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Screen Destruction Experiment #1


WKE235
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Fighters where Standard Operations (so no Kamikazee or Deep Strike or whatever those other formations are). 

 

By your reasoning, if there was only 25 SF's left after round 1, and if the SF's had a strength of 800 each as you postulate, then I should have destroyed many more 800 integrity screen ships.  The screen ships are in deploy location 1 so distance defensive bonus.  25/13 = 2 fighters per attack in round two, more than enough to destroy a screen ship (at 1600 power).  PLUS, if the CIDS destroyed 1475 SF in the first round, they should have destroyed the remainder in round 2.  So how could I attack and damage or destroy 64 different ships.  That implies I had firepower for at least 5 rounds of battle.  With the Wasps gone after 2 rounds (maybe 3) and the fighters after 2, there would be nothing left to inflict damage on the enemy ships (even when divided into 13 globs of damage, 0/13 = 0). 

 

If SF's have similar firepower to missles and that is in the 800 range for each 100 ton ship, then how can it be explained that only 13 of the 800 integrity screens were destroyed?  For as long as ther was more than 13 fighters fighting, you would expect the damage globs to destroy screens (in this case).

 

Ken,

 

Sorry, you're quite right - I didn't count the number of ships you'd damaged....after this morning's post went for long walk mulling over the battle and remembered that you'd come through a WP...

 

This also explains why your Wasps were destroyed before the Gnats. The Wasps obviously came through the WP first....due to ship class?

 

Your Wasps had a Warp Bubble of 3 and so 8 of them would have come though on the first wave along with your 1500 SFs. I'll also go out on a limb and suggest that your actual Bridge rating was 14, rather than 13 like it says (the actual calculation results in 13.55). The reason I think this is that you destroyed the first 14 ships in the sequence, which we can only assume was the first rounds result, before any of your ships were destroyed No. 15 onwards.

 

So in that first round you had enough firepower to take out 14 of those corvettes. But in Round 2 onwards your firepower was down to only very low values. Spread over 14 targets it caused only very limited damage.....

 

In Round 1, as only 8 Wasps came through I assume all 8 were destroyed. On Round 2 the remainder of the Wasps and all the Gnats came through and only 2 Gnats survived. Lastly on Round 3 the Uller would have appeared.

 

Now, I suspect the Uller lasted several rounds, certainly 4 more, due to it's good Integrity and the defensive advantage of being in DL-12. As all the Wasps had gone there must have been at least some SFs remaining to provide at least some firepower. However, this firepower must have been pretty minimal. Certainly it wasn't enough to get past the Point Defense of the Dog Meats with enough power to cause more than minor damage, and some of them were hit more than once. You'll also notice that the Pups received similar damage becuase they had no PD at all and only a very low 'speed'.

 

So, I'm still confident in the first guess, though - the majority of your fighter strength must have disappeared from the Fleet PD at the end of the first round......

 

It's currently the best example yet of seeing a single weapon blunted by the perfect defense....

 

M2CW

 

Mx

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That was my initial thought as well (hence the subtitle for this topic about Laser Cids being pretty good). If Strike Fighters can do 800 damage, then, to get down to low damage in later rounds, the Laser CIDS (and notice the Gatling CIDS on one of the ships as well) had to take out 99+% of the ships in one round.

 

Still, if the CIDS are that good when massed like so (and at only 10 tons per Laser CID, you can pile up a lot of them quite cheaply as a nice balance to Fighter/Drone using races), it still does not explain all the additional rounds of damage inflicted on the enemy ships. It's almost as if somehow, in some way, the number of SF's got so low that the remainder could not be shot down, despite all the CIDS. Shades of the force, there were several Lukes out there, weaving and bobbing around all the fire, still attacking the enemy. :angry: This is the one thing I really want answered. If Point Defense losses are Linear (per Pete), and if I did lose a huge amount of fighters in round 1 .. then why did Point Defense seem to stop working after round 1?

 

Personnally, I blame the whole failure of the experiment on the Imperial Programmers. They came back with some excuse that the data analysis was flawed. Something about it was done based on Contric measurements, while the data file was in Imperial Standard, so all the measurements of CIDS effects were off by a factor or so, depending on the analytical sheet. I spaced the lot of them and replaced them with Joevan Monkeys, and am seeing better results already!

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a couple of points that no-one has brought up yet, It could well be that CIDS only destroy fighters/drones at the begining of the battle and after that they act exactly like all other defensive systems, i.e. they reduce the effectiveness of the weapon systems. If a large percentage of the Strike fighters were shot down in the first round of the battle and the remaining fighters were reduced to say 10-20% effectiveness that too would explain the results of the battle.

 

 

 

That was my initial thought as well (hence the subtitle for this topic about Laser Cids being pretty good).  If Strike Fighters can do 800 damage, then, to get down to low damage in later rounds, the Laser CIDS (and notice the Gatling CIDS on one of the ships as well) had to take out 99+% of the ships in one round. 

 

Still, if the CIDS are that good when massed like so (and at only 10 tons per Laser CID, you can pile up a lot of them quite cheaply as a nice balance to Fighter/Drone using races), it still does not explain all the additional rounds of damage inflicted on the enemy ships.  It's almost as if somehow, in some way, the number of SF's got so low that the remainder could not be shot down, despite all the CIDS.  Shades of the force, there were several Lukes out there, weaving and bobbing around all the fire, still attacking the enemy.    :angry:    This is the one thing I really want answered.  If Point Defense losses are Linear (per Pete), and if I did lose a huge amount of fighters in round 1 .. then why did Point Defense seem to stop working after round 1?

 

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Actually we'd be surprised if the losses to Fleet PD were 'linear'. We re-read and are not sure that the Pete Oracle was answering that bit.....

 

Like weapons can be degraded by being fired from the wrong range by a maximum of 90%, ie leaving an irreducible 10%, perhaps we could assume that other things act similarly.

 

So, let's make some, possibly reasonable, SWAGs...

 

"Fighters are better than Missiles" - so let us give them a Missile Strength of 2,000 each.

 

However, let's assume both that the 60% CIDS tonnage on the Dog Meats provided 90% defense too. Also the Fleet PD knocked down 90% of the total FS too....

 

So, in Round 1 - 1500 SFs @ 10% would be 1500x2000x0.1 = 300,000 resulting missile strength - divided by 15 (nice round number) leaves 15 globs of 20,000..

 

This would mean that 15 (actually 14) Dog Meats were atomized... :angry:

 

However, the Fleet PD destroyed 90% of the SFs, leaving only 150....

 

So, on Round 2 the resulting Missile Strength per glob would be - 2,000.... :oops:

 

Now this is obviously too high as some more of the Dog Meats would have been taken out, but the idea is there.

 

The point being that, assuming that 1 x SF remained until the bitter end (a minimum) the lowest Missile strength would have been 1x2000x0.1 = 200.

 

Now 200/14 =~15 per target. Even 15 damage on a 800 Integrity target could result in "Minor Damage"...

 

So, we don't know what the Missile Strength of the SFs is to help us....

 

And we don't know that "Standard Attack" actually means a 50/50 split between Missile Strength and PD (which for the word 'Standard' may be reasonably substituted). If that 2000 SWAG is at 50% and down to 1000 - then the figures above are closer and more reasonable.....

 

More SWAGs from the War College..... :cheers:

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

 

PS Pete,

 

There are lots of things to do, but please could we just have a list of the Fighter and Drone options with the splits between Missile Attack & PD covered? And, whilst it would be great to have the Missile Strengths from Fighters and Drones in the Battle Reports, could we just be told that F&Ds are, ton for ton, twice, thrice or more as good as ordinary missiles - then we'd know.....?

 

If we could then have a simple answer as to what the Defense numerics in the reports mean and what are the design ranges of the various missile types, then we wouldn't need anything else at all.....(this last one would be an even better additon to the ANZs...) - Mx

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Actually we'd be surprised if the losses to Fleet PD were 'linear'. We re-read and are not sure that the Pete Oracle was answering that bit.....

 

It depends on how you define linear. Pete did say the statement was correct. Losses are linear with Point defense being recalculated each round so whilst your numbers may be off, I think your point about how it works is valid. :angry:

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Actually we'd be surprised if the losses to Fleet PD were 'linear'. We re-read and are not sure that the Pete Oracle was answering that bit.....

 

It depends on how you define linear. Pete did say the statement was correct. Losses are linear with Point defense being recalculated each round so whilst your numbers may be off, I think your point about how it works is valid. :angry:

 

:oops:

 

Hmmm...

 

Linear we took to mean a straight relationship - so much CIDS strength would knock down so many fighters - ie, something like 500 per round, or some such....

 

As opposed to proportional, which would be a percentage coverage...

 

Indeed there is another question that springs to mind! :cheers:

 

One might reasonably assume that fighters that are not launched, or who are on PD duties, are not elligible to be targets by the enemy Fleet PD???????

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

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CIDS dish out a certain amount of damage to fighters and fighters can take a certain amount of pounding before they blow. AS CIDS get better they are more accurate and dish out more damage. As fighters get better they get bigger and more durable which makes them doubly hard to kill.

 

:angry:

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Don't forget that the Fighter Bays themselves have firepower.  :angry:

 

Excuse me?? :cheers: The description of a fighter bay is "A 10,000-ton, self-contained fighter bay used to operate all fighter variations. The bay provides the necessary launch & recovery, maintenance and support facilities to handle up to 10,000 tons of fighters. Crew berthing & support space is also included as part of the bay." If this description (or the analyze blurb) has been changed in some way to include added information, it's news to me. The Apshai leader has been known to nod off during govermental briefings and miss a few things here and there :oops: .But a fighter bay providing firepower would be a true revelation ... and would explain everything.

 

Pete, is this correct?

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Linear we took to mean a straight relationship - so much CIDS strength would knock down so many fighters - ie, something like 500 per round, or some such....

 

As opposed to proportional, which would be a percentage coverage...

 

Percentage coverage could be defined as a linear relationship.

 

I would define linear as any relationship that fit y=ax+b but others may have a different definition.

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Linear we took to mean a straight relationship - so much CIDS strength would knock down so many fighters - ie, something like 500 per round, or some such....

 

As opposed to proportional, which would be a percentage coverage...

 

Percentage coverage could be defined as a linear relationship.

 

I would define linear as any relationship that fit y=ax+b but others may have a different definition.

 

Yes, in which case 'y' would be fighters lost and 'x' would be CIDS firepower.....

 

What we're suggesting is that fighters lost is also a function of fighters remaining - ie non-linear......

 

Chief Mathematician to Ur-Lord Tedric

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Excuse me??  The description of a fighter bay is "A 10,000-ton, self-contained fighter bay used to operate all fighter variations. The bay provides the necessary launch & recovery, maintenance and support facilities to handle up to 10,000 tons of fighters. Crew berthing & support space is also included as part of the bay." If this description (or the analyze blurb) has been changed in some way to include added information, it's news to me. The Apshai leader has been known to nod off during govermental briefings and miss a few things here and there  .But a fighter bay providing firepower would be a true revelation ... and would explain everything

 

I'd have to go back, but I'm positive that Pete had posted this in one of his missives somewhere. I remember because I was a little suprised to hear it. Although, the more I thought about it, it would make sense for a Fighter bay to have some defensive weaponry to protect the bay. :angry:

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QUOTE(ali-t-akua @ Mar 30 2005, 05:40 AM)

QUOTE

Linear we took to mean a straight relationship - so much CIDS strength would knock down so many fighters - ie, something like 500 per round, or some such....

 

As opposed to proportional, which would be a percentage coverage...

 

 

Percentage coverage could be defined as a linear relationship.

 

I would define linear as any relationship that fit y=ax+b but others may have a different definition.

*

 

 

 

Yes, in which case 'y' would be fighters lost and 'x' would be CIDS firepower.....

 

What we're suggesting is that fighters lost is also a function of fighters remaining - ie non-linear......

 

Actually y is fighters lost, x is fighters remaining at the beginning of the round and a is CIDS firepower so this is still a linear function.

 

(OOC: BTW for any mathematicians out there I realize that I have chosen a very narrow definition of linear and that y=f(x) where x is a continuous function is a broader definition.)

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Excuse me??  The description of a fighter bay is "A 10,000-ton, self-contained fighter bay used to operate all fighter variations. The bay provides the necessary launch & recovery, maintenance and support facilities to handle up to 10,000 tons of fighters. Crew berthing & support space is also included as part of the bay." If this description (or the analyze blurb) has been changed in some way to include added information, it's news to me. The Apshai leader has been known to nod off during govermental briefings and miss a few things here and there  .But a fighter bay providing firepower would be a true revelation ... and would explain everything

 

I'd have to go back, but I'm positive that Pete had posted this in one of his missives somewhere. I remember because I was a little suprised to hear it. Although, the more I thought about it, it would make sense for a Fighter bay to have some defensive weaponry to protect the bay. :angry:

 

Could you be thinking of the original comment when weapon strengths on a ton-for-ton basis being equal was being discussed?

 

i.e. because fighters can be lost, their relative firepower per ton, 'including the fighter bay', is greater than the equivalent tonnage of missiles?

 

e.g. 20,000 tons of Mk III Standard Missiles has less missile firepower than 100 Strike Fighters (10,000 tons + 10,000 tons of the fighter bay to hold them).....

 

M2CW

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

 

PS This would mean that fighters/drones would have to be at least twice as powerful as the equivalent pure missile. Which would be a reasonable tradeoff for the initial punch, but woebetide you if the enemy has CIDS and you don't destroy him with that first wave.....

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Actually y is fighters lost, x is fighters remaining at the beginning of the round and a is CIDS firepower so this is still a linear function.

 

(OOC: BTW for any mathematicians out there I realize that I have chosen a very narrow definition of linear and that y=f(x) where x is a continuous function is a broader definition.)

We always heard y=mx+b, but yes, that is the definition of a line. y=f(x) could just as easily define an asymptotic curve as a line, so it doesn't sound very linear to us.

Then again, we use base 3 mathematics, so what do we know?

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