Batteries - Groups - Splitting Targets

Hi guys,

Super new and still getting my head around things, but have a question I wanted to put up for confirmation.

Reading through the rules for weapon systems, it looks like you can target the different weapons on a single ship at different enemies, but each weapon must target a single enemy ship. So, for example, a PHR Theseus can target up to two enemy Frigates with it's two separate Light Calibre Batteries and two enemy Cruisers with it's two Medium Calibre Batteries ('though it can also hit those same two Frigates with the Mediums as well).

But with, for example, an Ajax with two Light Calibre Broadsides these must each target only one enemy ship. So the Ajax can target a maximum of three enemy targets (one on each side and one in the front narrow with it's Burnthrough) and could not split those Broadsides up to hit two enemy Frigates on one side of the ship with 6 dice each?

Now, with Groups this seems to become more complex. From what I'm reading it looks like you CAN combined the fire of ships in a Group to hit a single target but you aren't required to? So if I have a pair of Ajax together in a Group then I CAN fire their Light Calibre Broadsides at two different Frigates, OR I could fire them both together at a single target.

Is this all correct?

Sorry, I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future but this is the thing which is making me hang right now.

Yes. Everything you have correct

Yes. Everything you have correct

Ok, so there's no way to split up the 12 dice from the Broadside on an Ajax?
- that seems like a pretty significant limitation.

Yes. Everything you have correct

Ok, so there's no way to split up the 12 dice from the Broadside on an Ajax?
- that seems like a pretty significant limitation.

It is. On the other hand, unless you are firing at damaged frigates or firing at corvettes (in the same orbital layer), you rarely want to split the broadside anyways. It is better to be rather certain to take out your target than to damage two or three targets which then can all shoot back.

Yes. Everything you have correct

Ok, so there's no way to split up the 12 dice from the Broadside on an Ajax?
- that seems like a pretty significant limitation.

It is. On the other hand, unless you are firing at damaged frigates or firing at corvettes (in the same orbital layer), you rarely want to split the broadside anyways. It is better to be rather certain to take out your target than to damage two or three targets which then can all shoot back.

'eh, you say that but I think I'd rather fire 6 dice at two different Frigates and have a reasonable chance of both of them blowing up to catch their buddies rather than dropping 12 dice at 4+ on one and almost certainly turning it into a puff of vapour, but ending up with less overall risk of a runaway chain of explosions taking out an entire group.

I'm still playing around with my full probability calculator sheet (actually, I am doing that as we speak but I still have some way to go), so I don't have all the analysis tools I want at my disposal yet, but your chance of blowing up an undamage frigate with half a light calibre broadside is considerably smaller than intuition might tell you.

I can present you with a couple of numbers including the critical if I do a bit of calculation by hand giving me:

Light calibre broadside vs. UCM frigate: 79,5 % chance of destruction
Light calibre battery vs UCM frigate: 40,5 % chance of destruction

(Numbers are naturally worse against shaltari (shields) and PHR (they are actually horribly bad because of hull 5) and better against shaltari (no shields) and scourge.)

And by extension:

2 x light calibre batteries firing at two UCM frigates: 64,5 % chance of destroying at least one

So your best chances of destroying one - even if you had the option of splitting - would be to concentrate fire.

This changes dramatically with even a single point of damage suffered in the frigates (due to what I call "the crippling tax" - see http://www.linkedbroadsides.com/how-tough-are-the-ships-really) - but that is another and somewhat more complicated subject to get into.

Yeah, PHR Frigates are surprisingly a lot tougher than intuition suggests against a lot of weapons simply because of that one extra point of hull.

And, gosh darn, do Scourge melt away when you point weapons at them in the open void.

If you get a tool working for crunching the numbers I know I'd love to see the results (in a table or just the tool if you don't mind someone else playing with it).

It's interesting to see that the potential for "overkill" is less than the chance of failing to do sufficient damage. 'though I imagine that shifts pretty significantly if you catch a Shaltari without shields or a Scourge Frigate group.

I will share my final tool eventually. Like all the stuff I make for Dropfleet, I'd love to share so other people can build on my ideas. However, I am rather ambitious about what it should be able to handle, so it is some time away before it is fully finalized - I guess version one needs at least one full day of work yet, and that day is a couple of weeks into the future still. But all the main hurdles have been crunched (correct calculation of BTL weapon profiles was finalized today today).