by strackr
I played my first game of Eclipse last week. At some point of the game my fleet was wiped out by the oponent equipped with plasma missles (PM). I know that PM are powerful, but are they realy so strong, or was it just my mistake that I did not equipped my ships in some special "anti-PM" stuff?I decided to investigate this matter.. and I wrote small "combat simulator". I simplified the problem, assuming that the attacking player uses only one ship and has only PM technology (and all base technologies of course). I also assumed that the defender uses the same ship type and has only base technologies. I realize that it is oversimplification.. but for now it should be sufficient.
So, if the attacker uses one interceptor gainst another defender's interceptor, then accoriding to my simulations the optimal ship configuration that would maximize probability that defender's ship will be destroyed is: 1 PM + 1 canon + 1 drive + 1 nuclear source. Then, the optimal defender's response would be to build an interceptor having: 1 canon + 1 drive + 1 nuclear cource + 1 hull. This way, the attacker would have ~44.6% chances to defeat the oponent. So.. not so much.
If we load PM on a cruiser.. then the optimal configuration would be: 2 PM + 1 canon + 1 computer + 1 drive + 1 nuclear power. Then the best defender's response would be: 1 canon + 1 computer + 1 drive + 1 nuclear source + 2 hulls. And this would allow the attacker to wipe out the defender with probability ~58.3% - not so bad.
But if we load PM on dreadnought, then the chances grow to ~78.2% - the attacker should use: 1 PM + 1 canon + 3 computers + 1 drive + 1 nuclear power + 1 hull and the defender should respond with: 1 canon + 1 computer + 1 drive + 1 nuclear power + 4 hulls. That is quite impressive..
Another interesting thing is that if attacker decides to use a plasma canon or an antimater canon instead of PM (if it would be his only technology, nothing more), then his chances of winning will never be greater than ~56%.
I think my next step will be to find out what is the optimal defense against PM (what are the best "anti-PM" technologies, and how to upgrade defender's ships)..