Beam STO and CIWS allocation and resolution

Section titled “Beam STO and CIWS allocation and resolution”

This page follows how the game defends against missile salvos. It covers the area and arrival allocation of beam and surface-to-orbit (STO) point defence, CIWS, automatic AMM launches and interceptor resolution, the ten point-defence modes and how the player sets them, engagement counts, and the point-defence summaries and capacity estimates. The worked examples use synthetic inputs and are deductions from the game’s rules, not observed runs.

Space combat resolution is the companion page. It gives the order in which point defence runs when missiles arrive and in the end-of-increment pass. Missile launch and salvo movement are in missile launch flight and guidance, and the strike rolls against ships after point defence are in hit chance ship decoys and payload at impact. The NPR estimate that suppresses AMM launches is in NPR tactical and system behaviour, and the automatic weapon assignment that sets default modes is in automatic combat configuration.

Area point defence starts from the salvos that a race holds as a current active-sensor contact with a status below Neutral, in each system that holds such a contact. It does not use the list of ships ready for point defence. The allocation step returns at once when every salvo it receives is aimed at another salvo. Otherwise it resets each salvo’s protected priority to 10 and clears its protected race, its tracking data and its per-missile assignment lists. A salvo aimed at a ship takes the target class’s PDProtectionPriority as its protected priority and the ship’s race as its protected race. A salvo aimed at a population takes the population’s Importance and the population’s race. Races that a protected race holds at the Allied status are added to the races whose ships may take part. A later candidate test, however, requires the defending ship’s race to equal the salvo’s protected race, so allied ships never defend another race’s targets in these steps. A defending race must also hold an active-sensor contact on the salvo. That test checks only that such a contact exists. It does not check that the contact is current or that its status is below Neutral. Area defence has already filtered its salvos on both, but arrival defence has not.

Area defence takes only fire controls in Area Defence mode. Arrival defence takes the local modes Ranged Defensive Fire, Point Blank Defensive Fire and Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only). The controls are sorted by PointDefencePriority ascending. The final control list applies no fire-control-type filter, no open-fire filter and no fired-this-phase filter. For each control the game takes the linked weapons that hold no recharge entry. Each weapon starts with its NumberOfShots as remaining shots and its range as its maximum range, and the shortest-range weapons pick first. Candidate salvos are those whose protected race is the defending ship’s race and that the defending race actively tracks. In Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) the salvo must also be aimed at the defending ship. Salvos beyond the largest maximum range among the weapons that still hold shots drop out. For each weapon the missiles are ordered by the ship assignments already placed on them (fewest first), then distance (nearest first), then protected priority (lowest first), then missile size (largest first). A missile is accepted only when its ship assignment count is below the whole-number PDFireConcentration of the control, the weapon’s range is at least the distance, and, in the two point-blank modes, the distance is at most 10,000 km.

The hit calculation uses a range clamped up to 10,000 km, even when the actual distance is 0. It uses the salvo’s MissileSpeed as the target speed, a jamming multiplier of 1 and the tracking bonus of the defending race. The result is the ordinary beam hit chance of the shared ship direct-fire equation, multiplied by 100 so that a roll from 1 to 10000 can be compared with it. A missile with no positive chance receives no assignment. At the first shot a weapon places, the weapon receives a recharge entry equal to its PowerRequirement. This happens even when the weapon has an unrepaired firing maintenance failure, and such a failure then sets the weapon’s remaining shots to 0. The maintenance check applies to ships of a standard race while the No Maintenance Required option of the Game Information window (NoOverhauls) is off. Each pass places one shot on each acceptable missile per weapon. The allocation repeats until the cumulative depleted count equals the size of the current pass’s weapon list or a pass places nothing. That can stop it while weapons still hold shots, as range tests and engagement counts describes.

Ground STO allocation uses the elements of ground formations stationed at populations in the salvos’ systems. Its race must also have an independent ship in one of those systems with SensorDelay 0 and a fire control in a mode accepted for this area or arrival allocation. Only races with such a ship have their active tracking registered for ground allocation. Without any eligible ship, allocation ends before considering ground weapons. The ship need not have a ready weapon or be in range of the salvo. An element needs an STO weapon and a target selection that matches the kind of defence being resolved. That is Area Point Defence for area defence, and Ranged Defensive Fire, Point Blank Defensive Fire or Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self) for arrival defence. Its ready mounts are Units - outstanding recharges. Candidate salvos have the element’s race as protected race and are actively tracked by that race. In the self mode the salvo must be aimed at the element’s own population. Within weapon range, the missiles are sorted by the total of ship and ground assignments already placed on them, then distance, then protected priority, then missile size descending. STO fire has no PDFireConcentration cap. The point-blank modes reject distances above 10,000 km, and the range used for the chance has a floor of 10,000 km. The chance is the ordinary STO hit chance with the missile’s speed, a jamming multiplier of 1, offence and morale modifiers applied, and the race’s tracking bonus. The first shot a mount places adds the element class’s RechargeTime to the element’s outstanding recharges. Each ready mount contributes the weapon’s NumberOfShots.

The tracking bonus is 1 when the race has researched no Max Tracking Time Bonus technology (DIM_TechType 165), when its most advanced one has an AdditionalInfo of 0, or when the race holds no active-sensor contact on the salvo. Otherwise it is 1 + min(the contact's ContinualContactTime in seconds, whole-number AdditionalInfo) x 0.2 / 100. In the game database as shipped, that technology line in FCT_TechSystem runs from 0 to 400 seconds, so the bonus reaches at most 1.8. The bonus enters the ordinary beam and STO hit-chance calculation. It does not enter the hit chance of a missile at impact.

Each weapon holds one stored range and one stored chance. All the shots a weapon places share one record of range and chance, and each later placement overwrites that range and chance. The same holds for an STO mount. Resolution reads these stored values, so the earlier shots of a weapon roll with the range and chance of that weapon’s last placement. A shot is not frozen at its own target’s range.

Beam and STO resolution works missile by missile, with ship shots before ground shots. The damage reported for a shot is the weapon’s damage at the whole-number stored range, but an accepted hit on the real missile removes it directly. No size or damage durability test applies. A shot hits when a roll from 1 to 10000 is at most the stored chance. Let D be the number of onboard decoys on the missile and A the ECCM advantage, max(0, whole-number ship fire-control ECCM - the missile's MissileECM). Ground fire uses the weapon’s ECCM instead. When D is not 0 and A is below 5, the hit strikes the real missile when a roll from 1 to (5 + (5 - A) x D) is at most 5. Otherwise a random onboard decoy from 1 to D takes the hit. With no decoys, or with A of 5 or more, the hit strikes the real missile. The step records which decoy positions were hit. After all allocated shots, when the missile survives, it subtracts the count of distinct positions from D. Repeated hits on the same decoy therefore waste shots. Once the missile is destroyed, the remaining ship shots on it are recorded as overkill. Ground shots are skipped altogether when ship fire destroyed the missile. When ground fire destroys it, the remaining ground shots are recorded as overkill.

CIWS acts only for a salvo aimed at a ship, and only when the actual distance from the salvo to that ship is at most 10,000 km. The available mounts are the undamaged count of each CIWS class component minus the mounts of that type already used this subpulse. Each mount is recorded as used and fires shots numbered from 1 up to its ComponentValue, so a positive fractional value is rounded down. The chance is 50 x min(1, CIWS TrackingSpeed / salvo MissileSpeed) x the target ship's tactical effectiveness multiplier, with no explicit cap at 100. A shot hits when a roll from 1 to 10000 is at most 100 times the chance. The ECCM advantage is whole-number CIWS ECCM - MissileECM, not clamped at 0, so a negative advantage makes onboard decoys more likely to take the hit. The same real-or-decoy roll applies, and a decoy hit reduces D at once, unlike the allocated beam batch. A hit on the real missile destroys it whatever its size. The current missile changes only when it is destroyed. All shots of a used mount are spent even when they miss, and the next salvo can use only the unused mounts. The shot counter rises only after a successful to-hit roll, a quirk of the report. CIWS needs no ordinary fire control or active contact, makes no maintenance check and adds no weapon recharge. The mount-use counts are not cleared between subpulses. The weapon recharge update that runs once the increment’s movement subpulses have finished, before ordinary offensive fire, clears them. CIWS therefore shares one use budget across all movement subpulses of an increment, with a fresh budget for the later end-of-increment pass.

Automatic AMMs and interceptor resolution

Section titled “Automatic AMMs and interceptor resolution”

Automatic launches work on current active-sensor salvo contacts with a status below Neutral, grouped by system and by defending race. Each target salvo’s priority score is target missile count x 3 - number of interceptor salvos aimed at it. It counts interceptor salvos, not their missile count. An NPR can suppress AMM launches when its estimated local point defence covers every 11-second arrival window, as described below. The defenders are independent ready ships, not carried by a mothership, whose class has MagazineCapacity above 0. A control qualifies when it is a missile fire control in a mode numerically greater than Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) and its FiredThisPhase is false. Target salvos are sorted by priority score descending, then distance ascending. The desired launch count is max(0, mode missiles per target x target missile count - summed missile counts of the defending race's salvos already intercepting that target), where the mode gives 1 to 5 missiles per target. A mode outside the five AMM modes gives 0. The target must be no closer than the minimum AMM range, which is inclusive, within the missile fire control’s range and within the missile’s total range.

Each launch also needs a loaded missile in the magazine and a missile no larger than the launcher. The missile is removed from the magazine before the launcher-size, firing-maintenance and positive-hit-chance checks. An oversized missile, a firing failure or a zero hit chance therefore spends ammunition without launching it. A missing missile logs an Out of Ammo event and an oversized one logs an Incorrect Ordnance event. A launcher with an unrepaired firing maintenance failure is skipped, on ships of a standard race while No Maintenance Required (NoOverhauls) is off. The launch then requires a positive chance, computed from the target salvo’s speed, no jammer (multiplier 1) and the ship’s current tactical effectiveness modifier. With no chance the game logs a Missile Launch event saying the ship did not launch because there was no chance to hit. A fire control launches only against the first target at which any launch succeeds in that pass. Each launcher used receives a recharge entry of its RateOfFire, and the control’s FiredThisPhase is set.

At interception the game groups the arriving interceptor salvos by target salvo. It rebuilds the per-missile assignment lists of the target salvo. Each interceptor salvo hands out its missiles round robin over the target missiles, starting from the target missiles sorted by the interceptor assignments already placed on them. The chance is multiplied by 100 for a roll from 1 to 10000. It uses the target salvo’s flight speed, a jammer multiplier of 1 and the to-hit modifier the interceptor salvo stored at launch. Each interceptor rolls once per warhead (MultipleWarheads). The ECCM advantage is max(0, interceptor ECCM - target MissileECM), and onboard decoys split hits between the real missile and the decoys as for beam point defence. Size durability exists here, unlike beam and CIWS fire. When the target carries decoys, A is below 5 and the roll picks the real missile, the hit is set at once when warhead damage x 20 >= target Size, where warhead damage = WarheadStrength / MultipleWarheads. Otherwise a roll from 1 to 1000 at most floor(damage x 20 / Size x 1000) sets it. Without decoys, or with A of 5 or more, the hit is set directly. A hit then destroys the missile when total WarheadStrength x 20 >= target Size, using the interceptor’s total WarheadStrength. Otherwise a second roll from 1 to 1000 at most floor(total strength x 20 / Size x 1000) destroys it. Both checks can run on the same hit, and the target keeps no accumulated damage between hits. A target missile has one hit result for all its interceptors. Once an interceptor’s roll has hit it, every later interceptor on that missile starts from a hit. Every later successful roll on that missile, even one that strikes a decoy, then runs the destruction check again. When the target survives, the count of distinct onboard decoys hit is subtracted from D.

An interceptor counts as expended when it hits the real target, even when the destruction check fails, or when it hits a decoy. A pure miss does not expend it, and neither does an assignment against a target already destroyed. After interception a salvo without retargeting (Retargeting 0) is deleted. A retargeting salvo is deleted when its expended count is at least its missile count. Otherwise it loses the expended number of missiles and is marked as resolved for this subpulse. The target stays assigned. This is a retry capability, not an explicit choice of a new target.

NPR suppression is an estimate. It adds no defensive fire. The attacking salvos are grouped by the exact coordinates of their target. Each group takes the fastest design speed among its missile types and the average decoys per missile from the missile designs (sum(missile count x NumDecoys) / total missile count). Local capacity sums the expected point-defence shots of direct fire controls on the race’s independent ships at exactly those coordinates. Only controls in Point Blank Defensive Fire or Ranged Defensive Fire count, and only weapons with a recharge cycle of 15 seconds or less. It adds the shots of STO elements at a population at those coordinates in Ranged Defensive Fire, Point Blank Defensive Fire or Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self), counting all Units of each element. Each beam weapon contributes min(1, hit chance) x NumberOfShots. Each STO element contributes min(1, hit chance) x Units x STO weapon NumberOfShots. No current weapon-recharge filter applies, and the total is rounded down. The estimate omits CIWS, and on ships it omits Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only). A capacity of 0 covers nothing. Otherwise the attacks fall into arrival buckets of whole-number distance / design speed, in seconds. For every bucket, missiles arriving x (1 + average decoys) must not exceed the capacity, counting the missiles that arrive from that second up to but not including 11 seconds later. When every window passes, the group’s salvos that are not aimed at a waypoint are marked covered and are left out of the automatic AMM targets.

Point-defence modes

Section titled “Point-defence modes”

Each numbered fire control holds one point-defence mode, stored as PointDefenceMode in FCT_FireControlAssignment. There are ten modes, stored as the values 0 to 9. The Naval Organization window and the AMM launch step compare these values numerically against Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only), value 4, so the order of the values is part of the behaviour. A new fire-control assignment starts at None, Priority 3 and Shots Per Target: 3.

Value Mode Fire control the Naval Organization window accepts Step that reads it Range test Engagement count
0 None Direct and missile No point-defence step None None
1 Area Defence Direct only Beam allocation in area mode, run by area point defence once per end-of-increment pass Weapon range at least the distance from the defender to the salvo’s current position Per missile, ship assignments below this control’s PDFireConcentration, one shot per assignment
2 Ranged Defensive Fire Direct only The same allocation in arrival mode, run when missiles arrive during salvo resolution Weapon range at least the distance As for Area Defence
3 Point Blank Defensive Fire Direct only Arrival allocation Distance at most the point-blank defence range of 10,000 km and weapon range at least the distance As for Area Defence
4 Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) Direct and missile Arrival allocation, only salvos aimed at the defending ship As for Point Blank Defensive Fire As for Area Defence. A missile control in this mode receives no shots
5 to 9 Missiles Per Target: 1 to Missiles Per Target: 5 Missile only Automatic AMM launches in the end-of-increment pass Distance not below MinimumAMMRange, within the missile fire control’s range against that missile type, and within the loaded missile’s total range max(0, N x target missile count - defending race's interceptor missiles already aimed at that salvo), at most one missile per ready launcher

The mode decides when a beam control fires as well as what it may engage. Area Defence controls fire once per increment, in the end-of-increment pass, before AMM launches and before offensive missile and beam fire. The three local modes fire only inside a movement subpulse and only at salvos that reach their target in that subpulse. An Area Defence control never fires at an arrival, and a local control never fires in the end-of-increment pass. The end-of-increment pass also runs area fire before ordinary direct fire, which drops weapons that hold a recharge entry. Area shots therefore spend the same weapons that an open-fire offensive target on that control would use.

In area mode a ship qualifies when it holds any Area Defence control. In arrival mode it qualifies when it holds any Ranged Defensive Fire, Point Blank Defensive Fire or Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) control. The allocation also requires that the ship is not carried by a mothership, has SensorDelay 0, has at least one fire-control assignment, is in a system that holds one of the salvos, and belongs to a race in the protected or allied set. The control list then filters by mode alone and sorts by PointDefencePriority ascending, so Priority 1 controls allocate first. A control with any other target or open-fire state still allocates.

A salvo aimed at another salvo has neither a target ship nor a target population, so it has no protected race. Neither beam step therefore places a shot against interceptor missiles. A salvo aimed at a population is protected by ships of that population’s race in the Area Defence, Ranged Defensive Fire and Point Blank Defensive Fire modes. No Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) ship control engages it, because that mode compares the salvo’s target ship with the defending ship.

Area point defence builds its salvo list from every qualifying contact in the system and does not remove duplicates. When two detecting races each hold a current active-sensor contact below Neutral on the same salvo, that salvo appears twice. The game then tries to record a second tracking bonus for the same race and the same salvo, and that fails. The game shows the error Function #3694 and the allocation step ends there, before any ship control or STO element is processed. That system therefore gets no area fire in that pass.

Range tests and engagement counts in the beam allocator

Section titled “Range tests and engagement counts in the beam allocator”

For each control the allocation first keeps the weapons linked to it that hold no recharge entry. Each weapon starts with its NumberOfShots as remaining shots and its range as its maximum range. Inside a repeating pass the candidate salvos shrink to those within the largest maximum range among the control’s weapons that still have shots. The weapons are ordered by maximum range ascending, so the shortest-range weapon picks first.

Each weapon goes through one list of missiles, built when it starts and sorted by the ship assignments already placed on the missile, then distance, then protected priority, then missile size descending. A missile is skipped when its ship assignment count has reached the whole-number PDFireConcentration, when a point-blank mode sees a distance above 10,000 km, or when the weapon’s maximum range is below the distance. For a weapon with several shots the weapon places one shot on each acceptable missile in turn until the weapon runs out. The outer pass repeats while it placed at least one shot and the control’s depleted weapon count differs from the size of the current pass’s weapon list.

The depleted weapon count is cumulative across passes, but each pass rebuilds the weapon list without the weapons already depleted. The weapon also stops placing shots as soon as the cumulative count equals the current list size. Once earlier passes have depleted as many weapons as remain, the allocation stops even though the remaining weapons still hold shots and acceptable missiles remain. The unplaced shots are not fired, and each such weapon still carries the recharge entry added at its first shot. STO allocation compares its own cumulative count of depleted mounts with its filtered list in the same way.

PDFireConcentration takes the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12, shown as Shots Per Target: 1 to Shots Per Target: 12, plus 1,000 for Shots Per Target: Unlimited. The cap compares the missile’s ship assignment count, which already includes the shots of every earlier control in the same allocation, with the current control’s own setting. A later control with a higher concentration can therefore add shots to a missile that an earlier control left at its own lower cap. A later control with a lower concentration adds nothing to a missile that is already at or above it.

The hit chance uses a range clamped up to 10,000 km, the salvo’s MissileSpeed, a jamming multiplier of 1 and the defending race’s tracking bonus. A Ranged Defensive Fire control engaging at 4,000 km and a Point Blank Defensive Fire control engaging at 9,000 km both compute their chance at 10,000 km. Only a weapon whose shot finds a positive chance receives a recharge entry, so a weapon that finds no acceptable missile stays ready.

Ground STO elements use four values of their target selection, stored as TargetSelection in FCT_GroundUnitFormationElement, not the fire-control mode. They are Area Point Defence (8), Ranged Defensive Fire (9), Point Blank Defensive Fire (10) and Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self) (11). The same area or arrival split selects them. Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self) requires the salvo to be aimed at the element’s own population. STO elements have no concentration cap, and they sort missiles by ship plus ground assignments. Their point-blank test stops that weapon’s placing at the first missile beyond 10,000 km in sorted order, even when a nearer missile with more assignments follows it. The player sets the target selection on the STO Targeting tab of the Ground Forces window. NPR STO switching is in weapon assignment passes.

AMM modes and minimum AMM range

Section titled “AMM modes and minimum AMM range”

Automatic AMM launches work per system and per detecting race. The defenders come from the list of ships ready for point defence. A ready ship is not carried by a mothership, has SensorDelay 0 and has an enabled assignment, which is any fire control with open fire set or a mode other than None. The step keeps ships of the defending race in the system whose class has MagazineCapacity above 0. Each eligible control is a missile fire control with a mode above Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) and FiredThisPhase false that still has a launcher without a recharge entry.

Target salvos are ordered by priority score descending, then distance ascending. The score is missile count x 3 - number of interceptor salvos of any race already aimed at the salvo. It is computed for each defending race before that race’s launches, so a later race’s scores include salvos an earlier race launched in the same pass. For each target the control maps its mode to 1 to 5 missiles per target missile. It multiplies that by the target salvo’s missile count and subtracts the summed missile counts of the defending race’s salvos aimed at that salvo, with a floor of 0. Any other mode value maps to 0.

The subtraction counts the interceptor salvos that exist at that moment, and launches by one control merge into a salvo that later controls see. Controls of the same race therefore share one quota per target salvo within the pass. Each ready launcher launches at most one missile and reduces the quota by one. The control stops after the first target salvo at which it launched anything. Setting FiredThisPhase also removes the control from the later ordinary missile launch step, which requires FiredThisPhase to be false. A control that launched AMMs therefore cannot launch at its offensive target in the same pass.

The minimum range test skips a target only when the range is below MinimumAMMRange, so a salvo exactly at the minimum qualifies. In play, the Min AMM Range button on the Ship Combat tab of the Naval Organization window is the only thing that changes the minimum, apart from loading a game. It requires a selected missile fire-control node and otherwise shows “Please select a missile fire control”. It opens the message entry dialogue with the label “Enter Minimum AMM Launch Range” and the current value, and stores the entered number unless the dialogue is cancelled. Text that does not read as a number stores 0. The button applies no sign check, and a negative minimum never blocks a launch. Changing the mode leaves the minimum in place. The ordinary offensive launch step does not read it. The control node shows “, Minimum Range” and the value in km only for a missile control in a mode other than None with a minimum above 0.

Paths that ignore the mode

Section titled “Paths that ignore the mode”

Point-blank CIWS defence reads the target ship’s class CIWS components directly. It needs no fire control, no mode and no weapon assignment, and it runs for every arriving salvo aimed at a ship within 10,000 km of that ship. Interception resolves every arriving salvo whose target type is Salvo, whatever launched it. It has no range test because the salvo has arrived, and each interceptor missile takes one round-robin assignment with one roll per warhead (MultipleWarheads). Beam and STO point-defence resolution rolls the stored beam and STO assignments and does not read the mode.

Setting the mode

Section titled “Setting the mode”

The Ship Combat tab of the Naval Organization window adds a “Point Defence” root to its targets tree when the class has any direct or missile fire control. Under it the “Mode” branch lists all ten modes, None included, by name. The “BFC Engagement Priority (1 = Highest)” branch lists Priority 1 to Priority 5, and the “BFC Fire Concentration (Attacks per Inbound)” branch lists the concentration values. A fire-control node shows “Point Defence:” and the mode name when the mode is not None, followed by the priority and concentration for a direct fire control.

Dropping a mode node on a fire-control node applies the mode after two checks. A direct fire control refuses any value above Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) with “Missile-based point defence modes cannot be assigned to beam fire controls”. A missile fire control refuses any value below Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) other than None with “Energy weapon-based point defence modes cannot be assigned to missile fire controls”. Both tests are strict, so Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) passes for either control type. The mode is then stored without any further validation. Priority and concentration drops are refused on missile fire controls, with “Beam fire control priorities cannot be assigned to missile fire controls” and “Beam fire control concentration cannot be assigned to missile fire controls”.

A missile control in Point Blank Defensive Fire (Self Only) is inert. AMM launches need a value above that mode. Arrival allocation includes the control, but the beam fire-control hit chance is 0 for any fire control that is not a direct fire control, so it places no shot. The control still counts as an enabled assignment, which places the ship on the ready lists, and it makes the ship eligible for arrival allocation.

Automatic weapon assignment clears all assignments and rebuilds them, so it replaces every manual mode. New beam controls get Ranged Defensive Fire in both passes. New missile controls get Missiles Per Target: 3 in the point-defence pass and None otherwise. Automatic combat configuration describes those passes, and NPR ships run the same rebuild in weapon assignment passes. Ceasing offensive fire leaves the mode intact, both for the ship-wide cease-fire command and for the Open Fire FC and Cease Fire FC toggle of a single fire control.

Point-defence summaries and capacity estimates

Section titled “Point-defence summaries and capacity estimates”

The combat aftermath step writes the point-defence summaries after it applies the attack records. A summary therefore follows every subpulse that produced records, the end-of-increment pass, and the boarding and ground combat resolutions, which run the same aftermath step. The first part takes records whose target type is Salvo and that carry a weapon component and an attacking ship. It logs one Fleet PD Summary event (event type 349 in DIM_EventType) per fleet in fleet-name order, and one summary line (event type 355, whose description is blank) per component in name order. The second part does the same for records with a ground formation element, grouped by population under Population PD Summary (event type 354). The event type catalogue lists these types.

Each line reports shots, missile kills as the summed total hits, decoy hits, overkill, the mean chance to hit of the merged records, a hit rate of (kills + decoy hits) x 100 / shots and a kill rate of kills x 100 / shots. The line reads Shots, Missile Kills, Decoy Hits, Overkill, Avg CTH, Hit and Kill, with the mean and both rates shown to one decimal place. Beam point defence, STO point defence and CIWS records qualify, as does any missile launch record, offensive or AMM, whose control’s stored target type is Salvo. Interceptor records carry no weapon component and never appear. AMM launch records carry the control’s own target type and target ID rather than the target salvo, so they appear only when that control’s stored target type is Salvo. Records merge when attacker ship, ground element, component, missile type, target name, damage, radiation damage, chance, range, the launch, collateral and acid flags, and the ram collision direction all match, so the mean is over merged records. The point-defence and anti-air flags are not part of that match. The overkill column counts shots placed on a missile already destroyed. CIWS counts a shot only after a successful to-hit roll, so its hit rate is 100% whenever it has shots. A CIWS record with no successful roll has zero shots. When every CIWS record for that component in the fleet has zero shots, both rates evaluate 0/0 in floating-point arithmetic and the line shows NaN instead of a percentage.

Point-defence hits also create environmental contacts. Each beam point-defence hit creates an Energy Weapon Impact contact at the salvo when the missile carries a laser warhead (LaserWarhead above 0), and at the firing fleet otherwise. STO point defence creates one at the firing coordinates when it destroys a missile. Each successful interceptor roll creates an Explosion contact at the target salvo. CIWS creates one Energy Weapon Impact contact at the target ship, carrying the count of missiles destroyed. Explosion, Energy Weapon Impact, Secondary Magazine Explosion and Secondary Power Explosion contacts (ContactType 17 to 20) are removed once per increment, before the first movement subpulse, so contacts from the end-of-increment pass last until the next increment begins.

A ship’s point-defence capacity against a missile speed is an estimate that ignores modes, used by NPR missile escape. It reads class components and loaded ordnance only, without fire controls, modes, assignments or recharge. It counts undamaged missile launchers whose class entry has a combined size, NumComponent x launcher Size, below the AMM threshold of 4. Automatic assignment instead compares the launcher’s ComponentValue with that threshold. It also counts undamaged beam weapons with RechargeRate > PowerRequirement / 2. With launchers and any loaded ordnance, each launcher adds fastest loaded missile speed / incoming speed x 10 x 0.01, in which fastest loaded missile speed / incoming speed x 10 is the missile hit chance multiplier. With beams and an undamaged direct fire control, the fastest-tracking control decides the beam term. When its TrackingSpeed is below the incoming speed the term is beam count x (TrackingSpeed / speed) in whole-number division, which is 0, and otherwise the term is the beam count. A fleet’s capacity is the sum over its ships.

The escape decision that uses this sum is in local system response order. The mode-aware NPR estimate that suppresses AMM launches is in point-defence groups and local shot capacity. That estimate evaluates the beam hit chance at range 0 with a tracking bonus of 1, whereas the allocation clamps the range up to 10,000 km and applies the race tracking bonus.

Worked examples

Section titled “Worked examples”

Point-defence modes and engagement counts

Section titled “Point-defence modes and engagement counts”

These figures use synthetic inputs and follow from the rules above. A hostile salvo S holds four missiles, and the defending race already has one interceptor salvo of five missiles aimed at S. The priority score of S is 4 x 3 - 1 = 11. Control A in Missiles Per Target: 3 has six ready launchers loaded with a missile whose range covers S. Its quota is 3 x 4 - 5 = 7, so all six launchers fire, the six missiles merge into one new salvo, and A stops. Control B on another ship of the same race, in Missiles Per Target: 2, then computes 2 x 4 - (5 + 6) = -3, floors it to 0, and moves on to the next target salvo. With the MinimumAMMRange of B set to 50,000 km, a salvo exactly 50,000 km away still qualifies, because only a range below the minimum skips.

Two direct fire controls in Ranged Defensive Fire face one arriving missile. X has Priority 1, Shots Per Target: 2 and three single-shot weapons, and Y has Priority 2 and Shots Per Target: 3. X allocates first. Its first two weapons place one shot each, and its third weapon finds no missile below a count of 2, so that weapon gets no recharge entry and stays ready. Y then sees a count of 2, which is below its own cap of 3, and places one more shot. The missile faces three shots in total. A Point Blank Defensive Fire control with 30,000 km weapons skips the same missile at 12,000 km, while the ranged control computes its chance at 12,000 km. At 4,000 km both compute at 10,000 km.

One Ranged Defensive Fire control with Shots Per Target: Unlimited holds two single-shot weapons and two five-shot weapons, all in range of two arriving missiles. In the first pass the single-shot weapons each place one shot and deplete, so the depleted weapon count becomes 2. Each five-shot weapon places one shot on each missile and keeps three. The second pass lists only the two five-shot weapons. Each places one shot and then stops, because the cumulative count of 2 equals the list size of 2, and the repeat test ends the allocation. Eight shots are placed, and the five-shot weapons keep two shots each.

A ship carries ten launchers whose class entry has a combined size of 3.3, a loaded missile type of speed 30,000 km/s, four beam weapons with RechargeRate > PowerRequirement / 2, and a best direct fire control with tracking 12,000 km/s. Against missiles at 15,000 km/s each launcher adds 30,000 / 15,000 x 10 x 0.01 = 0.2, giving 2.0. The beam term is 4 x (12,000 / 15,000) in whole-number division, which is 0, so the capacity is 2.0. With tracking 16,000 km/s the beam term becomes 4 and the capacity 6.0.

Persistence and reload

Section titled “Persistence and reload”

The fire-control row is FCT_FireControlAssignment. Its column list, save order and missing-reference rules are in persistence and reload boundaries. When a game loads, a row is skipped when its ship (ShipID) or its fire-control component (FCTypeID) is not among the loaded ships and components.

The stored PointDefenceMode, PDFireConcentration and PointDefencePriority integers are restored as mode, concentration and priority without range checks, and MinimumAMMRange is restored as a floating-point number. The pairing rules of the Naval Organization window between mode and fire-control type therefore do not apply to loaded rows. The ground STO TargetSelection, including its four point-defence values, is restored with the formation element. The per-pass working state of point defence is rebuilt in each allocation and is not saved. That state is each weapon’s remaining shots, depleted flag and maximum range, each control’s depleted weapon count, each salvo’s priority score and the NPR coverage marker.

Concept map

Section titled “Concept map”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”

Related community documentation and developer posts. These may describe a different game version.