The Great Tracking Nerf v0.1

[Mike deVoid]

But is it?

Neutron Blaster Cannon II
Signature Resolution 400m

Antimatter Charge L
Volume 0.025m3

Assuming the charge is cyclindrical, volume = pi() * radius^2 * height. For the charge to have a radius of 400m it would need to have a height of 0.00000004973592 m, or 49.73 nm.
(even if you assume 400m = diameter and so a 200m radius, you still get 198 nm).

[Mike deVoid]

Mike I think that ^ in my formula should be a * because I am bad at math ha.

Well, yes bad at math but I fixed it up from your:

e(signature) = max(0, sigRes - sigRadius)/sigRes ^ (min(1,range/10km))

to

e(signature) = (max(0, sigRes - sigRadius)/(sigRadius * (min(1,10km/range)))^a

You can still make (a) into 1 for the same effect as you intended.

Google docs version incoming.

Edit: a limitation of your formula is that you get no benefit to a small sig radius inside of 10km.

[Sponk]

That might be ok. Stops battleships blapping frigates at 30km but once they're in point range they are just as vulnerable as before


Blah blah blah tapatalk

[Mike deVoid]

Well what range to BS engage titans at?

[Shin_getter]

An effect of a change of this kind would mean that monofleets consisting of large hulls only would have large gaping defensive holes against small targets. And as such would lead to fleet diversity.

I don't think you can talk about the immediate effect of a change without considering the different choices FCs will want to make about fleet composition.

After thinking about it for a little bit, I don't think "fleet diversity" is a universal good.

An effective fleet doctrine is limited not by ship balancing, but player skill points, logistics, player organization what not. Monofleets exist because pilots simply can not fly everything and plans must be made so that some kind of universal ship type can be spammed with decent effectiveness. Every kind of new specialist ship required for effective fleet operations means greater bias toward high sp players (that can fly more things) and simply less fleets formed because of unfilled holes which may result in cancelling ops. Getting a "balanced" fleet with 15% tackle frigates, 25% hac, 10% bc, 10% BS, 20% logi, 5% recons, 15% capitals together without a bunch of pilots left out or flying underpowered ships (eg. capital pilots in a rifter) is simply much harder then the everyone train mael and logi + handful of support concept.

That said, because of this precise organizational problem, I'd expect things like in field refitting small railgun abaddons, dominix blobs or pure carriers (and drakes, more drakes) before I see the death of monofleets.

And that is at a fleet level. Small gang and solo pvp is heavily dependent on "all purpose" combat ships that can handle most situations with minimum support. With harder counter systems, a number of ships is going to be gone from common use due to huge engagement holes, and meeting between scout enabled groups can result in even less fighting then today, as two sides are more commonly mismatched on the ship counter scale.

The optimal point for ship versatility for the health of the game is a largely unexplored question.....

[Sponk]

Well what range to BS engage titans at?

within 10km, you likely have enough transversal (unless there's titans 10km in each direction, in which case checkmate)

If there's titans @ 10km and another bunch of titans @ 90km, you'll be safe from them; the close ones because you're orbiting them, and the long ones because they're too inaccurate at that range.

[Shin_getter]

Webs and TP from supports if you are that close to a titan?

[Sponk]

Webs and TP from supports if you are that close to a titan?

still valid tactics. Regardless, short-range Titans aren't the ones causing the rage.

Titans warp in @ 50km+, since they're trying to keep the transversal of their targets as low as possible.

If they're shooting stuff at 10km, they'll need 7x the tracking that they'd need at 70km (possibly more, because : sponk math : )

[Mike deVoid]

Google spreadsheet version here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...kxoUHBJVUJZZFE

To save me having to make a backup each time I update it, just go to File > Make a copy so you have your own version to dick around with.

Sponk, I've made a chart for your's too, but I'll make it better in the next 30 minutes so that it is easier to read.

[Sponk]

cool. I'll take a look at it when not delirious with fatigue

[Mike deVoid]

Updated now. For yours I have several typical sigRad/sigRes ratios (XL on F, XL on BS, L on BS, etc) and the max chance to hit as range increases. You version is pretty harsh, your max chance-to-hit is less than my bas rate for each rad/res ratio.

[RoemySchneider]

the principle is fine, just like all the other concepts that are based on mine.

but they all have the same (little) flaw: what about MWDs [and (buckets of) painters]?




once every ship has a -50% mwd bloom bonus and the highly-anticipated ship/slot rebalance allows dual-prop for everyone, it's less of an issue ofc -.-

I have included ships with MWD bloom in my spreadsheet (if you can't see the combo it's because it ends up above 100% of the gun sig res). But yeah, I'd like to include the effects of painters. Also the minmatar sig links.

errr that's great...?
i don't mind the sheet; i can interpret formulas well enough without it ^^

my trouble is with the formula itself, not doing anything for MWDs - just like mine was. and since this suggestion is derived from my work, it has the same flaw.

but maybe a picture can demonstrate it a lil better:
this is a shield cane (2x TEs) shooting a 4418m/s vigil (ship's bonus to speed @ V , plus the two 'usual' speed imps - alas, a med shield extender though)
red is the current formula, blue is yours

if you're wondering where red is, it's right under the blue one as they're exactly the same.

... because the MWD makes a shield-BC out of that vigil (328m). once webbed, even large guns will remain to have very little trouble and it only gets worse with non-minmatar hulls -.-

and as long as MWDing drakes can catch ABing frigs, the former module will pmuch remain mandatory.




now... i'm not saying we should all stop thinking about this signature business. but, alas, before we can hope for any such change, we'll have to alter MWDs first.
we may have to "nerf" them to *3speed & *3signature so a frig 'merely' becomes a cruiser - but even then there'll be no change in the graph as we're still looking at medium guns shooting a 'medium' signature - albeit with roughly half the current speed

[Shin_getter]

Hmm, if what you really wanted to do is change titans, it might be better to add a lower limit on relative velocity then mess with subcaps at the same time.


0.5^( (1/tracking)*(sig res/sig rad)*(MINIMUM(traversal, minimum tracking constant)/range))^2 + (MAXIMUM(0, range-optimal)/falloff)^2)

Beats having to rebalance EVERY turret ship because people whines about titans.
---

I don't think we should touch subcap turrets until we have a clear statement of the problem. (not enough frigates? not enough sig tanking from ahac/t3? too much BS fleets? too much BC fleets? )

[Mike deVoid]

... because the MWD makes a shield-BC out of that vigil (328m). once webbed, even large guns will remain to have very little trouble and it only gets worse with non-minmatar hulls -.-

and as long as MWDing drakes can catch ABing frigs, the former module will pmuch remain mandatory.



now... i'm not saying we should all stop thinking about this signature business. but, alas, before we can hope for any such change, we'll have to alter MWDs first.
we may have to "nerf" them to *3speed & *3signature so a frig 'merely' becomes a cruiser - but even then there'll be no change in the graph as we're still looking at medium guns shooting a 'medium' signature - albeit with roughly half the current speed

Actually, this is the bit that you needed to mention - now I totally understand where you are coming from. Although it's worth saying that the suggested change doesn't nerf frigs vs BCs, it just doesn't benefit them.. when they fit MWDs. But it does diminish DPS by half when they don't. And when should a t1 frig do well against a t1 BC?

I do agree that there are other areas that feed into this - a simple formula change isn't enough to fix all issues because it would be nice to see a balance pass on the sigRes of guns, and even the sigRad of ships and how that balances against a new formula. A balance change that gets away from the simplistic 5*speed and 5*sigRad at all MN levels.

[Mike deVoid]

Also, your formula Roemy, doesn't deal with high hit-to-chance as tranversal approaches zero. So to call your formula the same as the one I posted is disingenuous.

[prometheus]

This would result in AFs, HACs, & T3s being woefully overpowering against larger targets.
Even moreso when aided by Logistics and/or any form of ewar.

An effect of a change of this kind would mean that monofleets consisting of large hulls only would have large gaping defensive holes against small targets. And as such would lead to fleet diversity.
I don't think you can talk about the immediate effect of a change without considering the different choices FCs will want to make about fleet composition.

I guarantee you that is not what would happen.
In todays game, the performance difference between battleships and high-grade medium hulls is so negligible that you don't NEED to swap out for smaller ships.
Battleships would become (more than they already are) relics of the past, used for nothing but POS-bashing. Even the PVE side would suffer horribly because now these battleships can't hit the cruisers/frigates.
T3/CS/HACs would suddenly gain the only real advantage that BS have (ehp) through sig tanking, while doing the same amount of damage with great speed/tracking/agility.

There's also the flipside, in that, as long as the ships CAN hit people will just bring MORE to do the job (ie: Maelstroms).
Someone needing to bring a few Huginns/Lokis means absolutely nothing.

[RoemySchneider]

it's been a while since i posted formulas of mine; which one would you be referring to...?

the one i used in the graph was yours vs the current one. for any signature > gunres, they are the very same: the middle bracket collapses to 0, the min in the first bracket returns the same old res/sig blah.

yes, it would help stuff that's _not_ MWDing - against bigger guns. considering contemporary pvp, i guess the most prominent target group are guardians, and aHACs to some degree; as i'm sure you're not suggesting frigs should turn theirs off, be it at 20km or inside web range





as for the "t1 frig 'doing well' against a BC" thing... that's exactly the crust we wish to break (although some seem to be interested solely in a nerf to titans' blapping capabilities while perfectly happy with everything non-frig pmuch doing similar -.-). with that double standard out of the way, ending up at a fair "one pilot, one ship" premise is inevitable with every ship standing equal chances unless faced with a natural predator. simply "being bigger" must not be the defining factor. a frig should be hit from a bs just as badly as from another frig.

that said, maybe the 'new' sig considerations are better applied to the actual dmg rather than hit chance [thereby working more like missiles]. here we could use stock values for a ship's sig, too: hit chance has already calced speed vs bloom

[OrangeAfroMan]

the principle is fine, just like all the other concepts that are based on mine.

but they all have the same (little) flaw: what about MWDs [and (buckets of) painters]?




once every ship has a -50% mwd bloom bonus and the highly-anticipated ship/slot rebalance allows dual-prop for everyone, it's less of an issue ofc -.-

Target Painters stack against each other, and are pretty much worthless compared to webs atm. A boost to TPs and making someone think before using their MWD is a good thing.

[Kerc Kasha]

This would result in AFs, HACs, & T3s being woefully overpowering against larger targets.
Even moreso when aided by Logistics and/or any form of ewar.

An effect of a change of this kind would mean that monofleets consisting of large hulls only would have large gaping defensive holes against small targets. And as such would lead to fleet diversity.
I don't think you can talk about the immediate effect of a change without considering the different choices FCs will want to make about fleet composition.

I guarantee you that is not what would happen.
In todays game, the performance difference between battleships and high-grade medium hulls is so negligible that you don't NEED to swap out for smaller ships.
Battleships would become (more than they already are) relics of the past, used for nothing but POS-bashing. Even the PVE side would suffer horribly because now these battleships can't hit the cruisers/frigates.
T3/CS/HACs would suddenly gain the only real advantage that BS have (ehp) through sig tanking, while doing the same amount of damage with great speed/tracking/agility.

There's also the flipside, in that, as long as the ships CAN hit people will just bring MORE to do the job (ie: Maelstroms).
Someone needing to bring a few Huginns/Lokis means absolutely nothing.

Judging by the rest of the thread I think the change intends(and does) to fix the long range accuracy of larger ships rather than the short range one(which will behave exactly as it does now).

[Cue1*]

Redoing tracking because Titans blap subcaps sounds more to me cutting ones nose off to spite the face tbh.

Also I don't fundamentally understand why a massive gun fired at an immobile target wouldn't just obliterate it. Why would it miss?

I do agree with Sponk's hypothesis though that the formula is currently a bit broken in so much as it doesn't sufficiently factor in how much smaller things become at greater ranges. A tachyon Nightmare for example won't miss anything at 80km, even frigates.

The concept for why a massive gun would sometimes miss a small target is that you imagine the gun Sig res as a dartboard and the target Sig radius as the size of the bullseye. Only a hit to the bullseye counts as a hit. Big gun, small target means that the dart will not always hit the the bullseye. Equal or bigger target than the gun and you cant miss until the target has some transversal and pulls some of the bullseye out of the dartboard.

Except the big gun is firing a dart that is as big as the dartboard and then some. Does it still miss?

The dart board is the maximum amount of drift the round fired can move. Even the most accurate guns still have drift in them. As the round get larger, the amount of drift the round can have also gets larger.