Details: Q&A

posted on July 19th, 2010, 6:59 am

First of all, I'm not one of The Founders of fleet ops, so this thread isn't offering Q&A, it's asking for it.

I want to understand the details of the game, and to do that I need a place to ask questions.  If you guys have time to answer them, I'd appreciate it.  There are dozens that I've had recently, so I'll just put down the ones I can remember right now:

1. What is the range of Romulan RoF changes? how much is it increased when battle starts, how much does it become penalized, and how long does it take to recharge?

2. What effect does the Nano Fabricators passive have against borg/Tavara warbirds? (10% damage reduction for each special the attacker can have)

3. How does the D'deridex's "energy recharge into shield recharge" work?  Does it only add its recharge when your energy is full?

4. How much energy per second does the Romulan singularity structure transmit?

5. What are the penalties for having a yellow crew complement on your ship?  A red complement?

6. How much speed do Mijural warbirds gain?  How much speed does a V-13 battleship gain on officer rank?

7. How long does it take for fighter carriers to redeploy fighters after they have been destroyed.  What priority do fighters have when my ships are deciding whether to fire on them?

8. How do ships with multiple special abilities (especially w/mines or other 'almost-combat' abilities) decide which to use under special weapon autonomy?

This is mostly just me geeking about about game mechanics, but I do plan to learn how to do modding this semester, maybe I can get involved with this project.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 7:09 am

This Should Help Shorten That List:
The Main Page - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

posted on July 19th, 2010, 10:28 am

5. when a ship goes into yellow it will fire slower and repair slower. i think both lower even more in the red. this will change the course of the battle as the percentages are rather substantial.

8. as i have observed certain support ships will use the same special repeatedly (assuming all 3 researched). the gen support refit uses shield recharge on any allied ship that needs it. the remore will use only ECM. the c-11 will use its range extender. most ships shouldnt be left on full auto. but i find support gens can be, as they use their most useful special by default. with remores i would leave 1 on full auto for the ECM and use the others for precise volley.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 11:13 am

Heyho Tryptic

1) The attack speed buff starts with +30% when entering combat in decreases per volley by 10% until it reaches -10%. Once a vessel is out of combat for at least 15 seconds, the timer is reset

2) Passives or special abilities which are based on the number of special abilities a vessel has increase their effectiviness depending on the special abilities on the target. So a support vessel (or a Borg ship) would suffer more then a default destroyer. Some special abilities are not counted, but those are very rare. Special-Ability-Count-Scaling effects are capped at a maximum effect of 4, so even if a ship (like Borg ships) would have more than 4, only 4 will be counted for damage or effect calculation purpose

3) It adds a percentage of special energy regeneration to the shield regeneration rate, even of the energy resevers arent full

4) It restores 10 energy every 5 seconds (2 energy per second)

5) Vessel on yellow crew status reduce their repair rate by 10% and reduce their rate of fire by 100%. The Federation only gets half of te rate of fire reduction and no repair rate reduction. Starfleet Engineers for the win! 

6) Roughly 10% (from 90 to 100)

7) Fighters are deployed every 30 seconds. Note that the next patch will feature a new fighter mechanic which will work a bit different

That depends on the abilities. the AI usually tries to deplete the special energy as fast as possible. for detialed control its best to command them by hand

posted on July 19th, 2010, 3:50 pm

Awesome, thanks a lot.  I got all these questions after reading through the hitchhiker's guide, some people like me just have to know their actual numbers.

As for the Generix Support ships (if you haven't figured by now, I've been playing Romulans almost exclusively.  I'll learn other races after I have one race I can play WELL) I've been experimenting recently with medium weapons autonomy, because I can target their shield recharge if I need to, but if they have more than half of their energy they will recharge the shields of allied ships that I don't want to keep track of.  However I've caught them dropping plasma mines during a battle (not a bad thing, as I want my supports to get experience) and using plasma coil on refineries (a VERY bad thing, they can't shoot back in the first place!!!)

The thing I LOVE most about "Project" games like this one and Warzone 2100 is they always give you more specific AI commands than the games you pay money for.  I recently learned how to use the number pad to change movement, attack, and special autonomy with one key press, and now I'm trying to learn how to position my fleet so that I can just slap High special autonomy and have my supports all target different ships with a plasma coil, then immediately put them back on low. You know, work WITH the AI instead of doing everything yourself.

It would be interesting to see an 'autocast' feature implemented in the future, that dictates which abilities get used.  But maybe that would take the fun away for people who can click faster than I can.

Okay, more questions:

2-1. The Sang has a 360 degree firing arc on its torpedo.  Is this the default for torpedoes or is it different for every ship.  If every ship is different, can I be incredibly selfish and ask for them to be listed in the hitchhiker's guide?

2-2. Manual Targeting states that the ship will keep firing on a cloaking ship.  Does this mean normal ships switch targets away from cloaking ships unless ordered to hit them?

2-3. Some abilities are "replace" abilities, which means...when they are used, the AI chooses new targets based on a new priority list?  I have read that the Rhienn's phase plates needs to be used before battle or all at once to prevent target switching.  What about the Akira's defense patterns, the Ambassador's shield recharge, the Leahval's auto-repair?  I notice the Leahval and Akira are just recharge abilities, they don't harden so perhaps no retargeting is needed?

2-4. What are the resource increments for supply upgrades?  Would it be okay if you made the "not enough supplies" message a bit louder?    I often find my factories not producing and I know when I get back online I'm going to get pwned because of forgetting supplies.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 4:43 pm

2-1: its ship specific, sang and veq can fire torps 360. excel 2 can fire phaser 360 but not torps. only forward torps. etc its a very ship specific thing. the guide already lists these i believe in the unit analyses.

2-2: all manual targetting means is that if a ship with it (lets say a brel) hits it while its cloaking (2 second period for common roms, 4 second for common klinks, 1 second for tavara, 3 seconds for breen cruisers) then that one vessel will remain visible for about 6 seconds more. all allied ships will fire upon it most likely. as it will be the weakest ship on the scene.

2-3: rhienn phase plates special is a replaceweapon, meaning it switches the ship that used it for a different ship. in this case switches the normal rhienn out for the better rhienn, then switches back later. that means if u use phase plates, the rhienn will forget its current orders and what it was doing, maybe switching targets. all ships attacking it will probably switch targets too depending on what ships you have there. its perfectly reasonable to use phase plates individually when each rhienn is attacked, that way u dont waste energy and maybe the rhienn is ignored as all enemy ships switched targets lol. when phase plates wears off another replaceweapon is triggered, making the rhienn forget its orders again. so it will stop heading for your repair yard. ambassador's special (not shield recharge, shield recharge is for generix support refit, ambassador has defence boost) works the same. auto repair isnt a replaceweapon, neither is akira special.

2-4: costs of supply buying varies by race. borg cant buy supply (build incubators). feds (and roms too i believe) get it cheap, starting at 750/750 and thats the only way feds can get supply. dominion can afford to buy supply for the first time only (very rarely the second time) before they should have ketracel synthesisers bringing in all supply, their supply costs more than fed/rom. klinks can practically never afford it, as they should get supplies by ranking up their ships, their supply is very expensive.

posted on July 19th, 2010, 8:13 pm

If you love getting into the numbers, I highly suggest looking into the odf folder and searching through there.  That's how most of us know the information, and that's how Dom figures things out for the guide.  At first it might seem confusing, but you'll eventually see the pattern and be able to go right into it and pretend it's a phonebook or something as you look up what you want to know.

This will also help you understand the calculations better, as the damage system is quite complex, as I'm sure you've seen.  Happy gaming!

posted on July 19th, 2010, 9:31 pm

I second Mal's suggestion .

Most of the information you are searching for can be found in the guide - but be sure not to look just in the Database (like Myles said, firing arc restrictions, descriptions of passives, most percentages, etc). Stuff like replaceweapon commands and things like that are not listed there, but they may be described in the Unit Analysis if tactically important

Incidentally, the Akira's Defense Patterns is a replaceweapon - the Auto Repair of the Leahval is not . Similarly, the Regeneration ability and Refresh Cycle are not replaceweapons.

AI stuff is being worked on, but will take quite a while - it's very complex stuff, but that's Optec's expertise if I recall correctly