Hit chance vs reduced damage

posted on October 17th, 2010, 12:56 pm

I am not quite sure which on is the more powerful effect. I somehow always had the feeling that Torpedo ships are much more devasting in numbers than any Pulses available.

Does anyone have a math (other than average damage) that can explain the effect better?

posted on October 17th, 2010, 2:28 pm

The ODF's show it  . Other than that, you can check the modding guide for the appropriate information .

The Database will also include a new automatic calculation system which may help on that end too.

posted on October 17th, 2010, 3:30 pm

In very very small numbers of shots, torpedoes are variable and may hit all the time or none for several shots.
The torp percentage hits come closer to the theoretical probability as the number of torps shot increases, so torps are more predictable when there's a lot of them.

Overall, there is no real difference. The most likely reason the torps seem stronger is that you're paying attention to the shots that hit, and torps that hit do full damage.
Torp ships are usually higher offense than pulse ships, as they are higher in the tech tree.
Torp ships are longer range in most cases too.

posted on October 17th, 2010, 3:37 pm

What I mean is that once you reach a critical number of torps you dont have to bother with miss chances. Your torps hit often and do full damage and take out ships faster...thats at least what I think makes them better in comparison.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on October 17th, 2010, 3:50 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on October 17th, 2010, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Having a bunch of torps does not make them all hit. Same percentage chance.
Maybe you mean that some of them almost certainly will hit since it's so unlikely they all miss.

Miss chances still effect your fleet's power significantly, watch them attack an equally large number of small ships with near equal range and stats (or torp spam vs. Vutpa if you really want to see super miss chances in action.) You'll see the small ships win because they are taking less damage. You'll also see many torps fly off into space.

If the enemy keeps running away, then of course critical mass is going to help you, but against small ships a critical mass of pulses or beams will do better.

posted on October 17th, 2010, 3:52 pm

Torpedoes and Pulses do approximately the same base damage. Torpedoes just do 20% more damage to large ships, and Pulses do 20% more damage to small ships. That's the only difference other than what Nebula stated  ^-^

posted on October 17th, 2010, 3:53 pm

the thing with pulses is that there is no probability involved, they always do 20% less damage to medium, and 40% less to large. always.

with torps, its possible but unlikely that they will do 100% damage to a small. the more torp ships you have, the closer to 40% reduced damage against smalls you will get.

torps are luck based. its also possible every torp will miss and u will never do damage.

posted on October 17th, 2010, 7:21 pm

the thing with pulses is that there is no probability involved, they always do 20% less damage to medium, and 40% less to large. always.

  Kinda nice to have both options, ya? 


  1 is assured.  1 is luck.  Over a long period of time the total damage dealt by pulses will be the same.  Over time the total damage dealt by torpedoes will be about the same.  That's the law of probability for you

posted on October 17th, 2010, 7:35 pm

aye its more interessting to have different mechanics

posted on October 17th, 2010, 7:56 pm

  Kinda nice to have both options, ya? 


  1 is assured.  1 is luck.  Over a long period of time the total damage dealt by pulses will be the same.  Over time the total damage dealt by torpedoes will be about the same.  That's the law of probability for you

indeed, i agree with everything you say, i was merely pointing out the difference in mechanics.

[Tryptic]

posted on October 18th, 2010, 2:22 am

Last edited by Tryptic on October 18th, 2010, 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well one thing you want to look at is the amount of damage that ships do with different guns.

For example, the Norexan has beam and pulse weapons, but if you check the actual damage it's like 3/4 pulse damage and only 1/4 beam.  The D'Deridex has beam and torp damage, with its beams doing more than the torps.

Similarly, a sphere with a torp module still does more damage with its beam, a tactical cube does way more with torps than beams...

Oh and you know the Cehlaer has 3 guns, 2 of which are forward-firing only.  But the center beam, the one that can fire backwards, does like 2/3 of its damage.  On the other hand, E2's can fire their beams backward, but their forward-firing torps are like 3/4 of their damage.  I think almost all fed ships with beam/torp do more damage with their torps.

Finally, torps are effective against high HP targets like battleships and stations, which means you can fire at them for longer before they die.  If a bunch of pulses fire on a small ship, they may "Overkill" it and the extra shots are wasted.  It's harder for a large fleet of pulse-armed ships to apply full damage.  At the same time, it's easier to make a small one-hit-KO fleet of pulse ships than it is with torp ships.

EDIT: yes I just used the word "like" like a teenage girl.  This way I can get away with gross estimations and approximations done from memory without going back and actually checking the numbers.