Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

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mwobuddy
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Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#1 Post by mwobuddy »

Sometimes I'll be in the same system with a monster and my ships wont even fire at it. The monster is clearly 'visible'.

Why/how do you get PP to share among build orders? Sometimes I can get the game to divide PP among ships and objects, sometimes I can't seem to make it do that and it focuses all PP into one project.

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MatGB
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#2 Post by MatGB »

Combat should happen if both fleets are visible and both are set to 'aggressive' (not the toggle at the right of the fleet window). Some monsters (the unarmed ones) aren't set to try to fight, if your ships are also set to not fight (unusual for warships but can happen if, for example, you've used the 'split damaged ship' option or merged fleets into a non warship fleet).

Beyond that you may have found a bug, a screenshot can normally resolve things, if it is a bug we'd need a savegame (screenshots are very useful for bughunting—the UI not being clear enough is a bug in and of itself so if we can find what you've not understood we need to make that clearer).

Regarding shared production, all supply linked planets form a resource group and PP are allocated to the top item in the list for that group, etc. Supply can be blocked by enemy aggressive fleets, including within a system, it can also simply not have propagated fully, various techs apply: note that in an unblockaded system a single high supply planet will link all the others in that system to the rest of the empire, Tiny planets and certain species are very good for this, as are space elevators.

Again, if it's not linking when you think it should a screenshot of affected systems might help explain it.
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Vezzra
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#3 Post by Vezzra »

mwobuddy wrote:Why/how do you get PP to share among build orders? Sometimes I can get the game to divide PP among ships and objects, sometimes I can't seem to make it do that and it focuses all PP into one project.
You don't (need to) get PP to be shared among build orders, there is a fixed scheme by which PP allocation to build orders is determined: The ordering of the build orders/items in the queue determines their priority. The topmost item has highest priority, the second second highest priority and so on.

So, the items in the queue receive PP from your pool in this order: topmost first, then second, and so on. The items further down in the queue only receive PP if the items above them don't use up all the PP in your pool. The maximum amount of PP an item can get allocated to is total PP costs for that item divided by minimum build time.

So, e.g. a ship that costs 100PP and has a min build time of 5 can receive a maximum of 20PP per turn, not more. Meaning, if this item is on top of your queue, and you have less than 20PP available per turn (you have to use up all your PP each turn, they don't get stockpiled, so unused PPs are wasted), only this topmost item will receive any PP. If however you have more than 20PP/turn available, then only 20PP will get allocated to your ship, and the remaining PP are allocated to the second item in the queue. If that item also cannot use up the rest of your PP, the third item will get PP allocated, and so on, until all PP are spent.

The last item in the queue to receveive any PP usually gets less than what it could potentially get allocated (unless the remaining PP after all items higher in the queue got their share is exactly the max amount the last item can get, which of course is a rare incidence ;)).

More clear now how this works...?

mwobuddy
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#4 Post by mwobuddy »

Got it.

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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#5 Post by defaultuser »

If an ion storm rolls into a system, it can blind both parties (depending on detection level) so that combat doesn't take place. As noted, screenshot is useful.

mwobuddy
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#6 Post by mwobuddy »

I think I figured out why my stuff wasn't 'shooting'.

It might have to do with the shields of other ships. I ran a group of small hull corvettes against a maint ship monster, clearly superior fleet attack power and better fleet hp, but individually its 3 damage vs the 3 defense of the shields so it killed all the ships without taking damage, and there was no mention in the sitrep of damage attempted or taken, so it looks/looked like they weren't even shooting. Im pretty sure what it was is the 3 damage form my ships getting absorbed into the shields 'silently' and thus giving no readout, but the action occurred. I'll screenshot it if this still sounds off the mark.

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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#7 Post by defaultuser »

Oh sure, if you're throwing Mass Driver 1 ships, that's not going to work unless you get lucky with a Molecular Cloud. It's tougher in the older version of the game before upgradable weapons, because if you built a ship with MD1, it was that way forever.

Even so, I generally don't build ships like Corvettes or Frigates. For the games I play, I usually won't build any warship until I have Robotic hull. Most of my builds are outpost ships and colonies (if possible).

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Vezzra
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#8 Post by Vezzra »

mwobuddy wrote:Im pretty sure what it was is the 3 damage form my ships getting absorbed into the shields 'silently' and thus giving no readout, but the action occurred.
If you threw ships with Mass Driver 1 at a Maintenance Ship, then that is exactly what happened.

defaultuser
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#9 Post by defaultuser »

Of course, that cuts both ways. As the Maintenance Ship only has MD1, if you attack with a ship that has Defense Grid or higher, then it can stand in forever (modulo Molecular Cloud interference).

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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#10 Post by LGM-Doyle »

mwbuddy, welcome to the forums.
mwbuddy wrote:it was is the 3 damage form my ships getting absorbed into the shields 'silently'
Have you discovered the combat report?

Click on the word "combat" in the sitrep window to open the CombatReport window.

The Log tab of the CombatReport window provides a detailed log of the combat. When weapons can not penetrate an enemy's shields, there should be a line like " 'Shipname' could not damage 'other ship name' ". Click on the chevron symbol ">>" for expansion to expand into a more detailed report. In the more detailed report shield strength and weapon strength are listed explicitly.

mwobuddy
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#11 Post by mwobuddy »

Yep thats exactly what it is.

Round 2
Van Gogh attacks Taniwha and does 0 damage
Taniwha attacks Van Gogh and does 3 damage

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MatGB
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Re: Why does PP share or not, why cant my cruisers shoot?

#12 Post by MatGB »

Research Mass Driver 2, if you're playing with a version that isn't really old it'll upgrade all your ships in Supply.

The shield strengths are deliberately set at the strength of an unadjusted level 1 weapon, upgrade and you're good to go.
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