The assessments are supposed to represent the applicable spectrum for the specific situation. If the assessment is "cakewalk" I'd say there is no chance that you'd lose the docking ship.
then this brings us full circle:
why would i use a combat vessel ( which doesn't have all that much capacity for marines ) over a non-combat vessel ( which has a huge capacity for marines ) for boarding operations? in your example you have 4* the amount they do and only have acceptable, the non-combat vessels can bring alot more than that.
You would not, but why is that a problem?
I think this was already explained, but I will try to go into more detail.
If you are in a boarding situation and have a suitable non-combat vessel in your fleet, sure, it would be the one to use. But the critical decision occurs earlier, when you decide what ships you want in your fleet. To take a non-combat ship in the first place is the decision here, and it has to be carefully considered. Aside from troop transports you will also want carriers, cargo ships and fuel tankers in your fleet (in the finished campaign). If you deduct another 10% of your FP for a ship with a single non-combat use your combat ability is further reduced. And after all, you can't board anything as long as you don't beat it's fleet first.
- already showing everything
The point is that this are a lot of information that play into boarding, and all would have to be visible at the same time (which is not the case now) and then have to be carefully evaluated (which is bothersome).
in your example, you have acceptable.
what does that mean? what are the chances of something happening?
break it down
Good point. Got me thinking.
First, to clarify: Risk Assessment is only talking about risk. The risks are that your marines die, the target self destructs, your ship gets damaged, your ship gets hijacked, and how grave the damage is. It doesn't say anything about the chance of successful capturing or respectively chance of permanently disabling a ship (which is not a risk in the same sense, because it can't result in a net loss).
To break down all those pure risk factors is a possibility. The questions is, does it really let you "send appropriate forces in" better than the simple model. I don't think so, because you can't influence most of them individually. The number and experience of the marines influence almost all risk factors the same. Exceptions:
1)the relative damage to a docking ship is influenced by the
docking ship HP.
2)the
crew number/rank of the docking ship could influence the chance of holding the ship in case of an airlock overrun and overall crew survivability in case of hull damage
So you might think that at least those 2 factors should be displayed separately...
BUT those events have preconditions, and those preconditions are again influenced by marine number /rank, so it would be meaningless to simply display the influence of those 2 factors.
If for example the "chance of docking ship being destructed" was shown, the player might think "oh, that's too high, lets just use a tougher ship". But by changing the ship he would also change the number of marines, so the previous assessment of ship destruction probability would be meaningless, it could actually end up higher for a tougher ship that carries less marines.
I listed all outcomes and color coded the dependencies, I hope it's comprehensible. Step 2) would have to be calculated after 1) came out negative, step 3) and 4) be calculated after 2) came out negative.
Influencing factors under player control:
Marine number/rankDocking ship HPDocking ship crew number/rank--> = "is precondition for calculation of"
1)-
chance of docking ship being overrun in % --> 1b)
chance of crew holding the ship(A2) in % --> 1c)
chance for a crew member to die in %2)-
chance of target self-destruction in % --> 2b)
range of potential damage in HP(min/max) * --> 2c)
relative damage (culminating in destruction) on docking ship in % of pre-boarding HP --> 2d)
chance for a crew member to die in %3)-
chance of damaging the docking ship in % -->3b)
range of potential damage in HP(min/max)* --> 3c)
relative damage (culminating in destruction) on docking ship in % of pre-boarding HP --> 3d)
chance for a crew member to die in %4)-
chance for a marine to die in %*= secondary dependent effect: chance for a marine to die in %Only after all the risks are calculated the actual reason for this whole mess has it's turn. Condition is that 1) and 2) are negative, 3) did not lead to destruction and 4) did not lead to heavy losses (that would mean retreat).
5)-
chance to successfully capture the target in %If this comes out negative the target is irrevocably destroyed by fighting or sabotage.
Maybe...probably it would make sense to display a success chance under the Risk Assessment. That can not be the chance of 5) but would have to be a (much lower) chance that is calculated by subtracting from 5) the chances that anything could go horrible wrong in steps 1)-4).
Spoiler
This might seem a bit confusing, to clarify I'll try to assign the conditions to the list of possible boarding outcomes in the opening post. I'm not sure that this doesn't make things worse, though
The [numbers] stand for the numbers) above, the letters for the conditional effect b/c/d/* associated with that number. + is for positive, - for negative outcome.
- The marines are vastly outnumbered, the enemy crew manages to overrun the airlocks[1+] and capture your boarding ship[1b+]. They escape with it, there’s a new enemy fleet on the campaign screen with that stolen ship. This is only likely to happen if you try to capture f.e. a battle cruiser with a frigate.
- The enemy crew activates the self-destruction. The marines don’t manage to defuse it in time, the ship blows up [2+]. The marines suffer heavy causalities [2*] and the docking ship is severely damaged [2c] or even destroyed (depending on relative ship sizes and docking ship HP).
-The marines are too few or too weak [4-], they have to retreat and the docking ship has to disengage. Marines have heavy causalities, light damage on the docking ship is likely [3]. The player can make another attempt at boarding.
- The marines overwhelm the crew[4+], but the heavy fighting and sabotage have damaged central systems irrevocable [5-]. The ship can only be scrapped. Light damage on the docking ship is possible due to the reasons stated above [3].
- The marines successfully overwhelm the crew [4+] and the ship is captured [5+].Possible acts of sabotage or malfunction on secondary reactors, airlocks or ammunition depots may lead to explosions on the target and thus to light damage (and crew loss [3d]) on the docking ship [3].
