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Turrent Tracking vs Painter question
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Roonia
Vassagon
#1 - 2011-11-13 14:30:30 UTC
Could someone please clarify this for me?

Does target painting actually help with tracking a fast target?
I know it makes the target bigger but does it actually help you track and hit it better?
Do turrets actually take into account target size when they calculate if they hit or not, independently of tracking speed?

AFAIK, target painters only boost missile damage vs small ships, sort of like a tracking enhancer for missiles.

Thanks!
Feligast
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2011-11-13 14:43:47 UTC
Tracking takes into account transversal velocity and signature radius, so yes, I would think target painting would help even projectile turrets against very small targets. Not nearly as much as they help missiles, but it would still help.
Dark Pangolin
The Tuskers
The Tuskers Co.
#3 - 2011-11-13 14:54:25 UTC
Yes they help. Look at the sig resolution of the turret vs the sig radius of the target...if you can make the sig radius of the target greater than the sig resolution of the turret this is a good thing.
Eridanii
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2011-11-13 19:04:15 UTC
If you imagine every turret in Eve is really a "shotgun", who's spread is determined by the signature size of the gun, you'll see that even big guns have trouble hitting small targets that are barely moving. I think that ships that are at 0m/s have infinite sig radius so you can't miss, but besides that, sig matters. So a gun with a 400m sig radius trying to shoot a cruiser at 200m will have a 50% hit chance. I don't know if it is actually chance to hit or actual damage done, but TP'ing a target smaller than your guns will definitely boost damage.
Dradius Calvantia
Lip Shords
#5 - 2011-11-14 00:01:24 UTC
Short answer:

Yes, painting helps for turrets although not as much as webs in most cases.

Long answer:

ChanceToHit = 0.5 ^ ((((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))*(Turret Signature Resolution / Target Signature Radius))^2) + ((max(0, Range To Target - Turret Optimal Range))/Turret Falloff)^2)

Transversal is also something which is very important to manipulate if you are trying to do damage to a small fast target. The idea here is to force them to approach or run from you as directly as possible. This is can be done by starting the engagement at a range that forces them to aproach you, mwding away form them to force them to chase after you, buring in one direction then suddenly doing a 180 as your MWD cycle finishes (you will not turn quickly enough with the MWD still on) in order to trick their orbit autopilot in to trying to reverse direction, or any number of other things.

Another thing to mention here is that thanks to the way this algorithm takes turret optimal and fall off ranges into account, an unscripted tacking comp (giving bonuses to tracking, optimal, and falloff) will often yield a higher chance to hit than one specifically scripted for tracking speed. I have actually seen some blaster boat fits which have a better chance to hit under normal conditions with a range script in the comp....
JackStraw56
Run Like an Antelope
#6 - 2011-11-14 08:45:47 UTC
Eridanii wrote:
If you imagine every turret in Eve is really a "shotgun", who's spread is determined by the signature size of the gun, you'll see that even big guns have trouble hitting small targets that are barely moving. I think that ships that are at 0m/s have infinite sig radius so you can't miss, but besides that, sig matters. So a gun with a 400m sig radius trying to shoot a cruiser at 200m will have a 50% hit chance. I don't know if it is actually chance to hit or actual damage done, but TP'ing a target smaller than your guns will definitely boost damage.

The shotgun part is good, but the rest is wrong. You can have a target with 200m sig and guns with 400m sig radius and have 100% chance to hit. This is when transversal is 0. The chance to hit formula takes many variables as posted above, sig of target, sig of guns, tracking of guns, transversal velocity, and then optimal and falloff of guns.

The formula can result in somewhat counter-intuitive results, such as the one I mentioned at the beginning of my post. Basically it's good to get the sig radius of the target higher, but you don't necessarily halve your chance to hit if the target is twice as small as you gun sig radius if all the other variables line up correctly.

When you are dealing with a target smaller than your guns, you have 3 options really.


  1. Make the transversal lower (with webs or good piloting
  2. Make the target bigger (target painter)
  3. Make your tracking better.


In general the most effective is making the transversal lower. If you can get this fairly low you will hit for close to full damage even though there is the sig radius difference. If you've done most of what you can to lower transversal, then go to target painters for a bit more extra help.
Vmir Gallahasen
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2011-11-14 15:50:52 UTC
Eridanii wrote:
If you imagine every turret in Eve is really a "shotgun", who's spread is determined by the signature size of the gun, you'll see that even big guns have trouble hitting small targets that are barely moving. I think that ships that are at 0m/s have infinite sig radius so you can't miss, but besides that, sig matters. So a gun with a 400m sig radius trying to shoot a cruiser at 200m will have a 50% hit chance. I don't know if it is actually chance to hit or actual damage done, but TP'ing a target smaller than your guns will definitely boost damage.

Actually, you can think of the signature size of the weapon as a penalty or bonus to the tracking of the weapon vs a given target. If the weapon has a 400 meter size and it's shooting at a target with a size of 200, it gets a 50% penalty to its listed tracking. If this penalized tracking is still high enough to track the target, it can still hit at the same rate. Conversely, using a weapon with 40 meter radius hitting a target 200m in size gives the small weapon a huge tracking bonus, which lets small ships orbit larger ships at full speed and yet not be penalized in tracking
Roonia
Vassagon
#8 - 2011-11-15 22:37:51 UTC
Thanks all for the feedback. Its very good Big smile