Friday, August 21, 2009

What's Wrong With This Setup?

Take a look at this Hyperion battleship that my corp mates took down last night. What's wrong with it? Anyone?

It looked good at first glance to me. Best named blasters, tech II buffer tank is a little light for me but I understand not everyone wanting trimarks instead of CCC rigs. Then I did a double-take at the warp disruptor AND warp scrambler. And no web. None.

Now, I am a firm believer that if you setup a ship intended for gangs that you don't necessarily need to cover the dps/tank/tackle trinity on every ship. But I'm also very aware of the limitations of my weaponry and I try to compensate for that as much as possible.

From Eve Fitting Tool, a Hyperion with that blaster cannon and a tech II tracking computer with tracking script and perfect skills has a tracking of 0.07475 radians per second. From my Masterclass article on Tracking you know that when you multiply that number by a range and you can see the maximum speed of a target orbiting that range that you can follow fast enough to hit. For 0.07475 that means about 150 m/s at 2000 meters and 225 m/s at 3000 meters.

I can fly a Myrmidon without an afterburner or MWD at 158 m/s and that is with rigs and armour slowing me down. So essentially I pull into a 1500 meter orbit and the Hyperion is helpless. Warp Scrambler won't help you... you are dead.

That Hyperion screams for a webber. One web and he's pounding those battlecruisers and at least has a chance at surivival or taking one down. In a gang situation I'd had a web even if I was flying with two Rapier pilots. Its simply a matter of making sure your shit can hit.

12 comments:

  1. If he's stationary and you can get a good orbit, then I perfectly agree.

    Since he can move himself at approx 120 m/s, though, if you try to orbit him and he can turn into the plane of your orbit, you'll be doing ellipses around him which will still keep you unhittable most of the time, but he'll be able to get you at the "long end" of the ellipse since you'll be moving relatively slower. Add in that you'll have a shallower transversal due to the ellipse and he might still be able to hit you.

    That said. . . yah, he REALLY needs a web on that thing.

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  2. Fair enough. I'm assuming my corp mates had multiple webs on him and was doing their best to keep him as stationary as possible. :)

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  3. I don't think tracking works the way you think it does. Two things stand out; signature radius is figured into tracking (as if it's big it's easier to land a gun on even if they don't track as fast as it is), and secondly tracking is percentage wise, not all or nothing.

    I ran the numbers in EFT and he'd still be doing about 350 damage to another hyperion with the same fit at 1.5km; heavily reduced, yes, but not helpless.

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  4. Tracking is only part of the equation for if a turret can hit a target. The rest is related to signature radii and a random roll to see if the weapon gets a miss, hit, critical, etc as you mention. But the first question is always "can I track it fast enough?".

    Also, a hyperion versus hyperion is much different than a hyperion versus Myrmidon. Larger signature, slower speed.

    Finally, EFT is not the end all of all Eve simulations :) Please feel free to go out in space in a Hyperion with no web and see what happens when a battlecruiser pilot gets you in close.

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  5. To verify my facts, I went searching and found this webpage on Eve's site:
    http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Turret_damage

    Of particular interest is the raw formula:
    ChanceToHit = 0.5 ^ ((((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))*(Turret Signature Resolution / Target Signature Radius))^2) + ((max(0, Range to target - Turret Optimal Range))/Turret Falloff)^2)

    Specifically this part:
    ((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))

    Let's plug in our numbers:
    Transveral is 165 m/s (i.e. speed of myrmidon)
    Range is 2000 meters
    Tracking is 0.07475

    we get: 165 / 150 = 1.1379...

    So you are right, its not an on/off switch as soon as someone beats your tracking with their speed, but looking at the math the odds quickly fall as the difference between the two increases.

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  6. So it has been proven, the holy trinity of EVE still works. Speed to get under the guns of fails like this one, or webs to avoid the fail.

    Good analysis.

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  7. There is a little trick used by blaster boat pilots in the situation you describe, Kirith.

    So you orbit your target at 160m/s, 2000m. Your target is webbed down by, say, 3 regular webs, speed is somewhere at 10-20m/s.

    His blasters can track 0.07rad/s, which is calculated on the fly taking into account turning rates and speeds of both ships.

    In this situation the hyperion pilot simply presses the "fly to" button and "flies towards" your ship. He's webbed down, so his turning rate is improved; he will spin nearly on the spot, nose towards you at all times. This turning rate is also taken into account when calculating tracking, and I assure you, it should be quite enough to hit yout myrmidon quite well.

    If he does this right, he also screws up your orbit a little.

    On the other hand, I don't approve of t1 blaster fits... No t2, no Null ammo.

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  8. @lantine: EFT only takes tracking and range into account not quality of hits. It's reasonably accurate but ends up a bit lower then it would be if it calced that in, iirc.

    @brutus: Turning has no effect on a turret's hit chance. As far as the formula is concerned your just a point in space with no orientation. If your turning rate mattered, transversal would be zero when a ship is orbiting a point, which unfortunately it's not. The best way, besides using target painters/webs/tracking boosting, to increase hit chance(and therefore dps) is to increase distance to target as long as you don't stray too deeply into falloff.

    Felt like making these little graphs. DPS without web/TC/TP and then 3 with one of them active.
    Tracking Comp has the smallest effect and only helps the Hyperion. Target painter has a slightly better effect but also helps others shooting the Myrm.
    Web finally has the largest effect but only works within 10km.
    http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/ReatuKrentor/DPSHypeMyrm.PNG
    http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/ReatuKrentor/TCHypeMyrm.PNG
    http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/ReatuKrentor/TPHypeMyrm.PNG
    http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/ReatuKrentor/WebHypeMyrm.PNG

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  9. Wow ReatuKrentor, good job with those graphs!

    They look really good, how do you make them?

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  10. Open Office Calc graph I made
    Not as good as Naughtyboy's(http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?t=41) is, or was(no idea if it's still updated). but that was unworkable in OO and I'm too cheap to get Excel.

    I did upload mine on eve-files not long ago because of Tempest.
    http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/ReatuKrentor/TrackingSheet.zip
    reasonably easy to use.
    Dunno if I'll ever finish it, still can add drone damage, missile damage etc etc. But I only write/comment about Eve stuff I don't actually play Eve atm =)

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  11. @ ReatuKrentor - actually moving towards your target does have an influence. My wording may have been unclear, so I'll try to rephrase:

    When the Hyperion is sitting still, the Myrm is orbitting on a circular trajectory. The speed vector is tangent to the trajectory circle, and the modulo (spelling - I didnt take math in English) of this vector is equal to the Myrm's linear speed; the radial component's modulo is 0.

    However, when the Hyperion is moving, the orbit trajectory of the Myrmidon is no longer tangent to the 2km radius circle considered, as it tries to compensate for the Hyperion coming closer. There is a non-zero radial component to its speed vector and as such, the transversal vector's modulo is lower than the linear speed. The fact that the Hyperion is able to turn faster is secondary.

    I hope this makes my point clear.
    If you are curious about this, try it out sometime. You can calculate all you wish, but I find inputting values into those precious formulae (or formulas if you prefer) while shooting at someone rather distracting. PVP is not an exact science.

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  12. @Brutus - Yes, orbit center moving has an effect on the orbit. But I believe it's better to pick something to fly towards as the "orbitee" then to try to approach the "orbiter" when he has superior speed and agility. Or to fly away from him, improving your hit chance by increasing distance and what you said. Reducing a 165m/s transversal by 10-15 m/s isn't significant enough to change the outcome however(which was your starting point).
    It wouldn't have made much of a difference for this Hyperion, triple webbed and no web of his own at any rate. His mistake was not fitting a web(or 2).

    You're quite right, formulas aren't precious, in the end they can only back up experience. Well, and prove that something isn't balanced(grmbl grmbl lasers grmbl artillery).

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