Combat

What the game is all about - Combat is what happens when two or more opposing Fleets meet at a Planet. Each combat lasts one Tick. The fleets will fight each other for possession of the planet's Asteroids (or 'roids'). Hostile fleets will probably attempt to steal asteroids or destroy Structures. Defending fleets will attempt to stop this from happening.

Combat works based upon the shipstats. Initiative determines the order in which the ships fire; for example, ships with initiate 1 will all fire at the same time, followed by all the ships with initiative 2, and so on. Targetting is based upon ship class: Fighter, Frigate etc. The number of ships destroyed is based on the 'damage' stat of the firing ship vs the 'armour' stat of the ship under fire, and on the number of ships involved in the combat. Round 13 will use these stats.

NOTE: In pre-PAX rounds, there were other stats such as firepower, weapon speed and agility. These were removed to simplify the combat engine. Also, attacking fleets could attack for one, two or three consecutive ticks, rather than just one tick at a time.

Towards the end of the combat, any surviving, unfrozen and unstolen Pods will attempt to steal Asteroids; Structure killers will bomb structures, and Zikonians may attempt to steal ships. The capturing of asteroids is limited to 25% of the planet's total in each tick; for example a planet which has 100 Metal, 200 Crystal and 100 Eonium asteroids can lose a maximum of 25 metal, 50 crystal and 25 eonium asteroids. If insufficent pods have been sent, or have survived the combat, the 'roidcap' will be lower. Captured roids are shared out among each attacker which sent pods, depending on the value of their fleet as compared to the total value of the attacking fleet. For example, if two people attacked one planet, and Attacker A sent 2/3 of the fleet value (as determined by the total cost in Resources of all the ships in the fleet), while Attacker B sent 1/3, then 2/3 of the roids will go to Attacker A, and 1/3 to B.

NOTE: Different pods can capture different amounts of roids.

Following a battle, each defender will collect Salvage, if there have been any ships killed in the battle.

For more information, read the official combat entry in the manual: http://jpaweb01.planetarion.com/manual.pl