It's different because of the physics involved. While I get what your trying to say with that analogy, it's inaccurate because of the physics involved. But yes, the point being that some shots will hit the target and some will not.



Totally agree here on this one with you.



I don't know how hard or difficult the coding would be, however, the key is what the current damage cap "tries to do". It tries, and fails to do it well or realistically. My method would be much more accurate of a realistic setting.



The principle, as described and implemented in the game is fundamentally flawed. Uy23e hit the nail on the head there. You can only add so much material to stabilize a bulkhead before you run out of room, or it just doesn't do any good. So sure, add more hull, but you have to take off weapons or defense or shields or something so you have room for all those durtanium brackets.

YES YES Yes TO's don't actually do any "damage" themselves, the are tactical officers (creating firing solutions, aiming the weapons, etc). They increase the damage done by the weapons of the ship by having more accurate shots. In game terms the more TO's you have the higher your attack & damage, because each shot / volley is more precise and less cannons Miss.


Think of it in RPG terms how do you roll the dice? How do you know if you hit? how do you calculate damage?

1. you roll your attack vs armor class (Defense = ability to absorb and avoid damage, aka dexterity). That determines if you hit or not.
2. Once you have determined if you hit or not, then you roll damage, Damage is not affected by the Armor Class (Defense) of the target.
3. Damage is then reduced from Hit Points (or Hull in this case), the amount of damage you rolled does not matter if you swing your sword and hit a humanoid creature or a dragon sized creature. The weapon still does the same amount of damage (in the case of a longsword a d8 roll + strength and other damage modifiers) and the maximum possible damage it CAN do is NOT affected by the target, only the damage it does per hit.

Now unfortunately GL does not support total misses so Attack+Damage Rolls are lumped together. Attack+Damage is calculated in a single Stat (Attack). basically 2 rolls are combined into one. So max damage for cannons+TO's+other attack modules = Attack value (clearly shown on our stat tab), that Value does not change, that is MAX amount of damage an attacking Ship can do if every single shot /volley hits. The Attack vs Defense roll determines how many shots in a volley hit or miss (taking into account ship size vs accuracy) and how much damage is done.

Defense + Health are two different stats in GL (Defense & Hull + Sheilds),

So to calculate attack & Damage in GL when 1 ship attacks another

1. Click Attack (Roll Attack + Damage) vs Defense ((Dampners to absorb damage, Thrusters & Helmsmen to Avoid Damage) to calculate Damage (This roll/RNG number that is calculated takes into account how many shots from a volley hit or miss, how much damage the defending ship absorbed or dodged
2. Damage is then deducted from the Shields and/or Hull

The RNG Value of Damage done already takes into account how many cannons Hit, Miss (based on bad aim, the target ship dodging, etc) and How much Damage is Absorbed or Dodged based upon the DEFENSE of the ship (otherwise a 50k atk vs a 20k defense ship should do 30k damage every shot)

As I SAID, a more than a few times.. a smaller defending ship size SHOULD play a part in the Attack vs Defense calculations but, it should NOT limit the MAX damage that Is or Can be done by an attacking ship. A Better, More Realistic and Logical change to this would be to Add a % bonus to DEFENSE for smaller ships that reduces up to a certain size of ship reflecting their ability to DODGE or Shots to MISS. BUT the SIZE of the Ship should not Determine the MAX Damage the attacking weapons can do to it!

So if a attacking ship has 100k attack and it attacks a ship with 10k defense, the Accuracy and Damage capability of the attacking ship should by far overpower the defending ship. One Volley should do it (unless all the TO's are Drunk)

Understand now?

Ummm, I was agreeing with you on your point that just because a ship is smaller doesn't mean it can't be destroyed in one volley by a much larger more powerful ship. You and I just have different thinking of how to implement it in the game.

I agree to that, however that applies equally to small and large ship. There should be no damage cap whatsoever, instead there should be just a damage modifier. But there is nothing wrong with the current way to calculate this value, be it cap or modifier, a x times smaller ship can very well take x times less damage.
The problem lies in the tanh part of the equation. The atk/def ratio calculation should yield a diminishing return but infinitely growing formula instead of capping at 1(tanh), something like max(tanh(a/d), quadroot(a/d)-1) would probably be best. That formula would take 16x atk compared to defense to exceed current "cap", 81x to deal 2x current "cap" damage and 256x to deal 3x current "cap", that shouldn't be overkill.

I think we are all starting to get on the same page here...

Well, we are all on page 4 now right? lol.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.