Annoying combat issue

[WhiteOwl]

I bought the game yesterday and have been enjoying it so far except for this one annoying issue. Once I advanced enough to acquire a corvette, I still sometimes am attacked by fighters when in transit. Now, although this doesn't make much sense, I wouldn't be bothered except for the following. When in battle with these fighters, they are able to hit me with cannon fire for up to 143 points, this from a fighter whose stats say has 23 canon damage. Now this may have been done to make fights between corvettes and fighters challenging, but it's totally unrealistic and is quite annoying. I expect a corvette to be able to swat a fighter out of the sky. Otherwise, I'm quite enjoying the game.

[NielsB]

ORIGINAL: WhiteOwl

I bought the game yesterday and have been enjoying it so far except for this one annoying issue. Once I advanced enough to acquire a corvette, I still sometimes am attacked by fighters when in transit. Now, although this doesn't make much sense, I wouldn't be bothered except for the following. When in battle with these fighters, they are able to hit me with cannon fire for up to 143 points, this from a fighter whose stats say has 23 canon damage. Now this may have been done to make fights between corvettes and fighters challenging, but it's totally unrealistic and is quite annoying. I expect a corvette to be able to swat a fighter out of the sky. Otherwise, I'm quite enjoying the game.

What do you mean attacked when in transit? When travelling you can be attacked by enemy ships, that's correct.

It propably says the standard damage is 23 cannon damage. The enemy does use the same skills than you can acquire during the game and this might significantly increase his combat damage. While 143 does indeed sound very high, it´s really difficult to say on distance whether it´s a bug or not. What messages do pop up? What kind of boni has the enemy and you active?

[WhiteOwl]

Hi Niels,

Thanks for getting back so quickly! Yeah. I'm not complaining about the transit attacks, just saying I wouldn't expect smaller ships to attack larger ones so regularly. I can't recall the exact ship and situation, as I tend to play the combat sequences quite fast, but at best the enemy ship used a focused strike against me. The funny thing is I've never been hit (so far at least) for so much damage by an enemy corvette, it is only the enemy fighters that hit me for so much. Since I am able to kill them somewhat faster (also not as fast as I would have expected), it seems to balance out, which is why I thought it might have been done that way on purpose.

[Rob Brennan UK]

Happens quite regularly , fighter vs corvette and 100+ focused fire is quite common from fighters. Wish mine did that before i upgraded [;)]. even fighter equipped turbo lasers do 70 ish (they fire again giving the game away they are turbo ones afetr the 4 AP for focused fire).

Personally I dont mind but its annoying just before you hit a mission destroyer and your at 1/2 -3/4 shields when combat starts.

[NielsB]

I am sorry, I might still be a bit tired this morning, but I don´t really understand the problem. The damage bonus from focus fire is annoying?

[WhiteOwl]

Hi Niels,

No, that is not the problem. Let me explain, hopefully I will do a better job this time

As a starter, you fly a fighter class vessel and engage in combat with pirates flying fighter class vessels too. These pirates sometimes hit you with focus fire, which causes around 40 points of damage, which is enough to take down shields by, say, 15%. All good so far.

After a while, you advance to a Corvette class. You now have far stronger shields and stronger guns. Occasionally, you will still engage pirates in a Fighter class vessel, same as before, when you were still in a Fighter yourself. These pirates will sometimes hit with Focus Fire, still all good. But suddenly, this same vessel that was causing ~40 points of damage is now causing more than 120 points of damage, and still taking off 15-20% of the shields with that hit.

It looks to me like, purposefully or not, the damage from Focus Fire is some percentage of the target and not a function of the firing vessel. Whether or not this is the case, I have no idea, only speculation. However, I do know it is annoying. I expected that once I get a Corvette, I will barely take any damage from Fighters and be able to swat them out of the virtual sky. Instead, while it is slightly easier to kill these Fighter-class-pirates with a Corvette, it is not MUCH easier and can still leave you pretty damaged.

Hope this makes sense.

[NielsB]

Without looking at the game code I could imagine three reasons (beside a bug) that could cause this:
1. The fighter doing 120 pts. of damage have bigger guns than the first vessel.
2. The starting bonus a player gets.
3. A combination of skills. While the direct damage is caused by focus fire there could be additional skills active, which boost the damage.
 
I'll take a look though.