Just buff the strike fighter.

[Sharee]

Wow, really? Quoting burden of proof in an attempt to get the burden of proof off yourself?

 

GG Ramalina, we've been trolled hard.

 

Well if you accuse someone of being wrong, it is basic courtesy to back up your accusation with reasoning, instead of simply stating 'you're wrong, now prove you aren't' like you just have done.

 

Especially if the statement that's supposed to be wrong is as self-evident as "If i have 50% accuracy, then half of my shots are likely to miss".

 

What's next? Asking for proof that the pope is catholic?

[BrianDavion]

I'm hoping the next wave of ships includes a targeting computer component, this could address the evasion issue. seems to me that if we have weapons that ignore sheilds and DR why we shouldn't have the ability to massibly hurt evasion seems like a fair question.

 

here's my proposed tier 3 strike fighter.

 

 

1 primary weapon

1 secondary weapon

1 "Targeting systems" slot. (various devices that can buff accuracy, crit what have you, cause I notice it's also REALLY hard to get much in the way of crit buffing right now)

Sheilds

Engines

Capaciator

Magazine

Reactor

Thrustors.

 

 

 

basicly a starguard with an accuracy buffer as opposed to a second weapon

[Zharik]

I'm hoping the next wave of ships includes a targeting computer component, this could address the evasion issue. seems to me that if we have weapons that ignore sheilds and DR why we shouldn't have the ability to massibly hurt evasion seems like a fair question.

 

here's my proposed tier 3 strike fighter.

 

 

1 primary weapon

1 secondary weapon

1 "Targeting systems" slot. (various devices that can buff accuracy, crit what have you, cause I notice it's also REALLY hard to get much in the way of crit buffing right now)

Sheilds

Engines

Capaciator

Magazine

Reactor

Thrustors.

 

 

 

basicly a starguard with an accuracy buffer as opposed to a second weapon

 

Targeting Telemetry basically does this, but Strike Fighters don't get access to it. Salt in the wound? scouts do...

[Ramalina]

Well if you accuse someone of being wrong, it is basic courtesy to back up your accusation with reasoning, instead of simply stating 'you're wrong, now prove you aren't' like you just have done.

 

Especially if the statement that's supposed to be wrong is as self-evident as "If i have 50% accuracy, then half of my shots are likely to miss".

 

What's next? Asking for proof that the pope is catholic?

 

Sharee has a point here, and I'll add another, which is that I may have been low on blood sugar when I typed the math issues post, because it reads as far grumpier and less polite than I normally prefer my posts to be.

 

If doing a scientific or engineering study that may involve the whether the pope is Caltholic, then yes proof is needed unless you have a very good foundation for suggesting that that is a safe assumption to make.

 

Did you want just a basic example covering the probability theory, or something like an example of how to set up a model to actually evaluate some aspects of how mechanics might affect GSF gameplay? Keeping in mind that the probability theory wouldn't take more than a page or two at most, while a model could run quite a bit longer, especially if I really start having fun with it. And might take a lot longer. I may skip dailies for recreational math modelling, but I'm not so sure about GSF and Ops.

 

I would have already made more progress in messing about with this but either the backup battery in my TI-89 is dead or my TI-89 is dead

 

 

*Edit

Oh, and now I'm just too tired to type straight, almost forgot most important part of this post.

 

Sorry bout the uncalled for rudeness Sharee.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Ramalina

[Altheran]

I think the main problem for strikers when it comes to evasion is that 2/3 their blaster weapons have slow firing rates and harsh tracking penalties.

 

At midrange (3k meters) with quads you'll have 101% base accuracy at evasion will reduce that to 60%. The total firing arc is 24 degrees but you only need to fire 7 degrees off center for tracking penalties to reduce your accuracy to 50%.

 

Similarly with heavy cannons they'll have a base of 106% at midrange (3k meters) so against an evasion build you're starting with 65% accuracy. While the total firing arc is 20 degrees you only need to be 7 degrees off center before you have 51% accuracy.

 

That's where I think the problem is. An evasion build can effectively reduce a striker's weapons to 50% accuracy or lower without them even reaching the half way point on their firing arc. This causes several problems:

 

I have the feeling that we misunderstand something about tracking penalty. I use heavy cannons, and with their 2% of tracking penalty, assuming the theory which states that each degree from the center of my screen will reduce my accuracy, I should lose easily around 50% of accuracy, against anyone. But the thing is I really don't feel I'm missing that much, when the ennemy lead indicator is far from center, especially when intercepting people from a respectable range (6000)

 

Even yesterday I had a match in which I ended with 54% accuracy, and accounting shots that I miss myself (not lined shots) or useless shots (shooting too early, target out of range, dead target), and lastly ennemy evasion, I don't think it can be achievable if I had these supposedly so harsh tracking penalties.

 

So I'm wondering if tracking penalty wouldn't be the degree difference between our aiming, and the center of the ennemy lead indicator. Or something else like cap in penalty, but I really get the feeling that its not what we are currently assuming.

[Sharee]

Sorry bout the uncalled for rudeness Sharee.

 

The apology is a welcome and accepted

 

 

Did you want just a basic example covering the probability theory, or something like an example of how to set up a model to actually evaluate some aspects of how mechanics might affect GSF gameplay? Keeping in mind that the probability theory wouldn't take more than a page or two at most, while a model could run quite a bit longer, especially if I really start having fun with it. And might take a lot longer. I may skip dailies for recreational math modelling, but I'm not so sure about GSF and Ops.

 

I had something simpler in mind. Ill put my reasoning into points and you tell me which of them you believe is incorrect.

 

1, If my accuracy is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss. (this seems to me like a definition of what having 50% accuracy actually means, and is thus considered a fact that does not need a proof)

 

2, If enemy evasion is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss.(a variation of the above)

 

3, If half of my shots miss, i need to fire twice as many shots to do the same damage/get a kill

 

4, if half of my shots are likely to miss, then i likely need to fire twice as many shots to get a kill

 

5, if enemy evasion is 50%, then i likely need to fire twice as many shots to achieve a kill (combines 2 and 4)

-----------------------

6. if the enemy has double hitpoints, i need to fire twice as many shots to achieve a kill.

-----------------------

7. Regardless of whether the enemy has double hitpoints or 50% evasion, i am likely to need to fire the same amount of shots to achieve a kill(twice of normal) (combines 5 and 6)

 

8. Conclusion from 7: the piloting skill needed to kill a craft with 50% evasion is likely the same as the piloting skill needed to kill a craft with double hitpoints (because it is likely the same amount of shots is needed to be fired in both cases). QED

[Gavin_Kelvar]

I have the feeling that we misunderstand something about tracking penalty. I use heavy cannons, and with their 2% of tracking penalty, assuming the theory which states that each degree from the center of my screen will reduce my accuracy, I should lose easily around 50% of accuracy, against anyone. But the thing is I really don't feel I'm missing that much, when the ennemy lead indicator is far from center, especially when intercepting people from a respectable range (6000)

 

Even yesterday I had a match in which I ended with 54% accuracy, and accounting shots that I miss myself (not lined shots) or useless shots (shooting too early, target out of range, dead target), and lastly ennemy evasion, I don't think it can be achievable if I had these supposedly so harsh tracking penalties.

 

So I'm wondering if tracking penalty wouldn't be the degree difference between our aiming, and the center of the ennemy lead indicator. Or something else like cap in penalty, but I really get the feeling that its not what we are currently assuming.

 

That's entirely possible but then I don't get what the "per degree" part of the tracking penalty is since the lead indicator is about the same size as the crosshair.

[Delta_V]

The apology is a welcome and accepted

 

 

 

I had something simpler in mind. Ill put my reasoning into points and you tell me which of them you believe is incorrect.

 

1, If my accuracy is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss. (this seems to me like a definition of what having 50% accuracy actually means, and is thus considered a fact that does not need a proof)

 

2, If enemy evasion is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss.(a variation of the above)

 

3, If half of my shots miss, i need to fire twice as many shots to do the same damage/get a kill

 

4, if half of my shots are likely to miss, then i likely need to fire twice as many shots to get a kill

 

5, if enemy evasion is 50%, then i likely need to fire twice as many shots to achieve a kill (combines 2 and 4)

-----------------------

6. if the enemy has double hitpoints, i need to fire twice as many shots to achieve a kill.

-----------------------

7. Regardless of whether the enemy has double hitpoints or 50% evasion, i am likely to need to fire the same amount of shots to achieve a kill(twice of normal) (combines 5 and 6)

 

8. Conclusion from 7: the piloting skill needed to kill a craft with 50% evasion is likely the same as the piloting skill needed to kill a craft with double hitpoints (because it is likely the same amount of shots is needed to be fired in both cases). QED

 

This would be true when dealing with static health and 100% default accuracy - on average it would take just as long to kill a target w/ 50% evasion as one with double the health. Let's say one target has 500 health and 50% evasion and the other has 1000 health. If your weapon does 10 damage and has 100% accuracy, on average it will take 100 shots to kill each. However, the realities of GSF end up making evasion more valuable.

 

1) Due to range and tracking penalties, many weapons start out with an accuracy below 100% when firing at an enemy, and this native miss chance essentially stacks with the target's evasion. Due to the way evasion works, the accuracy penalty is more significant against the target w/ high evasion then the one w/ high health. Using the previous example, if your weapon instead has 90% accuracy, it will on average take [1000/(10*0.9)] = 111.111 shots to kill the target with 1000 health. However, against the evasion target, the lower base accuracy combines with the target's evasion to give you a 40% chance to hit, meaning it will, on average, take [1000/(10*0.4)] = 250 shots to kill. So if you have 90% accuracy instead of 100%, the evasion target will now take over twice as many shots to kill.

 

Now, the opposite is also true - increasing your accuracy over 100% will result in the evasion target dying more quickly. However, in a dogfight, due to range and tracking penalties, most weapons, especially those available to Strikes, will end up with less than 100% accuracy when firing at a target.

 

2) Regenerating shields and short engagement windows. In most dogfights, you only have split second here and there to actually damage your target (this is why high burst damage is so valuable). If you let the target go too long without taking damage, their shields will regenerate, putting you back at square one. This means it's very important to hit the target at every opportunity you get.

 

Against a high health/shields target, this isn't very difficult, since you just have to line up the shot and only have range/tracking penalties to your accuracy. So against this type of target, you should eventually be able to whittle down their shields and health. However, against the evasion target, their evasion might result in you missing every single shot in an engagement window. Depending on your weapon, this might only be a couple shots, so it doesn't even require that much luck on the part of the target. But when this happens, suddenly the target doesn't take any damage at all, and their shields have a chance to regen. In that situation, the evasion target might never die, since the times they get lucky evasion roles lets their shields regen all the damage they take from the times when they get unlucky.

[Armonddd]

That's entirely possible but then I don't get what the "per degree" part of the tracking penalty is since the lead indicator is about the same size as the crosshair.

 

That's the number of degrees off center. Point a protractor at the very center of your screen and you'll get a feel for it.

[Sharee]

This would be true when dealing with static health and 100% default accuracy - on average it would take just as long to kill a target w/ 50% evasion as one with double the health...

...

1) Due to range and tracking penalties...

 

You probably didn't follow the conversation. The part you quoted was just a simplified example whose only purpose was to disprove the claim that evasion negates piloting skill.

 

I constructed the most basic scenario that only involves 50% evasion versus double hitpoints (and nothing else) to show that evasion in fact does not negate piloting skill as the same effort is required to kill an evasive craft and a tough craft when both have the same effective hitpoints.

 

Of course the actual game is more complicated than that.

[Lytewraith]

I still don't think most stike pilots understand the role of the strike we are not dog fighters I have a mastered pike gunship ad soon to be ff and sg and I can tel ya they all have therte pupopses and times for game play the way to kill a scout is not in a dog fight you can not go head to head aginst them in a dstrike and expect a good out comeif ou want to beat them effectively right now on a strike such as the pike for exsample you need to catch them off guard wile they are tunneling on some one elese and for those who don't relize it that so called useless ion missle is actualy your best friend aginst a scout first hit them with that I you want to dog fight nutrilize's there shields and stops power reg for 6 secs right then follow up with concusion and with the rank 4 and 5 you can slow them again 40% for 15 secs and takes 25 power from them those two combos work well fast lock on timers too and yes you really need to know your ship to pull it off but you can also reach out and touch them from 11.5km away with a proton before they know what hit them when it is rank 5 they are at 20% life and if you pop bypass right as you are about to fire that one you can then also boost in hard and fast wile bypass still up heavy lasers fireing and yes they have no shields left and very little life left then you hit them with a fast acting cluster with double volley then you get the pierce on both missls and your blasters and they are dead only the very and I do mean very good scout pilots will know wat is about to happen and be able to survive it yoru second option is to run speed thrusters on your sg with maxed ou ion cannons as a wing man going for strickly assist and with your ion cannons you are draining them the whole time and we all know all to el what happens when you get hit by ion rail gun well its the same effect but secret is to run the slicers loop on your copilot and direction shields for better shields with them you hit them with slicers so they cant regen for 6 secs so wile they cant regen you are saping everything eles they have such as eng power no eng you don't go anywhere and then I recommend the -40 to shields and remember guys use your wing men that is most strikes failty erro they try to fly solo and it is not easy now if you are trying to get some away from the objective you want with the ol bait nd switch which mind you works very well when they know your name and reize you can cap point even if they have 2 defenders but you got to be smart hide behind a rock or something and bait them out and when one coes at yoru slide out using strafe and missle lock them let lose as they come in and if they are fireing on you you just keep strafingand most there shots will slide off your bow if you do it right and remember to keep aiming as you strafe and that is all the strike tips im going to give out for free but the stike is one of the most powerfull ships if you use it right and remember it isn't a dog fighter it is like the gs in that aspect no matter how much turning you add it is never going to be enough at this point in the game so use your best friend speed speed speed if you debuff them they cant catch you een with the eng regane buff cause 6 sec regne doubled on that buff is wasted wen you slicer loop the for 6 secs and we all know what happens to a ship with no power or that cant boost it is dead so play smarter and use your team mates is is not lone wolf maquad time out there when your fighting 8 ffs and 3 gs and a single strike

[Gavin_Kelvar]

That's the number of degrees off center. Point a protractor at the very center of your screen and you'll get a feel for it.

 

No I understand that, the person I was responding to was suggesting that the tracking penalty was something other than degrees from the center of your firing arc. Which in turn led me to question that, if they are correct and it isn't degrees from the center of the firing arc, then what is the tracking "per degree" penalty applied to (in essence what center point is being measured from).

[Kaivers]

I still don't think most stike pilots understand the role of the strike we are not dog fighters....

 

Really?

Hate to do this, but it really annoys people when someone says this.

 

11.20.2013

Developer Update: Strike Fighter Class Starfighter

 

Greetings fellow Starfighters!

 

Brian Audette here, bringing you some info on my personal favorite ship role to fly in Galactic Starfighter™: the Strike Fighter.

 

No doubt about it, Strike Fighters are some of the most versatile and important ships to ever fly for either the Empire or the Republic. Equally effective against both stationary objectives and other ships, Strike Fighters have made the difference in galactic warfare for generations. After all, it was a bush pilot named Luke in a Strike Fighter type ship known as the X-Wing that made all the difference against the Death Star … with a little help from the Force.

 

In Galactic Starfighter the ships that comprise the Strike Fighter role represent a perfect balance of firepower and maneuverability. Strike Fighters are able to keep up with the deft maneuvers of all but the most skilled Scout pilots and even a heavily armored Gunship can’t hold up under their ballistics barrage for long.

 

The primary attribute of the Strike Fighter role is the ability to equip and swap between either two primary or secondary weapons depending on the ship type. This gives the Strike Fighter a level of versatility that’s difficult to rival. While flying either the FT-8 Star Guard or F-T6 Rycer (both capable of swapping primary weapons) I personally like to use a combination of Quad Lasers and Ion Cannons. While both of these blasters are somewhat slower and drain more blaster power than some of their counterparts, they allow me to deliver a one-two punch that no other ship in the sky can match.

 

By using my Ion Cannons to quickly drain my enemy’s shields, followed by Quad Lasers and a volley of Cluster Missiles to slam their hull, most of my targets don’t ever know what hit them.

 

The Strike Fighter isn’t just about dog fighting though. The firepower that these ships bring to the battle is also excellent against stationary objectives such as satellite defense turrets. With Concussion Missiles and Directional Shields equipped the Strike Fighter can easily boost headlong toward a satellite’s defenses, toggle shields to double-front, and unleash a powerful warhead that’ll soon leave the satellite defenseless and ready for capture.

 

Whether taking a front line or support stance, the Strike Fighter’s only real fear is being disabled. Scout and Gunship systems like the Interdiction Drive and Sabotage Probe can quickly strip away a Strike Fighter’s advantage. Like a shark, the Strike Fighter needs to keep moving and anything that can slow or stop it should be eliminated before it becomes a serious impediment.

 

If dog fighting and dealing constant damage is your idea of starfighter heaven, then the Strike Fighter may be the ship for you.

 

Brian Audette

Senior Designer

 

 

 

SWTOR Ship Descriptions:

 

F-T6 Rycer (Empire)

The ultimate Imperial dogfighter, the F-T6 Rycer (named for an ace Imperial pilot of the last war) is a product of the Dromund Kalakar shipyards. The Rycer can be fitted with two primary blasters from an arsenal of options, including multiple laser and ion cannons; properly equipped, it can destroy or disable foes at any range. The Rycer is even more maneuverable than most strike fighters, but its defenses are less formidable-a fair trade, according to its pilots

 

FT-8 Star Guard (Republic)

Rendili has been producing Republic starfighters for centuries, and the FT-8 Star Guard is the company’s latest achievement–a complete redesign of the FT-5A Honor Guard model. The Star Guard carries two primary blasters and gains maneuverability over other strike fighter-class ships at the cost of defensive strength. The Star Guard can support an array of laser and ion cannons that allow it to engage foes at multiple distances, but its lack of heavy ordnance makes it less effective against armored objectives. When it comes to dogfighting, however, there may be no finer ship in the galaxy.

 

F-T2 Quell (Empire)

Tradition is as important as innovation at the Dromund Kalakar shipyards, and each new design must also honor the past. The F-T2 Quell brings an old name to a fresh exemplar of strike fighter design, possessing speed, maneuverability and good defenses coupled with twin secondary weapon systems that can be switched over mid-combat. This flexibility enables a Quell to carry (for example) both ship-to-ship missiles and torpedoes, allowing it to take on both enemy vessels and stationary objectives

 

FT-6 Pike (Republic)

Well-armed, well-armored, and with the speed and maneuverability pilots expect from a strike fighter, the Rendili FT-6 Pike carries two sets of secondary weapons along with its primaries, allowing it (when properly equipped) to swap between ship-to-ship missiles and torpedoes mid-combat. This makes the Pike a versatile fighter, able to eliminate enemy ships and armored objectives in the same attack run. Some starfighter pilots are specialists, but Pike pilots are ready for anything.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Kaivers

[Zoom_VI]

You realize that the ship descriptions are never going to be realized ingame, because if you go by ship descriptions then the strike is supposed to be the best dogfighter and the best objective taker, which is no different than flashfire. Your just changing which ship is OP.

 

Just fix Dfield and the FF is no longer a head-to-head fighter and we are good.

[Kaivers]

You realize that the ship descriptions are never going to be realized ingame, because if you go by ship descriptions then the strike is supposed to be the best dogfighter and the best objective taker, which is no different than flashfire. Your just changing which ship is OP.

 

Just fix Dfield and the FF is no longer a head-to-head fighter and we are good.

 

Exactly! Scouts are supposed to be RECON and Dogfighting craft! They should (edit) COUNTER Strikers in dogfighting via superior defensive capabilities (ex: Speed, Acceleration, Active Evasion). Strikers should (edit) COUNTER via superior offensive capabilities (ex: Firepower, Endurance, Active Accuracy).

 

Not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

 

Again from the horses mouth:

Flashfire

When Corellia StarDrive appeared on the verge of losing its military contract, the company refocused on a new scout model–one that would trade away sensor and communications range along with specialized sensor tech in return for more powerful laser cannons, mid-range missiles and stronger defenses across the board. The result is the Flashfire, combining other scouts’ speed with deadly offensive capabilities. A Flashfire may not compete head-on against a strike fighter, but its maneuverability may be the edge a skilled pilot needs

 

EDIT: Strikers may be the best objective takers but they are not the best objective defenders. Edit 2: Node B on Kuat Mesas and Node C on The Lost Shipyards are prime examples. I HATE going anywhere near those nodes in my Striker because my performance is severely limited by the restricted space, but these areas are CQC dogfighting heaven for Scouts because their maneuverability is superior.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Kaivers

[Altheran]

That's entirely possible but then I don't get what the "per degree" part of the tracking penalty is since the lead indicator is about the same size as the crosshair.

 

In that case, that may be the degree difference between the center of both circles (mouse and lead).

After all, the game allows to shoot anywhere in the lead indicator, and don't ask for perfect lining.

 

That would also explain why some people experience more misses in short range although the weapon is supposed to have a better base accuracy, and why some people don't notice any significant drop even though the lead indicator is badly centered aat long range :

- at short range, the lead indicator increases in radius, and it starts to be hard to aim its center due to dynamism.

- at long range, the aiming is precise, and steadier.

[Ramalina]

The apology is a welcome and accepted

 

I had something simpler in mind. Ill put my reasoning into points and you tell me which of them you believe is incorrect.

 

1, If my accuracy is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss. (this seems to me like a definition of what having 50% accuracy actually means, and is thus considered a fact that does not need a proof)

 

2, If enemy evasion is 50%, then half of my shots are likely to miss.(a variation of the above)

 

This may seem like nit-picking, but in math and science tiny variations in definition can produce huge variation in what is meant or what the output is, so understand that this is just me trying to be clear, not being mean-spirited.

 

The 50% is the chance that any particular shot will miss. If you fire an infinite number of shots, then the average number of shots that miss should eventually approach arbitrarily close to 50% (which loosely translated is mathematician speak for however close to 50% you want to get).

 

3, If half of my shots miss, i need to fire twice as many shots to do the same damage/get a kill

 

4, if half of my shots are likely to miss, then i likely need to fire twice as many shots to get a kill

 

While proposition 3 is true in a basic sense, the fine print starts to kick in here. As we never get to fire an infinite number of shots in GSF, firing exactly twice as many shots is going to happen rarely. Over the long run if you average it out this is still approximately correct.

 

Propostition 4 is where things start getting complicated because the laws of probability start to kick in. It's also where for an accurate answer you may start needing additional information like, how much damage per shot, how many shots per second, and how long is the window of opportunity for shooting. I haven't finished my review reading, but it seems that wasn't as easy as I had hoped, because I've gone through one and a half chapters, and haven't gotten to the applicable set of rules yet. This is typical though if you haven't done probability problems for a while, things that look like they should be really simple can be trickier than you thought they would be. So for a good answer to numbers 4-7 it will take a while longer, cause I need to read, calculate, check my math, and then probably read another chapter or two to make sure I didn't miss some sort of non-obvious complication.

 

I can speak to one particular situation, that very importantly cannot be said to positively or negatively affect fairness without first doing a fairly comprehensive math model of GSF. It's more an annoying the heck out of people design philosophy question when considered in isolation.

 

I wanted you all to have something, mathematically sound to squabble over while I'm busy with the stats textbook.

 

Assuming that a weapon is affected by evasion, and has no shield countering abilities (such as increased damage, piercing, ignoring, etc.). So good examples might be railguns or blasters that aren't upgraded.

 

If you have a ship with 500 hull and 50% evasion, and a ship with 500 hull and 500 shields.

 

If the weapon does 1000 damage or more, evasion is superior to shields. In fact any level of evasion greater than zero is superior to shields. The reason being that if the weapon does enough damage to kill in one shot, the ship with shields will die in every case, but the ship with evasion will sometimes survive one or more shots. This does generalize to a certain extent. If your current health is low enough for one shot to kill, if shields and evasion both function against the weapon with no modifications, evasion can prevent a killing blow from landing where shields can't. Balancing this doesn't mean that evasion is inherently bad, it just means you have to be willing to do a lot of math to figure out what the practical value of maybe avoiding a killing shot is.

 

To me it suggests, that unless you have some people who are really good at probability, math modelling, and coding a program to run the calculations (cause I guarantee you wouldn't want to do it by hand), and those people have plenty of time to work on the model, it might be a good idea to avoid weapons that can one-shot an opponent. Not that they can't be balanced, but balancing them is creating an awful lot of extra work for yourself if you're responsible for balancing.

 

This is what might be called a degenerate example though. Since for the first shot P( death_shields) = 1 and the P(death_evasion) = 1 - (evasion) it's easy to evaluate without going deep into the rules of probability.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Ramalina

[Delta_V]

You probably didn't follow the conversation. The part you quoted was just a simplified example whose only purpose was to disprove the claim that evasion negates piloting skill.

 

I constructed the most basic scenario that only involves 50% evasion versus double hitpoints (and nothing else) to show that evasion in fact does not negate piloting skill as the same effort is required to kill an evasive craft and a tough craft when both have the same effective hitpoints.

 

Of course the actual game is more complicated than that.

 

But in many cases, evasion does negate piloting skill, because despite equal effective health, the evasion target is significantly harder to kill (and in fact may never die).

 

Take for instance, a target orbiting a satellite; the classic example of a fight where you're going to have very brief engagement windows. If your target is a Strike Fighter w/ Directional Shields, their effective health is higher than a D-Field equipped Scout. However, you will be able to consistently hit the target and prevent its shield from regenning, and thus eventually whittle away its shields and hull. Sooner or later, you will kill it. But against a Scout stacking evasion, you will likely (unless your target gets really unlucky) miss a considerable number of shots, and each time you miss, you give the target's shields a chance to regen. That shield regen means that the Scout might survive indefinitely in the same situation, despite having lower effective health than the Strike.

[Zoom_VI]

But in many cases, evasion does negate piloting skill, because despite equal effective health, the evasion target is significantly harder to kill (and in fact may never die).

 

Take for instance, a target orbiting a satellite; the classic example of a fight where you're going to have very brief engagement windows. If your target is a Strike Fighter w/ Directional Shields, their effective health is higher than a D-Field equipped Scout. However, you will be able to consistently hit the target and prevent its shield from regenning, and thus eventually whittle away its shields and hull. Sooner or later, you will kill it. But against a Scout stacking evasion, you will likely (unless your target gets really unlucky) miss a considerable number of shots, and each time you miss, you give the target's shields a chance to regen. That shield regen means that the Scout might survive indefinitely in the same situation, despite having lower effective health than the Strike.

 

Except In your scenario Quick-charge shield will be better than both Dfield and DS, as QC is always regenerating shields at a rather fast rate.

[Itkovian]

Against a high health/shields target, this isn't very difficult, since you just have to line up the shot and only have range/tracking penalties to your accuracy. So against this type of target, you should eventually be able to whittle down their shields and health. However, against the evasion target, their evasion might result in you missing every single shot in an engagement window. Depending on your weapon, this might only be a couple shots, so it doesn't even require that much luck on the part of the target. But when this happens, suddenly the target doesn't take any damage at all, and their shields have a chance to regen. In that situation, the evasion target might never die, since the times they get lucky evasion roles lets their shields regen all the damage they take from the times when they get unlucky.

 

Precisely my point. The reality of GSF will favour evasion over durability.

 

It's sort of why the Burst Laser is the best weapon, even though on paper it shouldn't be any better than almost any other weapon. Because of short engagement windows and its ability to front load that damage, it is far more effective than any other weapon even though its DPS is comparable.

 

Numbers look good with the hard information we have, but we KNOW that the reality of it is far different. BLCs are far better than the numbers imply, and Evasion is also significantly better than the equivalent in durability. And calculating THOSE values is almost impossible, except perhaps with the kind of metrics the devs have access to.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

You realize that the ship descriptions are never going to be realized ingame, because if you go by ship descriptions then the strike is supposed to be the best dogfighter and the best objective taker, which is no different than flashfire. Your just changing which ship is OP.

 

Just fix Dfield and the FF is no longer a head-to-head fighter and we are good.

 

To be fair if they did succeed in balancing out roles based on ship descriptions/dev posts it wouldn't necessarily result in them being the new flashfire for several reasons:

 

1) the Type 1 striker description indicates it should have superior mobility to the Type 2 striker at the cost of some durability (my assumption that when they have generic wording comparing it to other striker types it is fair to assume the Type 2 striker is covered by this statement). Based on their specification of maneuverability I assume this to mean turning only, not speed which if I'm right would mean all striker variants would have comparable speed.

 

Now in order to do this we'd need to have striker models with their own base stats, not identical stats where the only difference is component options. It would also require buffing the damage of things like turrets to make attack runs that come within their range much more dangerous (not capital ship spawn point dangerous but more so than current; this would place greater value on the range of torpedoes)

 

2) the Type 1 striker supposedly would be less effective against armored objectives due to lacking heavy ordinance.

 

Now this would require adding/buffing armored objectives that make proton torpedoes the go to weapon and be clearly superior to using heavy blaster. For example adding shielding to turrets in addition to armor to give greater value to torpedoes shield penetration. Type 1s could equip torpedoes but they'd be sacrificing some dogfighting capability by not having a missile suitable for such use (similar to how a Type 2 could equip clusters & concussions to improve their dogfighting at the cost of multirole effectiveness against armored objectives).

 

3) The Type 2 striker in contrast sounds like it is supposed to be your classic multirole craft, it's two secondaries making it good at everything but excelling at nothing. (Because it would be a jack of all trades craft it would be superior to Type 1 strikers in that capacity as the Type 1 sacrificed some multirole utility to enhance their dogfighting skills; similar to how the Flashfire sacrifices some recon ability to be a better dogfighter).

 

So in theory if they balanced things right the Type 1 striker would be superior to the Type 2 striker when it comes to a dogfight but be noticeably inferior if used against stationary targets (due to it not being as well rounded a multirole starfighter as the Type 2s). Now to be fair this would require a significant amount of balancing, not just between Striker variants but also a major rework of stationary objectives (such as turrets) to be much harder nuts to crack without proton torpedoes or similarly long range weaponry. Personally I wouldn't mind such an overhaul but realistically I doubt such a thing would be done (or at least any time soon).

 

Done right the Type 1 would be the best dogfighter but the Type 2 would be the best objective taker due to being more well rounded (assuming here that the objective is under enemy control, presumably when the objective is neutral it would be a toss up and depend on whether the striker has been upgraded for speed by their pilot)

Edited January 31, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Sharee]

If your current health is low enough for one shot to kill, if shields and evasion both function against the weapon with no modifications, evasion can prevent a killing blow from landing where shields can't. Balancing this doesn't mean that evasion is inherently bad, it just means you have to be willing to do a lot of math to figure out what the practical value of maybe avoiding a killing shot is.

 

That's a valid point. It seems i have to supplement my original statement.

 

"If two craft have the same effective hitpoints, the craft with evasion requires the same number of shots fired to kill it as the craft without evasion" needs to be supplemented with "as long as it takes more than one hit to kill the latter"

 

Luckily, i do not believe oneshotting a craft other than a scout who sacrificed health for evasion is common in GSF, so the original statement holds true for the most part.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Sharee

[Ramalina]

Ok, math update.

 

Sharee's example is right! (but the conclusion may not follow from the example)

 

So after mucking about with it, it turns out that the example is easy to evaluate using the binomial distribution, and with averaging, 1000 raw health of any description is equivalent to 500 raw health and 50% evasion. The binomial distribution is a bit of an oddity as far as probability distributions go in that finding the mean is both easy and intuitive.

 

Needing the same amount of skill, well, that's variable. You could argue that in a sense it's the same, in that in the long run if x is number of kills (and assuming x is a large number) it will require about the same number of shots with a given weapon, and because weapon damage is normalized the same amount of theoretical time on target.

 

However, as far as rewarding the attacker's skill, it's not exactly the same. With shields, if you keep firing on target for long enough to produce weapon output equal to total effective health, you will always get a kill. With evasion you will sometimes not get a kill in that amount of time, and in rare occasions you will not get a kill at all even with perfect play. This is balanced somewhat by occasional quicker than normal kills. This gets into the histogram of the binomial distribution, basically how better and worse results are distributed above and below the mean. In this case the tail of the distribution containing misses is longer than the tail containing best cases. So there's more bad in the worst case than there is good in the best case if you want to put it like that. Or to phrase it a bit better, evasion offers the attacker frequent small rewards, slightly less frequent small penalties, and occasional large penalties.

 

So on the whole, if playing against a ship with evasion, your skill is slightly less valuable than it would be if you were playing against a ship with the same average health achieved with shields. Not by a large amount during normal play, but if you play long enough there will be some memorable unpleasant experiences with strings of misses. The lower the level of evasion, the less area there is under the 'lots of misses' tail of the histogram, so in cases where people aren't stacking the maximum amount of evasion it's not an issue, and even at 41% evasion it's only a teeny tiny issue. At this point I'd say evasion for effective health is more or less fine. Evasion as far as avoiding debuffs depends on how common and powerful debuffs are. Distortion field as a short term invincibility button should probably be looked at very closely, and even if theoretically balanced will probably still generate a lot of complaints.

 

In theory noobs should stack evasion as much as possible, it will help them against skilled players more than shields by somewhat devaluing the opponent's skill.

BUT, the value of the defensive cooldown tied to stacking evasion is highly dependent on player skill, so it more or less balances out.

 

The other conclusion that came out of my look at this is that front loaded burst damage is really good. At the proper range, burst cannons are the best weapon in game. If you gave Strike fighters burst cannons, I think it wouldn't take long for threads complaining about the stupidly overpowered nature of ion cannons followed by burst cannons at close range to surface.

 

Also, while I like extended range heavy lasers on my Starguard, it's possible that damage capacitors are the best possible capacitor for all ships that can use them. At least for any player that actually aims to shoot rather than following a 'spray and pray' policy. I'm definitely changing to damage capacitors on all my ships except the Starguard, for it I'll have to spend some time experimenting to see how the tactical value of the extra range compares against the increased per shot probability of kill that increased damage provides.

 

Short time windows for shot opportunities tend to favor both evasion and burst damage. If you can spend a long time on target (as an issue of aiming and as an issue of not getting shot down before you finish shooting) a lot of the potential balancing issues either become much easier to figure out or just resolve by averaging out.

 

I'm also much more optimistic about the effect that the minimum charge requirement will have on balancing railguns. Having to wait before you can fire is actually a fairly substantial penalty, though it affects a gunship at range less than any other ship, because their shot opportunity windows tend to be much longer.

 

Of course that doesn't deal with the aoe debuff from ion railgun, but with the intro of bombers, maybe people will become fonder of aoe debuffs. Haha, Yeah right.

 

Other than perhaps an overly liberal dose of debuffs from mastered weapons and a slight underestimation of the extent to which burst damage is more valuable than average damage I think the team at Bioware has done a better job of balancing GSF than they've been given credit for, and very small changes are probably the way to go to make balance better.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Ramalina

[Gavin_Kelvar]

In that case, that may be the degree difference between the center of both circles (mouse and lead).

After all, the game allows to shoot anywhere in the lead indicator, and don't ask for perfect lining.

 

That would also explain why some people experience more misses in short range although the weapon is supposed to have a better base accuracy, and why some people don't notice any significant drop even though the lead indicator is badly centered aat long range :

- at short range, the lead indicator increases in radius, and it starts to be hard to aim its center due to dynamism.

- at long range, the aiming is precise, and steadier.

 

I think you may be on to something as I've been paying closer attention to trying to line dead center on the lead indicator and it does seem to help (firing at point blank is still pretty screwy but I gather that I haven't been unique in experiencing whacky mechanics there).

 

This is just based on a handful of matches though so I hesitate to declare with certainty that the tracking penalty is degrees off center of the lead indicator and not center of your firing arc. Honestly if a dev could clear that up it would be ideal.

 

Also, while I like extended range heavy lasers on my Starguard, it's possible that damage capacitors are the best possible capacitor for all ships that can use them. At least for any player that actually aims to shoot rather than following a 'spray and pray' policy. I'm definitely changing to damage capacitors on all my ships except the Starguard, for it I'll have to spend some time experimenting to see how the tactical value of the extra range compares against the increased per shot probability of kill that increased damage provides.

 

I run heavy blasters on my star guard with the armor and shield penetration buffs. I've been experimenting with the frequency and damage capacitors and IMO the damage capacitor is better as it makes the weapon more "bursty" by packing more punch per shot. The frequency capacitor I think goes well with weapons that fire really faster (like rapids) or if you have terrible aim though.

 

I can't say much about the lose of extended range but honestly I don't really find myself ever wishing I had a few extra meters of range.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Kain_Turinbar]

I initially favored damage vs frequency capacitors as well (I understand frequency adds more overall DPS) because of "DPS per blaster power". Basically, if I have two ways to add to DPS I'm going with the route that doesn't increase power consumption even if the overall DPS increase is a little bit less.