Combat Mechanics Questions.

In GC2 defenses that didn't match the attack type still protected by the square root of their defense value.  That doesn't happen in GC3.  There may be other differences as well, but that's the only one I know of.

I think it's going to be dependent on the game you are playing and it's settings. I haven't got too far into any game so far, but i have observed the Drengin focus on missile, as was i and then late game start to make a switch to kinetic, to offset my huge advantage in missile def.
So the AI it seems can adapt.
Of course the races tend to focus on differing lines of offense, so having ships than can handle any races is a huge advantage, though not easy to do.
I know i haven't really answered your question, but being early days its hard to know for sure.

To answer your question, we have been given very little combat info.

Here is what we do know:

 

1) Each weapon type has a range, damage, a rate of fire, and accuracy. So a damage 10 missile may do different DPS than a damage 10 kinetic weapon for example.

2) Defenses only affect 1 type of attack (armor vs kinetic, PD vs missle, shields vs lasers). However, a big change is that defenses decrease during the course of a battle, though we still don't know exactly what triggers that.

So what would be the most effective way to build a ship?  Given equal tech on 3 weapon types would it be better to focus everything onto 1 weapon type or split it amongst the different damage types?  Same question for defense.

Again, depends on whats going on in your game and what you need. If you have 100 def in beam and they come at you with missiles, your screwed. It's not like GC2 where you would still see some protection from that 100 beam against the incoming missile attack.

you will have to tailor your ships to suit the needs as they arise. Since balanced ships never seem to work out. (trying to do to much and end up doing nothing at all)

Right now, im trying to have only one or two capital ships per fleet, balanced across all 3 def types. I then fill out the fleet with tiny and smalls that are purely dedicated to the attack type i am facing.

It's still a learning process at this point to see what the best way to go is.

As a general rule though, id say the best bet is to build to your enemy's strengths and weaknesses.

 

That seems to be a good strategy to me too. Gone are the GC2 days of the invincible super-dreadnought, it would appear (and that is no bad thing IMO). A combined arms approach seems to work better - at least until the AI starts using your own ship designs against you (I love that idea).

I've not played with carriers yet, and have no real intention to if I can avoid it 

 

There is also an efficiency in keeping one type of attack on smaller hulls, so that you don't need to fit (and research) multiple types of weapon augments.

 

Here is how damage is applied:

When an attacker ship hits a defender ship, if the defender has no defense of the appropriate type, the weapon does max damage (displayed in red on battle log) to the hit points.

If the defender has even 1 point of defense left of the appropriate type, the damage done (displayed in orange) is applied instead to the defense, thus lowering the defender's defense against future attacks. As long as even a single defense point is available, no damage will affect the defender's hit points.

The amount of damage done to a ship's defenses is unclear. It is not a simple (attack-defense) calculation, and since there are rounding issues, I assume that there is some calculation based on the ratio of attack:defense. I have never seen my basekiller ship with 20 attack do more than 9 damage to a starbase with defense 10, so that might be a clue.

Note that due to rounding issues, the orange damage amounts displayed on the battle log sometimes do not match exactly with the damage done to a ship's defenses.

Also note that when a weapon fires, the defense reduction on its target is done immediately, but the ship will not display its lowered defense number until the next weapon (from any ship in the battle on either side) fires their next weapon. So if you are watching the battle and the ship icons on the bottom of the battle viewer, you will notice this delay.

I hadn't noticed the Orange. Good show for pointing that out.

That's pretty informative, thankyou peteincarey2.

Isn't that great!? It was kinda anticlimatic in the GC2's day w=once you developed your techs and started pumping out invincible huge hulled mega battleships!
I'm enjoying the diversity of hulls i am building now, not something that was warranted in GC2.

As for carriers, ive just designed one and will implement it in game. more for shits and giggles, but i want to understand the fighters it deploys. Ie att/def hitpoints...etc.

With the new combat mechs, a carrier just might be usefull.

It was even worse when some of the modules (like the terran's warp bubble) triggered such high aggro that you could make 1 super defense ship and the rest were all gun toters and just run amok.

Constantly weakening defense is a much better result imo. Defense is very strong right now but its not unbeatable, and makes extra hitpoints something to consider.

 

It seems like now the strategy is to pump out invincible huge hulled super carriers.  In my games my carriers are pretty nigh unstoppable.  It's more expensive but a fully decked out carrier seems to win easily over a fully decked out dreadnaught.  Each of my carriers carry 40 assault interceptors (8 advanced carrier modules) and even a single carrier is like a fleet.

 

Although I'm still curious over how the math works in terms of attack/defense.  That way I can plan out my ships more efficiently.