Point Defense canon question...

[thecyclemania]

Can somebody explain to me why point defense will just fire at seeking weapon IF they are out of range and move INTO range.

Example, PD I have a range of 3.
The enemy is at range 5. Shoot his missiles.
Missiles smove to range 3. PD shoot missiles.
Missiles are destroyed.
So far so good. Nothing unusual.

The enemy is at range 2. Shoots his missiles.
Missile move toward my ships and hits the ships. PD never shot, even though they were 'ready' (not used that turn).

Also, why can't we shoot at seeking weapons with PD when they are ready? I select PD weapons only and try to target missiles (within less than 3 hexes) and I can't shoot them.

Anybody else seen this, or it's just me.

PD are not that effective if this is the 'normal' behavior.

- thecyclemania

[AJC]

I have noticed that if you fire your main weapons and then move -PDC will not fire even though the PDC are showing ready. Move and trigger the PDC first then fire the main weapons.

[Seawolf]

OK here it is, you have to remember that there is 2 "phases" to a turn in combat. Each player has a phase each. PDC can only fire once per turn not phase. So what I guess is happening is that the PDC fired during your phase and the missiles moved during the enemy phase. Since the PDC couldn't fire the second time it didn't.
As far as showing ready, that may be a glitch in programming. See if what I described is what actually happening.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[AJC]

Actually - the PDC are not firing just like I stated - I have noticed this for some time but never made an issue of it- probably should have. The PDCs had not been fired yet. When the missiles moved in the unfired PDC never defended the ship. this is easy to test. Load up two ships into the the simulator and try it out exactly as I described. Fire the main weapons and then move. The PDCs will not target and fire at seekers.

[UmberGryphon]

Maybe point-defense cannons think they need their ship to be able to shoot at a new target. I build "can target 4 things per turn" widgets on my ships (if not 5), and I'm fairly certain I don't have this problem.

But that wouldn't explain why moving (and getting PDC fire) allows you to shoot the main guns afterward. No matter what's going on in the code, this behavior is inconsistent and therefore qualifies as a bug in my book.

[Seawolf]

Umber,

FYI PDC don't need combat sensors to target multi missiles. I will check sim


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Seawolf on the prowl

[UmberGryphon]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:
FYI PDC don't need combat sensors to target multi missiles

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I'm aware of that. However, I can certainly imagine a way of coding guns in general and PDCs in particular that would make PDCs require the availability of an unused targeting slot, even though they don't actually consume that targeting slot once they fire.

This would result in the behavior I think we're seeing--on ships without combat sensors, PDC can fire before the main guns but not after; on ships with combat sensors, the problem is significantly lessened.

I'm at work, or I'd run some simulations to confirm (or disprove) my theory.