Re: [FT] Heavy Beams - scattered comments to the debate

Schoon wrote:

>>You can't *accurately* factor this into the statistics, but you
mustn't
>>ignore it either - which you seem to have done. You need to be aware
of
>>it, and of the fact that it makes the "heavy damage some turns"
>>weapons more powerful in a average-length battle than the raw
>>statistics indicate.
> 
>Yes and no. I see your point, but let's say HB armed ships A & B both 
>have empty BPSs. 

The only way they'll have empty BPSs at the start of a battle is if
they've taken threshold damage to the BPS before they get to fire their
first salvo. Yes, that can happen, but the risk for that is about as
big for P-torp-armed ships.

>On the first turn A expends the EPs, and B saves them. On the
>second turn, both expend all available Eps. Both have expended the
>same number of EPs, though at different points over the two turns.
>Which is more effective?

Assuming A had had a worthwhile target to shoot at on the first turn, A
is more effective. It has had a chance to take out at least some enemy
weapons on turn 1; B hasn't had that chance.

IME you are very likely to have a worthwhile target to shoot at during
your initial attack run (when your HBWs are almost guaranteed to have
fully loaded BPSs).

IOW, the situation you describe above is most likely to occur in the
*middle* of a battle - but by that time, the HBW force has already
fired their heavy first blow and their opponents have some serious
catching up to do :-/

>It's not perfect, but it tends to balance out in the long run. And by
"long
>run" I mean many games; not just one battle.

The BPSs are fully loaded the start of each battle, so you'll never get
this "heavy first blow" effect completely averaged out. I strongly
suspect you won't even get close to averaging it out.

>My belief is that you've got to "call" the What-Ifs somewhere, and
that's
>why I tend to rely on the statistics I've detailed in previous
messages.

When you call the what-ifs, you need to bring in empirical or
experimental data into your evaluation - eg, as I did in the section on
fire arcs below. What you can't do (and still get a reasonably accurate
result) is to just ignore them.
 
>>IME, 6-arc weapons are worth roughly twice as much of the 1-arc one
>>(in Cinematic, less in Vector). Maybe as much as three times more in
>>the hands of players unused to single-arc weapons, but that'd leave
the
>>narrow-arc weapons too good in the hands of an experienced player.
>
> This is actually a good point, though I think that I'd go with:
> 
> 1 Arc = 1
> 3 Arc = 2
> 6 Arc = 4

IOW you consider all variable-arc FB1 weapons to pay too little for
their extra arcs.

How often do you use 3-arc C2 or C3 batteries, compared to how often
you use 5- or 6-arced ones?

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry