
- Posts: 82
- Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:55 am
Topic has gone off topic, but oh well. So I'm going to weigh in with my opinion here, as someone who plays Shaltari, and PHR, has corvettes in both, and amy's. And has played against a whole lot of factions. I'm not going to get in to the "who's played more games" argument, but rather, I'm going to provide some more maths, and a little bit of suggestions:
I am going to make some assumptions to make my points easier, We all understand what a R-Squared value is, and how it correlates to average rolls and that everyone's dice rolls differently, so your perceived average may be higher or lower, I've experienced both god tier rolling, and games where I get nothing above 3.
First the suggestions, You're mis-comparing and mis-using the two ships, as this has become a running comparison of the djinn and the amy's with the odd "look at corvette x' here and there. First things first, the Djinn, Scald, SCALD SCALD. Have I made my point? probably, have I elaborated, well lets do that now. The Djinn has scald, which means that it's capable of 'hitting up' or as we tend to call it "Uppercutting" Its job is to kill something bigger than it, and probably die doing it. Most of the scourge players I've played with/against use the Djinn to finish off/start/cripple big, high priority targets often ones with huge armor saves, EG, Battleships. For those who want to argue about PD and such, I'm assuming they are working in groups of 4, 4d6+8, Yeah, PD my rectum.
Amy's however, are built with 2 jobs in mind. Eliminating key assets (Strike carriers, fleet carriers ect) and waving a big middle finger at Jakarta's. I don't have to argue about PD, but If I took a group of 4 Amy's (firstly it'd be more expensive than the Djinn's and secondly it'd take up more slots) I would expect to be able to kill 1 key target, and maybe put the hurt on 1 or 2 others. the other thing to note, is that unlike Djinn's they don't have a 'back up' weapon or 'closing weapon' that can still be useful. Comparing them to go 'look at the numbers' is all well and good, but take a moment to consider what you are using them for.
Right, Next thing People keep throwing around averages, and other people keep going "yeah well your average is wrong because I can do incidental tests" This is a logical fallacy on BOTH sides. The first is the people going 'look at my average' this is called the fallacy of averages, The fallacy of the average is based on the false notion that the effect of a thing averaged out on a large scale is equivalent to an effect of the same thing on a small scale. A good example of this is this: Should rain start to fall in the atlantic ocean, where each drop falls will have no effect, However, what if a single drop of rain was to fall in to the mains circuit of the local radio control system for a airport? While yes, averages are a fantastic tool to compare and contrast things over a long term, One cannot discount the level of significance that comes from the chance of variation from the average. Ok, to those of you going "Your average is wrong because I can do Incidental tests" The fallacy you are performing is called "black Swan, White crow" you are going "ah ha! because I have found 1 black swan that means you're suggestion that most swans are white is wrong" Or equally "because I have bread 12 white crows Your supposition that on average crows are black is a lie!"
When you are judging ships on levels of power, You need to judge them on not what is the 'average' but on what the COULD do.
I'm going to break each ship down as best I can to compare them and score each ship individually, then I will compare damages with r-squared calculated, To save myself the effort of re-calculating a lot of things, I am going to ignore point defence and armor, because those two variables are way to high. you could have everything from 0 PD up to (highest in my games ever seen) 40. I am only calculating 'potential damage output' rather than 'actual damage taken' because once you know the potential output, you can calculate the 'damage taken' against anything you want.
I will also not judge them in a group, Only on a 1 to 1 basis to save myself time.
Also, The scoring is not going to 'value' each advantage, this is a Empirical comparison,
Let us begin,
Scan: Amy, 12, Djinn 6. Amy has a higher scan, 1 point to Amy
Sig: Amy, 2/12, Djinn 3, I have to give this one to the Amy, as on approach a low sig is useful.
Thrust: 12, and 12, Draw.
Hull, 4 and 4. Draw once again.
Armor: 5/4 and 5, I'm going to give this one ot the Djinn because to get that 4, the Amy has to take a huge sig boost.
PD, 6 for the Amy, and 4 for the Djinn. Amy gets a point.
Gropuing, Amy gets 1-2, Djinn gets 2-6, Djinn wins this, hands down.
3 'points' to the Amy, 2 'points' to the Djinn. at least for now. Weapons we are doing differently.
Lets start with the Amy. 1d3+1, at 3+ dealing 1 damage per attack. That will average out at about 3 attacks, with 2 hitting, for 2 damage. Now, That is your 'average' To account for statistical anomalies (or as our Black swan/White Crow friend would call them 'real rolls') we can take a RNG and tell it to generate for me, 400,000 dice rolls of a 1d3+1, Plot them on a graph, with a average of 3, and then ask 'what is the R-squared of this graph' The short answer is, high (somewhere about 0.8). You're maximum variation on EACH INDIVIDUAL amy is very low. I won't do it for hits, mostly because what we're looking at here is the percentage chance of an amy rolling 4 attacks vs it rolling 2 attacks and how much that impacts the gameplay over a huge amount of rolls.
So, to those of you going 'but mah real rolls' What this says is: for volume of attacks Amethysts are low, but reliable.
doing the same to Djinn d6+2 doing 1 damage each, with scald at lock 3. we can ignore scald. so, we get the PC to roll 400,000 d6+2, and we say our average is 5, We get a WAY lower R-squared (about 0.6 or so), so on 'average' we output more damage, But it is a more swingy weapon. You are less likely to do average, but on average you will ALWAYS do higher than the Amy.
Points to the Djinn for its weapon.
Arc's can go fuck themselves, because if you can't get the enemy in to a F/S arc you shouldn't be playing dropfleet.
Right, R-squared for people who can't math, R-squared is the likelihood of the next number on the graph falling within the average values given, at least in this case, What we want is a High R-squared and a high average attack, a weapon with a R-squared of 1, will ALWAYS do average damage, a good example of this is the diamonds particle triad, about 99% of the time, it will do a minimum of 3 damage, the lower the R-squared value, the more likely the weapon is to do a non-average amount of damage (Not specifically lower, or higher, just not average) A very good example of this are the UCM's BTL's, with a R-squared of something like 0.30, or Torpedos, with the lowest R-squared in the entire game.
However! The Djinn has its 'closing' weapon, which while puny is still a further increase in its firepower, meaning that over-all the Djinn just edges out the Amy in overall capability, mathematically at least. So, why take the Amy at this point? Probably because people are scared shitless of shaltari and will scream and whine whenever the Shaltari get anything interesting or unusual to play with. but when something of theirs is so crap it never see's the light of day no one bats a eyelid (I'm looking at you Aquamarines!). And Amethysts are the epitome of this. So people make rash, unwise decisions that impact their gameplay when they see a Amy CAW pack blazing down their gullet. Stay cool, think carefully and execute key targets. Its like chess, or risk, A calm head, a good grasp of the mechanics, and a fundamental understanding basic physics and geometry will lend you victory. (Unless you play with Jades or Shaltari Light cruisers, or any non-heavy particle ship, in which case prepare your anus)
I am going to make some assumptions to make my points easier, We all understand what a R-Squared value is, and how it correlates to average rolls and that everyone's dice rolls differently, so your perceived average may be higher or lower, I've experienced both god tier rolling, and games where I get nothing above 3.
First the suggestions, You're mis-comparing and mis-using the two ships, as this has become a running comparison of the djinn and the amy's with the odd "look at corvette x' here and there. First things first, the Djinn, Scald, SCALD SCALD. Have I made my point? probably, have I elaborated, well lets do that now. The Djinn has scald, which means that it's capable of 'hitting up' or as we tend to call it "Uppercutting" Its job is to kill something bigger than it, and probably die doing it. Most of the scourge players I've played with/against use the Djinn to finish off/start/cripple big, high priority targets often ones with huge armor saves, EG, Battleships. For those who want to argue about PD and such, I'm assuming they are working in groups of 4, 4d6+8, Yeah, PD my rectum.
Amy's however, are built with 2 jobs in mind. Eliminating key assets (Strike carriers, fleet carriers ect) and waving a big middle finger at Jakarta's. I don't have to argue about PD, but If I took a group of 4 Amy's (firstly it'd be more expensive than the Djinn's and secondly it'd take up more slots) I would expect to be able to kill 1 key target, and maybe put the hurt on 1 or 2 others. the other thing to note, is that unlike Djinn's they don't have a 'back up' weapon or 'closing weapon' that can still be useful. Comparing them to go 'look at the numbers' is all well and good, but take a moment to consider what you are using them for.
Right, Next thing People keep throwing around averages, and other people keep going "yeah well your average is wrong because I can do incidental tests" This is a logical fallacy on BOTH sides. The first is the people going 'look at my average' this is called the fallacy of averages, The fallacy of the average is based on the false notion that the effect of a thing averaged out on a large scale is equivalent to an effect of the same thing on a small scale. A good example of this is this: Should rain start to fall in the atlantic ocean, where each drop falls will have no effect, However, what if a single drop of rain was to fall in to the mains circuit of the local radio control system for a airport? While yes, averages are a fantastic tool to compare and contrast things over a long term, One cannot discount the level of significance that comes from the chance of variation from the average. Ok, to those of you going "Your average is wrong because I can do Incidental tests" The fallacy you are performing is called "black Swan, White crow" you are going "ah ha! because I have found 1 black swan that means you're suggestion that most swans are white is wrong" Or equally "because I have bread 12 white crows Your supposition that on average crows are black is a lie!"
When you are judging ships on levels of power, You need to judge them on not what is the 'average' but on what the COULD do.
I'm going to break each ship down as best I can to compare them and score each ship individually, then I will compare damages with r-squared calculated, To save myself the effort of re-calculating a lot of things, I am going to ignore point defence and armor, because those two variables are way to high. you could have everything from 0 PD up to (highest in my games ever seen) 40. I am only calculating 'potential damage output' rather than 'actual damage taken' because once you know the potential output, you can calculate the 'damage taken' against anything you want.
I will also not judge them in a group, Only on a 1 to 1 basis to save myself time.
Also, The scoring is not going to 'value' each advantage, this is a Empirical comparison,
Let us begin,
Scan: Amy, 12, Djinn 6. Amy has a higher scan, 1 point to Amy
Sig: Amy, 2/12, Djinn 3, I have to give this one to the Amy, as on approach a low sig is useful.
Thrust: 12, and 12, Draw.
Hull, 4 and 4. Draw once again.
Armor: 5/4 and 5, I'm going to give this one ot the Djinn because to get that 4, the Amy has to take a huge sig boost.
PD, 6 for the Amy, and 4 for the Djinn. Amy gets a point.
Gropuing, Amy gets 1-2, Djinn gets 2-6, Djinn wins this, hands down.
3 'points' to the Amy, 2 'points' to the Djinn. at least for now. Weapons we are doing differently.
Lets start with the Amy. 1d3+1, at 3+ dealing 1 damage per attack. That will average out at about 3 attacks, with 2 hitting, for 2 damage. Now, That is your 'average' To account for statistical anomalies (or as our Black swan/White Crow friend would call them 'real rolls') we can take a RNG and tell it to generate for me, 400,000 dice rolls of a 1d3+1, Plot them on a graph, with a average of 3, and then ask 'what is the R-squared of this graph' The short answer is, high (somewhere about 0.8). You're maximum variation on EACH INDIVIDUAL amy is very low. I won't do it for hits, mostly because what we're looking at here is the percentage chance of an amy rolling 4 attacks vs it rolling 2 attacks and how much that impacts the gameplay over a huge amount of rolls.
So, to those of you going 'but mah real rolls' What this says is: for volume of attacks Amethysts are low, but reliable.
doing the same to Djinn d6+2 doing 1 damage each, with scald at lock 3. we can ignore scald. so, we get the PC to roll 400,000 d6+2, and we say our average is 5, We get a WAY lower R-squared (about 0.6 or so), so on 'average' we output more damage, But it is a more swingy weapon. You are less likely to do average, but on average you will ALWAYS do higher than the Amy.
Points to the Djinn for its weapon.
Arc's can go fuck themselves, because if you can't get the enemy in to a F/S arc you shouldn't be playing dropfleet.
Right, R-squared for people who can't math, R-squared is the likelihood of the next number on the graph falling within the average values given, at least in this case, What we want is a High R-squared and a high average attack, a weapon with a R-squared of 1, will ALWAYS do average damage, a good example of this is the diamonds particle triad, about 99% of the time, it will do a minimum of 3 damage, the lower the R-squared value, the more likely the weapon is to do a non-average amount of damage (Not specifically lower, or higher, just not average) A very good example of this are the UCM's BTL's, with a R-squared of something like 0.30, or Torpedos, with the lowest R-squared in the entire game.
However! The Djinn has its 'closing' weapon, which while puny is still a further increase in its firepower, meaning that over-all the Djinn just edges out the Amy in overall capability, mathematically at least. So, why take the Amy at this point? Probably because people are scared shitless of shaltari and will scream and whine whenever the Shaltari get anything interesting or unusual to play with. but when something of theirs is so crap it never see's the light of day no one bats a eyelid (I'm looking at you Aquamarines!). And Amethysts are the epitome of this. So people make rash, unwise decisions that impact their gameplay when they see a Amy CAW pack blazing down their gullet. Stay cool, think carefully and execute key targets. Its like chess, or risk, A calm head, a good grasp of the mechanics, and a fundamental understanding basic physics and geometry will lend you victory. (Unless you play with Jades or Shaltari Light cruisers, or any non-heavy particle ship, in which case prepare your anus)