4.4) GUTS OF SALVAGE
  Salvage:
 After battle, 1/3 of the mineral cost of the destroyed ships is left as salvage.  If the battle took place in orbit, these minerals are deposited on the planet below.
 In deep space, each type of mineral decays 10%, or 10kT per year, whichever is higher.  Salvage deposited on planets does not decay.

Scrapping: (from help file)
 A ship scrapped at a starbase deposits 80% of the original minerals on the planet, or 90% of the minerals and 70% of the resources if the LRT 'Ultimate Recycling' is selected.
 A ship scrapped at a planet with no starbase leaves 33% of the original minerals on the planet, or 45% of the minerals and 35% of the resources if the LRT 'Ultimate Recycling' is selected.
 A ship scrapped in space leaves no minerals behind.
 When a ship design is deleted, all such ships vanish leaving nothing behind. (moral: scrap before you delete!)

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*******************************************************************************

4.5) GUTS OF FUEL GENERATION
   I have not come across a formula for ram scoop fuel generation that is accurate in all circumstances.  The values in the following table were taken from a testbed.
 Note that the fuel generated is per engine, not per ship; i.e.; a ship with 2, 3, or 4 engines produces (or uses) 2, 3, or 4 times as much fuel as a single engine ship.
 The values presented assume that the ship travels the full distance possible at the given speed.  If it travels less than this distance, the fuel generated is proportionally reduced (approximately).

For different engines at different speed, thus, we have the following amounts of fuel generated (in mg)
     Warp Speed
Engine                  9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1
Fuel Mizer              -    -    -    -    -    16   27   24   10
Rad-Hydro Ram           -    -    -    36   75   96   90   40   10
Sub Gal Scoop           -    -    -    -    25   48   54   40   10
Trans-Gal Scoop         -    -    -    36   75   96   90   40   10
Trans Gal Super Scoop   -    -    49   108  150  160  90   40   10
Trans Gal Mizer Scoop   -    64  147   216  250  160  90   40   10
Galaxy Scoop            -   192  294   360  250  160  90   40   10

 No, it's not a typo.  The Galaxy scoop generates no fuel at its free speed of warp 9.  Go figure!

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4.5.1)  GUTS OF FUEL USAGE
From: jasoncawley@msn.com
Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.stars

1 mg of fuel will move 200 kt of weight 1 LY at a fuel usage number of 100.
The fuel usage numbers you can see in the players guide, under "guts, guts
of engines" - it is different for each engine and each warp speed.  Everything
that can be different is a straight multiplying factor.  So, 1 mg will move
50 kt 4 LY at a FUN of 100, etc.  Also races with the Improved Fuel Efficiency
trait use 85% as much fuel, or adjust the FUN to .85 * the listed number.

Some examples - a race with IFE has a fuel-mizer equipped privateer with 3
fuel pods.  Total fuel is 1400 mg.  The ship weighs 80 kt.  With a full load
of cargo, the weight rises to 330 kt.  Traveling at warp 8, the FUN (in the
tables) is 235.  330/200 * 2.35 * .85 is the fuel usage per LY traveled -
3.3
about.  On a one way trip, the 1400 mg will thus give a range of 424 LY.

Same ship, going warp 9, with the same load, but this time you also want
enough to come back at the same speed, but unloaded.  Weight is 330 out, 80
back, 410 weight moved over the distance overall.  FUN is 360 at warp 9.
Range is 1400 mg / (410/200 * 3.6 * .85) = 223 LY.

I hope this is helpful.

                                           Sincerely,

                                           Jason Cawley
 

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4.6) GUTS OF OVERGATING

Overgating is defined as exceeding the limits of a stargate; that is, sending a ship farther than the gate is rated for, and/or sending a ship more massive that the gate is rated for. Here are the things to be aware of:

-Both mass and distance overgating cause ship damage.
-In addition to damage, overgating may also cause the gated ships to vanish forever.
-Overgating damage is always less than 100%. However, overgating damage is added to existing damage. If this total is over 100%, the ship will not survive.
-You can never gate a ship more than 5 time a gates mass or distance rating.
-When distance overgating, only the limits of the sending gate are important.
-When mass overgating, the limits of BOTH gates are relevant in calculating damage, but only the sending gate is relevant in calculating the chance of the ship vanishing.
-IT races have a decreased chance of overgated ships disappearing into the void. However, ships that do gate successfully are damaged just as much as any other race's.

Here is the formula for calculating damage from distance overgating:
RangeDamage%=100%*(distance-maxRange)/(4*maxRange)
where: maxRange is the range of the sending gate.
(courtesy Bill Butler)

Here is the formula for calculating damage from mass overgating:
MassDamage%=100%*(1-((5*maxSmass-mass)/(5*maxSmass-maxSmass) *(5*maxRmass-mass)/(5*maxRmass-maxRmass)))
where: maxSmass is the mass limit of the Sending gate. maxRmass is the mass limit of the Receiving gate.
(courtesy SBPosey)

Here is the formula for calculating damage if you exceed both mass and distance ratings:
Total damage%= MassDamage% + (100%-massDamage%)*RangeDamage%
(courtesy Scoop crobers@erol.com)


Here is a formula yielding the probability a mass overgated ship will vanish. The result is an approximation, and is valid for non-IT races. IT's ships will have a lower probability of vanishing. Just how much luckier they may be is unknown (let me know if you figure it out!)
Probability of vanishing= [(100-A)*(5*maxMass-mass)^2/(4*maxMass)^2]+A

Where maxMass is the maximum safe mass for the sending gate

Through curve fitting I have found A=68 works best, this is probably nothing more than 2/3 with rounding and stuff thrown in.

Note that even overgating to the limit on mass only kills 1/3 of your ships on average. Of course they would be severely damaged (98%) but they would be alive.

For the 300/500 gate the equation works out to
P%=[32*(1500-mass)^2/1200^2] +68

For distance overgating the probability of ships being lost to the void is roughly equal to the damage divided by 3. For example, if the overgating causes 60% damage then there will be a 20% chance of losing the ship.

Don't expect your losses to be exactly this number since this is a probability, however it is a nice rule of thumb.

(courtesy Bill Butler)

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*******************************************************************************


4.7) GUTS OF BEAM DEFLECTORS

  A deflector reduces incoming beams by 10%
 For multiple deflectors, the beam damage is given by:

 damage= (.9^n) * beamStrength

 where beamStrength is the damage that would be done by the undeflected beam.

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*******************************************************************************

4.8) GUTS OF MINEFIELDS AND SWEEPING

See help file and manual.  Also:

Subject: Re: Minefield damage - shields count ?
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 16:15:50 GMT
From: shane.kearns@dial.pipex.com (Shane Kearns)
Organization: UUNET UK server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET UK)
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.stars

On Mon, 07 Sep 1998 14:40:22 GMT, c.cartin@kainos.com
(chris) wrote:

>Hi, do shields matter when you hit explosive mines ?
>
>And am I correct in saying that if you had say 2 ships in a fleet (no
>ramscoops) that hit a mine they would each take 250 points of damage
>and if there was 1 ship it would take 500 damage because of the
>min fleet damage of 500 ?
Yes, but all the damage multiplies up by number of engines - so if you
are talking about destroyers you are right, but 1 cruiser takes 1000
damage from hitting a standard mine.

Damage taken is the greater of 5 or the number of ships, multiplied by
the mine damage, multiplied by number of engines per ship.

When shields are present, half of the damage will go to the shields
and half to armor (as for a torpedo hit), but any overflow on the
shields will go to armor.

Example: destroyers with a bear neutrino barrier in the GP slot
5 destroyers take 500 damage = 100 damage each = 50 to armor, 50 to
shields (absorbed)
1 destroyer takes 500 damage = 250 to armor, 250 to shields, but as
it only has 100 shields the extra 150 rolls over for a total of 400
damage to the armor

Some minesweeper designs:

"light sweeper"
scout or frigate hull with 1 gatling gun
Advantages: Very cheap, can afford to lose 19 rushing into a minefield
            at warp 9 so the 20th can get through and sweep it.
            Put a scanner on it and it doubles as a security role,
            spotting incoming cloaked ships and preventing mines being
            laid (waypoint 0 sweeping)
Disadvantages: Easily killed
            Useless against SD detonating minefields

"sweeper"
destroyer hull with organic armor, a shield and 2 gatlings or heavy
blasters.
Mechanical slot usually takes a jet or overthruster for an intercept
role, otherwise empty
Electrical slot usually empty, but can take a cloak (SS), an
antimatter generator(IT).
If you are lucky enough to get it, use the MT armor with inbuilt
shielding - that way you can put 2 cloaks on the design (great for SS
with 2 ultras)
Advantages: Survivable against mine hits/detonations - may need to
stack
Disadvantages: cost, not very effective as an interceptor/general
skirmisher

"heavy sweeper"
cruiser hull with 4 heavy blasters (or megadisrupters at high tech),
some combination of armour, shields and jammers depending on tech
levels.  Often an overthruster.
Advantages: A better general purpose skirmisher than the destroyer
            Missile resistant (if jammers used - hard to put more than

            1 on a destroyer)
Disadvantages: Cruisers take 2x mine damage than destroyers, so need
               at least 2x the armour/ shield to make up
               Expensive

"skirmisher"
Rogue (SS), Galleon or Nubian (others)
Essentially a ship you cloak as high as you can, but give it both
minesweeping and minelaying ability.
Example:
Partisan class Nubian [100kT]
3 transgalactic mizer scoop [33kt]
12 Super-Stealth cloaks (4 stacks) [36kT]
3 Big mutha Cannons (1 stack) [9kT]
Jump Gate (1 stack) [10kT?]
6 Heavy-200 dispensers (2 stacks) [120kT]
2 overthrusters (1 stack) [10kT]
6 complete phase shields (2 stacks) [6kT]
3 Jammer-30 (1 stack) [3kT]
Advantages:Versatile - could save a design slot
           Stealthy - operate behind enemy lines
Disadvantages: very expensive
 

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4.8.1)  ANALYSIS OF 'BEST SPEED' IN A MINEFIELD

Subject: Have calculated best speed for passing minefields
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 12:03:27 +1300
From: "Chris Stott" <surftech@bigpond.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.stars

Yello everyone, I've just done a wee calculation which will be of interest
to some of you.

I was looking at my neighbor's minefields and wondering what was my best
warp speed to clear 'em.  It's late in the game, and I have big shields so I
didn't care about impact damage, only about cleaning 'em nice & fast.

If I went in at Warp 10 I have about a 16% chance of traveling 100ly, and
84% odds of getting stopped sooner.
If I went in at Warp 4 I had a 100% chance of traveling only 16ly.
So what's my best speed?

The question is "which warp speed gives me my best 'expected' distance?
And now for the answer...
The expected distance, and odds of impacting on a mine are given.

Warp 10: - 46.22ly - 84%
Warp 9:  - 46.70ly - 78%
Warp 8:  - 44.49ly - 70%
Warp 7:  - 39.48ly - 60%
Warp 6:  - 32.29ly - 45%
Warp 5:  - 24.05ly - 26%
Warp 4:  - 16.00ly - 0%

Dog: "Congratulations Warp 9, you're our winner"
Warp 9: "I'd like to thank the minefields for this opportunity to show my
worth as a warp speed, and say hi to Hubby and all the little wormholes at
home"

Don't be fooled into thinking that warp 9 is the appropriate speed to travel
to the center of that minefield 46ly away, cos it's not!
Warp 7 still gives you odds of completing this trip faster.
However if you want to travel to the center of that minefield 200ly away,
warp 9 is your best.
If this seems counter-intuitive, consider that you will *sometimes* travel
as far as 81ly at warp 9, and that lifts the average.  But the extra
risk taking works against you if you don't *want* to travel 81ly or more.
So if you're 64ly or closer, do drop your speed :)

When calculating this I found the expected distance by calculating the odds
of getting 1ly, 2ly, and so on, multiplying by the distance and adding them
all together.  It was more accurate than inverting the probability density
function mathematically as I think all this is probably calculated
discretely (in 1ly jumps).

Incidentally this was done for a *standard* minefield.

In a heavy minefield your best expected distance is at Warp 7 - 38.58ly.
(Though I doubt whether this increase of 2.58ly is worth 63% odds of extreme
pain)

If you're in a speed-trap minefield it's counterproductive to even *try*
speeding!

The calculations assume an infinite minefield, and best speed for smaller
minefields may vary (slightly).  It'll also vary if you don't travel through
the minefield for your entire trip.  I'll be knocking these complications
into the spreadsheet soon, and will let you know what I find.  I anticipate
minimal impact, and only in special circumstances.

One last consideration.  If you have cheap engines, the 'expected' distances
will drop by 10% above warp 6, this only really matters in a 'heavy
minefield', where it means you arrive *later* by speeding :)

A safe life is a wasted one, spin the wheel.
Peace & Mung Beans
Dog

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Subject: Better Homes and Minesweeping, Part 2
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 03:33:08 GMT
From: "Dog" <warppuppy@biosys.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.stars

Warning Nerd-Data Attached
--------------------------
I awoke this afternoon with a terrible hangover and decided to pass my day
by crashing virtual fleets into a virtual minefield and drinking lots of
fluids

I set up a spreadhseet and flung 3 million simulated fleets at simulated
minefields in many different ways in an effort to answer questions which
flowed from my earlier post on optimal minesweeping.

To remind you of my post:
I assumed impact damage was unimportant, the minefield was infinite, and
there was only one fleet at work.
I suggested that Warp 9 (W9) Was best for standard minefields, W7 for Heavy
Mines, and W5 For Speed Traps.

This message answers many more questions...
Some of them are useful, some are merely interesting :)
I'll be happy to answer any questions about what I've done, how I did it,
what it all means, or recipies for Peanut Brownies.

First I'd like to answer Jason Cawley's question about clearing minefields
with more than 1 fleet (as I think it's the most potentially useful)
Naturally more fleets means you should risk going faster...

Clearing Minefields with multiple fleets
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Standard Minefield
------------------
2+ fleets W10

Heavy Minefield (Safe = W6)
---------------------------
2-3 fleets W8
4-9 fleets W9
10+ fleets W10

Speed Trap Minefield (Safe = W5)
--------------------------------
4-9 fleets W6
10-70 fleets W7
70+ fleets W8

Note
----
1: In a Speed Trap Minefield with 2-3 fleets you'd send the innermost at
W6, and others at W7
2: You'll virtually never improve your ETA by splitting speeds under other
circumstances.
3: If you are travelling less than full-range for WarpN-1 you ought drop
your speed.

Clearing Minefields with 1 fleet
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
Heavy Minefields
----------------
W7 gives best expected distance, however this advantage is small and ceases
to exist if you have cheap engines (i.e. W7 May not fire)
So unless you *really* don't care about the pain you should probably use W6

Speed Traps
-----------
W5, don't speed :)

Standard Minefields
-------------------
The basic rules...
1: If the centre is 81Ly or smaller, always use the warp which will get you
there in 1 year.
2: W9 If over 310Ly from centre.
3: Re-apply the rules each year.

Now the Trickier rules...
1: If the minefield is 82 to 97Ly W10 = best expected time, but W9 = best
odds of making it in 2 years.
2: If the minefield is from 101-130Ly W9 = best expected time, but W10 =
best odds of making it in 2 years.
3: W10 If minefield is from 131-310Ly or 98-100Ly
4: **If there's a gap before entering the minefield**, W10 starts to look
better fast (a 10Ly gap is always conclusive).
------------------------------------------------------------

I know some of these complexities may seem a little weird so I'll explain:

I claimed the expected distanace from Warp 9 was slightly better than Warp
10, and it's true.
There is a larger influence from the 'last leg' of the journey than I had
anticipated however.

What happens is that there is a kind of 'fight' between the W9 and W10 for
supremacy.
At long distances W9 wins because it has the bigger *expected* distance,
but at short distances W10 wins because it has a longer 'reach'.
The major complicating factor is that at short distances you can often drop
the warp speed to complete the final leg of the journey.
This, and the differing shapes of the distance distribution between Warp 9
& Warp 10 create a 'ripple' effect which allows Warp 9 to win between 101
and 130Ly, but then Warp 9 doesn't start winning again until the ripples
become irrelevant at 310Ly.
And let's face it, a 310Ly (radius) minefield is uncommon.

If you have more than 1 fleet, W10 wins hands down, the fleet's
co-operative effect is always worth more than W9's advantage.

Even with W9 at its most advantageous, a 10-year gap in the minefield will
render W10 preferable.

Let's not badmouth W9 too Badly though, after all, it has some definite
advantages below 130Ly and is statistically much better behaved than W10
(i.e. it'll operate unexpectedly less often, even when it is 1% or 2%
slower)

How I did this...
-----------------
I made a spreadsheet which accepts the dimensions and distance to a
minefield, and simulates flying ships at it for up to 13 years.  The
spreadsheet was smart enough to test ships working in teams, and to drop
the speed when I was close to centre.  It was also smart enough to allow
for dropping to Warp 9 if I was from 101-130Ly (once I found and verified
that effect).
Each iteration took about 10 seconds and flew between 4000 an 20000 ships.
Each of the comments and distances mentioned have been verified against at
least 80000 ship-simulations.

The spreadsheet is written in Excel97, is not very freindly, and is about
64Meg (so unless anyone's heaps interested, I won't bother distributing
it).

I realise this sim has been an act of extreme nerdiness, but then if you
had a hangover this big you might wanna feeb for a day too :-)

No virtual ships were destroyed in this study, although about 2000000
virtual mines didn't make it...

Please let me know if there are any questions anyone would like answered
and I'll sim 'em :)
---------------------------

A safe life is a wasted one
Peace & Mung Beans
Dog
 

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4.9) GUTS OF POPULATION GROWTH
 The pop growth formula has two parts, under 25% and over 25% capacity.

under 25%:  popgrowth = population * growthrate * habvalue
over 25%:  as above, then multiply by crowdingfactor = 16/9 * (1-cap%)^2.

(This formula was posted by Jason Cawley, who credits it to Bill Butler)

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4.10) GUTS OF GROUND COMBAT

Ground Combat calculations
by: Ezequiel Martin Camara

>Hi,
>I've been using invasion or ground combat extensively without really
>understanding the victory conditions.

You're not the only one...

>The help file (2.7f dated August 17th) only tells you a few things about
>ground combat:

And the help file is outdated or simply wrong in several places, too!

>This leaves me with a question:-
>After taking into account the planetary defenses, how do we know how many
>troops to unload?
>It would appear that an equal number of troops will fail.

No, it would not... the *attacker* has the advantage in Stars! ground combat. A nice feature, I should say; the defense has lots of other
advantages.

>Is there a more scientific way of knowing what to do or is there a rule of
>thumb I can apply?

I've always have thought that I would like the answer to all those questions. So I made a testbed and tried lots of ground combats. The way the
game appears to calculate the result of ground combat is:

(attackers) = (attackers)*(1 - .75*(defense coverage))

(attack bonus) = 1.1*(1 + 0.5*(is attacker WM?)) (defense bonus) = 1 + (is defender IS?)

IF (attackers)*(attack bonus) > (defenders)*(defense bonus)

(owner) = (attacker race) (pop) = (attackers) - (defenders)*(defense bonus)/(attack bonus)

ELSE (owner) = (defender race) (pop) = (defenders) - (attackers)*(attack bonus)/(defense bonus)

Now I'll try to explain this pseudo code:

(attackers) is the number of colonists you drop in an enemy planet, and (defenders) is the number of pop that planet has in the moment of the
invasion. A couple of precisions there: if the invasion is a waypoint-zero task (that is, the freighter was already in the orbit of the planet)
there's no growth involved, that is, the pop in the planet (and in the freighter for IS) is the same as last year. If the freighter invades the same
year as it arrives to the orbit, there's growth before the invasion (people grow in the planet and in the freighters, then the calculations take
place). And remember, the pop you see in your .m? file in enemy planets has a +/-20% error; to know exactly the pop in a planet, you have to
see its owner's .m? file.

(defense coverage) in the formula is, well, the coverage given by the defenses, in a 0 to 1 scale (that is, if the .m? file says 85% the number to
plug in the formula is (defense coverage)=0.85)

(is attacker WM?) and (is defender IS?) are =1 if they're true, =0 if they're false. So the bonuses end up as: (defense bonus)=1 unless the
owner of the planet is IS, then (defense bonus)=2 (yeah, pretty high!). (attack bonus)=1.1 unless invader is WM, then (attack bonus)=1.65.

The bonuses tell you how much SD ("standard fighters") each fighter is worth. So 1 invader WM is worth 1.65 SD, 1 defender HE is worth 1
SD. Now the troop worth more SD keeps the planet, but the other race kills as many SD as it's worth. (that is, if the defender is worth 1000
SD and the invader 700 SD, the defender keeps the planet, but with only 300 SD left, whatever that means in terms of its own pop)

Now, I've tried a couple of triple invasions. I found it hard to make sense of the numbers... so I'll leave it for the more experienced testers. If
someone wants to try, I have set up a testbed with three races (HE, IS and WM) so that each one has as much pop as it wants...

I hope that this will be of any help to someone (Matthias, will you include it in your calculator?) -- Real address is:

EMARTIN, at supernetsantander-dot-com

Ezequiel Martin Camara - Malaga - Spain

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4.11) Guts of Planet Values

(I haven't included the explanation of how the formula was derived; if you're interested, go to deja news and look up "re: Race wizard - Hab studies" by Bill Butler, 1998/04/10

The full equation is:

Hab%=SQRT[(1-g)^2+(1-t)^2+(1-r)^2]*(1-x)*(1-y)*(1-z)/SQRT[3]

Where g,t,and r (standing for gravity, temperature, and radiation)are given by
Clicks_from_center/Total_clicks_from_center_to_edge

and where x,y, and z  are
x=g-1/2 for g>1/2       x=0 for g<1/2
y=t-1/2 for t>1/2         y=0 for t<1/2
z=r-1/2 for r>1/2         z=0 for r<1/2

The farther habs are from center, the less accurate the result of this equation will be.  However, the errors are small, so the predicted answer will always be within a percentage or two of the actual value.

Thanks to Bill Butler for the mathematical wizardry.

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4.12)   Guts of Mineral Packets
    Check out this article by Barry Kearns.  It's hosted at "Stars R Us".

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4.13)   Guts of 'Score' calculation
    Taken from the Players guide:
Each asset a player controls is worth a certain number of points. The score sheet shows the current tally of points for each asset and how you fare against other players based on the point total. It also lists the victory conditions and shows how you close you are to reaching them. If the host chose the Public Player Scores option during the game setup, score statistics for all players are shown after the first 20 turns have passed.

=> Click on Switch to toggle between the score/rank, victory conditions, and a history graph.

Here's how empires score:

Planets:  From 1 to 6 points, scoring 1 point for each 100,000 colonists

Starbases: 3 points each (doesn't include Orbital Forts)

Unarmed Ships: An unarmed ship has a power rating of 0. You receive 1/2 point for each unarmed ship (up to the number of planets you own).

Escort Ships: An escort ship has a power rating greater than 0 and less than 2000. You receive 2 points for each Escort ship (up to the number of planets you own).

Capital Ships A Capital ship has a power rating of greater than 1999.  For each capital ship, you receive points calculated by the following formula:
Points = (8 * #_capital_ships * #_planets) /( #_capital_ships + #_planets)
    For example, if you have 20 capital ships and 30 planets, you receive (8 x 20 x 30) / (20 + 30) or 4.8 points for each ship.

Tech Levels:  1 point for levels 1-3,
                        2 points for levels 4-6,
                        3 points for levels 7-9,
                        4 points for level 10 and above

Resources: 1 point for every 30 resources

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4.14)   Guts of targeting in battle

Targeting Order in Battles (Target Attractiveness)

Revised April 14, 1999

For quite a while players of Stars! have been speculating on how targeting order in battle is determined. Several rules of thumb were proposed; however, none of them could compare designs with difference defensive ratings. Likewise, they could not account for different mixes of weapons and components.

During a debate regarding the accuracy and usefulness of one such rule of thumb, Thomas Pfister wrote a brief post outlining his belief that as long as defensive factors were identical, ships were targeted in order of "resources + boranium." I originally had no intention of working out the details of the targeting algorithm; however, after I saw his post I was curious to see if I could apply his results to get at the heart of a problem I was considering with shielded chaff.

As David Moen mentioned in his own article on targeting, there is some rounding going on in the formula, so ships that have a very close in "attractiveness" will be selected as if they had the same value. The game engine may use integers for certain steps in determining which targets to shoot at, while I am using exclusively floating point variables which could be the source of the rounding. William Butler notice that rounding down to the nearest one hundredth almost universally predicts the exact order that ships will be targeted. Ships with identical attractivenesses are targetted randomly. The formula predictes accurately that certain shielded or jammed targets will be fired upon before less attractive unshielded targets. This of course may not be the actual formula, but it has worked so far with all the tests I have given it and I would appreciate other people trying it out. When testing it, please take care to make sure all potential targets are in range or the results from the test bed may be misleading.

The general formula is quite simple:
Attractiveness = Cost/APN
Where: Cost = Boranium + Resources
APN = Attack Power Needed (please note that other people have referred to this as eff_dp)

Since beam weapons are much simpler I will work with them first.

Attack Power Needed (solely APN from here on) is simply the combined defenses for a ship modified by weapon power reducing factors such as beam deflectors (and most likely range). I have not tested for range for two reasons. One, it is not as easy to test for range since it shifts and one does not have direct control over the ships movement. A second reason is that for player's use, this is really not that important. If you are going to use this to determine if a certain design will be targeted before another one of your designs, range is not a factor that you will be able to control very well with your ship design.

APN Formulae for Beamers
Non-Sappers:
APN = (Armor + Shields)/(.9^n)*(Range Modifier)

Sappers:
APN= Shields/(.9^n)*(Range Modifier)

Where: n = number of beam deflectors on the ship
Range Modifier = 1 - .1*(Range)/(Max Range)

Please note again that the range modifier has not been confirmed to be part of this equation; however, it is most like that it is.

This is a relatively easy formula to follow. It basically is just how much damage a ship can take from a beam weapon. To calculate which ships are targeted first, simply add APN back into the attractiveness formula.
 

APN Formula for Torpedoes and Missiles

Please note accuracy includes jamming and targeting computers and is a percentage expressed as a number ranging between 0 and 1. Weapon type is equal to 1 for torpedoes and 2 for missiles. Accuracy is equal to the percent chance the missile or torpedo has to hit its target. This includes the effects of jamming. Please note that in calculating accuracy, it is easy to introduce a rounding error. William Butler posted a description of how to get the correct figure in February of 1999. Either refer to his article or just check to see if changing this number one percent makes a difference. This is not the original formula that I posted; however, this formula is muh simpler.

For targets that have shield values equal to or greater than their armor value:
APN = Armor*2/Accuracy

For targets that have shield values less than their armor value:
APN = Shield*2/Accuracy + (Armor-Shield)/(Accuracy * Weapon Type)

So far all of my tests have duplicated these results. I have not extensively studied whether the number of the ships in the stack matters; however, my early tests did include a wide range of stack sizes ranging from one to 280. After those tests showed no effect for the number of ships in the stack, I concerned myself more with completing the general formulae. Of course you can enter the values of individual ships or stacks into the equation and it will not change the results there (since the cost will increase in direct proportion to APN).

I encourage people to double-check this. So far, I my tests have shown that it accurately accounts for all of the targeting behaviors that I could present to it. Notice that chaff have very high attractiveness (though shielded chaff, much less so). Ships with jammers, high armor, or shields tend to be much less attractive targets. It even correctly predicted that torpedoes' choice of targets differ from missiles.

Art Lathrop

The most recent addition of this article and an Excel 5.0 spreadsheet of the formulae can be found at the Stars! Directory. It is under "A Few Extra Things."

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4.14.1)   -Order in which Battleship weapons slots fire

William Butler posted this gem - the firing order of the weapons
slots on a BB!  Great stuff.

The order is:
Top 6
Bottom 6
Top 2
Bottom 2
4