by Buggy
So for reasons of my own design, I wanted to know what would be the best of the lower cost improvements to put on a regular cruiser if you were to send it out solo against a single ancient ship.So I wrote a simple simulator that ran that battle hundreds of thousands of times. Here's the results:
Base Cruiser vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 85355 out of 500000 (17.071000%)
Cruiser with extra Hull vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 171930 out of 500000 (34.386000%)
Cruiser with Improved Hull vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 257123 out of 500000 (51.424600%)
Cruiser with Gauss Shield vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 231125 out of 500000 (46.225000%)
Cruiser with Positron Computer vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 319263 out of 500000 (63.852600%)
Cruiser with extra Ion Cannon vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 273694 out of 500000 (54.738800%)
Cruiser with Plasma Cannon vs. Ancient
Attacker wins 255012 out of 500000 (51.002400%)
Well that would explain why the Positron Computer is more expensive than the rest. It was interesting to see that two Ion Cannons is slightly better than one Plasma Cannon, but it does make sense, really.
The next step is to make the simulator handle multiple ships on a side. Let me know if there are any battles you would like me to simulate. (Or if there is already a simulator out there and I've just reinvented the space-wheel).
(edited to change the results to 500000 battles)