Combat and Initial Unit condition...

If your opponent had enough firepower to damage your destroyer down to 40% in one shot, that would be all it took. hurt or no, 5 or 10 ships still do a lot of damage.

If it was just one enemy ship, a battleship can hurt you. Or maybe there were subs present you didn't see until combat actually started. Also possible you got bombarded from shore, depending on how close you are and if your opponent has arty present and in range.

I've tried the same thing with a destroyer and did not have the automatic drop. Is there something different about subs?

They had two destroyers and two subs at 70%/9.6 strength, and the attack counter hadn't even started. My sub just went into combat and dropped instantly. I can totally understand dropping 60 after an attack round. That makes sense. But that's not what happened.

Or, if there's something specific that allows a "free" initial hit or something, I need to know so that I do things to avoid that.

Well, when your sub entered combat it acted as an attacker and procced the 'defend' statistic of the enemy's ships. This will happen irrelevant of the ongoing attack round.

So, as I understand it, you sent in one sub, and two destroyers and 2 subs defended against it's attack. The result seems pretty reasonable for 4v1.

So that damage gets leveled instantly upon combat beginning?

I don't really understand what that means.

A unit can defend against an unlimited number of attacks each round, though may attack only once. That one submarine took a hit from 4 units...yeah, it would have calculated immediately.

Thanks. I think that I understand...

I had thought combat worked this way between Units A and D:

1. A enters D space (combat begins)

2. Timer starts

3. At end of timer, computer calculates A's strength based on A's attack values and D's strength on D's defensive values

4. Damage dealt and condition lowers.

Rather, you're saying that it works as follows:

1. A enters D's space (combat begins & D's defensive value automatically applies to strength against A lowering condition)

2. Timer runs

3. End of timer, computer calculates A & D's strengths as above and delivers damage to both.

4. Conditions lower

So, in essence, a set force, D, has an infinite value of defense strength at a given time. They just only use it in packets of their defensive strength against a round of attackers at a time.

So, say you have a force D, with a strength of 3.0 who is attacked by a 2.0 attacker...

The D will immediately deliver 3.0 against A. Also, if another A attacks during that round, they will also receive 3.0, and another, and another, and another until the first A's timer goes around and their first round of 2.0 (or whatever's left) goes against D.

So, it's REALLY important to have your troops rallied and in a single stack before attacking. Otherwise, they will receive multiples of the D's strength because they attack in waves.

do I have that right?

popcprof wrote:

So, it's REALLY important to have your troops rallied and in a single stack before attacking. Otherwise, they will receive multiples of the D's strength because they attack in waves.

popcprof wrote:

1. A enters D space (combat begins)

2. Timer starts

3. At end of timer, computer calculates A's strength based on A's attack values and D's strength on D's defensive values

4. Damage dealt and condition lowers.

At step 3 (and 4), combat damage is calculated for the SECOND time.

SBDE Question with Example <--Link

Wow! Thanks. That at least explains what happened/happens, although I think it allows for very nitpicky play to have profound effects on overall strategy.

A defense force cannot realistically return fire EVERY time that an attacker attacks. That said, I can see from a programming standpoint that the opposite sort of gaming could happen the other way.