Author Topic: Capital Weapon Analysis  (Read 21534 times)

Alsadius

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Capital Weapon Analysis
« on: 26 February 2018, 13:26:09 »
The universe of capital-sized weapons is both fairly small and fairly balanced, so it's amenable to being analyzed all at once. Given that I've been constructing a bunch of designs over in Aerospace Fan Designs, I thought I'd do some number crunching. Note that I won't be including sub-capital weapons or mass drivers, as those are much more limited in availability and play differently.

Each weapon will be analyzed on a few derived stats.
  • Damage per effective kiloton, which adds 10 rounds of ammunition and all necessary double heatsinks to fire the weapon,
  • Damage per million C-bills, which will give a sense of if it's cheap or expensive, and,
  • The maximum number you can mount in a single bay(for ballistic/energy only), which determines how well it can bracket and how much peak damage you can get for thresholding.

Those will then be used to discuss what sort of use cases are best for the weapon.

Energy Weapons
Naval Laser 35
3.5(35) damage, 700 tons, 52 heat, long range, $500,000, can switch to fighter targeting mode
4.82 damage/kton, 7.0 damage/$M, 20 max per bay(=70 damage).

Naval lasers are decent dual-purpose weapons that can both defend against fighters and warships, though they probably shouldn't be your main weapons in either role on larger ships. Because NL/35s have a shorter range than the other NLs with no better efficiency stats, they're definitely weaker against warships. However, the smaller size means they're less prone to overkill than other NLs against fighters, so if your NL mounts are anti-fighter first and anti-warship second, NL/35s are a strong choice.

Naval Laser 45
4.5(45) damage, 900 tons, 70 heat, extreme range, $850,000, can switch to fighter targeting mode
4.81 damage/kton, 5.3 damage/$M, 15 max per bay(=67.5 damage).

Much like NL/35s, these are good dual-role secondary weapons. Can be used fairly interchangeably with NL/55s, depending on available weight. On lighter ships where fire control is not an issue, these can make a very good primary battery, as they're just as weight-efficient as NPPCs while also having an anti-fighter option.

Naval Laser 55
5.5(55) damage, 1,100 tons, 85 heat, extreme range, $1,250,000, can switch to fighter targeting mode
4.81 damage/kton, 4.4 damage/$M, 12 max per bay(=66 damage).

Use these just like NL/45s, as they're basically identical.

Light Naval PPC
7 damage, 1,400 tons, 105 heat, long range, $2,000,000
4.82 damage/kton, 3.5 damage/$M, 10 max per bay(=70 damage).

These suffer somewhat by comparison to NL/55s, as they don't do much more damage, are no more efficient, have less range, and lose the anti-fighter targeting option. The best use for these is probably getting a maximal 70-point bay, as they're the only energy weapons aside from the NL/35 that can do so, and they use less fire control in the process(and a 70-point bay is gross overkill for anti-fighter work, so the lack of an anti-fighter mode is no problem).

Medium Naval PPC
9 damage, 1,800 tons, 135 heat, extreme range, $3,250,000
4.82 damage/kton, 2.8 damage/$M, 7 max per bay(=63 damage).

These save a noticeable amount of fire control slots compared to NL/55s, so on ships that are likely to fill their slots up, these can be a good primary battery. Also, a lot of heavy bays do 60 damage, so any metagamers who build their ships with 610 armour per facing will hate you for making 63-damage bays.

Heavy Naval PPC
15 damage, 3,000 tons, 225 heat, extreme range, $9,050,000
4.82 damage/kton, 1.7 damage/$M, 4 max per bay(=60 damage).

The biggest energy weapon, these provide all the usual no-ammo, long-range joy with very low fire control usage. A 4x HNPPC bay is a monster, able to fully bracket if needed, threshold almost anything, and keep firing forever while leaving lots of room for other guns - there's a reason the McKenna used so many of them. These are best suited to heavy ships that need serious long-range smashing potential where fire control is a real issue.

Ballistic Weapons
Naval AC/10
10 damage, 2,000 tons, 30 heat, long range, $2,000,000(ammo = 0.2 tons, $30,000)
4.96 damage/kton, 4.3 damage/$M, 7 max per bay(=70 damage).

These have slightly better efficiency than the energy weapons, and they can create 70-damage bays, but they lose range in comparison. If you want the ability to fully bracket and long range, these might be your pick, but energy weapons will give it a run for its money.

Naval AC/20
20 damage, 2,500 tons, 60 heat, long range, $5,000,000(ammo = 0.4 tons, $60,000)
7.89 damage/kton, 3.6 damage/$M, 3 max per bay(=60 damage).

Compared to NAC/10s, these are dramatically more efficient - the only thing they lose is the ability to fully bracket. If you expect to be rolling on 12s a lot, these might not be your pick, but otherwise they're a really solid all-around choice.

Naval AC/25
25 damage, 3,000 tons, 85 heat, long range, $7,500,000(ammo = 0.6 tons, $75,000)
8.20 damage/kton, 3.0 damage/$M, 2 max per bay(=50 damage).

These suffer by comparison to their neighbours - they're not as efficient on tonnage or fire control as a NAC/30, and can't bracket to -2 like a NAC/20. These shouldn't be used unless you have very particular amounts of remaining tonnage, or you're metagaming against an enemy with ~240 armour on a facing.

Naval AC/30
30 damage, 3,500 tons, 100 heat, long range, $10,500,000(ammo = 0.8 tons, $90,000)
8.43 damage/kton, 2.6 damage/$M, 2 max per bay(=60 damage).

The most efficient guns in their range bracket by far, these are a great all-around choice for tonnage efficiency combined with decent range. They suffer somewhat from bracketing rules, but they're still solid.

Naval AC/35
35 damage, 4,000 tons, 135 heat, medium range, $14,000,000(ammo = 1 ton, $105,000)
8.58 damage/kton, 2.3 damage/$M, 2 max per bay(=70 damage).

These lose the range of the NAC/30, but they gain the ability to create 70-damage bays. They're probably the best single option for creating gigantic holes in enemy armour in a knife fight.

Naval AC/40
40 damage, 4,500 tons, 135 heat, medium range, $18,000,000(ammo = 1.2 tons, $120,000)
8.73 damage/kton, 2.1 damage/$M, 1 max per bay(=40 damage).

These don't have the ability to bracket at all, and have both the shortest range and smallest bay size of any capital weapon. But they're the single most tonnage-efficient and fire control-efficient guns in the game. If you want to get in close and peel armour off as quickly as humanly possible, these are the guns for you.

Light Naval Gauss
15 damage, 4,500 tons, 9 heat, extreme range, $20,300,000(ammo = 0.2 tons, $45,000)
3.33 damage/kton, 0.7 damage/$M, 4 max per bay(=60 damage).

In Mechs, gauss weapons are good because they don't need heatsinks, but in a WarShip, heat sinks are just added tonnage - there's no space limitations. As such, these lack any role I can imagine. A HNPPC with full heat sinks(even if they're singles!) will have the same range and damage with the same number of fire control links, but weigh over a thousand tons less. Never use these, outside of house rules.

Medium Naval Gauss
25 damage, 5,500 tons, 15 heat, extreme range, $30,350,000(ammo = 0.4 tons, $75,000)
4.53 damage/kton, 0.8 damage/$M, 2 max per bay(=50 damage).

These are substantially more efficient than the LNGauss, and are better on fire control space as well. They're slightly less efficient than NPPCs even so, but if you're in a really heavy ship where fire control is a concern, they can be usable.

Heavy Naval Gauss
30 damage, 7,000 tons, 18 heat, extreme range, $50,050,000(ammo = 0.5 tons, $90,000)
4.27 damage/kton, 0.6 damage/$M, 2 max per bay(=60 damage).

These lose a bit more efficiency compared to MNGauss, but gain a bit more fire control efficiency and a bigger bay size. They have similar use cases overall.

Missile Weapons (Note that I'm ignoring tele-operated variants of the standard missiles for simplicity - they're nearly identical)
Barracuda
2 damage, 90 tons, 10 heat, extreme range(or better), $90,000(ammo = 30 tons, $8,000), -2 to hit
5.06 damage/kton, 11.8 damage/$M.

These are nice anti-fighter defences, but they really suffer in an extended fight due to the extreme ammo weight. In an era before heavy AMS coverage, these were good jack-of-all-trades weapons, with the ability to crit at extreme range even without thresholding and the ability to attack fighters alike, at the cost of staying power. In an AMS-heavy battlefield, these get a lot weaker.

White Shark
3 damage, 120 tons, 15 heat, extreme range(or better), $130,000(ammo = 40 tons, $14,000)
5.68 damage/kton, 11.1 damage/$M.

Much like a Barracuda, except with far better crit rolls instead of anti-fighter bonuses. These are the best friend of an outnumbered force - fire a few dozen from your cruiser at a McKenna and pray for a golden BB. Not bad on efficiency, either. Like other missiles, these suffer badly from long fights and abundant AMS.

Killer Whale
4 damage, 150 tons, 20 heat, extreme range(or better), $150,000(ammo = 50 tons, $20,000)
6.06 damage/kton, 11.4 damage/$M.

The high-damage option of the capital missiles, though with no particular gravy to go along with it. These are the most efficient extreme-range weapon in the Star League era, even with their huge ammo weight. Also, even in the high-AMS era, these can get through more firepower than most, due to their higher HP - it takes 14 AMS systems to guarantee that you'll knock one of these down.

Kraken-T
10 damage, 220 tons, 50 heat, extreme range(or better), $500,000(ammo = 100 tons, $55,000)
8.03 damage/kton, 9.5 damage/$M.

A monster on efficiency, and the missiles are strong enough to get through the AMS firepower of even a Leviathan. It's like a Killer Whale, but more so. Definitely use these in preference to Killer Whales if they're available.

AR-10
250 tons, $250,000, can fire any of Barracuda/White Shark/Killer Whale ammo.

These can suck up a ton of weight, because the game forces you to carry 10 missiles of each type if you want to be able to use them - if you want all three choices, the 250 tons becomes 1450, which is more than a LNPPC for half the damage and less staying power. But the versatility is very nice, and a few of these as support weapons will appear on most designs that can spare the weight. Note that you can mount both a Barracuda launcher and a White Shark/Killer Whale launcher for less total weight than an AR-10, allowing you to fire two missiles a turn if desired. Thus, you should only use these if you expect to use all three missile types, or if fire control limits are a concern.

Small Weapons
I won't go into the zillions of these that exist, but I want to highlight one in particular to use as a comparison:
ER Large Laser (Clan)
1 damage, 4 tons, 12 heat, medium range(extreme in sub-capital terms is medium for capitals), $200,000
100(!) damage/kton, 5 damage/$M.

While the NAC/40 is massively efficient by capital standards, these are over eleven times better, with the same maximum range(though they do take higher range penalties for being standard-sized). Mech-sized weapons are actually fearsomely effective in a capital-sized fight, and it's mostly the lack of fire control slots that prevents them from dominating everything.

Summary
  • For versatility, NL/45, NL/55, AR-10, and maybe NAC/20 are your friends.
  • For anti-fighter weapons that can double as light anti-WarShip weapons, use NL/35 and Barracuda.
  • For raw smashing power at extreme range, use MNPPC or HNPPC, or maybe MNGauss if you're short on fire control.
  • For raw smashing power at closer ranges, you want some combination of NAC/30, NAC/35, and NAC/40.
  • If you expect short games with low levels of AMS, missiles are incredibly strong. If everyone is bristling with AMS and you expect to go 30 rounds, don't bother.
  • If you're metagaming with bay sizes, anything goes, but the old saying of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" comes to mind.
  • Load up on small weapons as best you can. Fire control weight makes them inefficient after a while, and their ranges are short by capital standards, but they're vastly more efficient than anything else within their ranges, and they also do nasty things to fighters.

It should be noted that this is pure theorycrafting - I haven't had much chance to play actual games with WarShips, so it's possible I'm missing something here. Corrections are welcome, along with any other comments you may have. Thanks.
« Last Edit: 06 April 2018, 09:52:02 by Alsadius »

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #1 on: 26 February 2018, 14:18:04 »
Very nice analyses!

It should be noted that due to bearings-only rules, all capital and sub-cap missiles can reliably engage targets well outside extreme range.
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Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #2 on: 26 February 2018, 14:28:44 »
Good call. Made a minor edit accordingly.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #3 on: 26 February 2018, 15:21:55 »
I was actually surprised at how well the NL/35 came out from this.
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Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #4 on: 26 February 2018, 15:32:57 »
TBH, that is the only one aside from the light Gauss that feels almost totally useless to me. I can't imagine many cases where I'd prefer NL/35s to NL/45s. They're equally efficient, but the /35 has shorter range and uses more fire control. Unless you're on a ship so tight for mass that four NL/45s(to have full bracketing options) feels extravagant, you'd be crazy to use the /35s and cut off your own range for no particular gains.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #5 on: 26 February 2018, 15:40:55 »
When you're using capital weapons for fighter defense, damage almost doesn't matter. A light escort WarShip can fit more quad-35 bays in a given mass than it can quad-45s, meaning more chances to hit a given fighter squadron, or a chance to hit more squadrons at once if you're feeling lucky.
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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #6 on: 26 February 2018, 18:43:07 »
Thank you!
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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #7 on: 26 February 2018, 18:58:56 »
I know by the numbers, they aren't very good weapons, but there's still something about the thought of quad LNGauss and dual HNGauss cannons that calls to my soul...Of course, I also favor quad NAC-10 mounts as well for frigates and destroyers...especially if using bracketing rules...and especially for my personal version of the Congress-class frigate...

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Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #8 on: 26 February 2018, 20:27:36 »
When you're using capital weapons for fighter defense, damage almost doesn't matter. A light escort WarShip can fit more quad-35 bays in a given mass than it can quad-45s, meaning more chances to hit a given fighter squadron, or a chance to hit more squadrons at once if you're feeling lucky.

There's some truth to that - you can get 9x quad-NL/35 for the same weight as 7x quad-NL/45 - but they're worse against warships. Depends which role you see as the primary, I guess. I tend to lean towards the anti-warship role first on my NLs, but if you think of them as long-range anti-fighter weapons, then the /35 isn't bad. Barracudas are still a bit better in some ways, but there's ammo dependence to deal with on them. I'll edit accordingly.

I know by the numbers, they aren't very good weapons, but there's still something about the thought of quad LNGauss and dual HNGauss cannons that calls to my soul...Of course, I also favor quad NAC-10 mounts as well for frigates and destroyers...especially if using bracketing rules...and especially for my personal version of the Congress-class frigate...

Oh, for fluff they're great. The stats are weak, but that's why I mentioned house rules. How about naval gauss rifles get halved range penalties? The MNGauss is a bit OP under those rules, but the others seem fair. (Alternately, have that only apply to the light?). And quad-NAC/10 mounts are perfectly reasonable destroyer weapons - they hit pretty hard, aren't bad on efficiency, and can bracket well.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #9 on: 26 February 2018, 21:25:31 »
There's some truth to that - you can get 9x quad-NL/35 for the same weight as 7x quad-NL/45 - but they're worse against warships. Depends which role you see as the primary, I guess. I tend to lean towards the anti-warship role first on my NLs, but if you think of them as long-range anti-fighter weapons, then the /35 isn't bad. Barracudas are still a bit better in some ways, but there's ammo dependence to deal with on them. I'll edit accordingly.

I like the overall analysis, though I would argue that using the minimum ammo capacity (especially for capital missiles) skews the numbers somewhat - I feel the expectation that combat will only last 10 rounds is a weak assumption.

For some specifics, Barracuda numbers drop dramatically with the mere addition of 5 rounds of ammo (from 5.06 dmg/kton to 3.67 dmg/kton), increasing it to a more reasonable (imo) load of 20 missiles drops it even further (to 2.88 dmg/kton).  The trend continues with all the capital missiles, with magazines of 15 decreasing their damage per kiloton to less than that of all the energy weapons, what they have to balance this out is the potential crit on a hit.  Mostly I just felt the need to look further than 10 shots per weapon.

Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #10 on: 26 February 2018, 21:35:28 »
Yeah, missiles are far more variable based on engagement length than any other weapon type. AC and Gauss ammo are a joke when you're in the hundreds of thousands of tons, but missiles are a serious logistical burden. If you expect short fights, missiles are very good, particularly if AMS is rare. In a longer fight, they're either going to run dry, or take big piles of alternate weaponry off your ship to ensure that they don't. If you build your ships with cargo holds the size of a small moon like the Star League did that's no big deal, but for more max-minned/short-legged successor state ships, they impose a lot of unpleasant trade-offs.

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #11 on: 28 February 2018, 15:33:04 »
Not bad at all.

The SubCaps are a bit problematic to analyze in the same way for sure.  I did the math once for figuring out where the break even point is for the Light Sub Capital Cannon versus the NAC 10-30.  I don't seem to have it around anymore but I remember that even accounting for fire control, heat sinks, and ammunition loads how many you could get in place of the various NACs made them a very interesting alternative.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #12 on: 02 April 2018, 22:06:53 »
Thank you for the great analysis Alsadius.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #13 on: 03 April 2018, 11:08:16 »
Not bad at all.

The SubCaps are a bit problematic to analyze in the same way for sure.  I did the math once for figuring out where the break even point is for the Light Sub Capital Cannon versus the NAC 10-30.  I don't seem to have it around anymore but I remember that even accounting for fire control, heat sinks, and ammunition loads how many you could get in place of the various NACs made them a very interesting alternative.

Caveat: what I know about the aero side of the house could fill a shot glass.

I thought the point of sub-cap weapons was to turn dropships into glass cannons that could threaten warships.  Putting those weapons on a proper warship almost seems like using protomech AC's on regular mechs.
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monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #14 on: 03 April 2018, 11:22:40 »
Well that may have been the intention but you lose no range by going from a NAC 10-30 to a Light Sub Capital Cannon and with the weight disparity and how damage is by bay instead of individual gun, you can use quantity to make up for lack of quality and potentially still have weight to devote to other stuff.  Including more guns.

The more broken part?  Sub Capital weapons only take a +3 against targets 500 tons or lighter.  So using bracket fire they can make a very nasty long range AA screen.

I may have to see about recreating that break even calculation.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #15 on: 03 April 2018, 12:06:29 »
Can Sub-caps use bracketing?

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #16 on: 03 April 2018, 12:11:53 »
Yes.
« Last Edit: 03 April 2018, 12:16:22 by monbvol »

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #17 on: 03 April 2018, 13:07:53 »
Okay it is a bit quick and dirty but here is a spreadsheet that shows how many Light Sub-Capital Cannons you can get for each NAC.  I even went up to 40 and maxed heat dissipation using DHS.

The lasers and missiles are a bit tougher since the ranges do differ so I'm not sure how fair of a comparison it would be to do such a mass based comparison.

Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #18 on: 03 April 2018, 19:18:54 »
If I can give a tl;dr on your spreadsheet, there is a number of LSCCs that has more damage and less total mass than any of the traditional capital-sized ACs. For the NAC/10, the difference is huge(9 LSCCs does 18 damage vs 10 for the NAC/10, while still being 6% lighter all-in), though it's fairly small thereafter. This doesn't factor in fire control weight beyond the first of the NAC replacement batteries, however. If you're replacing a block of, say, 3x NAC/40, you're using 60 LSCCs to do it, which starts to get into very substantial fire control weights. If my math is right, it's 18% heavier than the NAC/40s would be.

So basically, on small ships that don't saturate their fire control, sub-cap weapons are incredibly good. But for big ships that need big guns, the fire control need gets too extreme at some point and the capital weapons come into their own.

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #19 on: 03 April 2018, 19:29:12 »
Fire Control doesn't apply until after 12/20(Dropship/Warship) weapons in an arc and only for 13/21+(Dropship/Jumpship) so there is no Fire Control to take into account until comparing to the NAC-40.

Even factoring it in the damage versus weight all in does allow a lot more LSCCs.

The break even before the big guns come good is pretty substantial.  I'll see about factoring all that together after some food.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #20 on: 03 April 2018, 19:59:19 »
Bracketing doesn't work against targets under 500 tons.

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #21 on: 03 April 2018, 20:04:07 »
I missed that somehow.  Hmmm, well SubCaps and only being +3 instead of +5 still make a useful alternative.

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #22 on: 03 April 2018, 20:09:42 »
Okay found the relevant passage in StratOps:

Quote
Minimum Range: Bracketing Fire Mode cannot be used against
non-Large Craft (including fi ghter squadrons) at short range.

So that seems to pretty conclusively allow Bracket Fire mode against non-Large Craft at Medium and Long Range.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #23 on: 04 April 2018, 03:50:45 »
Nice write up.
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Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #24 on: 04 April 2018, 08:46:37 »
Fire Control doesn't apply until after 12/20(Dropship/Warship) weapons in an arc and only for 13/21+(Dropship/Jumpship) so there is no Fire Control to take into account until comparing to the NAC-40.

Even factoring it in the damage versus weight all in does allow a lot more LSCCs.

The break even before the big guns come good is pretty substantial.  I'll see about factoring all that together after some food.

I understand. My point wasn't that your sheet was wrong, it's that it doesn't include all situations. If you're replacing a single NAC in an otherwise-unused arc, your math is right. But if you're in an arc that's fairly full - say, replacing a triple NAC/40 on a McKenna - then the fire control weight will go up very quickly.

That said, your sheet is wrong in one particular way as regards fire control - if I'm reading StratOps right, then as soon as you go over 20 weapons per arc on a WS, you take the total mass of all guns in the arc and multiply it by the modifier(0.1 for 21-39 guns, 0.2 for 40-59, 0.3 for 60-79, etc.) and that's the fire control mass. So for 21x LSCC, you'd be looking at 0.1*4200 = 420 tons of fire control weight, not 20 tons. It's not per-gun, it's all of the guns in the arc that count towards mass. So add 400 tons to the NAC/40 example, or more plausibly just cut it down to 20 LSCC and keep equal damage with less weight.

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #25 on: 04 April 2018, 11:13:49 »
Yes there is a point where the NACs will overtake the LSCCs.  I got distracted from finding where that was again but I'll see if I can nail down that point.

The relevant section from StratOps:

Quote from: StratOps
Advanced aerospace units have the option of exceeding their listed maximum of weapons per arc, at the designer’s option, but if they do so, additional fire control systems and power distribution systems will need to be installed. To determine the weight of these systems, divide the number of weapons mounted in any firing arc that exceeds its weapon limits (12 for JumpShips, 20 for Space Stations and WarShips) by the limit value, and round the result down to the nearest whole number. Multiply this result by 0.1 times the total weight of all weapons mounted in that arc (discounting ammunition), and round the final result up to the nearest half. This is the final weight of any expanded fire control and power systems the unit requires for such weaponry.

So I have been reading it wrong.

But I'm not sure any fire control is actually calculated like that.
« Last Edit: 04 April 2018, 11:49:03 by monbvol »

Kidd

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #26 on: 04 April 2018, 11:36:20 »
Great analysis. This deserves to be put in Fan Articles I think.

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #27 on: 04 April 2018, 11:37:53 »
Okay found the point where the damage and the mass starts favoring the NAC-40 over the LSCC accounting for minimum ammunition, heat sinks, fire control, and raw mass of the weapons.

Starting at 5 NAC-40s you actually have a little extra tonnage with enough LSCCs matching the damage to do a little something else with but not enough to mount another LSCC.

10 NAC-40s replaced with enough LSCCs to match damage leaves no tonnage for other things at all.  11 or more the NAC-40 starts coming good.

If there is such a point for the NAC-10 it is so far out there to not be practical to try and out muscle the LSCC.


Pending some math revisions.
« Last Edit: 04 April 2018, 11:52:06 by monbvol »

monbvol

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #28 on: 04 April 2018, 13:00:26 »
Well trying to construct a proper if statement to follow the StratOps rules for fire control drove me a bit nuts so I just brute forced it a bit instead.

End result though I did find the point for each NAC where mounting that many offers a tonnage advantage over how many LSCCs would be needed to match the overall damage.  Yeah there is some wiggle because of where things actually wind up but it should be close enough.

Alsadius

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Re: Capital Weapon Analysis
« Reply #29 on: 04 April 2018, 13:39:00 »
Let's say the number of weapons is in cell A1 and the total mass of the weapons is in B1, for simplicity.

Fire control weight is =IF(A1>20, FLOOR(A1/20, 1)*B1/10, 0)

I've made up my own sheet, which analyzes break-evens. This assumes nothing but ACs in the arc, and both trying to do equal damage. LSCC beat NAC/10 in any number, but for the bigger guns they get worse quickly. 6x NAC/20 beats 60x LSCC, 3x NAC/30 beats 45x LSCC, and 2x NAC/40 beats 40x LSCC.

This doesn't factor in things like bay size, bracketing, targeting sub-caps, and whatnot, to be fair. It's just raw damage per ton. Use with caution, void where prohibited, etc. etc. etc.