Multiple Sensors

There's no stacking for sensors. So technically you need 1 in a fleet, but it's always a good idea to have a few backups or 1 per ship if you tend to move ships outside of fleets often.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

is back, eh - using 1 sensor ship for the fleet
hadn't thought of that

haven't gotten into the tech tree far enough but SO FAR as i have seen, there is no real way to screw up communications-

i am a little disappointed- cutting supply and communication - and units cut off from c& c -
is an issue computer game medium is ideal for

Anyone who wants power; by definition, cannot be trusted with it...

Well, supply is easy, deny them access to warp points, kill warp points. As for communications, your out of luck. You could sabotage empire relations with intellegence there. Also a high enough cloak can keep certain sensors from seeing you, and you could always create storms that camoflage stuff (In Space Empires 4 against my brother, he actually hid all his worlds with storms, so by the time I got around to attacking him, I was deep in the heart of his systems and suddenly surrounded by hundreds of ships, with still no clue where they were all from.)

Just my .02 but combat sensors are sperate from regular sesnors. So you actually need both types of those. Regular sensors won't help when the shooting starts.

Yep, you need 1 combat sensor for each ships with weapons, and that include missiles (for better damage) and PDs (to increase their chance to hit).

Just .02 more..sorry =) I noticed the computer when using auto create tends to put basic / Taycheon and Combat sensors in a ship.

In my mod i made a lot of scripts to prevent the use of unnedded components. Everything on my AI put on it's ships is of use...

which was DEFINITELY needed...
when i took over the stock ai empire in my old game, i found myself with satellites that had many, many sensors.

i don't even want to talk about the drones that had no warheads...

grrr

Do you REALLY think you will subvert System Vampyre before it subverts YOU?

With the exception of multiple sensors (gasp) I though the AI did a pretty good job of Auto designing in stock (throw rocks at your own risk). Yes it need a tweak or two, but overall not bad.

Missiles (in stock at least) get no benefit whatsoever from combat sensors.

Unless i'm mistaken, the lines "Estimated Targeting Damage Percent" in settings.txt affect how much a weapon can do with the roll it has. I believe ships with high defenses get a lot less damage than thoses with low, at least it seemed that way last time i checked. I should test this gain...

As far as I can tell, that line is used to "guess" how much of a ship's weapon fire will miss or be shot down. I don't think its used for anything other than AI targeting purposes.

Just try your missiles against a ship that has 200% defense. If the damage done is 50% of the damage the missile can do, i am right.

Test mod:
ECM modded to do 1000% defense, combat sensors to do 1000 offense, CSM damage fixed at 100.

CSM hit, no Combat Sensors against:
no defense: 100 damage
ECM: 100 damage
Combat Sensors: 100 damage
Both: 100 damage

CSM hit, Combat Sensors against:
no defense: 100 damage
ECM: 100 damage
Combat Sensors: 100 damage
Both: 100 damage

No change in CSM damage or accuracy.

It seemed to have more effect in my mod though... Unless it affect weapons that have variable damage, my missiles and torps have that... Anyway, i'm not going to argue.

so is there no variance in hit quality for damage without variable weapon dmg(by component)?

Correct. Which is how it should be, because the only way that can happen is if the modder deliberately sets it up that way. There's supposed to be "critical hits" and "glancing blows", but those don't appear to work..

I think thats sad... sigh.

damage should be a function of hit quality% of Max. Potential Dmg.

i did notice the critical and glancing blows in some data file, can't recall where - but if they work i never noticed.

i have noticed some of the ships never seem to get hit for much dmg-- had thought it might be a hit quality function, now i'm feeling suspicious...
the defense modifier IS for To Hit; not for damage...

Righht?
Right?

Yes, its for to-hit only, and only for direct-fire weapons (bolts and beams) There are components that can reduce weapon damage, though (emissive armor, a Crystalline item that reduces incoming beam fire by a certain %)