Ship weapons and damage

[Raltiir]

I would also be interested in seeing the spread sheets.

As for firing arcs and mobility, I grant that they have to be considered a factor, but at least in the games I play against the AI, the tactics I prefer to use in space combat tend to make both of those into fairly minor concerns.  I tend to drop a carrier into the lead in position, throw its fighter complement forward to reveal the enemy ships, and then I start hyping in my capital ships in a leap frog manner designed to change which of my ships is getting targeted so that my shields can regenerate as I bring more ships in.  works pretty well with both the Imperial remnant, and also the EoTH since they both have ships with high shield that can be dropped for relatively low cost. 


On a slightly separate note, assuming that ships wont change targets mid salvo for laser cannons either, and that the hard point numbers listed in the manual for the ships that don't have target-able hard points is accurate, doesn't that mean that the EoTH and the Remnant get screwed on anti fighter ships?  granted I am again looking entirely out of the manual so I might be wrong, but both the New Republic and the Pentastar Alignment  get anti fighter ships with 6 damage dealing hard points while the Remnant and EoTH equivilents only get 4 damage dealing hard points, which if I understand correctly means they can only shoot at 4 fighters per salvo while the NR and PA can hit 6. 

As far as the anti fighter ships go, does EoTH have anything frigate sized or larger that can bea good anti fighter at all or is it the only faction that is pretty much limited to corvettes for fighter screening duties?  its not much but the empire at least has the immobilizer (with the slow recharge rate for missiles I imagine the fare rather poorly as an anti fighter weapon, so I only looked at ships with laser and maser cannons rather than looking at my old favorite the VSDI). 
 

[Thuellai]

I would also be interested in seeing the spread sheets.

As for firing arcs and mobility, I grant that they have to be considered a factor, but at least in the games I play against the AI, the tactics I prefer to use in space combat tend to make both of those into fairly minor concerns.  I tend to drop a carrier into the lead in position, throw its fighter complement forward to reveal the enemy ships, and then I start hyping in my capital ships in a leap frog manner designed to change which of my ships is getting targeted so that my shields can regenerate as I bring more ships in.  works pretty well with both the Imperial remnant, and also the EoTH since they both have ships with high shield that can be dropped for relatively low cost. 


On a slightly separate note, assuming that ships wont change targets mid salvo for laser cannons either, and that the hard point numbers listed in the manual for the ships that don't have target-able hard points is accurate, doesn't that mean that the EoTH and the Remnant get screwed on anti fighter ships?  granted I am again looking entirely out of the manual so I might be wrong, but both the New Republic and the Pentastar Alignment  get anti fighter ships with 6 damage dealing hard points while the Remnant and EoTH equivilents only get 4 damage dealing hard points, which if I understand correctly means they can only shoot at 4 fighters per salvo while the NR and PA can hit 6. 

As far as the anti fighter ships go, does EoTH have anything frigate sized or larger that can bea good anti fighter at all or is it the only faction that is pretty much limited to corvettes for fighter screening duties?  its not much but the empire at least has the immobilizer (with the slow recharge rate for missiles I imagine the fare rather poorly as an anti fighter weapon, so I only looked at ships with laser and maser cannons rather than looking at my old favorite the VSDI).

IPVs and Lucrehulks do make the PA really, really good at clearing fighters and getting Snub Superiority.  But actually because they fire multiple times, the VSD1's conc missile hardpoints can knock out an entire squadron in a salvo easy - to the point that they're my first target as the NR because of the threat they pose to my starfighters (The NR's biggest advantage is that practically every fighter they launch carries at least a couple missiles, which makes up for the firepower their caps lack)

As to the EotH, the Chaf likewise has Razer missiles which do pretty much the same thing.  It is true that neither of those factions have mixed laser/turbolaser armaments, but I prefer missiles because there's less wasted firepower that way when they have to take on another large ship.

[Raltiir]

does that mean that a hard point can individually target multiple fighters per salvo on its own?  I know the VSDI has a lot of concussion missile hard points but I thought that each one could only target one ship per salvo and since missile salvos have a much longer recharge time I thought missile would be a poor anti fighter defense?  Or do fighters work differently for targeting than big ships and shooting at one means you are shooting at all of them?  If ships can switch fighter targets mid salvo than the empire would be in very good shape against fighters but the EoTH would still be in poor anti fighter shape relative to the other factions. 

[Thuellai]

I've seen a VSD knocked down to two conc missile hard points kill a LOT more than 2 fighters per hit, so I think targeting a fighter squadron targets the WHOLE squadron.  Which would make sense.

[Raltiir]

You could be right, I just assumed they were separate since health seems to be done on a per fighter basis, almost as if each fighter was hard point for a squadron. 

[Vulcanus]

VicStar I has multiple missile hardpoints that can't be destroyed, so they will always be threat to fighters unless the whole ship is destroyed.

[Thuellai]

Vic Star's conc hardpoints can totally be destroyed.  I've done it and reduced them to just turbolasers, and from there it's really easy to bomb them to death.  They're not corvettes.

It's pretty much suicidal to try and bomb them before that.  At the very least you want their shields down.

[Vulcanus]

Yes, you can destroy the four visible hardpoints, but Vics also have several hardpoints that are not destroyable and thus not visible. Try it in-game or check the unit/hardpoint files yourself if you wish.

[jordanthejq12]

Um, shouldn't that be changed or something? That doesn't seem like the best thing to have. Although it certainly gives it an advantage against the Victory II.

[Vulcanus]

Simply changing all missile hardpoints to destroyable presents a different kind of problem, even if average hardpoint health for Vic is reduced to account for new hardpoints. It is just a frigate after all, so giving Vic I close to twenty hardpoints makes it way more durable due to weapon targeting issues discussed earlier in this thread. Alternatively one could increase the number of pulses in the four destroyable missile hardpoints to compensate for all the missiles, but it would also make Vic I's missile hardpoints overly valuable in comparison to its laser hardpoints and present considerable targeting issues vs. starfighters, weakening Vic I's significantly. Personally I like Vic Is just the way they are, but they could certainly be more expensive, considering their fantastic firepower and dominant missile weapons.

[Thuellai]

Yes, you can destroy the four visible hardpoints, but Vics also have several hardpoints that are not destroyable and thus not visible. Try it in-game or check the unit/hardpoint files yourself if you wish.

Huh.  That's strange, because I've deliberately left Vic Is alive after blowing up the four visible ones and had them no longer fire concs - it's not like the missiles are hard to see.

I believe you, it just doesn't match my experience in-game.

[Vulcanus]

Could be a combination of long recharge time and limited fire arcs of Vic I. Those missile hardpoints only have a 130/90 fire arc, so its possible your own ships simply weren't on their scopes. I don't know how space units' Z-axis layer (how high or low on the tactical map units move) works with fire arc height, but that could also be a factor.

[Raltiir]

Is it possible that destroying the target-able missile hard points stops the untarget-able ones from firing too?

[Vulcanus]

That shouldn't be possible. Just did a test with Vic Is to be sure and they indeed still use missiles after visible hardpoints have been destroyed. I'll test a Vic I with integrated missile hardpoints later to see how that affects targeting vs. starfighters (4-6 targeting missile launchers instead of 12 could cripple their anti-fighter ability even if they still fire a 72 missile salvo) and post some results here.

[Slornie]

Okay, following a quick bit of clean-up and updating to match 2.1 you can find our internal stats spreadsheet on Dropbox here.  It's got a couple of core values for each ship type and then a breakdown of their hardpoints, pulses and primary recharge time with a separate sheet calculating the per-second damage for each of a ship's weapon types.

Notes:

* Damage per projectile (by type) has been adjusted for the vs frigate armour damage modifier which almost all of our ships bar fighters/bombers use.

* Superlasers and the Visvia's turrets aren't included as these are more specialised and would severely skew the damage ranking.