INTERNAL WORKINGS OF BATTLES EXPLAINED

1. Introduction

This is an official guide, specially made to explain how battles take place. The objective is to show on the surface how battles take places and later the concept and how to fully utilize this information to improve your ranking.

2. Overview

A battle occurs when an empire launches an attack against another empire. Battles although uses turns but happens in real-time. That means if you attack another empire and that person (the leader of the empire) is online, he/she may attack you back in a mater of seconds or minutes. This means that you can be attacked at any given time, while managing your colonies and doing other tasks. A warning message wills pop-up when you have been attacked while playing. 

2.1 Winning and losing 

The one which takes the least amount of losses wins. Losses are calculated based on total power rating of the entire fleet before the battle and after the battle.

2.2 Losing a battle

How badly a person losses the battle depends on the percentage of losses. The more percentage of losses a person takes, the more colonies he will lose. An empire can lose 1 to 3 colonies at a single time before falling under protection

2.3 Damage protection

Empires which have suffered a huge amount of losses automatically falls in to damage protection. While in damage protection, no other empire can attack this empire. This happens when:-
- an empire losses 1 or more colonies
- an empire losses a minimum of 50% of more of his fleet in a single battle

Only defending empires can fall into damage protection, it can even happen when the defending empire wins a battle but has lost 50% or more of it's fleet.

Protection lasts for 24 or 48 hours (depending on server) until the player builds any offensive ships or attacks someone. All protection restrictions vary depending on the status of the galaxy. For example damage protection is turned off during galaxy wide events such as `galaxy crisis` for certain parties. Starbases and scouts are not considered offensive ships and do not remove damage protection.

2.4 Defender advantage

The defending empire holds two types of advantage. 

The first one being range. When attack occurs, the attacking fleet must advance to the defending fleet. This results in the defending fleet fires first. The attacker can only fire first if the attacker’s range is longer than the defenders’. For example: if both the attacker and defender share the same range, then the defender fires first. 

The second advantage is the attitude of the ships. The higher the aggressiveness of the attacking fleet, the more losses the attacking fleet will incur. This is following a rule of charge. When an attacking fleet charges while the defending fleet is entrenched, then the advantage goes to the entrenched fleet. A more cautious attitude may result will reduce this advantage factor.

Attitude	Defender	Attacker	
Cautious	- 50%	- 50%	
Normal		- 5%	
Aggressive	+ 99%	+ 75	

3. How battles work

3.1 Fleet organization and stacking

Stacks are the units of a type of ship. A fleet is organize in stacks depends on the total power rating for that particular group. The most powerful stack goes on top, followed by the 2nd most powerful and so on. 

Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Fighter	150,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	
Terran Destroyer	45,000	

The above is an example of how stacking works. As you can see the fleet has been organized in to three stacks. The `Terran Fighter` leads the fleet by going in front, followed by `Terran Corvette` and so on. As a reminder, the most powerful ship group will go in front. That means the first stack will be the first to fight.

So if you wish to organize your `Terran Destroyer` to go on the 1st stack, then you must either build enough of it that the total power rating becomes number 1 or disband some of the `Terran Fighters`. Please see the example below:-

Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Destroyer 	170,000	
Terran Fighter	150,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	

3.2 Example of how stacking works while in battle

For usage as an example, say that your fleet (as below) is attacking another empire.
Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Fighter	150,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	
Terran Destroyer	45,000	

And say this is your enemy
Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Battleship	185,000	
Terran Cruiser	120,000	

What will happen is, your `Terran Fighter` will be paired with your enemy’s `Terran Battleship`, and so on. If your stack (or the enemy’s) does not have a target, then they will randomly select one. For example if your `Terran Destroyer` does not have a target or no one to be paired up with then your `Terran Destroyer` will select any available (not yet destroyed) enemy stack. In this case we shall assume that your `Terran Destroyer` randomly selects the enemy’s `Terran Cruiser`. 

Your Ships	Enemy Ships	
Terran Fighter	Terran Battleship	
Terran Corvette	Terran Cruiser	
Terran Destroyer	Terran Cruiser	

Now since the system has paired up who-will-fight-with-who, the system will then calculate who will fire first between the now paired stack. For example, `Terran Battleship` will fire first at `Terran Fighter`, conducting a full (100%) damage. However your `Terran Fighter` fires back (retaliation fire) at the `Terran Battleship` at half (50%) damage. This process of attacking will continue until every stack finishes their turn to attack. 

Now is the interesting part, the stacks will remain the same but after taking in to account what`s left. For example: if your entire stack of `Terran Fighter` is destroyed as below:-

Your Ships	Enemy Ships	
	Terran Battleship	
Terran Corvette	Terran Cruiser	
Terran Destroyer	Terran Cruiser	

Then your enemy’s `Terran Battleship` will choose a random target to attack as the below. In this case we assume it is the Terran Corvette.

Your Ships	Enemy Ships	
Terran Corvette	Terran Battleship	
Terran Corvette	Terran Cruiser	
Terran Destroyer	Terran Cruiser	

Bear in mind that your `Terran Corvette` is still in the 2nd stack but targeted by the enemy’s 1st stack. That means your `Terran Corvette` will not attack the `Terran Battleship` but will continue to attack the enemy’s `Terran Cruiser`.

The system will perform 2 waves of attack. 
1 wave = the entire attack process. 

Once this is over, the battle will calculate the losses and so on.

3.3 Stacking strategy

Please refer to the stacking strategy guide

3.4 Multiple stacking strategy

This is where you organize your stacks’ power rating to be very close to one another. This part is good because it allows you to change stacks accordingly and disallows other attacking empires to `specially stack` their fleet to fight against your stacks.

For example, lets say you have started off with such a stack:-
Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Destroyer 	170,000	
Terran Fighter	160,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	
Terran Battleship	45,000	

Let’s say if an enemy empire attacks you, then the chances of your stacks automatically reorganizing is very high due to the close proximity of the power rating. Let’s say for example after the 1st battle, your ship takes the following damage as below:-

Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Destroyer 	135,000	
Terran Fighter	148,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	
Terran Battleship	45,000	

It will then restack itself to the following:-

Ship	Total Power Rating	
Terran Fighter	148,000	
Terran Destroyer 	135,000	
Terran Corvette	50,000	
Terran Battleship	45,000	

Why do you want to change stacking strategy ? This is mainly due to the difference in ranking. When someone attacks you, your rank will surely drop because you suffered a lost of power rating. It can be speculated that players with in different ranking utilizes different strategies. For example: players on the higher ranks may utilize 4 or more stacks while players in the lower ranks may only use 1-2 stacks. If this is the case, then you may want to organize your stacks differently to cater to the higher ranks, and to reorganize your stacks IF you do drop in ranks. Of course this aspect is easier said than done.

4. Ship weapons and defence modifiers

4.1 Ship weapons and retaliation

Ships can have various weapon types and have a single range at which they can attack their opponent. Due to the nature of some weapons or ships the enemy might not be able to shoot back at once. The defender is only able to hit back at an opponent while counterattacking. Those ships have the comment 'no retaliation' in noted in the ship data. Other ships have the comment 'no defence' added in their ship data. When a ship attacks these ships before they can return fire they are not able to do so.

4.2 Defence modifiers and weapon strength

Each ship has their own strengths and weaknesses built into their design. These make up the defence modifiers. The defence modifier applies to the weapon strength of attacking ships. A defence modifier of +50% against energy weapons would mean the attacker's energy weapon strength would be multiplied with 1.5. If the defence modifier was -50% instead of +50% then weapon strength would be multiplied by 0.5 effectively halving it. The attack type cautious, normal of agressive also acts as a multiplier to the weapon strength.

Guide written by Stephen Yong, 6th June 2003
Last updated on 5th Januari 2004
Updated again on 18th October 2004 by Melvin