Observation: Defence gets rolled once per battle turn [No it does not]

[Eretzu]

So this post is partly mechanics and suggestion post, just posting it here as I am not sure if this is intended.

So I had a game (on the latest open beta) where early on I got a GR Romulus (some super tank). Then I got attacked by insectoids and got absolutely demolished as the attacked my army and I retreated. Then I wanted to see what would have happened if I just let the GR Romulus have a go at their army alone. As it turns out it just demolished them without even a dent. I checked why and noticed that the defence roll for my tank was always the same for the whole round so I assume that the defence gets rolled per unit at the start of the combat round.

As the tank had something like 1500 defence value and the insectoids more like 20 attack, having defence rolled once per battle turn makes the tank practically immune regardless of the enemy numbers and I feel it has some bad side effects for the game mechanics.

Problem is that stacking against this kind of tank is really bad, because you get the same amount of rolls to kill the tank (10, once for each round) regardless of the amount of troops, but the futile counter attacks kills many more for the bigger stack.

The correct way to kill this tank would be to send single troops against to get as many rolls as possible and thus more chances to get lucky. (Actually correct way would be to ignore it (or more likely to just lose as it would mean that you cannot stack at all...))


Some suggestions:

Personally I think that defence should be rolled separately for each attack. Alternatively I feel that counter attacks should use ammo (no idea how it actually works right now, but if you could make the tank run out of ammo, then you could make it retreat by the sheer amount of troops and kill it by surrounding it first).

It would also make sense to not have such reward available at all since it makes (at least) the early game wars a cake walk.


Mind you, the problem is not that the tank would be invincible, it is just that it is invincible in a wrong way.

[GuardsmanGary]

I think you're misunderstanding how the combat system works. What you're probably seeing as the "defense roll" is actually the defense score, which is the sub-units hitpoints modified by various factors. The base value is hitpoints, this cannot change under any circumstances so it will always be the same in every battle and in every round so long as the model does not change. Then you have any readiness, experience, commander skill bonus, or entrenchment modifiers that increase or decrease this base value. Readiness and entrenchment can decrease over time as hits are taken and experience can increase as hits are scored. The commander bonus is rolled once per combat.

When a sub-unit makes an attack it rolls a number between 0 and its maximum attack score after all modifiers. The opposing sub-unit that was attacked then rolls a number between 0 and its maximum defense score after all modifiers. If the attacking units roll was higher than the opposing units roll then a hit is scored. If there are 20 sub-units attacking your one GR romulus then 20 rolls are made, 1 for each attack, and any one of those rolls could be higher than your own roll, but the maximum possible roll will only change if the conditions change. We don't see what the rolls are, we only see the maximum possible roll for each side. That's why some units still get hit despite completely outclassing the enemy and why sometimes enemies that have such abysmally low defense score compared to your attack score get away without a scratch.

[zgrssd]

What GuardsmanGary said is pretty much "it". The combat values are realy poorly named in a lot of places.

Some additional notes on overall performance:
Units get to counter-attack against any attack they receive (unless this is stuff like a still hidden subunit or artillery shooting infantry from the backline)
If the combat is lopsided enough (1 GR Tank vs 40 mutants) the enemy is literally doing more damage to themself by attacking and recieving counter attacks, then the few attacks/round of the enemy could do.

Arachnids:
I am pretty sure Arachnids use "Melee" type attacks.
That means they ignore the callibre calculation (the only other thing to do that is nuclear weapons)
It would also mean they suffer -33% vs metal armor and -66% vs Polymer Armor

The most important part about arachnids however is, that they are heavily focussed on offense. Offense damage values are 4 times their defensive values.
Even foot infantry - wich receives a -50% to attack scores (already worked into the values) - is better off attacking rather then defending against arachnids.
But any vehciles - even lightly armored buggies - have prooven very effective against Arachnids.

[Arcalane]

ORIGINAL: Eretzu

Alternatively I feel that counter attacks should use ammo (no idea how it actually works right now, but if you could make the tank run out of ammo, then you could make it retreat by the sheer amount of troops and kill it by surrounding it first)

They do! That's why two ammo values are listed; IIRC the first is for attacks, the second for counter-attacks.

Units will suffer significant penalties if their ammo supplies are depleted (c.f. Section 5.10.7.1 Ammunitions, in the manual, page 284), same for fuel and food.

The correct way to kill this tank when it has you massively outgunned is to surround it, cutting off its logistical support. This will ultimately deprive it of the fuel it needs to move, and the ammo and food its crews need to fight. Plus if you inevitably hit it with enough attacks and somehow force a retreat event, it'll surrender because it has nowhere to retreat to if all the surrounding hexes are occupied.

Encircling enemy units is the fastest and safest way to eliminate them, and it avoids the scenario Gary describes where enemies that should by all rights be utterly obliterated by overwhelming firepower instead manage to escape somehow. It even works on critters. Fighting giant carnivorous snails on open plains? Encircle them with buggies! Problem solved.

[Eretzu]

True, they do consume ammo on counter attack, the GR tank just has so much ammo and as it does not counter-attack at unknown enemies so it did not run out of ammo because of that.

For the defence roll, I took pictures as proof. The top row is round one, the bottom row is round 4 with more recon.

The bottom right panel shows the modified defensive score, right? (yes, it also shows the start def score) The defensive score changes between the rounds, but not for each attack during a round.

I am not reading this wrong, am I?

Edit:
Sry for poor quality, had the 200kb limit.
For the first round, the modified value is always 1769.3
For the round 4 it is always the 1341.9

[Eretzu]

I actually might be reading it wrong, seems that the report does not show what was actually rolled. :/

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Eretzu

I actually might be reading it wrong, seems that the report does not show what was actually rolled. :/

Indeed the game does not show the actually rolled values. It only shows you the size of the dice, if you know the enemy attacking with any certainty.

Currently you do not even know wich size of dice the enemy is using - giving you data you data on what was rolled, would allow you to infer the size of the enemy dice and thus get information on what might be there.

Usually the "+40 Recon per Combat turn" will remove any uncertainty about the enemy forces.