The basic summary is that weapons jam as a result of the 119-seed system that VGA Planets (and Nu) uses. On paper, it seems fancy enough to be a prime number... except it is not. 119 has the factors 7 and 17, which can cause battles to cycle through very few differnt seeds in nominal conditions.
Fighter Bays do not charge at all. Instead, each carrier consistently rolls 1d20 per tick. If the result is less than or equal to the number of fighter bays, then it launches a fighter.
Beam banks consistently roll two dice (1d20 + 1d100) per tick. A third roll (another d20) becomes available when the ships get close enough to use them against each other.
Torpedo tubes do not roll dice until the ships become close enough to allow their use, and only if their ammo storage is not empty.
While the conditions are met, the tube constantly charges, and rolls 1d17 to determine whether to shoot (requires 31 ticks worth of charge). Additionally, if these weapons max their charge levels entirely (41 ticks worth), then it automatically shoots regardless of the previous roll.
Either way, when it shoots, it then rolls 1d100 to determine whether a hit was scored against the opposing ship.
Finally, when two fighters are aligned vertically, one fighter automatically shoots down another. 1d100 is rolled to determine the victor.
If a Jacker or a Horwasp planet is involved in a battle, then each fighter rolls 1d100 for each tick they are striking a fighter-resistant target.
Now that we know where the die rolls are coming from, we can fetch samples where this becomes a problem.
For example, the White Falcon on the left (4-beam torp ship) battles my Automa on the right (4-beam carrier). 8 beam banks times 2 rolls equals 16 dice. My carrier rolls an extra die on top of that. The nominal dice per tick is 17 rolls until the White Falcon gets in range to fire its one tube. This causes one of their beam banks to jam until that time. (Technically, one of my beam banks also jams, but there are no fighters to shoot down.)
The planet on the right side was unable to launch its 3 fighters at all. 6 beam banks total (times 2) plus 2 carriers equals 14 dice per nominal tick. If the carrier on the left was a lighter carrier with the same beam count, then it is possible the two could have been close enough to justify firing beams, which would cause it to no longer be cycling so few seeds.
Finally, my Golem on the left (6-beam carrier) fights a planet (10-beam carrier). Since both combatants are carriers, that rolls 2 dice. 16 beam banks time 2 rolls each equals 32 dice. The nominal dice per tick becomes 34 rolls; which happens to be a multiple of 17. Weapon jams can occur whenever we have a period where no dogfights take place, but each dogfight causes the seed table
to shift.
The prime factor system makes combat quite wonky, as there is a risk that only a handful of seeds are used throughout the battle. We have a special present for those who are able to understand why these things occur in the first place... a seed simulator.
| Left | Right | |
|---|---|---|
| Beams | ||
| Bays | ||