Ships try to intercept shots that has 0 or less hit change to begin with

[Aatu]

Fix it.

[Zero1627]

I'd say ones that after interception have 100% or above to hit should not be intercepted too - unless it can change damage dealt (Pulse or Antimatter weapons, usually)

[Aatu]

True on 100%, but how do I decide the exceptions where it should be intercepted and how heavily I weight in in compared to other weapons?

[Zero1627]

Would have to invent some weighting algorithm. It may not be perfect, of course, but so is life. I think reducing to-hit above 100% should be weighter lower than chance of actual interception of any incoming shot.

I assume there is some algorithm already. It can be supplemented by (if there remains unallocated interceptors after existing algorithm): take an incoming weapon for which reduced to hit is meaningful even above 100% (a flag with weapon would probably be best) and can be reduced most (interceptor degradation kicks in in some cases) and intercept it. If same reduction - go for lowest to-hit (usually best chance of actually achieving anything). Crude but should do.

Also, there's issue with intercept-capable weapons that don't fire every turn. I have no idea what to do about them - unless allow player to declare manually that they're in intercept mode, and otherwise not allocate them? (intercept mode cancelled after 1 turn automatically). There's not very many of them anyway (in official B5Wars at least).

Proposition of full interception algorithm (skip reading if it's unneded) :

• allocate highest-rating weapons first (that's usually most effective); if same rating - slow-firing ones go last (so there's a chance of saving them if not all interceptors find targets)
• try to maximize damage potential stopped (calculated as max_damage_possible*hit_chance_reduction) (use max 100% and min 0% for hit chances - so reduction from 120 to 110 % would be reduction 0) - if equal, calculate MINIMUM damage stooped in the same way; if equal,, then either first incoming or grade damage modes (eg. Standard first, then Pulse, then Raking...); don't allocate if damage potential stopped equals 0; have to invent some way of weighting weapons that threaten in other ways than direct damage (eg. Burst Beam) (alternately, instead of maximum and then minimum damage, weight average and then maximum)
• if not yet allocated (->no stopping possible) check if there are incoming weapons whose firepower may be reduced even if they're not stopped (Antimatter, Pulse... a list is needed, or better flag with weapon itself). Allocate to one that can be reduced by greatest hit chance, then that already has lowest hit chance (greatest chance of actually doing anything, without serious calculation) (assume only to-hits>100% are considered at this stage)
• if not yet allocated: this means either there are no more shots incoming (that can be intercepted), or all remaining incoming shots have really high to-hit numbers and reducing to-hit without actual interception is meaningless. In this case, take next best intercept-capable weapon and repeat steps above (recurency). If not possible to add another wepon (no more intercept capable weapons) this means no meaningful interception is possible, algorithm ends.

I assume that procedure above , when combining weapons, counts current total intercept rating (2 ratings, rather: with degradation and not) and current number of weapons (needed for calculating degradation for additional weapon). In fact, if new weapon adds 0 to degraded rating, algorithm may seek ballistics only (for gunfire ther should be no change at this stage). I assume when calculating intercept effectiveness, already allocated interceptors are taken into account (example: 2 bolts incoming, to hit both 10. Interceptor MkII allocated first - let's say to first incoming, stopped potential is the same. Second such interceptor, under algorithm above, would allocate to 2nd shot - as allocating to first one would cause smaller reduction. 3rd Interceptor would again allocate to first. If, on the other hand, there was 3rd incoming shot, with weaker weapon - interceptor would allocate to it rather than one of earlier bolts only if 20% of its damage potential is greater than 15% of bolts' damage potential).

Of course this may be refined, but should work.

[Aatu]

Thanks, this makes sense. Some clarifications though:

• Ballistic weapons are intercepted manually in the firing phase, so no need to automate them.
• Weapons that have loading time more than 1 turn are not used. So for example medium pulses can only intercept ballistics. So far haven't really had much need to change that, but if some other weapon requires it, then we will look into it.

Currently system just calculates average damage stopped. So if you reduce 10% hit change and damage is 100, you reduce 10 points of damage. This ensures that mag guns, plasma and such are high priority. Pulse weapons are also often intercepted, because their damage is (for HPC) 15-90... pretty damn high! With current weapons it has worked actually suprisingly well, but I am sure we need to refine it to take into account damage modes and other things.

All and all the algorithm to automate intercepting is one of the most hardest parts to code, but on the other hand it does not have to be 100% perfect. As long as there are no obvious loopholes, it should suffice.

[Zero1627]

All and all the algorithm to automate intercepting is one of the most hardest parts to code, but on the other hand it does not have to be 100% perfect. As long as there are no obvious loopholes, it should suffice. - my thoughts exactly

I forgot that ballistics interception is done by player as firing orders - so that simplifies things somewhat (all relevant interception suffers degradation). Interception with weapons firing slower than 1/turn is rarely done, I doubt anyone would mind if they're left as You say (unless a race appears which has serious interception based on such weapons... hmm, actually such a race exists - Brakiri with overpowered Pulsars).

How do You count average damage stopped? Straight middle between minimum and maximum? (just curiosity - about any would work well enough, it doesn't have to count real average). Really all my algorithm adds to Yours is probably a way to grade interception over 100%, and perhaps some tweaks if You like what I said. As for refinement: I think getting perfect allocation is not necessary, if it works reasonably well it's enough. As for firing modes and weapon classes: yes, it would be nice if that was taken into account. But not a priority. It may be taken into account either by given order of resolving ties, or by simply multiplying damage weighted by multiplier dependent on class and mode (so more dangerous weapons are simply counted as doing more damage: eg. Plasma x1.1, Pulse x1.1, Raking x0.8 (cumulative, so Plasma Pulse weapon would have interception priority based on DMGx1.1x1.1)). Or both. (above values for multipliers are only examples, not well thought of).

What IS important (I think) is getting weapons that do no damage (or are much more dangerous than damage suggests) into abovementioned algorithm. Only thing I can think of right now is adding extra (hidden) weapon attribute containing "damage threat" (damage value that should be used by interception algorithm). But if such value is added, it can be simply filled for other weapons too and algorithm itself would be simple (just most "damage" intercepted, tie resolution method would be irrelevant, simply first incoming would do (as long as it takes into account degradation)).