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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 02, 2024, 01:48:09 PM »

Quote from: Garfunkel on April 02, 2024, 10:08:34 AM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 05:50:46 PM
you are still ignoring that time, research, design flexibility, maintenance supplies and weight saving is all something you also need to consider over time...
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 04:57:52 PM
Every little tech points will count, especially earlier on... I spend allot more time in the game at lower tech levels anyway. When you play with rather slow tech progression and restricted scientist labs you can be rather short on Missile/Kinetic scientists...
Jorgen, with all due respect, you are barking up the wrong tree here. The formula bean is showing in this thread is universal - the results are the same in every game, the specific details of your campaign/race/ship do not matter. I do not understand why you are arguing so hard against him. Saving a few hundred or even a couple of thousand RP is almost meaningless even in a low-tech game, especially if spending those research points translates to 20%+ improvement in PD efficiency. The mass/MSP savings are also trivial because again, who would choose NOT to get significantly improved PD if the price is few hundred more tons in mass or spending a little more MSP per annum per ship.

I do agree that full size gauss are more efficient and will produce less leaking missiles. Whether you value the RP saved or not is up to each and everyone to judge. For me playing with restricted admin and about 20-25% research 500-1000RP cost can sometimes be the difference between developing a component in 2 years instead of 4 years as I tend to use the scientist with low number of labs for developing components while the scientists developing more expensive techs have more labs.

Smaller gauss still allow for a bit more flexibility in design of ships and can also make the designs over time cheaper in maintenance cost while being less efficient in PD capacity.

If I have plenty of good scientist I probably also choose the more expensive option too.

The difference in maintenance cost are mostly about how big the turret is. So in many cases many single gauss turrets likely is better and more economical than using quad turrets especially for full size gauss as the full size gauss turrets are so large and expensive. The single turret will require more space but be considerably cheaper in the long run.

Overall I might agree that smaller gauss need to be rebalanced so they are more worthwhile to develop. Perhaps their to hit should not be linear with the size reduction. So a 33% sized turret hit on 50% for example. This would at least make them more interesting in some cases from an efficiency perspective.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: April 02, 2024, 10:08:34 AM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 05:50:46 PM
you are still ignoring that time, research, design flexibility, maintenance supplies and weight saving is all something you also need to consider over time...
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 04:57:52 PM
Every little tech points will count, especially earlier on... I spend allot more time in the game at lower tech levels anyway. When you play with rather slow tech progression and restricted scientist labs you can be rather short on Missile/Kinetic scientists...
Jorgen, with all due respect, you are barking up the wrong tree here. The formula bean is showing in this thread is universal - the results are the same in every game, the specific details of your campaign/race/ship do not matter. I do not understand why you are arguing so hard against him. Saving a few hundred or even a couple of thousand RP is almost meaningless even in a low-tech game, especially if spending those research points translates to 20%+ improvement in PD efficiency. The mass/MSP savings are also trivial because again, who would choose NOT to get significantly improved PD if the price is few hundred more tons in mass or spending a little more MSP per annum per ship.
Posted by: Ulzgoroth
« on: April 02, 2024, 01:46:32 AM »

I'm confused by the idea of using decoys against small numbers of leaking missiles. Decoys work best against large numbers of missiles and are relatively expensive and difficult to reload. Popping a decoy against just half a dozen warheads seems like a huge waste.


Though I'm also confused by the idea that you'd try to avoid 'overpaying' on warships. You don't have perfect information about the enemy, and you don't want to lose. If you've got an obvious 'I lose' breakpoint like PD collapse, dragging it as far out of the realm of likely outcomes is an obvious priority, surely?
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 05:50:46 PM »

Quote from: bean on April 01, 2024, 05:31:56 PM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 04:57:52 PM
Every little tech points will count, especially earlier on... I spend allot more time in the game at lower tech levels anyway. When you play with rather slow tech progression and restricted scientist labs you can be rather short on Missile/Kinetic scientists. You also likely are using your least skilled scientists to research components and the more skilled ones to research more expensive technologies. That means that the components become relative to other tech more expensive.
An RP is an RP.  That's how this works.  Sure, I'll grant you that the percentage is higher at lower tech, but again, the gains are substantial, and I think make sense by any metric, particularly if you're willing to invest in smaller-than-quad turrets.

Quote
I rarely see leaking missiles as much of an issue when shields and decoys are used. If you don't use the shields they are also wasted space.  If there are 6 or 10 missiles leaked is not very important when the decoys and shields stop it anyway. If your PD is overwhelmed then it does not really matter much anyway as it is the overkill that produce the leaking difference.
I don't think this is true in the general case, or if it is, it speaks to weakness in the AI.  I agree that some number of leakers are a fact of life, and recommend shields to deal with them in the OP.  But to a first approximation, all of your inner-ring systems are going to be able to handle a specific number of leakers and anything past that is going to cause problems fast.  (Yes, I know that decoys are a little more complicated, but that's a complication I'm ignoring.)  Optimizing your beam PD means that you can handle a larger number of incoming missiles without getting overwhelmed.  For instance, comparing your two ships, the 100% one will have 48 shots if I assume that the ROF is 3, while the 33% one will have 144.  Let's say that you have a squadron of 4 of them, and base Ph is 0.5.  If I fire 96 missiles, my math says that the average number of leakers will be 24 for the 100% ships and 32.15 for the 33% ships.  For 64 incoming missiles, I get 8 and 12.4, respectively.  Both seem like places where you might plausibly find a cliff in response, and the 100% ships could be fine while the 33% ships are taking damage.  Sure, it's possible to get around this by being good enough to beat most AI and slightly overpaying, but you are overpaying.

I agree that you will get less leaking missiles but you are still ignoring that time, research, design flexibility, maintenance supplies and weight saving is all something you also need to consider over time. Do your ship spend more time in combat or paying maintenance for example. If you have the shields they are useful for defence in beam combat as well as against missiles... so you can rely on them to soak incoming missiles as well as part of the total investment. If you don't use the shields then they are as much dead weight as anything else on the design.

In order to manage this you have a layered defence of AMM, PD, CIWS, Decoys and Shields and you want to balance their use as much as possible when needed.

If you tend to use relatively small ships in large numbers then leaking missiles is more of an issue than if you tend to use bigger and fewer ships for example. Against the AI I rarely actually rely much on PD as protection to begin with (only a minor part) to be honest but that is a completely different discussion. I also tend to favour designs that save cost rather than efficiency as overall long time costs is a worthwhile consideration. This is probably why I accept a larger degree of leaking missiles on my design for reduction in deployment costs. Avoiding being shot at in the first place obviously being the number one priority to start with. But if I'm shot at by the AI I tend to have overwhelming force or being completely outmatched, so then saving cost are much more important. I rarely find myself in situations where I'm evenly matched, such situations should be avoided at all costs.
Posted by: bean
« on: April 01, 2024, 05:31:56 PM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 04:57:52 PM
Every little tech points will count, especially earlier on... I spend allot more time in the game at lower tech levels anyway. When you play with rather slow tech progression and restricted scientist labs you can be rather short on Missile/Kinetic scientists. You also likely are using your least skilled scientists to research components and the more skilled ones to research more expensive technologies. That means that the components become relative to other tech more expensive.
An RP is an RP.  That's how this works.  Sure, I'll grant you that the percentage is higher at lower tech, but again, the gains are substantial, and I think make sense by any metric, particularly if you're willing to invest in smaller-than-quad turrets.

Quote
I rarely see leaking missiles as much of an issue when shields and decoys are used. If you don't use the shields they are also wasted space.  If there are 6 or 10 missiles leaked is not very important when the decoys and shields stop it anyway. If your PD is overwhelmed then it does not really matter much anyway as it is the overkill that produce the leaking difference.
I don't think this is true in the general case, or if it is, it speaks to weakness in the AI.  I agree that some number of leakers are a fact of life, and recommend shields to deal with them in the OP.  But to a first approximation, all of your inner-ring systems are going to be able to handle a specific number of leakers and anything past that is going to cause problems fast.  (Yes, I know that decoys are a little more complicated, but that's a complication I'm ignoring.)  Optimizing your beam PD means that you can handle a larger number of incoming missiles without getting overwhelmed.  For instance, comparing your two ships, the 100% one will have 48 shots if I assume that the ROF is 3, while the 33% one will have 144.  Let's say that you have a squadron of 4 of them, and base Ph is 0.5.  If I fire 96 missiles, my math says that the average number of leakers will be 24 for the 100% ships and 32.15 for the 33% ships.  For 64 incoming missiles, I get 8 and 12.4, respectively.  Both seem like places where you might plausibly find a cliff in response, and the 100% ships could be fine while the 33% ships are taking damage.  Sure, it's possible to get around this by being good enough to beat most AI and slightly overpaying, but you are overpaying.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 04:57:52 PM »

Quote from: bean on April 01, 2024, 04:25:57 PM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 02:28:54 PM
Quote from: Pedroig on April 01, 2024, 02:16:35 PM
2)  Less research is a non sequitor, if one is going pure smaller, then there is no "less research" and if one is going for "more advanced" then once again, the research is going to be done regardless.  Comparing different tech levels to one another is rather frivolous, especially in hindsight, either one wants/needs a tech or one doesn't, so there is no "research cost savings" ever.

If you use smaller gauss you need less turrets and the gun itself are cheaper to research so you need to research less number of turrets and the turret is less costly to research over the equivalent version. So you will save in research cost.
I will grant you that this is technically true, but it's also not that much for the benefit you get.  I just ran the numbers, and in a fairly high-tech game (gauss ROF 5/range 5) I would spend less than 2000 RP to deliver a quad 100% gauss from scratch.  Extra turrets will be under a thousand each.  Oh, and you've spent 134,000 RP in basic research to get to those gauss guns.  So the trade here is spending an extra couple thousand RP (maybe 3% of what you've spent on gauss so far in the game) in exchange for 20%+ fewer leakers (or, you know, 60%+ fewer leakers with good FC).  Now, the best option I can see for that kind of 20% reduction in (effective) leakers is another level of missile jammer, which is, oh, 80,000 RP.  Yeah, I think I'll spend the extra research.

Quote
One example ship I created with 4 100% quad turrets and one with 12 33% quad turrets used 20% (1200 vs 1500 supplies) less supplies and was 200t smaller, less crew and slightly cheaper to build. That is why it is not a straight answer to what is best.
Let's say that your FC has a 50% inherent to-hit, and you shoot 4 v 1 at 50% Ph with the basic sheet.  I get 6.25% leakers.  Now, if I shoot 12v1 with the 33% ship, I get 11.22% leakers.  You have to shoot something like 16v1 to get the same leaker rate (technically, the slightly-higher 6.49%).  To put it another way, if you're bound by the total number of guns and want a constant leaker rate, you need 33% more ships that are (being as generous as possible) 20% cheaper.  Hmm.  1.3333*.8=1.06667.  Again, better hit rate comes out the winner.

Every little tech points will count, especially earlier on... I spend allot more time in the game at lower tech levels anyway. When you play with rather slow tech progression and restricted scientist labs you can be rather short on Missile/Kinetic scientists. You also likely are using your least skilled scientists to research components and the more skilled ones to research more expensive technologies. That means that the components become relative to other tech more expensive.

I rarely see leaking missiles as much of an issue when shields and decoys are used. If you don't use the shields they are also wasted space.  If there are 6 or 10 missiles leaked is not very important when the decoys and shields stop it anyway. If your PD is overwhelmed then it does not really matter much anyway as it is the overkill that produce the leaking difference.

What you save on time from research and on used supplies over time can be quite substantially important.

No point to deny that 100% gauss will produce less leaking missiles, but it does come at a different cost. You also need to judge how much you want your resources spent on shields and decoys to matter as well as supplies and time in research
Posted by: bean
« on: April 01, 2024, 04:25:57 PM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 02:28:54 PM
Quote from: Pedroig on April 01, 2024, 02:16:35 PM
2)  Less research is a non sequitor, if one is going pure smaller, then there is no "less research" and if one is going for "more advanced" then once again, the research is going to be done regardless.  Comparing different tech levels to one another is rather frivolous, especially in hindsight, either one wants/needs a tech or one doesn't, so there is no "research cost savings" ever.

If you use smaller gauss you need less turrets and the gun itself are cheaper to research so you need to research less number of turrets and the turret is less costly to research over the equivalent version. So you will save in research cost.
I will grant you that this is technically true, but it's also not that much for the benefit you get.  I just ran the numbers, and in a fairly high-tech game (gauss ROF 5/range 5) I would spend less than 2000 RP to deliver a quad 100% gauss from scratch.  Extra turrets will be under a thousand each.  Oh, and you've spent 134,000 RP in basic research to get to those gauss guns.  So the trade here is spending an extra couple thousand RP (maybe 3% of what you've spent on gauss so far in the game) in exchange for 20%+ fewer leakers (or, you know, 60%+ fewer leakers with good FC).  Now, the best option I can see for that kind of 20% reduction in (effective) leakers is another level of missile jammer, which is, oh, 80,000 RP.  Yeah, I think I'll spend the extra research.

Quote
One example ship I created with 4 100% quad turrets and one with 12 33% quad turrets used 20% (1200 vs 1500 supplies) less supplies and was 200t smaller, less crew and slightly cheaper to build. That is why it is not a straight answer to what is best.
Let's say that your FC has a 50% inherent to-hit, and you shoot 4 v 1 at 50% Ph with the basic ship.  I get 6.25% leakers.  Now, if I shoot 12v1 with the 33% ship, I get 11.22% leakers.  You have to shoot something like 15v1 to get the same leaker rate (technically, the slightly-higher 6.49%).  To put it another way, if you're bound by the total number of guns and want a constant leaker rate, you need 25% more ships.  So the full-size gauss ship needs the same number of supplies, and is cheaper everywhere else.  I'll take that one.

(Edited to fix basic math error in my last paragraph.)
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 02:28:54 PM »

Quote from: Pedroig on April 01, 2024, 02:16:35 PM
2)  Less research is a non sequitor, if one is going pure smaller, then there is no "less research" and if one is going for "more advanced" then once again, the research is going to be done regardless.  Comparing different tech levels to one another is rather frivolous, especially in hindsight, either one wants/needs a tech or one doesn't, so there is no "research cost savings" ever.

If you use smaller gauss you need less turrets and the gun itself are cheaper to research so you need to research less number of turrets and the turret is less costly to research over the equivalent version. So you will save in research cost.

For example you research the 100% gauss and then one single, twin and quad turret in order to fit into designs properly with different sizes. Or.. you just research a 33% gauss and then a single quad turret. The single quad 33% turret are likely enough to fit into any design in some number to save on both maintenance and research costs.

One example ship I created with 4 100% quad turrets and one with 12 33% quad turrets used 20% (1200 vs 1500 supplies) less supplies and was 200t smaller, less crew and slightly cheaper to build. That is why it is not a straight answer to what is best.
Posted by: Pedroig
« on: April 01, 2024, 02:16:35 PM »

1)  Let's assume that for the same number of GUNS there will be the same failure rate/cost.  So the single/multiple repair cost portion goes out the window over the long term. 
2)  Less research is a non sequitor, if one is going pure smaller, then there is no "less research" and if one is going for "more advanced" then once again, the research is going to be done regardless.  Comparing different tech levels to one another is rather frivolous, especially in hindsight, either one wants/needs a tech or one doesn't, so there is no "research cost savings" ever.
3)  Having more weapons means more chances of failure to occur to the ship, but the impact of that failure will be less overall.  (Extreme example is if one loses one of four single turrets during an engagement, the leak chance goes up, but is still less than 100%, whereas if a ship loses its only quad turret then the leak chance technically becomes 0% because all missiles will be getting through).
4) Per Bean's numbers, lowering chance to hit, REGARDLESS OF SOURCE of reduction, INCREASES leakers for any given number of shots. 
5)  Given a layered defense philosophy; this would mean wanting to have the highest hit chances on the  innermost layer.  So something like having a 50%/75%/100% Ph onion, with 12/8/6 guns all taking up the same effective space (with minor variance for crew) would be a redunancy max kill focused doctrine based upon either relative or absolute displacement usage.  (CIWS nor AMM included in this example, both can be used to "tweak" the numbers, but have other considerations as well)  Ideally each layer will cover at least one full five second tick of incoming movement.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 01:49:06 PM »

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on April 01, 2024, 10:51:38 AM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 10:27:01 AM
Is it not so that the quad is also four times more expensive when it does fail so the cost would be the same.

I think this was a C# change, but multi-weapon turrets have modest reductions in tonnage to be a bit more cost and size-efficient than an equal number of single-weapon turrets. See here. No explicit cost decrease is mentioned but there is a reduction in crew requirement, so the cost is indirectly reduced if nothing else. Possibly the reduced size also affects the armor calculation, I don't know.

When comparing two ships with smaller gauss but more turrets you will save maintenance supplies and need less maintenance facilities for the same maintenance life value. You also need less research and it will be easier to fit turrets into designs as the components are smaller.

A turret with a single weapon will still occupy more space due to decreased crew requirement and that it is smaller but will still require less maintenance supplies over time.

Not sure of smaller turrets will cost more due to failure in combat as even if they fail more often they also are cheaper, so to me it seems as if the cost will be toughly the same.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: April 01, 2024, 10:51:38 AM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 10:27:01 AM
Is it not so that the quad is also four times more expensive when it does fail so the cost would be the same.

I think this was a C# change, but multi-weapon turrets have modest reductions in tonnage to be a bit more cost and size-efficient than an equal number of single-weapon turrets. See here. No explicit cost decrease is mentioned but there is a reduction in crew requirement, so the cost is indirectly reduced if nothing else. Possibly the reduced size also affects the armor calculation, I don't know.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 10:27:01 AM »

Quote from: Steve Walmsley on April 01, 2024, 09:07:30 AM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 07:24:39 AM
Therefore you will need to at least acknowledge that there are trade-offs that will show in other ways outside combat that you need to account for as well. Everything will impact the decision of what components you develop and why. In general a quad 100% gauss is always worse than a single due to how the maintenance mechanic works, you will never really save neither cost nor space with a larger turret.

It's worth bearing in mind that four single gauss weapons will fail 4x more often than a quad turret (because each weapon checks for failure, not each shot), so while the quad is more expensive when it fails, it might not be the most expensive over time.

Is it not so that the quad is also four times more expensive when it does fail so the cost would be the same. I suppose it has been changed as before each weapon in the turret was rated separately so a large turret had four times the chance to fail, but I think you changed this a while ago.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: April 01, 2024, 09:07:30 AM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 07:24:39 AM
Therefore you will need to at least acknowledge that there are trade-offs that will show in other ways outside combat that you need to account for as well. Everything will impact the decision of what components you develop and why. In general a quad 100% gauss is always worse than a single due to how the maintenance mechanic works, you will never really save neither cost nor space with a larger turret.

It's worth bearing in mind that four single gauss weapons will fail 4x more often than a quad turret (because each weapon checks for failure, not each shot), so while the quad is more expensive when it fails, it might not be the most expensive over time.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: April 01, 2024, 07:24:39 AM »

Quote from: bean on April 01, 2024, 06:22:56 AM
Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 05:19:06 AM
My point was that in a layered defence where you also include decoys, CIWS and shields it probably is not that much of a major issue as the size of the system actually might matter more as large expensive  modules also have more impact on the design choices and maintenance requirements as well as research investment etc...

The current system where you allocate shots first certainly does favour high accuracy weapons over low accuracy that is for sure. I'm just saying it is not the only thing to consider when designing ships.
I am not saying that there is literally no case where you should use anything other than size 6 gauss guns.  I am saying that if you use something else and aren't in an extreme edge case, all of the other components of your defenses are going to have to work harder.  How much harder depends on the base Ph you're dealing with, but it's going to be significant in a wide variety of cases.  And if a twin or quad turret is too big or expensive, use singles.  A lot of my ships do to preserve redundancy.  It's a good tradeoff.

I agree in general terms... but you also need to account for the increased cost for larger more expensive components and more expensive research costs, everything will have a cost for different reasons in different ways. A large quad 100% gauss turret will have a significant impact on maintenance failures for example and overall maintenance cost over time. It is the same issue with large versus smaller engines for example.

Not everything can be calculated with efficiency in combat, it all depends on many different factors.

Therefore you will need to at least acknowledge that there are trade-offs that will show in other ways outside combat that you need to account for as well. Everything will impact the decision of what components you develop and why. In general a quad 100% gauss is always worse than a single due to how the maintenance mechanic works, you will never really save neither cost nor space with a larger turret.
Posted by: bean
« on: April 01, 2024, 06:22:56 AM »

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on April 01, 2024, 05:19:06 AM
My point was that in a layered defence where you also include decoys, CIWS and shields it probably is not that much of a major issue as the size of the system actually might matter more as large expensive  modules also have more impact on the design choices and maintenance requirements as well as research investment etc...

The current system where you allocate shots first certainly does favour high accuracy weapons over low accuracy that is for sure. I'm just saying it is not the only thing to consider when designing ships.
I am not saying that there is literally no case where you should use anything other than size 6 gauss guns.  I am saying that if you use something else and aren't in an extreme edge case, all of the other components of your defenses are going to have to work harder.  How much harder depends on the base Ph you're dealing with, but it's going to be significant in a wide variety of cases.  And if a twin or quad turret is too big or expensive, use singles.  A lot of my ships do to preserve redundancy.  It's a good tradeoff.