here a very old discussion thread.
can be that it was more discussed in the old forum, which is not online anymore. But an extract of it is in the readme of Nova:
"5.7 Attack Damage Table
One of our most bitter complaints was about the way that weak units could
so easily defeat much stronger ones. For example, it was not uncommon for a
Cruiser to be destroyed by a Bulk Hauler. One reason for this was the poor
design of the Attack Damage Table (a kind of combat results table), which
gave insufficient advantage to higher-odds attacks. For example, when going
from 1-1 to 2-1 odds, the average damage increased only from 40 to 48, so a
100% increase in strength only resulted in a 20% increase in damage. The
Attack Damage Table has now been thoroughly revised."
Those table is used with a random number (see the game rules from EFS - those are represented by the random nubers used ingame) to determine the outcome of a fight.
From the manual (available from the underdogs as OCR scan):
COMPILE AND ASSIGN DAMAGE
Compare the Attack and Defense Numbers. The Higher the Strength over the defense, the more likely the unit will be destroyed. Generate a random number and apply the resulting points as damage.
ACCURACY VS. AGILITY
Each unit has an accuracy for each weapon type. That number is subtracted from the target's Agility rating. The resulting number is a modifier that is applied to a randomly chosen number between 1-20. If the ran-dom number combined with the modifier is 10 or greater, it is a hit. Lower than 10 is a miss. Thus, if the attacking unit's accuracy is equal to the defender's agility, there will be no modifier and the attacker will score a hit 50% of the time.
Units that are unspotted at the start of a battle gain a +3 in their agility.
:
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