Newbie FAQ

[sangaman]

Does anybody know when the newbie FAQ will be up? It was really helpful back on shareplay and it would encourage new players to stay with the game. More input from veterans would be good too, but I really can't wait until http://www.smrealms.de/help/ stops being a dead link.

[Blade]

Ask away, I will help if I can

[Nariis]

The helpfiles should be up in the next update. I only have two more sections to finish. As Blade said, ask away.

[sangaman]

Can anybody explain to me how combat works? What does poewr level mean, which type of damage (shield or armor) is more important, what are the steps that take place during combat, and the formulas used in combat (such as accuracy). Anything else you can explain, especially strategies or tips for combat or for protecting yourself from others, would be very helpful too. thanks

[sangaman]

Also, how do you calculate your Attack Rating and your Defense Rating?

[B.O.B.]

Can anybody explain to me how combat works? What does poewr level mean, which type of damage (shield or armor) is more important, what are the steps that take place during combat, and the formulas used in combat (such as accuracy). Anything else you can explain, especially strategies or tips for combat or for protecting yourself from others, would be very helpful too. thanks

Also, how do you calculate your Attack Rating and your Defense Rating?

Hmm...I can tell you how most of old SM combat worked but I am not entirely sure if SMR works the same way.

I'll start with power lvl because that is easy to explain. Power level restrictions how many of that type of weapon you can buy.

You can only have one weapon of pwr lvl 5. There are only 2 weapons that have power lvl of 5: Holy Hand Grenade (HHG) only for good guys, and Nuke only for the bad guys. HHG does 300 shield and 0 armor. And the Nuke does the exact opposite. Before pwr lvls existed you would see a bunch of ships with just HHGs and Nukes, so what was the point of buying other weapons?

You can have 2 lvl 4s, 3 lvl 3s, 4 lvl 2s, and either 5 or unlimited lvl 1s (not sure if it unlimited or not cause I don't remember) but it forces to get different types of weapons.

As to which type is more important (shields/armor) when it comes to ship to ship combat it depends on whether your ship has mines. If it has mines you want a heavy armor config cause mines will take out the shields or at least most of them. But if not I would suggest a balance between shields and armor.

Accuracy: If I remember correctly in SM each weapon had its own accuracy but that accuracy was affect by the lvls of each player.

The old formula was acc of wep + (lvl of attacker + 2 - lvl of defender).

The attacker always got a plus 2 percent accuracy, but if the defender is a higher lvl it is possible have less accuracy then the defender. I think that is correct but if it ain't will one of the vets please correct me. I don't know what the old Combat Drone deployement formula was or what the new one is but I do know it is messed up currently so don't rely on CDs to heavily.

As to the defense/offense rating the old formula is this:

Total shield damage + total armor damage possible (If a weapon does both shield and armor damage you add both numbers [such as the Huge Pulse Laser does 85 shield and 85 armor so you would get 170 from that weapon]) and divide by 40 then you current CDs on ship and divide them by 50, lastly you round up or down as need be. So an example would be:

HPL at 85/85 = 170/40 = 4.25
Plus 100 CDs so = 4.25 + (100/50) = 4.25 + 2 = 6.25

As to defense rating: Total shields, armor, and (CDs*3) on ship divided by 100. So an example is:

100 shields + 100 armor + (100 cds * 3) = 200 + 300 = 500/100 = 5.

As the other questions I am not entirely sure on them so I feel I might mislead you, so I will leave those questions for another vet to explain.

[B.O.B.]

Here is a good example of offense/defense rating:

You have a Federal Ultimatum (FU):

It can have 7 weapons, 700 shields, 600 armor, and 120 CDs.

Optimal weapon config:

HHG (300/0) [pwr lvl 5] + Salvene EM Flux Cannon (SEMFC) (100/50) [pwr lvl 3] + SEMFC (100/50) [pwr lvl 3] + SEMFC (100/50) [pwr lvl 3] + Torpedo Launcher (TL) (0/100) [pwr lvl 2] + Creonti "Big Daddy" (CBD) (0/250) [pwr lvl 4] + CBD (0/250) [pwr lvl 4]

Giving 600 possible shield damage and 750 possible armor damage for a total of 1350 possible damage.

So the formula is:

(1350/40) + (120/50) = 33.75 + 2.4 = 36.35

So rounded offensive rating = 36

As to defense:

[700 + 600 + (120 * 3)]/100 = (1300 + 360)/100 = 1660/100 = 16.6

So rounded it is 17.

Total rating = 36/17

[DekeFentle]

B.O.B. 's accuracy formula is a little off from what I have recorded.

The old accuracy formula was...

Base Accuracy + INT(Attacker Level - (Defender Level/2)

E.G.
A level 30 trader fires an HHG at a level 20 trader

35 + (30 - (20/2) = 55% chance to hit.

Mr. Spock or Azool, I for one would love to here if this is the present formula.

[B.O.B.]

B.O.B. 's accuracy formula is a little off from what I have recorded.

The old accuracy formula was...

Base Accuracy + INT(Attacker Level - (Defender Level/2)

E.G.
A level 30 trader fires an HHG at a level 20 trader

35 + (30 - (20/2) = 55% chance to hit.

Mr. Spock or Azool, I for one would love to here if this is the present formula.

Like I said...If I remember correctly...

[Trib]

Deke, this is indeed the current accuracy formula in use in SMR.

Most of the formulae have been taken from your page with such formulae on. So the drone launch formula for example is:

rand(3-54) + rand(lvl/4 - lvl) % of drones will launch on a given attack.