What about Energy/Projectile bonuses?

[Straybow]

I've seen a couple of write-ups about combat resolution. The SMAC manual and alpha.txt mention a "bonus" when an energy weapon attacks projectile armor or vice versa. What is this bonus, and how is it factored in to combat?

[Method]

AFAIK, it was not implemented

[Clear Skies]

Would've been too much bother, IMHO. You'd have to have about four different sentinels in your bases to defend against every potential attack.

[Straybow]

That's good, because armor being half the value of contemporary weapons already sucks. Why make it worse?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Not implemented.

[Mr. President]

Just as well it wasn't implemented. The last thing we need is more complication.

[Lazerus]

The best form of defense is offense anyways

[Clear Skies]

Which is why I squish Miriam ASAP. Some of the others I mgiht leave around for a bit longer though...makes it more fun

[Straybow]

Miriam or Yang. And yes, offense is the best form of defense. That's why modeling the "defense" of a unit solely on armor is lousy. Do they suppose the defender doesn't return fire?

"We're just going to stand around, and maybe try to duck, but we're saving our ammo for our turn to attack."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Straybow
That's good, because armor being half the value of contemporary weapons already sucks. Why make it worse?

Since you can build perimeter defenses and tachyon fields, that means defense will be the same as offense. If you have defense the same as offense before these improvements are taken into consideration, you'll never get anywhere.

[Straybow]

Civ2 only the toughest units attack at double the value of standard defenders, and the defensive bonuses (fortifying, walls, terrain) are higher. It should be damned hard to attack competent, dug-in defenders. Prevailing paradigm (WWII to present) is that fortified defenses slow advance and multiply casualties by a factor of 5.

In SMAC once you've got noodles you can attack many times and rarely loose a plane. Of course, once a plane with nontrivial damage is hanging in mid-air it will be picked off unless you can park a fighter over it.

[CEO Aaron]

Expecting (debatable) WWII tactical realities to be prevalent in a _game_ about the near to far-flung future seems, to me, to be wishful thinking _at best_. The ratio between attack and defense was a gameplay decision, pure and simple and the attack/armor paradigm of attack and defense is just a convenient, easily understood shorthand of strategic battle. The object is creating a balanced model of gameplay, not mimicing the siege of the Maginot Line.

And as to the the prevailing paradigm, just as the Iraqis how their fortifications stood up to American air-power. The only way they slowed the advance was the time it took to accept their surrendur or bulldoze the trenches with their troops inside.

[ir]

To Clear Skies:

It was fun to see two factions dead in first 30 turns playing as Sister. Huge map, transcend. Angels are history, Zakharov's doing all research. And strongest unit was 1-1-1... No time for making prototypes.. Damned Angels with their insta probe team..

P.S. Sorry for OT comment. Fun to play SMAX after 2 year's break.

[ir]

To CEO Aaron:

You talk about situation comparable with conflict of bow and cannon. Very different tech level.

[Straybow]

Nope, Desert Storm was not a case of competent entrenchment, Vietnam was. Nope, not talking about Maginot Line. Maginot Line was "fighting the last war." Mobile warfare is almost certainly here to stay, and anything else (like the WWI tactics of the Iran-Iraq war) would be worse as far as attack value is concerned.

Weapon = attack, Armor = defense is a shorthand of ballistics rather than strategic or tactical nature of combat. That is why it fails, IMO.