1. The Main Window
2. The Planets Screen
3. The Planet View Screen
4. The Ships Screen
5. The Ship Design Screen
6. The Scanning Screen
7. The Recon Screen
8. The Diplomacy Screen
9. The News Screen
10. The Research Screen
11. The Overview Screen
12. The Battle Calculator Screen

The Battle Calculator Screen has a variety of uses. It can be used to compare the relative effectiveness of different ship designs. It can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your ships against enemy planets. It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your ships against enemy ships/fleets if you are able to determine the design/composition of your enemies ships/fleets, or ideally by scanning your enemies ships and planets, and using the scan result to fight against your ships.

But lets start with the simple things. First, create a new ship design and make sure the ship-design is active by checking the check-box (which is the default). Ship-designs that are inactive (check-box cleared) are not available in Battle-Calculator.

Next, right-click in either the attacking or defending force box of the Battle Calculator Screen. A menu will list all available ship-design (ordered in the same way as the current ordering in the Ship-Design Screen). In addition it lists the three planetary defense facilities (Light and Heavy Turret, and the Shield Generator). You can add as many as you like on either side.

Note that there is no difference between the attacking and defending side. Both are treated equal, and none gains an advantage (just like in in-game battles).

Once a particular ship-type is added to the Battle Calculator you can click the [+] and [-] symbols of each entry to conveniently increase/decrease the number of ships and facilities.

You can also set the rank of your ships. This can be done by either selecting ships individually and choosing the rank or multiple ships can be selected and have a rank assigned.

Planetary defense facilities are added in the same way that ships are added. Planetary defense facilities are placed into one large group that can be expanded to show its component parts (Light and Heavy Turrets, and Shield Generators).

Do not forget to set the appropriate technology level. This has a huge impact on the outcome of the battle. Increasing technology levels will increase the effectiveness of planetary defenses as detailed here.

In addition you can simulate the amount of Hyperspace-Energy received by the planetary defense, as well as any civilization trait bonuses this empire might have developed. Please note that all these values (as well as the technology level) default to the values of the progress of your empire.

One of the most convenient features is the ability to drag objects from the Galaxy Map to Battle Calculator Screen. This works for any of your own ships and planets (where the details are of course known), but also for (military scanned) foreign ships and fleets, as well as (planetary scanned) foreign planets.

To do so simply click and hold and object in the Galaxy Map, and drag at into the Battle Calculator. Should the battle calculator not be the currently active tab, then pull the dragged object first on the Battle Calculator tab button, wait a second, and then drag into the attacking or defending forces box.

Please note however that you can’t completely rely on the battle results when simulating a battle with a scanned object. The reason for that is that one scanned object (for instance a fleet consisting of dozens of ships) is treated as one entity. So while in a real battle the individual ships of a fleet would get destroyed one by one, the simulated battle treats and destroys the entire fleet as a whole. So in theory a scanned fleet survives longer in the Battle Calculator than in a real battle. But again, you can not rely on that always being the case!

Now that a scenario has been set up all that remains to be seen is which side in the battle calculator will be victorious. To determine this you would click on the “Compute Battle” button. The results of the first turn of simulated battle will immediately be calculated. If additional turns are needed the “Compute Battle” button can be hit again. If you wish to go back a step you can hit the “Undo” button. If you wish to clear all items from the Battle Calculator so as to have a fresh start you can hit the “Clear” button.

Before the turn.

After the turn.

Attacking forces win!

In this example the top ship has received damage to bring it down to 22%. If the list of ships had not been expanded it would appear that the entire group of ships were at 22%. This is not the case, the top ship is the only ship that is displayed when the list is non-expanded and it does not represent the health of the entire group of ships.