forest does not.

[johndmuller]

I have seen it posted, but cannot verify from personal experience that there is a menu item something to the effect of "Detonate Payload" which allows one to explode missiles of various kinds in tiles without enemy units. Perhaps it includes base tiles, perhaps not; but in any case it would include the adjacent tiles, which would have substantively the same erffect in the case of most PB and other payloads.

Re the fungus under the base, I believe it has defensive benefits; it does have movement (into) effects in that it counts as fungus for movement points (barring road) so you can get delayed going home if not careful. Forest maybe similarly.

[Sikander]

This thread reminds me of the old days. Good stuff guys, everything I though about saying as I read through it was eventually said.

I do have a question about moving your satellites around. I have heard this mentioned before, but I've never done so. Is this a real game feature or something they dropped?

[RedFred]

Sikander, if you can move your sats around, I don't know how to do it. But as Planet rotates, your sats rotate as well. I recall an intriguing post that suggested waiting until your ODPs are right over enemy sats helps your kill ratio. I have not been able to determine whose sats belong to whom so I haven't been able to test this.

Thanks to all, for deriving the formula for odds of an ODP strike getting through. The revision to the formula for R2 is trivial for anyone who can multiply by two. I am assuming that MoSe's theory about R2 is correct although it could easily be another Firaxian bug that means you always get double the punch that you should for PBs against ODPs in PBEMs. I haven't tested this because I went and deleted Googlie's .sav yet again. This time before seeing MoSe's supplementary question.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by RedFred
I recall an intriguing post that suggested waiting until your ODPs are right over enemy sats helps your kill ratio.

I was the one who posted that, after an extensive scenario test prior to unleashing a couple of PBs against Misotu in an AXT game.

It may have been co-incidence, but after about a dozen scenario tests I found that waiting 1 click before the first attack, then 2 before the second and so on increased my chances by a factor of around 3 as opposed to just firing off all seventeen ODP's I was warring with (she had 12 or so, as I recall). Waiting for more than five clicks (by click I mean partial rotation, when Planet, and your Sats move in unison) seemed to be counter-productive, suggesting to me that some formula was in play there.

I lost seven in the game destroying her 12 ODPs, (in one of my scenario tests I got a perfect 12 for 12, with every strike being successful (and I launched, but couldn't get thru to her Ascent-build base 'cos of multiple rings of crawlers and formers protecting her landmass (got some nice craters, though)

G.

[Googlie]

You can download a Scenario similar to the one I used from Rynn's Gallery and test the theory for yourself - visit:

http://googlie2.tripod.com/rynnsgallery/id9.html