Another awesome game I played a while back was ‘Myth: The Fallen Lords’ which in multiplayer had a pretty good post-game breakdown of the damage done by your units against the enemy. The post-game statistics in GSB are interesting enough, it is good to click on a ship and see it’s accuracy percent and whether its weapons were effective, but I think the stats display could maybe use a little more work.
First, currently there are the offensive stats:
shots hit %
reflected by armor %
reflected by shields %
absorbed by armor %
absorbed by shields %
These are all mostly useful. Especially the hit % and the reflection %‘s. But I think the ‘absorbed by armor’ and absorbed by shields’ stats aren’t that interesting. You can tell pretty clearly during the course of battle whether or not the enemy ships are using shields or armor as their primary defense. Plus it raises the question of what % was absorbed by the hull/base hit points of the target ships. We weren’t only shooting at armor and shields out there, some % if the damage actually went towards killing the enemy ships. These three together - armor, shield, and hull absorbtion would give you a better picture. But instead of adding a third hull absorbtion stat what I would REALLY like to see is the armor and shield absorbed %'s replaced with a sort of straight-up ‘effectiveness %’ - that is, the total number of shots taken times theoretical maximum damage done if they had all hit, versus the actual damage done by the hits which scored. ‘Actual damage’ being any non-reflected shots (sheild, armor, and hull ‘good damage’). Thus you would replace the two semi-useful statistics with one very interesting one, a sort of overall offensive rating.
Right, now the defense stats:
hits received %
reflected by armor %
reflected by shields %
absorbed by armor %
absorbed by shields %
These are a little less clear to me. Hits received % is a question mark - does that mean, of all the shots fired at this particular ship, this is the number which actually hit? Actually hit and did damage, or hit and were reflected? Or does it mean that of all the shots which hit your fleet, this is the % that hit this particular ship? This would be most useful to know. Reflected by armor and shields are good, they let you know if your armor/shield strategies are actually working. But absorbed by shields and armor are again a little less useful. If the ship got blowed up, obviously it absorbed everything. If you are armoring, obviously your absorbed by armor % is going to be higher. The overall defensive effectiveness stat would be, of all the shots fired which were aimed at this ship, of the theoretical damage they could have inflicted, what % of all that actually inflicted non-reflected shield, armor, or hull damage.
That’s all on the offensive/defensive stats. Now, one minor quibble: Fighter squadrons should tell you the number of fighters lost out of the initial squadron size, not a hull percentage.
Alright, now for the more interesting stats, and why I brought up Myth the Fallen Lords. Post-game carnage reports in that game broke down the damage done and kills by unit types, and it was very interesting. The equivelent for GSB would be a break down showing the total ‘good damage’ done by your fleet, then a percent by hull design responsible. And maybe by hull class too. So, you would be able to see which hulls pulled the most work in, and which of your fighter designs was the most pathetic, etc, etc. I usually have a section of spam frigates behind the cruiser line, and I can tell they’re doing good damage, but how much compared to my cruiser hulls?
Anyhow, I thought a damage inflicted breakdown per hull type would be pretty darn good to have versus looking at each ship individually, though the individual stats should be kept, obviously.