X weapons debate (giga vs lance vs arc)

[March]

I've heard a lot of people say they prefer the lance series of super weapons over the giga cannon and arc emitter. I can't really put my finger on why.

Please note that I am rounding numbers, and ignoring carry over damage here. I feel that they are insignificant to the equation. Also, since they all have a cool down of approximately 8 ticks, average damage is the number I will use.

The giga cannon does 27 average damage.
The tachyon lance does 15.
The focused arc emitter does 11.

The giga has 50% armor pen, and an extra 33% shield damage.
The tachyon has 90% armor pen, and -33% shield damage.
The focused arc has 100% armor pen and 100% shield pen.

So, let's say you are shooting at a ship that has 50% armor reduction, 100 shields, and 100 hull points.

Giga does 35.91 (33% more) damage while the shields are up, then does 20.25 (25% reduction) damage to hull while shields are down. This will take 3 ticks to tear down the shields, then 5 ticks to destroy the ship. Total = 8

The tachyon will do 9.9 (33% less) damage while the shields are up, then does 14.25 (5% reduction) to the hull. This will take 11 ticks to take the shields down, and 8 ticks to destroy the ship. Total = 19

The arc emitter will do 11 damage to the hull. This will take 10 ticks to destroy the ship. Total = 10

Now, this all assumes 100% accuracy and no evasions.

When we factor those in:
The giga has 90% accuracy and 0 tracking.
The lance has 85% accuracy and 0 tracking.
The arc has 100% accuracy and 100% tracking.

If we are shooting at a battleship with effectively 0 evasion, the accuracy is all that is necessary here. We would, as such, need to adjust the values for assumed misses.

Giga: For every 10 shots, one is a miss.
Lance: For every 20 shots, 3 will miss.
Arc: 100% accuracy.

The giga needs 8 ticks (this isn't 8 shots, but for the moment we'll assume it is, because our target ship is significantly reduced in stats). This means that one shot will possibly miss, giving 9.

The lance needs 19 ticks. This means that close to 3 will miss, giving 22 shots to take it down.

The arc will take 10 due to 100% accuracy.

So, basically, the giga cannon will rip this little ship apart in half the time of the other guns.
Also, the only weapon that has a chance against evading craft is the arc emitter, due to having a non-zero tracking.

So, why then does everyone say "Go for the lances!!"? By the numbers, it appears that the giga is superior against heavy warships, and the arc is superior against light warships.

EDIT: Accidentally had arc emitters taking down shields. Since they ignore shields, I took it out of the calculations.

[corisai]

You simply don't know how targeting work.

Game try to maximise damage from each shot = for weapons with anti-shield bonus it's resulting into splitting damage against all enemy fleet.

So all that "damage" of gigas and KA simply wasted on shields, while lances & plasma focus target and melt it in seconds. Gigas NEVER will focus enemy - so they NEVER will kill anything.

Also - because of targetting shield penalty of lance and plasma is completely irrelevant - in any case game will target enemy ship with lowest shields remains.

That's how targeting work and that's second reason why in large fleets armor for cruisers&BB will be superior over shield regen.

Go and do some tests. 60 vs 60 BB - tachyons melt 1..3 bb (depend on techs) on aproach, while gigas ... do nothing, lol.

UPD.

ALSO you don't understand how armor work. Ignore X percent of armor not deducted from damage reduction. It's multiplier for base armor value - and then armor reduction against this weapon recalculated using temporary armor value (pro-tip : you will get different % DR then you think, small armor reduction of giga/KA much less effective then appear).

[March]

Is there somewhere I can read the math behind what you are trying to explain? Because it is not the experience I am having in my latest game.

I have been using Focused Arc Emitters against awakened ascendencies. My fleet composition is primarily setup for artillery style tactics. I use Corvettes as harassers (armed with disintigration beams), Destroyers as anti-corvette/PD, Cruisers are a milder artillery attack with some shorter range guns in case small craft make it past the front line, and battleships as heavy artillery with Arcs and kinetic artillery.

My battleships have at least 75% damage reduction due to armor, and still have good shields.

With this combo, I have won battles against superior power fleets from the afore mentioned awakened ascendencies.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

Is there somewhere I can read the math behind what you are trying to explain? Because it is not the experience I am having in my latest game.

Targeting AI is hardcoded mostly. Search official forums and do test yourself (console is extremly powefull).

Simply - throw a lot BB vs each other by console and you will see that gigacannons will always lose to tachyons.

Of course - I mean normal BB, with 2 KA + 2large plasma. Anything else is stupidly uneffective.

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

armed with disintigration beams

Then stop it. MD horrible weapon that suffer a lot from its 50% penetration : half of it damage wasted on shield, while other half bypass it. In same time it's have lower armor ignore then plasma.

No neutron torpedoes vs FE? Ineffective.

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

battleships as heavy artillery with Arcs and kinetic artillery.

Without plasma? Bad composition.

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

My battleships have at least 75% damage reduction due to armor, and still have good shields.

Omg. Do you realise that armor damage negation is %-based? It's one of most stupid move (that very loved by AI) to get some armor and put rest in shield. You should get 90% armor (or maximal armor possible in case of cruiser) OR go all-shield.

Mixed build is very uneffective (especially with value around 75% like you're state).

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

With this combo, I have won battles against superior power fleets from the afore mentioned awakened ascendencies.

Armor mostly hardcounter to them. Try yourself against twice as large fleet of Spiritualist FE ;)

[corisai]

Here, look here - I posted some test results around MD and lance/gigas in argue with someone like you : http://steamcommunity.com/app/281990/discussions/0/133255810028083547/?ctp=2#c133255957992724475

[March]

Telling me things are "bad composition" without explanation is not helping. By the numbers, and by my previous experience, they aren't "bad composition" since I am actually *winning* against superior power fleets. They may be slightly sub-optimal at worst.

Point me to the math, and a full explanation of how targetting works, or explain in your own words.

[corisai]

AI basically choise targets both depending on:
*Weapon size & type
*Class of ship that hold that weapon

(yes, it's a lot of conditions and neither I finished testing them all, neither I seen anyone do it).

What's interesting to us, that all weapons with +% damage against shields have interesting behavior:
* They try to avoid stripping target shield completely and tend to switch as long as target get some relative small amount of shielding.
* They try to avoid deal hull damage at all cost.

That's both causes are why KA is actually work as pure anti-shield gun (and great in that role). That's actually why your calculation for gigacannons will never work in reality - giga will switch after target have something like 10-30% of shield remain.

Same happend with MD - game tend to spread MD damage over all enemies (their shield part of damage higher then hull part of damage, because of armor damage reduction, so game try to "optimise" their anti-shield damage... making them completely useless).

In same case all weapons with -% shield damage (plasma & tachyon) do all they can to avoid deal shield damage.

That result into them choising target with least shield remain and focusing it until it's blown (or they see target with even lower shields - that's happen sometimes with shield regen in combat).

Then math come : plasma&lances focus targets, killing them and reducing enemy retalation fire = less losess = more damage from our ships. That's lead to snowballing easily.

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

Telling me things are "bad composition" without explanation is not helping. By the numbers, and by my previous experience, they aren't "bad composition" since I am actually *winning* against superior power fleets. They may be slightly sub-optimal at worst.

Most effective weapon loadout for both cruiser and battleship is 2 kinetic artillery + 2 plasma (medium for cruiser, large for battleship + tachyon lance for battleship).

That's both math based calculation (if you will include how targeting work) and well tested (for example on official forum in corresponding topics around best cruiser and best battleship design).

Why MD corvettes are bad was described earlier. Generally you want either neutron torpedoes corvette (as support to other ships) or mix of 1/3 neutrons and 2/3 3*small plasma (if corvettes take a large part of your fleet).

Anti-corvette destroyers with 2 med autocannons and 2 small railguns working very well.

You don't need a lot of PD, only a bit of it against bombers. Missiles can be safely ignored, they unable to deal damage against large fleet.

[March]

Would not an Arc Emitter similarly focus targets? Why is it disregarded since it ignores all shields and armor with 100% accuracy?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

Would not an Arc Emitter similarly focus targets? Why is it disregarded since it ignores all shields and armor with 100% accuracy?

First - yes, it will focus.

Second - again targetting issues (do you read my post carefull?) :

We're having a lot of KA on both cruises & BB. Cruisers going first. Cruisers shooting. Some enemy ships get low shields - then they come in range of BB. Tachyons ignore armor and melt that ships.

Sure, we lose some damage for remaining shields - but look on difference in base dps (also - do you know that ingame dps already including accuracy?). In reality lances will do much more damage then *arcs*.

Third - look on arc minimal damage. Yes. It's horrible if RND don't like you. Tachyons don't have such problem.

In short - tachyons synergy with kinetic artillery and plasma is incredible strong.

UPD. Fixed typo.

[March]

Yes, it's true that if the RNG doesn't like you, arcs are bad. However, even the smallest ship has 300 health, it will definitely tend to the average while it is striking a single ship. Over the course of a large battle, it will absolutely tend towards the average. It's also longer range than KA, so it should strike before KA if both are present on a single ship. As for Cruisers striking first, only if they are more than 10 units ahead of the battleship. In most of my engagements, they weren't, and the battleships struck first.

One thing is for sure with this discussion... They really need to stop using that targeting mechanic for extra shield damage weapons. Focus fire is a basic concept for pretty much any game and even reality. If you shoot a target, kill the target, and have ships focus on targets based on how likely they are to kill them... and have them think together so that we don't get overkill!

[corisai]

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

One thing is for sure with this discussion... They really need to stop using that targeting mechanic for extra shield damage weapons. Focus fire is a basic concept for pretty much any game and even reality. If you shoot a target, kill the target, and have ships focus on targets based on how likely they are to kill them... and have them think together so that we don't get overkill!

No they shouldn't. Currently this encouraging us to mix weapon loadouts. If anti-shield weapons will focus we will end with stacking only KA. Stupid. Boring (we already had lance-times).

If you're still in doubts - I can do test 60 BB with arcs vs 60 BB with tachyons.

They will be most optimised - armor tanking, 2KA+2plasma.

What level of repeated techs you want to test? I can test it on any level from 0 to 4 level in all-repeated.

Do you want me to add some strategic resources effects?

[March]

If anti-shield weapons focus fire, they would also need to rebalance. That would be a given.

As far as tests, straight BB fights don't represent the full issue. I understand that you are trying to isolate the variable (for !!SCIENCE!!), but it breaks the issues presented by the rest of the fleet. For example, it may be that there is something in my mix of ships that is causing my fleets to win where the raw battleship would fail.

Thank you for the offer though.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

As far as tests, straight BB fights don't represent the full issue. I understand that you are trying to isolate the variable (for !!SCIENCE!!), but it breaks the issues presented by the rest of the fleet. For example, it may be that there is something in my mix of ships that is causing my fleets to win where the raw battleship would fail.

Fallen Empires designs are very horrible and extremly non-optimal. Plus in almost any case you have numeric advantage over them (if you don't have same all-5-level repeated techs as they have) - this is allow you to win over them even with suboptimal designs (devs not THAT sadistic )

Because of FE small numbers (compared with yours for that firepower) - arc emitters work quite well against them (their escort ships mostly harmless).

Plus - raw battleships against FE will not fail, they will be quite effective ;)

[Centerpoint108]

You know, I'm just gonna recommend ISB Doomsday and/or New Ship Classes. Pretty sure ISB includes a ship with multiple x slots (titan/leviathan class), and I know NSC does (dreadnought/superdreadnought/flagship/battle fortress/headquarters station)

That way you can use "proper" set up of lances, and still spare a slot or more for the other types.

On another note, I wish we had an explosive X weapon, instead of 2 energy based one

[corisai]

Originally posted by Centerpoint108:

You know, I'm just gonna recommend ISB Doomsday and/or New Ship Classes. Pretty sure ISB includes a ship with multiple x slots (titan/leviathan class), and I know NSC does (dreadnought/superdreadnought/flagship/battle fortress/headquarters station)

That way you can use "proper" set up of lances, and still spare a slot or more for the other types.

On another note, I wish we had an explosive X weapon, instead of 2 energy based one

There's a mod with "missile" X-sized weapon too :)

AFAIK - ISB have tiny "feature" with increasing Leviathans power over time and this why I can't recommend it.

[Immortalits]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Aloriel Lelyn:

Would not an Arc Emitter similarly focus targets? Why is it disregarded since it ignores all shields and armor with 100% accuracy?

First - yes, it will focus.

Second - again targetting issues (do you read my post carefull?) :

We're having a lot of KA on both cruises & BB. Cruisers going first. Cruisers shooting. Some enemy ships get low shields - then they come in range of BB. Tachyons ignore armor and melt that ships.

Sure, we lose some damage for remaining shields - but look on difference in base dps (also - do you know that ingame dps already including accuracy?). In reality lances will do much more damage then *arcs*.

Third - look on arc minimal damage. Yes. It's horrible if RND don't like you. Tachyons don't have such problem.

In short - tachyons synergy with kinetic artillery and plasma is incredible strong.

UPD. Fixed typo.

Ingame dps DOES NOT include accuracy, just calculate it and you will see, ingame dps only uses (mind dam + max dam) / 2*reload time