It seems that my reading comprehension isn't as good as I thought it was. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
More testingThis test was 100 volleys of 100 equal speed missiles against 5xQuad 5ROF turrets. Results are scaled to hits/tonne, with lines showing best, worst, and most common single volleys. Additional runs were done for the lower accuracy weapons so each weapon had at least 4000 hits total.
The -10's performed noticeably better than the rest, averaging 6% above median. The -33's did the worst at 4% below. The -8's were the only gun type to completely miss a salvo, while the -100's best was 99/100.
Retesting the -10's against 2x speed missiles had slightly higher numbers than expected again. I suspect the discrepancy is due to rounding when calculating low accuracy scores, but lack the patience to properly test it.
The commander bonus I read about that supposedly gives -8's an edge doesn't seem to exist. A change or misinterpretation of crew grade bonuses is suspected.
The missile tracking bonus does not appear to affect FDF or FDF(self) modes. Testing this will require a slightly different setup.
TurretsTurret size scales linearly with weapon size and count with a few exceptions:
-Combined weapon size is rounded towards even when calculating gear size. This can only happen with Gauss Cannons smaller than 1HS and causes some weirdness.
-There are gear discounts for twin (0.5%), triple (0.75%), and quad (1%) mounts.
-The minimum turret size including gear is 1HS.
Armour cost per layer is constant for a given turret size. Each layer provides 1 HTK per gun.
Racial armour tech reduces final armour size but does not affect cost.
Armour does not cost additional RP, just Neutronium.
In the AMM role, ROF 1 Gauss turrets are inferior to other turret weapons because the reactor doesn't need gear. ROF 2 and above are always superior regardless of reactor tech.
Super Pea-shooterA cute little exploit is that due to rounding Single-8's don't pay for gear. They are always 1 HS without armour.
This is the cheapest possible turret in Aurora.
10 RP Gauss Cannon R1-8
10 RP Single Gauss Cannon R1-8 Turret
Single Gauss Cannon R1-8 Turret (1x1) Range 10,000km TS: 300000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 1 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 HS, 0 HTK
1x Vendarite each
The difficulty, of course, is getting a matching fire control.
How difficult do you ask? Paired with a speed x16 FC (x4/FTR) a Quad-100 gets ROF hits/14.64 HS. This turret gets ROF hits/12.5 HS and is small enough to fit on a fighter. It still loses to fixed mounts if your fighter can go that fast, but it might be a consideration for slower units.
One layer of armour gives it 1 HTK but increases the size to 1.97 HS and adds 5 Neutronium to the cost. Bonded Superdense Armour reduces this to 1.16 HS, again putting it ahead of the Quad-100.