Strategic Combat Stuff

Time from time, some new player arrives with ubiquitous question "I cant design my ships". And often get the same answer "You need to enable Tactical Combat to design own good ships, or game will design bad ones for you!".

Thats not how Strategic Combat do work. Well, in 1.50 its not even really works as it should.

All info about ship design player see there is purely for abstract reference. Every time ship enters battle there, it redesigned to best possible design in relation to player's tech during the moment of battle (so even all new researched or stolen tech acquired this turn are included and fit for free too, say, even if it armor or a new gun; they act similar to Fighters or StarBases of Tactical). Yes, that mean they do "refits" totally for free, en masse, and not even require a colony for it. Note, that does mean "best possible" in a way game's autodesign see it, and player need very special skill, not related at all to Tactical Combat designs to tech right way (getting actually more effective tech instead of ones games see as them) to force game to design better ships. The Combat itself also have other rules, so its wrong to see Strategic autodesigned ships as bad. While such ships would be horrible in case of Tactical Combat indeed (more actually wouldnt let player abuse Combat AI), they do fine under Strategic rules, as they fight other ships built same way, and acting the same way they act (thus not performing cheap tricks of AI abuse, that some human players mistook for "skillz").

Why it could be important for players who already know how to enable Tactical Combat? Because Tactical Combat actually only about Human players. Thats is, all battles not involving Human player are fought under Strategic Combat rules. Even if Tactical Combat is set, AI vs AI fight with ships, different from the ones player can see in battle (thats how AI players can beat Monsters with that garbage they are building, for example). And AI is horrible in Tactical Combat, unlike Human player it can do only very basic and totally predictable maneuvers, providing a ridiculous advantage for a Human player who can do special anti-AI exploits there.

While its obviously interesting to play Tactical Human vs Human, as "double" intended way; what player who dont want to exploit Tactical vs AI can do? Set every Tactical battle on Auto could one of possible options. Choosing it will require a different ship designs from a player to be effective, as AI who will control player's ships will act the same way as other AI's do, and will not perform usual human tricks. This approach not require additional knowledge on its own, but still those battles would be different than ones AI vs AI have. Play with Strategic Combat is other way, just like AI does. But. Nobody really know how it works.

The fact it was pretty buggy in pre-1.50 versions doesnt any help with. While 1.50 indeed fixed many issues about Strategic, there is, well, still pretty of room to improve it. Because it also entirely broke it instead years ago, with a stupid HardShields "fix". It just doesnt work at is should with them at all, and, even more important, it broke it for the Tactical too, as AIs fight eachother by Strategic rules. More detailed about it later. As it was entirely my fault about HardShields, I decided to explain how the stuff that stopped to work at least should been work all that time, instead of merely informing about the bug. And when it will be fixed, it should be finally playable, as players would also already know how to play it.

Actual Strategic Rules of Game still a mystery for a players, as all in-game help about stuff is about Tactical rules, and often doesnt mean anything in Strategic. As we omitted explanation in Manual about Strategic Rules as a whole yet (still there is enough data about related applied fixes, that is assumed to be known prior reading of this article), ill fixing this issue here. As many fixes been applied to Strategic-related mechanics compared to unpatched version (and at least one too many), and they are more detailed described in Manual already, this stuff will be about the way how it works in the latest "official" version of 1.50 patch (1.50.9), not earlier, and how it should work after fixing of the HardShields issue.

Likely the most complicated feature of Strategic will be that player cannot be sure what ship designs are fought even on player side, even less about opponent ones. As unlike Tactical, info about ship components player can see for own ships pre-battle could be obsolete by that time. But as it will be longer and likely more boring part, better to start from shorter, and, well, "topical" one, Strategic Combat as is, its rules, how ships are fight, while leaving explanation what kind of ships are fight for later, as ship design there is really obscure, due to total lack of in-game help about it.
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A. Rules of engage
There is no limit of 100 ships per side to place on a combat field. There is no combat field. Thus also no movements, retreats, boarding, initiative. There is no drive explosions, or damage to internals at all; only Structure HP, usually modified by a best Armor tech. There are no miniaturization or space usage on a ships (with one twist). There are no weapon modifications (AF, ENV, MIRV, EMG etc). Every ship fire all weapons it can fire every turn to some enemy non-destroyed-yet ship one per one, and change its target to next one if current one is destroyed. But every ship that started combat turn alive still fire all its weapons if there are targets still; thats it, active ships already destroyed by enemy fire during the turn in question are still "alive enough" to fire (but not chosen as valid targets for enemy fire anymore), they're "entirely destroyed" only at the end of turn. So every ship can fire all its weapons, as if they all fired simultaneously, but precisely calculated what damage they will apply and where, to not cause unneeded "overkills". It means that, unlike Tactical, 2 ships could kill eachother using Beams only.

There is 50 turns max; if both Attacker and Defender have some ships by that time, Defender is a winner, and Attacker retreat with a whole remained fleet. If after some turn only Attacker have a ships left, Attacker is a winner, and proceed to Planetary Bombardment. Of course, if after some turn only Defender have a ships left, Defender is a winner.

B. Structure of a combat turn
Every ship (Planet and Satellite are Ships too) that is alive after previous turn is counts as Active for the turn, and can fire all the weapons it have if it can find a target for. While any ship that is destroyed during that turn is still able to fire, making actual order of acting less important than in Tactical, there is one twist: Planet act first (not last as expected), it makes a difference in case PlanetaryStellarConverter in use. Every turn, acting Ship have to choose a target first, then fire some weapon if able to. Every time weapon destroys a ship's target, new target is chosen if possible (except PlanetaryStellarConverter's "enveloping" damage, that is applying to initial target all 4 shots), otherwise next weapon attack the same target. All weapons hits immediately here, no matter if it Beam or Missile etc. But not every weapon will fire each turn, as shown in summary of structure of combat turn per active ship:

1. Ships that are not Destroyed are set as Active, and will sequentially perform steps 2 to 7 one after another, starting with Planet (if it present), chosen as a first Current ship.

2. Current ship choose its target. Every time ship have to choose a target, its chosen randomly from opponent's ships, with 2 excludes: i) PlanetaryStellarConverter choose the opponent's ship with a highest remained HP as a target for this turn (non-random way); and ii) Planet itself cannot be chosen as a target for a non-Bomb weapons if some other ship(s) are still present on Defender's side (while Satellite chosen as a regular ship), while Bombs on their own could target only Planet itself.

3. Planet fire PlanetaryStellarConverter to its target 4 times, even in case of overkill. Thats the only place where "enveloping" approximated some way (regular StellarConverter will fire only once instead).

4. Current ship fire Missiles in turns 1-3 only if Current ship a non-Planet & non-Satellite. Planet and Satellite will fire Missiles on this step also at turns after the 3rd.

Antarans have no Missiles, and will fire Beams instead, while following this rule about turns, so only Antaran SpaceFortress, but not their regular ships will fire at this step starting from the turn 4.

5. Current ship fire Specials, starting from the turn 3 only if Current ship a non-Planet. Planet (but not Satellite) will fire Specials starting from the turn 1 instead.

6. Current ship fire Beams, starting from the turn 3 only if Current ship a non-Planet. Planet (but not Satellite) will fire Beams starting from the turn 1 instead. Note: in turn 3, all Antaran ships will fire their Beams twice.

7. Current ship fire Bombs, starting from the turn 4 only.

Steps 2 to 7 repeated once for every Active ship, steps 8 & 9 occurs once after all ships finish their steps 2-7.

8. Planetary Defenses are recalculated; prior of this step Planet cannot be declared as "destroyed", so there could be "overkill" damage on it during the turn. Unlike TacticalCombat, no damage to non-combat buildings, population, marines etc are done though, it simply lost.

9. Active ships that are Destroyed during the current turn, lose Active status; then Next turn starts.

Of course ships fire the type of attack at a given step only if weapon of such kind is present on a ship. So Planet will fire a certain weapons only if required for it DefenseBuilding is present, Frigates will skip Specials step etc.

Weapon attacks and dealing of damage are simplified compared to Tactical, but work slightly different.

C. Applying of damage and weapon attacks by type
Only Structure HP could be damaged in Strategic; when accumulated Damage reach HP, ship is Destroyed. It means that unlike Tactical, with various way of actually damage a ship, all weapon types work essentially same way here during applying of damage if it dealt; while they are still differs in a way they are checked if they did damage and how much.

C0. Applying of damage
Damage in question is decreased by a Shield value if it present (even in Nebula), or reduced to 1/4 of it if DamperField is present instead. As no ShieldStrengh HP are present in Strategic, remained positive damage is added to a Damage value of a ship. If Damage value reach or exceed Structure HP value, ship is Destroyed.
In 1.50 HardShields also in theory should decrease a damage by their value if they are present. Due to the introduced bug they are stopped damage entirely. Im sorry, patch 1.50 was a mistake from the very start of it.

Its more complicated in case of Planet. Unlike Tactical, no halving is applied for any types of weapon. And likely as a pure bug, but also possibly as some sort of desperate last ditch balance fix, PlanetaryShield buildings are acts weird way as a very weak "jammers" there, increasing a MissileDefence by {Radiated = 10 (sic); Flux = 20; Barrier = 30} respectively, instead of increasing a Shield value as they should; making those buildings literally useless in StrategicCombat. Even worse: regular shields are not applied there too. Also, Planet (for simplicity) not treated as Destroyed till step 8, when all accumulated Damage is applied in amounts of 40 damage per building if there is enough damage to apply (say, 130 accumulated Damage will destroy 3 defensive buildings if they are present, and extra 10 damage will stay till next turn in case 4-th such building as also present). That is, each defensive building is fixed 40 HP there, not modified by Armor type. Unlike TacticalCombat, where defensive buildings are destroyed in random order, in Strategic the order is fixed from first to be destroyed to last as: {StellarConverter > MissileBase > GroundBatteries > FighterGarrison}. Unlike Tactical, Damage applied to Planet in excess to destroying a planetary defenses, do not damage other buildings and population/military. If Planet have no defensive buildings, it treated as Destroyed.

Weapon attacks by type (for a new stuff like a Modifiers etc explanation is in Ships section (F3))

C1. Beam Attack
1. Min and Max Damage value are each modified by BeamDamageModifier as a percentage:
[{Min or Max}ModifiedDamage = {Min or Max}Damage*(BeamDamageModifier + 100)/100.]

2. HitThreshold of [40 - (BeamAttack - BeamDefense)], capped at 95 max compared to Roll[100], that should be at least equal to in order to Beam to hit a target.

3. If Roll successful, ActualDamage is randomly uniformly chosen from a whole-number values between MinModifiedDamage and MaxModifiedDamage (say, MinModifiedDamage = 1; MaxModifiedDamage = 4: ActualDamage will be 1, 2, 3 or 4 with 25% probability each). Unlike TacticalCombat, better accuracy or better to-hit Roll itself not affect damage distribution to higher values.

4. ActualDamage is applied to target ship. If that ship is Destroyed, new Target is chosen, otherwise it remained the same.

Steps 2 to 4 are continued per Beams amount of attacking ship, then Beam Attack of that ship ends.

To enable this type attack for a Planet, GroundBatteries building is required.

C2. Missile Attack
In Strategic Missiles resolve immediately and without a means to shot them down.
1. Max Damage value is modified by MissileDamageModifier as a percentage:
[ActualDamage = MaxDamage*(MissileDamageModifier + 100)/100.]
Note: Missiles are assumed to have the same Min & Max values here, so only Max value is actually used.

2. HitThreshold of [MissileDefense - ScannersValue {20 for Tachyon; 40 for Neutron; 70 for Sensors}], capped at 95 max compared to Roll[100], that should be at least equal to in order to Missile to hit a target. Note, Antarans, Guardian and Monsters have Sensors in Strategic, unlike a NeutronScanner in Tactical.

3. If Roll successful, ActualDamage is applied to target ship. If that ship is Destroyed, new Target is chosen, otherwise it remained the same.

Steps 2 to 3 are continued per Missiles amount of attacking ship, then Missile Attack of that ship ends.

To enable this type attack for a Planet, MissileBase building is required.

C3. Special Attack
1. BlackHoleGenerator and StellarConverter amounts are adjusted to emulate their size (they are also will be checked to be "installed" only on a ship sizes starting from Titan and DoomStar/Satellite(not possible in non-modded game; only if they will be modded to include Specials)/Planet, respectively): only rounded up half of BlackHoleGenerators and only ceiled up quarter of StellarConverters amounts will be actually used (so DoomStar with default 5 specials will fire only 3 BHG or 2 Stellars).

2. ActualDamage is randomly uniformly chosen from a whole-number values between MinDamage and MaxDamage (say, MinDamage = 250; MaxDamage = 250: ActualDamage will be 250). Note: Special weapons are always hit.

3. ActualDamage is applied to target ship. If that ship is Destroyed, new Target is chosen, otherwise it remained the same.

Steps 2 to 3 are continued per Specials amount of attacking ship, then Special Attack of that ship ends.

To enable this type attack for a Planet, FighterGarrison building is required. Note: yes, it means that FighterGarrison can fire a StellarConverter here (if player possess a tech), just in a "ship-grade", non-"enveloping" way, and yes, it will mean that Planet could fire up to 2 StellarConverters per turn.

PlanetaryStellarConverter as a building on its own works very special way, this building have own attack step during a combat turn, and will apply to the same chosen target StellarConverter's MaxDamage 4 times in an "enveloping" way sequence instead.

C4. Bomb Attack
1. ActualDamage is randomly uniformly chosen from a whole-number values between MinDamage and MaxDamage (say, MinDamage = 10; MaxDamage = 11: ActualDamage will be 10 or 11 with 50% probability each). Note: Bombs are always hit.

2. ActualDamage is applied to Planet.

Steps 1 to 2 are continued per Bombs amount of attacking ship, then Bomb Attack of that ship ends.

This type of attack is not possible for a Planet.

C5. Artemis Attack
Strictly speaking it should be in the beginning of combat, as it happens prior combat turns, but as it very rare special case only, its here.
All Attacker ships that attacks on a system with Defender's ArtemisSystemNet are potentially affected by it. Every ship in that fleet have a chance to sustain a damage from it.

1. HitProbability of {20 for FF; 30 for DD; 40 for CA; 50 for BB; 80 for TT; 100 for DS} is compared to Roll[100], that should be not greater than it in order to Artemis to hit a target.

2. If Roll successful, ArtemisDamage randomly uniformly chosen from a whole-number values between MinDamage of 75 and MaxDamage of 275.

3. ShieldIgnoring (including DamperField; but in 1.50 HardShields reduction is incorrectly still applied, with all the additional problems about it) ArtemisDamage is applied to ship.

Steps 1 to 3 are repeated once for every Attacking ship.

This stuff also had a nicey bug, its fixing basically was a start of 1.50 patch.

D. End of combat
Survived damaged ships are retain a damage; in case of "StrategicCombat occured in the TacticalCombat Game Settings" calculated as a percentage to a Structure Damage only (say Tactical Design ship that have 300 structure participated in Strategic battle as a 40 HP ship and sustained 30 damage there: after the battle overmap ship will have 75 structure HP left). In case engaged fleet's owner is Cybernetic, possess the AdvancedDamageControl tech or that fleet had a ship with an Engineer prior the battle: all its survived ships are fully repaired. Note: unlike Tactical, Leaders are not killed prior very End of Combat, so no Leader's effect are ever lost during the Combat.

E. Orbital bombardment.
Each bombing ship fire its Beams, Missiles, and Bombs (but not Specials) 3 times. Any building, colonists, military etc is of 40 HP each, not modified by armor (so 371 damage will result in 9 Bomb hits).

F. Ships and their design.
This one is tough, as even after all the fixes of 1.50, player cannot easily know design of own Strategic ships that goes into combat. As, despite they are pretty close to truth in displaying their design during the Main Turn now, it doesnt mean that they will be the same by the time they engaged into battle. Because they are redesigned prior each battle, to fit a best available tech for free, similar to a way Flyers get a drive or armor upgrades: player can end own Main Turn with some Drive tech, then research a new, better one, and new one will be already "installed" on Missiles during a battle. Then as a result of this battle, player can capture an even better Drive tech from a captured planet, and that newer one will be already "installed" on Missiles during a next battle this turn.

Strategic ships work pretty the same: with knowledge about techs in possession, and rules how they are installed on a ship, player actually can calculate the actual ship's configuration. Just as its totally obscure info, nowhere really explained in a game, player usually cannot do so; of course it will change with further reading of stuff here.

The complicated issue about it is mentioned above the fact that Tactical battles are only happens if human player is involved. So AI fight eachother using Strategic ships, but build them under Tactical designs there. Easiest example about how weird is it is with BattlePods: AI who build a ships equipped with them is in inferior position to other AI, who build cheaper ships without them; as assuming other equals, they will be the same in a battle between those 2 AIs, just one side will spend more resources on a fleet, or even will have it weaker, if it will resulted in less amount of ships. Other example is about Monsters: in Tactical they are pretty heavy on HP and have a weapon powerful enough to kill ships fast; in addition to it often have a good initiative, to kill some ships prior they will act. But in Strategic Monsters have a HP only of their size class Hull base, not modified by Armor tech, and all ships can still fire during combat turn there, even already Destroyed. That let AI to win Monsters with their weak designs, that wouldnt stand a chance against it in Tactical battle.

F0 Hull designs
Works unlike Tactical design, where only few components are fixed (namely Armor, Structure and Drive), and everything else is optional. Ship could be packed with some mix of weapons, or only with weapon of one type, or be totally empty etc, as much as it fit in SizeClass space (and unused space will possibly increase a CombatSpeed). In Strategic designs are static: every ship have some fixed components (in addition to Armor, Structure and Drive also Computer and Shield (they both still could be not present on a ship, if player possess no tech for them at all, but there is no option to not have them installed if it present)), and every SizeClass of ship also have some fixed composition of weapons. Ship cost is also not affected by its component, and always 1.5 times base hull cost (being a Buildings, Satellites not affected by it).

Be Mi Sp Bo BD HP Co
FF = 1 0 0 0 50 4 30;
DD = 2 0 0 0 40 15 105;
CA = 2 1 0 2 30 25 375;
BB = 4 2 1 5 25 40 900;
TT = 6 4 3 10 20 80 2250;
DS = 10 10 5 25 15 300 6000;
SB = 3 3 0 0 -10 100 400;
BS = 6 6 0 0 -10 200 1000;
SF = 10 10 0 0 -10 500 2500;

where Be = beam amount; Mi = missile amount; Sp = specials amount; Bo = bombs amount; BD = BeamDefence bonus; HP = hit points, Co = cost

Note, Monsters have a SizeClasses of (CA = all stationary species; BB = wandering Amoeba and Eel; TT = wandering Dragon, Hydra, Crystal).

For a purpose of a weapon amounts, Planet get a Titan composition for its buildings (so 6 Beams for GroundBatteries; 4 Missiles for MissileBase; 3 Specials for FighterGarrison + 1 PlanetaryStellarConverter), but with 40 HP only for each, not modified by armor.

There is also a special way Megafluxers are work in Strategic: they increase the Beams amount for all ships by 50% (so FF still get 1 Beam, TT get 9 Beams, SB get 4 Beams).

F1 Weapon choices
While amounts are fixed, every time prior battle they are equipped with the best possible weapon of that type in player's possession. As all weapons here have no special modifications of effects, "best" simply mean "with a higher MaxDamage" (for a particular weapon values refer 1.50 documentation). While 1.50 fixed a bug about weapons being compared and used for Strategic purpose using their incorrect Tactical values; it still partially present in a case of "Strategic combat with a Tactical designs": they are compared with their Tactical values (while actual Strategic values of chosen weapons are used for dealing of damage).

For this purposes, Beams are weapons of Beam type; Missiles are weapons of Missile and Torpedo types (being Torpedo dont have any actual effect in Strategic); Bombs are weapons of Bomb type; Specials are weapons of Special and Fighter types (being Fighter dont have any actual effect in Strategic).

One special rule is about "Large Specials": to emulate their size, BlackHoleGenerator only installed on ships starting from TT size class, and StellarConverter only from DS (for this purposes Planet and any Satellite are eligible for both of them (while Satellites normally have no Specials installed)).

F2 Fixed design components
StructureHP is a Hull type's BaseHP, modified by a best Armor tech of player (except Monsters, who have no Armor type, so only Base HP is used; Antarans and Guardian have Xentronium):
StructureHP = BaseHP*(ArmorBonus{0 for Titanium; 100 for Tritanium; 300 for Zortrium; 500 for Neutronium; 700 for Adamantium; 900 for Xentronuim} + 100)/100.

BeamDefense of a regular ship is a Hull type's BaseBD, modified by a best Drive tech of player (Antarans, Eel and Dragon have Interphased; Guardian and Crystal have Antimatter; Hydra and Amoeba have Fusion), RacialDefense bonus, SpecialDeviceBeamDefense bonus, and Leader's Helmsman bonus, in 1.50 also CrewLevelDefense bonus:
BeamDefense = BaseBD + DriveBonus{-10 for NoDrive; 0 for Nuclear; 10 for Fusion; 20 for Ion; 30 for Antimatter; 40 for Hyper; 50 for Interphased} + RacialDefenseBonus + SpecialDeviceBeamDefenseBonus + HelmsmanBonus + CrewLevelDefenseBonus.

Planet always have BD of 0; Satellites BD is of their HullBaseBD, without any other modifiers applied. Note: TransDimensional have no effect on a BeamDefense in Strategic.

MissileDefense of a regular ship is SpecialDeviceMissileDefense bonus, in 1.50 also half of CrewLevelDefense bonus (yet without addiion of a half of RacialDefense bonus, as it should be):
MissileDefense = SpecialDeviceMissileDefenseBonus + CrewLevelDefenseBonus/2.

Satellites have no Special Devices in Strategic, and have no MissileDefense; while Planet have odd buggy/balance feature of PlanetaryShields building providing MissileDefense bonus of {10 for Radiation; 20 for Flux; 30 for Barrier}.

BeamAttack of a regular ship is a Computer bonus, modified by RacialAttack bonus, SpecialDeviceBeamAttack bonus, and Leader's Weaponry, in 1.50 also CrewLevelAttack bonus:
BeamAttack = ComputerBonus{0 for NoComputer; 25 for Electronic; 50 for Optronic; 75 for Positronic; 100 for Cybertronic; 125 for Moleculartronic} + RacialAttackBonus + SpecialDeviceBeamAttackBonus + WeaponryBonus + CrewLevelAttackBonus.

Planet doesnt get any BeamAttack bonus at all, and Satellite get only Computer bonus and RacialAttack bonus (likely buggy).

Regular ships and Satellite are equipped with a best Shield tech (for Antarans it is DamperField, while other factions cannot use DamperField in Strategic even if possess a tech or have it installed on a ship). Shields only reducing a damage on its Class value, they have no ShieldHP in Strategic. Planet have no Shields at all.
In 1.50 HardShields also should apply their reduction, but due to bug stops damage entirely instead.

BeamDamageModifier and MissileDamageModifier are SpecialDeviceBeamDamage bonus or SpecialDeviceMissileDamage bonus, respectively, modified by Leader's Ordnance:
BeamDamageModifier = SpecialDeviceBeamDamageBonus + OrdnanceBonus.
MissileDamageModifier = SpecialDeviceMissileDamageBonus + OrdnanceBonus.

Note, Ordnance have no effect on Bombs and Specials in Strategic.

All those values are set at the beginning of combat, and not changed in process.

F3. Special devices
Now into most obscure stuff about it. Special Devices works totally different ways in Tactical and Strategic. All the in-game info about them are for Tactical only, and not of any help. To make things worse, they work slightly different way even from other Strategic stuff sometimes. While Strategic design ship normally will update all its components to a best options prior battle, Special Devices are updates only in StrategicCombat game settings. In "StrategicCombat occured in the TacticalCombat Game Settings" ship will use only the Special Devices installed on its Tactical Design (and only if they are functional). It could result in a very unexpected battle outcomes, as many Special Devices simply have no effect at all in Strategic.

For example: 2 AI players, whom for simplicity have the same techs in their possessions have a fight involved a ship A, that have some obsolete Lasers installed on it and FastMissileRacks with RangemasterUnit as a Special Devices; while ship B have a Disrupters (also being a best Beam tech for both players), BattlePods, AugmentedEngines, AutomatedRepairUnit, HeavyArmor, ReinforcedHull, CloakingDevice, and DamperField. Ship A will totally outperfrom ship B, as they both will have a same Beams, Missiles, Armor etc, but ship A in addition will also have 2 useful SpecialDevices, while all B's SpecialDevices will have zero effect in Strategic battle. And ship B likely would cost much more, due to BattlePods.

Instead of the stuff they are doing in Tactical, Special Devices installed on a ship, participating in battle (thus either updated to a best possible in "real" StrategicCombat, or actually installed on ship in Tactical design in case Strategic battle is occurs there) used as modifiers in formulae of section F2. There are 5 different Special Device boni types, with the Special Device with a best value is used for each bonus in case there are more than one Special Devices that provides a bonus in question in player's possession in "real" StrategicCombat rules, or more than one of such Special Devices are installed on a Tactical design ship.

Boni types are:

SpecialDeviceBeamDefense bonus: {25 for InertialStabilizer; 50 for InertiallNullifer; 30 for DisplacementDevice};

SpecialDeviceMissileDefense bonus: {50 for ECMJammer; 70 for MultiWaveJammer; 90 for LightningField; 100 for WideAreaJammer; 30 for DisplacementDevice};

SpecialDeviceBeamAttack bonus: {25 for BattleScanner; 50 for RangemasterUnit; 100 for AchillesTargetingUnit};

SpecialDeviceBeamDamage bonus: {25 for HighEnergyFocus; 50 for HyperXCapacitors; 75 for StructuralAnalyzer; 100 for TimeWarpFacilitator};

SpecialDeviceMissileDamage bonus: {25 for FastMissileRacks; 100 for TimeWarpFacilitator}.

Note, DisplacementDevice and TimeWarpFacilitator are belongs to their own types of Special Devices: "Generic Defense" and "Generic Damage": they could be used for both of those boni if their value is best (DisplacementDevice value is weird, likely authors initially planned to use it "in addition" to other corresponding boni; similar to a way it works in Tactical).

Planet and Satellites have no Special Devices installed on them in Strategic. Defensive Antaran fleet is affected by an emulation of Xanthus's effect, though.

All other Special Devices (except HardShields in 1.50, sadly) are not used in StrategicCombat; while any of them could be modded to provide arbitrary bonus by assigning them into one of types and setting a value.

HardShields Bug is very easy to fix on its own, likely it will be all right with it in some closer test versions. Beside it, Strategic Combat is a pretty interesting game version on its own, and it deserve to be finally playable (especially good stuff about it is that it strongly favor a non-blitz approach, as player cannot just win a battles with anti-AI tricks using a cheap in production low-tech fleet; much stronger than in Tactical Satellites are of great help too). Im really sorry that i spoiled stuff about it. If somebody desperate for a hotfix, in theory i can provide it without a need for waiting for a test version.