Re: Graser beam observations

Allan Goodall wrote:

> > The average damages inflicted by one shot of
> > these two weapons (assuming the same number of fire arcs on both, so
> > they're the same Mass and cost) are:
>
>Oerjan, do you have the probability numbers for grasers? I think it
would 
>be instructive to the group at large to see the probabilities at
different 
>ranges.

You mean the probability to inflict a specific amount of damage, rather 
than the overall average? Yes, certainly; and you're quite right that 
they're instructive. The calculation here was truncated after the 4th 
re-roll (since the probability to reach that high is so small that it 
disappears in the rounding) which is why all damage over 12 has been
baked 
together into the "13+" entry, but with that caveat the probabilities
that 
1 Graser die will inflict X pts of damage are:

		 Target screen level:
Damage: 0	1	2
0		50.0%	66.7%	66.7%
1		5.6%	2.8%	4.2%
2		5.8%	3.0%	4.3%
3		6.0%	3.3%	4.5%
4		6.3%	3.6%	4.7%
5		6.6%	3.9%	4.8%
6		7.0%	4.2%	5.0%
7		1.8%	1.8%	1.0%
8		1.7%	1.7%	0.9%
9		1.6%	1.6%	0.8%
10		1.5%	1.5%	0.7%
11		1.3%	1.3%	0.6%
12		1.1%	1.1%	0.4%
13+		3.7%	3.7%	1.4%

Average:	2.8	2.22	1.63

(The columns don't all add up to exactly 100.0% due to rounding errors.)

IOW there's a big (50-67%) risk that the die misses completely, a fair 
chance (21-37% depending on target screen level) that you'll inflict 1-6

pts, and a small (7-13% depending on target screen level) chance that 
you'll inflict 7 or more pts of damage.

Note that level-1 screens cuts the probability of low-strength hits (1-6

pts of damage) nearly in half but doesn't change the probability for 
high-strength hits, whereas level-2 screens shifts half of the would-be 
high-strength hits down into the low-strength section.

Also note that the second most likely result (after 0, that is) is 6 pts
of 
damage, closely followed by 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 in that order, then a jump 
down to 7, and then the probabilities steadily decrease as the damage 
increases. This somewhat unusual damage profile reinforces the graser's
"if 
it hits, it hits big" characteristic.

>It also shows why we need detailed AARs, if possible.

Yep.

>Grasers are an all-or-nothing type of weapon. When they hit, they tend
to 
>hit big, but they hit far less often than other weapons.

Yes, at least on a similar-Mass comparison (since other weapons tend to 
roll more to-hit dice :-/ ).

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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