Author Topic: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size  (Read 2619 times)

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Offline dlathro1 (OP)

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The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« on: July 25, 2021, 11:52:52 PM »
Currently, there is no reason to choose any gauss cannon size other than 1. (See the first attachment) The chance to hit values are adjusted by HS and base chance to hit

Size 1 is strictly better than any other size once you get above 100% base hit chance (because if the base chance to ht is 150% 1 shot from a 6HS would have a hit chance of 100% whereas each of the six shots from the 1HS gauss cannons you could use instead would have 25% chance to hit. 1*100% is 1 expected hit, 6*25% is 1.5 expected hits.)

I propose the smaller guass canons be penalized slightly similar to the values in attachment 2.

This will make larger cannons better for low base chance to hit and smaller cannons better for high base chance to hit, changing the optimal gauss cannon build based on expected speed, etc. of a target.

Also, feel free to check my math and/or play around with values in the attached Excel file zip. :)

 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2021, 03:56:13 AM »
How often do you get above 100% to hit with a Gauss weapon?!?

When targeting a missile which is the prime target for a Gauss weapon you rarely are close to 100% chance to hit. At tech parity you usually are at 30-40% chance to hit an incoming missile before crew experience and officer bonuses are added.

The only thing that can raise your hit chance is basically crew experience and officers, other than that there are mostly negative modifiers to the chances to hit.

Smaller weapons already have disadvantage as two guns at 50% are generally worse than one at 100% to hit missiles coming at you. The higher the hit chance per HS the less shots you waste on any salvo. The main benefit of smaller turrets are overkilling salvoes as a quad turret of max size Gauss can seriously overkill small missiles salvoes, especially from fighters firing larger types of missiles (size 6-8).

So... larger Gauss produce less leaking missiles as they are more consistent and small Gauss provide less overkill per turret. Large Gauss guns are better against large salvoes while small turrets are better against small salvoes.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 03:58:49 AM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline serger

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2021, 05:24:17 AM »
larger Gauss produce less leaking missiles as they are more consistent

It's very true for small salvos vs small numbers of shots - like independent light ship, that is not strictly independent by her purpose (those might have CIWS, not turretted gausses) against some independent enemy missile boat.
Yet with an increasing number of shots leaking effect is decreasing quickly, because there is one and the only pool of incoming missiles, so any missile is "leaking" only if it's the last missile that was targetted, while lucky shot numbers are accumulating too, so if your fleet-size force is struggling with heavy missile fire (more than expected, just at the edge of completely screwed up) - leaking might be nearly negligible and in the same time with every incoming salvo you'll have significant chances that your PD will surpass it's average capability (the more average surpass the more shots you'll deploy).
« Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 05:26:48 AM by serger »
 

Offline serger

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2021, 08:08:14 AM »
So, the problem, I think, is that for squadron-size through fleet-size forces with usual crews and officers smaller gausses are not-significantly worse against fast missiles at average or small numbers, equally good against slightly-less-then-average missiles at nearly any numbers or average missiles at large numbers, significantly better against slightly-better-then-average missiles at more than expected numbers (a shift from nearly 0% chances of not being at least mission kill towards some positive chance to withstand fire), and, finally, drastically better against slowish missiles at any numbers.

So really it's a significant disbalance even if we do not consider, that smaller guns are better to fit into light ships to provide PD against multiple-salvo missile spam.

Though I think it's a subordinate issue in the shadow of one-layer one-missile-pool PD. Ranged anti-missile fire is completely ineffective in Aurora, so no need to separate longer-ranged and shorter-ranged PD weapon systems. To make leaking effect considerable (and so better specific advantage of larger PD weapons against small-to-average numbers of average-to-fast missiles) Steve have to change target assignment for anti-missile fire: missiles have to be distributed between FCs or weapons the same way as with AMM fire.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 08:12:30 AM by serger »
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2021, 10:13:53 AM »
As Jorgen says, this is a minor problem on the verge of being completely irrelevant. Gauss are primarily a weapon for use against missiles, in nearly any other purpose they are nearly always inferior to another weapon type aside from some relatively rare edge cases (mainly at very low/very high tech levels).

The primary reason smaller Gauss weapons are better is due to salvo overkill effects due to the lower hit% per weapon. Basically, since a single weapon can only fire at one missile salvo per increment, any shots left for that weapon after the salvo is destroyed are wasted. Thus, having a higher volume of shots with proportionally lower per-shot accuracy leads to more efficient allocation of fire. This has been tested empirically in the past by other forummers.

The advantage to larger Gauss now in 1.13+ is fire controls, as a single-weapon fire control can be used to control only one Gauss turret you would want the single turret you put on your ship (or two if you design for redundancy in all cases as a design philosophy) to be as good as possible. The tonnage savings from using one or two SW fire controls instead of MW might make up for the salvo overkill losses, especially on a smaller multi-role ship.

So... larger Gauss produce less leaking missiles as they are more consistent

I don't think this is correct, due to the law of averages/large numbers more shots at lower accuracy per shot should lead to more consistent behavior, not less.

So, the problem, I think, is that for squadron-size through fleet-size forces with usual crews and officers smaller gausses are not-significantly worse against fast missiles at average or small numbers, equally good against slightly-less-then-average missiles at nearly any numbers or average missiles at large numbers, significantly better against slightly-better-then-average missiles at more than expected numbers (a shift from nearly 0% chances of not being at least mission kill towards some positive chance to withstand fire), and, finally, drastically better against slowish missiles at any numbers.

Similarly this is incorrect for the same reasons. Gauss of any size would have the same theoretical efficiency given the same total volume of weapons (number of shots * accuracy remains a constant value), and larger Gauss are more likely to suffer from overkill effects leading to greater volume of wasted shots.

There is some chance that a larger Gauss weapon is more likely to defend completely against a small salvo which would otherwise leak, but this is due to the inconsistency of large Gauss fire, and there is an equivalent chance for missing significantly more shots and taking extra damage from missiles. Regardless, large Gauss do not provide better performance in any case given equivalent configurations (volume * accuracy).
 

Offline serger

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2021, 12:07:23 PM »
Similarly this is incorrect for the same reasons. Gauss of any size would have the same theoretical efficiency given the same total volume of weapons (number of shots * accuracy remains a constant value)

It's very common math error. The sum of to-hit probabilities isn't equal to the probability of the sequence hit, the latter is smaller. It was discussed earlier.
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2021, 12:56:49 PM »
Similarly this is incorrect for the same reasons. Gauss of any size would have the same theoretical efficiency given the same total volume of weapons (number of shots * accuracy remains a constant value)

It's very common math error. The sum of to-hit probabilities isn't equal to the probability of the sequence hit, the latter is smaller. It was discussed earlier.

I did a quick spreadsheet calc to check and this is actually correct. I've crossed the Gaussian and binomial distributions in my thinking.

So the variance does actually increase for smaller weapons even though the expected number of missiles destroyed will be the same in each case. Gauss weapons are even more complicated and difficult to optimize than I thought...which is a good thing I think, when all options have viable uses that is a good game.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2021, 08:27:38 PM »
As pointed out... the fact that you can build a smaller and cheaper fire-control for a single (or two) larger turret should not be underestimated in it's importance, especially for multi-role ships.

Spreading your PD abilities in a fleet can have a huge impact overall as an enemy can't focus on just some ships to remove the PD ability. Saving cost and space for fire-controls will always matter in the end.

In my opinion the balance of large versus small gauss for PD is fairly good as is, there is a trade off no matter how you do it.
 

Offline kilo

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2021, 04:09:26 AM »
Guys, it is a nice discussion, you are having here, but you missed the main advantage of reduced size gauss cannons. It is the saving in rotation gear of quad cannons, while retaining a relatively low displacement. This allows you to put quad guns on small vessels or to bring more point defense to the party. In this example, the quad turret is almost 9.x % lighter, offers the same expected number of missile kills per salvo and it is cheaper. The only disadvantage is a higher variance of the results. If you pack some shields on your vessels, they can solve this problem.

 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: The (Admittedly Small) Problem With Gauss Cannon Size
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2021, 10:01:57 AM »
Guys, it is a nice discussion, you are having here, but you missed the main advantage of reduced size gauss cannons. It is the saving in rotation gear of quad cannons, while retaining a relatively low displacement. This allows you to put quad guns on small vessels or to bring more point defense to the party. In this example, the quad turret is almost 9.x % lighter, offers the same expected number of missile kills per salvo and it is cheaper. The only disadvantage is a higher variance of the results. If you pack some shields on your vessels, they can solve this problem.

This isn't strictly an advantage, as a quad turret is counted as a single weapon and is going to be far more vulnerable to salvo overkill effects than four single turrets. In practice, whether the weight savings (=more volume of fire) or salvo kill efficiency is more important will tend to work out on a case-by-case basis. In addition to of course the variance effects which are another consideration.

As Jorgen said, with Gauss guns every choice is a trade-off and there are very few clear right answers if any, Aurora has a very good balance for Gauss guns in this sense.