I don't even know what it is exactly; is it morale? Supplies used for combat? Both?? Morale does make sense to have, but when your fleets combat readiness degrades even when you're winning, like I cannot tell you how many times I have engaged are far more numerous and deadly enemy, without a single loss or only a few minor ships, and then suddenly all my ships are being disabled/horribly hampered by combat readiness even though I was winning. Infact this just recently happened; I was going into a star to look for a derelict ship mission and a bounty, the star was a blue giant and I went into a jump point near the star. It said that there was a fleet that was nearby and could threaten my fleet, no big deal I told myself. Well I went into it and was pushed all the way towards the fleet that was coming towards me due to that blue giants corona. I thought it was gonna be a piece of cake since I thought I could outlast them since i've found 2 of these star screen mod things, I think one of them was solar screen which only protects the ship it's on, and i'm pretty sure the other one protected the entire fleet by like 75% in the corona. Also I don't even know what those mod things actually do, I just skim read them and absorb them as they are supposed to do something good for my fleet. Anyways I got into the fight and I was winning pretty good, hadn't taken one loss. I was pushing my enemies few, but large ships back, I was noticing that my fleets combat readiness was decreasing to around 30-40% at the highest, while the enemy still had like 60-70% anyways thinks quickly went sour for some reason, and my ships just started malfunctioning and going offline left and right. So I exited as it's not ironman. Anyways combat readiness doesn't make sense. They should of had around or far worse combat readiness as they were losing, and probably didn't even have any protection from the sun. What is combat readiness? If it's morale it has to fluctuate, not just in battle but also on the map. If you were losing but suddenly start winning and pushing them back it should increased drastically as your men get emboldened from success, if they are being pushed back when they were winning. It might make sense to get it lower, but not that much. Also if your ships are getting destroyed all around you, you would feel very scared wouldn't you. If you were facing off against a larger enemy you would be a bit scared, but since you have done it so much before, and are already strengthened from past successes, then you wouldn't mind. While if you are running low on supplies, money, and fuel you might feel a bit demoralized just from the fact you could suddenly start starving. If it's due to a lack of supplies. How much your combat readiness can start decreasing when you've barely faced off against the enemy? (talking about my scout phase ships) or why not when your using tons of ammunition and getting your weapons and armour blasted off? That definitely wouldn't be good for supplies. Also why does it cost anything to deploy ships? It's not that big of a deal when I know I'll win and get enough supplies to recover from it. It just doesn't make sense if you can just bring the rest of your fleet with you, or have your entire fleet with you. Unless of course it is used to supply the ship with it's ammunition and such, but shouldn't it already be equipped? Could you not have it used when you make your ships momentarily retreat for ammunition? I think combat readiness is supposed to be a mix of both morale, and supplies available, but it just doesn't work. It's not because I don't play aggressively; I do, and sometimes it bites me back. It should be split into to separate things. Morale, and Combat supplies/supplies available. Morale fluctuates and depends on both combat and fleet wide (as in the overworld projection) situations; in combat it should also be about the individual ship and the entire fleet that is working. Is the ship being overwhelmed and demoralized, but then reinforcements arrive just in time to help? While the combat supplies should only go down when they are being utilized. They are essentially the ammunition for ballistics, and the repair metals or whatever is used to repair the ships guns and engines when they are damaged. That's the end of my rant guys ! ! ! !