this seems to me like the best option, also the race attack bonus would be your turn advantage as an attacker… if u attack first u get the bonus of the race, as a defender not…
As a banker Option C sounds most fair, will make defending against raids slightly more even.
The thread is a bit old, as am I, but I am not so regularly reading the forums.
Aha, so the boni are additive and not mulitiplicative, I seem to remember that I’d been never really sure.
Originally program code usually is neat, efficient and perhaps even clearly represented. then the firsst bugs are detected, a few fixes needed here and there…
In old ancient beta 1 battle losses were dramatic… so I could imagine VAR_A might be the first fast fix to lower them down, VAR_B the second fix.
To ensure that nobody walks away from battle with actually more units than less. Cut out the VAR_A and _B and it starts making sense to use such a saveguard.
Initially in beta 1 it was the other way around. First the attacker shot and inflicted damage on the defender (seems kind of logic since the attacker should have the ini), there was no “reduced” damage and no cap on max losses.
For a bloodthirsty Harkonnen those were truly glorious times:
When my quite formidable fleet attacked, it left back only desolate barren planets resulting in the usual total wipeout of ALL military units on the poor defenders’ sides in the very first stage of attack round 1 without any more defenders alive to inflict damage on the attacker. My fleet often enough suffered not a single loss.
What Harkonnens love is not everyones taste, some misliked the total wipeout of all their units and considered it demotivating (just bad loosers, of course), so several things were introduced:
- Defender inflicts damage on the attacker (now I guess by just switching the code lines and thus giving the defender the first shot instead of the attacker… without ever realising how difficult and bloody this will make attacks and thus rather supporting “economical” attacks=farming.).
- General lowerment of losses (probably VAR_A and _B).
- Cap on max losses were, if I recall correctly, introduced sometime afterwards.
Not sure but it might be that this is related to the “Trans/Parashooter”-bug. In beta 1 the check for sufficient Transporters in relation to solders/droid was only made in the “send out attack”-screen. Soon enough players realised that there was no later check and back then you could recall not only whole fleets but also only a part of them like eg only the transporters. In the actual air battle there were no transporters which the defending fighters could aim for… if your attacking troops can’t be attacked you don’t really need fighters escorting them…
So, one missing check for transporters, led to players abandoning the whole air fight because it was useless and soon enough ONLY soldiers or droids were built (plus some transporters to recall).
I imagine that’s sufficient to tinker quite around with any code regarding air battles and checks.
And as usual in IC everything turned completly around: For beta 2 the trans-bug was fixed but initially the players did not really realize what drastic change this meant for battles… except for Starstrike who built lots of fighters and now the total wipeout did not happen in the ground battle but in the air battle (aaah, I guess, THIS is the point when a cap on max losses was introduced into the code).
Probably. Nevertheless it feels a bit cold that my fighters and soldiers are handled by such an approach.
Somehow roundbased feels more realistic and allows some very interesting things:
surprise rounds, in 2nd round attacker realising that the defender are better armed, trained and digged in than anticipated, in 5th round losses and morale are low enough that they break away from the attack… or in a very even fight it goes on and on…allowing pepped up battle reports like:
“Sir, the battle was long and bloody, initially we were able to surprise the defender but nevertheless the defenders were stubborn and brave. It took us 12 rounds to achieve our tactical aims…”
[sorry for the many edits, but I have the bad habit to introduce a trillion typos which need correcting.]
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What a hilarious bug haha.
Battle rounds is a really intriguing idea. 
I can see that adding another layer of depth/strategy.
For example, do you order your units to fight to death, or do you set a threshold for retreat? What if that threshold included other factors, like how starved your population is? How does something like Fleet Efficiency change things?
We’ve also been talking amongst the @team about a defection mechanic that can be based on a “quality of life” metric that includes things like excessive overbuilding, overpopulation, etc. In the context of your round suggestion, it would mean being too harsh of a ruler could make you liable for a target to use your own troops against you mid-battle if the circumstances fit.
All of this stuff can and should tie together for a more holistic approach to how an empire functions.
Progress is happening behind the scenes to make this kinda thing possible. I’m excited for players to test the Revamp Attack Formula work.
I love, Love, LOVE this idea!!!
It allows you to manage expectations of a battle with a preset retreat command. Thinking it through, would that give a little bit of a tactical advantage to the attacker if the same privilege is not offered to the defender as well?
Not that I would mind since I’ve almost always been an attacker.
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That’s a great point. I can see that being balanced by a defensive threshold in the same regard, but active as a “default order” for your standing fleet.
Players could, for example, order their figs to abandon the fight if it’s too costly. I can see this as a system or planet specific setting.
- Critical planet = fight to death
- Low-value planets during war = give it a shot but allow early retreat to conserve forces
This would replace stationing fighters to hide them with a more thoughtful approach to defensive planning.
Station fighters? People do that?? They must not be stubborn like me!!!
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It’s partially to keep them safe, but can be a useful tool for nasty surprises too:
- Keep a small-to-mid decoy fighter fleet to deceive your enemy into thinking they have broken your figs
- Let them take a few portalled planets
- Un-station your secret massive fleet of fighters
- Enemy loses all their ground because they got comfortable sending everything to each planet
- Reclaim original losses while your entire family takes remaining enemy shares that are now practically defenseless
It’s very satisfying to do, but awkward in its execution. Ideally we could support the same kind of trickery but through a more reasonable interface and flow.
IT WAS A JOKE!
I know how to station fighters. Pretty sure that is general protocol nowadays.
I elect to not do so quite often in order to surprise those who dare come to conquer my planets.
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as an attacker i never station my fighters, i hover them somwhere to avoid Destroy Units.
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You know that’s a really interesting point coming from someone who lost over 1M figs to a DU last round 
well shit happens when ur attacking from phone in a poolbar on the canary islands
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Will continue this conversation on the Revamp Attack Formula discussion.