Ships & Modules

No. They always matter when angular velocity is non-zero.
The signature radius is not relevant for the comparison between turrets — the Zealot (and ship B) track better.
Do you want me to explain to you why?

What is a "normal sized ship"? The Talos uses large guns, which gives it a 400m signature resolution. For its tracking to work "as advertised", that means shooting at stuff about the size of an apocalypse.

But I get the impression that that's not the size you were referring to. What about AHACs? With the blaster tracking boost and the Talos's tracking bonus, I could see it working, but I don't have the data to know one way or the other.

When any ship has a shield tank and MWD on (pretty much all PVP ships) their sigs are so large that the second part of the tracking formula barely makes a difference. In practical application, the Talos demonstrates it can track even frigs inside optimal range and has absolutely no problem hitting anything bigger.

Your theoretical BS has no relevance outside of EFT, as the Zealot has 1050 sig and the way I fly makes signature a non-issue in combat. Do you want me to tell you how to fly in PVP?

…which, funnily enough, makes it completely relevant to your incomplete EFT-based claim that the Talos track better just because it has a tracking speed of .105 compared to “only” .09 for the Zealot.

You brought the EFT BS in and made a false claim because you didn't understand what the numbers meant. I'm correcting you. Live with it. The fact remains: the Zealot you described has 2.7× better tracking than the Talos you described.

For the record, just so you have the actual numbers the next time you try to make a claim about which one is higher, your Talos tracks at .0002625 rad/s·m; the Zealot tracks at .00072 rad/s·m.

Cyzlaki's combat record - Ranked #1,636

Tippia's combat record - Ranked #185,750


Hmm I wonder who's information is more credible? Tippia's theory might be all well and good, but it simply doesn't translate out there on the field.

Yawn, call me when you fly a Talos. Until you do, you haven't proven anything.

Ah hell. I'll bite just so you two can stop bickering. Please explain to me Tippia and prettend I look as pretty as Czylaki :)

The tracking formula is:
Chance to hit = 0.5^[(angular_v/tracking × sig_res/sig_rad)² + (max(0, range - optimal) / falloff)²]

There are two parts to this, each indicated by its parenthesized group. The goal here is to get the CTH as close to 100% as possible. This is done by reducing both terms within the brackets to 0: 0.5^(0+0) = 1, so as a result, you want everything as low as possible. The second group is the part dealing with range — it isn't particularly interesting here and simply calculates how far into falloff you are.

The first one is more interesting since it's the actual tracking part of the formula, so let's look at that one more closely.

angular_v/tracking × sig_res/sig_rad

Note that, here too, we have two groups. One deals with the turret's tracking compared to the target's movement (angular velocity is pitted against tracking speed); the other deals with the turret's ability to track small targets (signature resolution is pitted against signature radius).

Of the variables involved, two belong to the turret and two belong to the target. Since we're comparing the turrets, we normalise all target factors to 1. We can do this because the turret and the target are completely separate — there are no interaction effects between the variables involved. This gives us a tracking portion that is 1/tracking × sigres/1 — that's how well your turret tracks a target before we actually add the target itself to the equation.

So what is the effective tracking of your turret? Well, let's move those factors around so we collect all the turret attributes together into one group that we can then compare against the target, once it is introduced: 1/tracking × sigres/1 = 1/tracking × sigres = 1/(tracking/sigres)

And there we go: the effective tracking of a turret is, quite simply, tracking / sigres. The higher the sigres, the slower the gun effectively tracks. So if we have two guns that both track 1 rad/s, but where one has a sigres of 125 (i.e. it's a medium turret), whereas the other has a sigres of 400 (a large turret), the first one has an effective tracking of 1/125 = 0.008; the second one has an effective tracking of 1/400 = 0.0025. Even though both have the same number in the tracking speed field on their info sheets, the medium turret actually tracks 3.2× better due to the lower signature resolution.


So… time to get back to the numbers provided:
Talos: 0.105 rad/s, 400m sig res. Effective tracking .00026 rad/s·m.
Zealot: 0.09 rad/s, 125m sig res. Effective tracking .00072 rad/s·m.

The Zealot tracks ~2.7× better.

Hell, let's look at those other numbers he then invented:

Ship A has 0.60
Ship B has 0.03

Which one has better tracking?
Answer: ship B, because by a curious coincidence, it uses small turrets (sigres 40m) for an effective tracking of .00075 rad/s·m, whereas ship A uses XL turrets (sigres 1,000m) for an effective tracking of .00060 rad/s·m.
Actually, it's my third-grade maths from decades ago and many years of comparative methods experience that makes me an authority on the topic.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this thread.