Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This seems like a good argument against the proposed. If sig res isn't to be considered a tracking modifier than adjusting tracking in order to migrate the current values to a single constant doesn't make much sense.

Leave turrets as is. Instead remove explosion velocity and double the effect of explosion radius. Then missiles finally truly have tracking-less damage application and are easier to balance.

As of now, missiles always get 'transversal' applied, regardless of relative angle of the vector, so they're actually worse than turrets because they never get the near zero radial velocity guns can get a, especially at long ranges.

This is an exceptionally good idea.

The only drawback to it is that it would remove the combat advantage that people like me and the OP (that understand the exact nuances of how sig res interacts with tracking) gain against the sorts of clueless posters that make up most of this thread.

If you double sig res, you lose *exactly* the same amount of damage as you would lose by halving your turret tracking speed. This is true whether you are a battleship shooting a frigate, or a frigate shooting a titan, or a cruiser shooting another cruiser.

Tracking and sigres function as one stat right now, effective tracking (which is tracking divided by sigres, measured in radians metre^-1 second^-1).

Was probably just a misunderstanding of the wording on my part.

Which is the dodgy part.

Absolve the 40 turret scan res into an electron blaster with 0.6 rad/s tracking. It becomes 24.

First, go start comparing 24rad/s to 0.3rad/s angular velocity and whatever sig radius you have in a fight. Real time. It will be tough as hell.
Second, rad/s has physical meaning that describes perpendicular speed at a certain range. 24 rad/s - have a go at giving physical meaning to that, especially when it's not really 24 rad/s, but 0.6 with the truncated 40 coefficient.
Currently the scale between tracking and angular is maintained by this same never changing coefficient. The resultant may not vary with it as it's constant, allowing you to manipulate the equation, but it's there to normalise magnitudes. As in, be able to comapare angular and tracking in terms of percentages, which is extremely convenient.

Is the OP impressive at manipulating equations? Perhaps.

But Turret Scan res is far from arbitrary. What, you think whoever designed it just went - "Oh hey lets add a random number here and there just to make it look more complicated". No they didn't.

With only 3 parameters you'd have to compute the product of sig radius to something else, like the variable angular velocity or the unrealistically large tracking to make a further larger number. With larger numbers, it's tough to make conclusions on the fly. Currently you work with just 2 ratios which are relatively simple, with one following a distinct pattern in multiples of 3 and being constant during the fight provided you don't use MWDs and you don't get any TPs on you. Those are the only 2 ways to vary sig radius in a fight at some high frequency; naturally you wouldn't worry about links/boosters/ragnarok as you'd reconsider your sig to be the new baseline under these conditions.

A reasonable current strategy is to know your sig, and approximately be familiar with the sig of your enemy, and precalculate the ratio of your guns/their guns against the sig. This number is unlikely to change in both ways, as there are few ways to actively reduce the sig radius. You're left with looking at the angular velocity and making sure it is somewhat higher/lower that their/your presumed tracking.

With the proposed changes you can't do this - you can't compare 24 to 0.3 and 6 to 0.3 and identify on the fly that the latter is actually twice as slow as 0.3. (0.15x40=6) So how does it simplify anything, I cannot comprehend. The current systems' direct advantage is that you look at your overview and you pit the angular velocity against tracking and get a direct information on whether its worse or better. It's a binary conclusion. Either my tracking is good, or its bad and it's up to the enemys' huge sig radius to make it better. I might not understand directly by how much, not without putting some effort. For those who do put a little effort, this is trivial. Should I aim for a 90% miss rate, I want a 1.8 total ratio [ 0.5^(1.8^2)~0.10 ]. Flying a ship I know the sig radius of, Slasher for example, against small turrets I already have 1.33. Triple that against medium and 10x against large turrets. 1.8/1.33~1.35. I therefore need my angular to be 35% higher than their tracking.

Coming back to 24 vs 0.3 and 6 vs 0.3 - there is no binary conclusion. I need a direct calculation to identify how my tracking is interacting with the target. I can make assumptions, perhaps.

Instead of changing the formula to accommodate a different computational style, arguably with any practical advantages, focus on bringing awareness to the tracking system.

Back to square one.

Where does numerical value that scan res holds go? One says you adjust the tracking to accommodate the change, which is where the 24 comes from. Another says add a different, unified between all the turret sizes coefficient.

I get the impression that both of you believe you can just remove the 40, 125 and 400 right out of the equation and the resultant will still stay the same. Which is ironic considering my " basic algebra is wrong". But you can't be that dull, which is why it is perplexing why you don't understand where the 24 comes from. Yet somehow, the arrogance of your mathematical superiority persists. I got 24 from multiplying the tracking to scan res of the turret. Its a product of two numbers.

@arbitrary, when something can be anything, something else needs to change in proportion to maintain the validity of the resultant. Which is what I did. I almost think you guys just proposed something without running through the actual numbers.

And that is what my post addresses. There is no mathematical error to be found.

This suggestion introduces a misleading perception, or worse, lack of any perception.

I repeatedly ask of you and the OP, how does one look at the adjusted tracking and compare it with angular velocity.
By how much do you expect to adjust the tracking?
My understand is that by reducing the 40, 125, 400 to 1, you need to adjust tracking to accommodate this. Considering we are talking about basic algebra, and please correct if I'm wrong, increase the tracking value of small turrets by 40, medium by 125, and large by 400.
And confirm if this is the new number I will be seeing in my stat window.

This isn't true, mate.

40 = typical frig sig radius

125 = typical cruiser sig radius

400 = typical battleship sig radius


So with the current system, tracking speed can be roughly compared to angular velocity when shooting at:

frigs with small turrets

cruisers with medium turrets

battleships with large turrets


With the OP's suggestion, all size turrets would have the same sig res (even though you wouldn't actually see the stat anymore). I presume 125 would be the best choice.

In that case, tracking speed would be roughly comparable to angular velocity when shooting at cruisers - whatever size turret you'd be shooting with. So for example in a frig vs frig fight, the angular velocities on everybody's overview would make no sense if directly compared to their turrets' new tracking speed stat.


Current system makes more sense to me, but even if some would find the proposed system better, it's still not a good enough idea to change all the turret stats (tracking) after 11 years.

First, if you divide 40/40, to retain the proportionality and a such keep the resultant the same, you can't divide further. You'd end up with 1/40/40, or 1/1600. How do you mess this up and further your algebraic crusade?
As in, 0.1rad/s *40/40/40 does not under any circumstance equal to 0.1rad/s*40.

Second, it's irrelevant what you keep as the common denominator. 1, 100, 1000. Irrelevant.

Because, referring back to the post to which you are confused as to where the 24 came, if you please read again carefully, the point I am trying to bring up is not the raw numbers. The issue that the adjusted tracking messes with the perception of how it is affected by angular velocity.

In the example: I have 0.3 tracking. I fly at 0.5, somy tracking is 40% less effective. I fly at 0.2, my tracking is 50% more effective. This alone might not be much, but the ratio between scanres and signature radius of the ship allow me to identify the severity of my flying patterns.

Adjust the tracking values and you can't say any of that. Because you have just truncated the scan res and tracking into a number that holds no meaning apart from serving only to compute my chance to hit. How or why you do not understand why this is an issue is disheartening.

The example with truncating scan res into a coefficient of 1 is to demonstrate the extreme effect of this suggestion. As per your strategy, 0.6*40 = 24*1 =24.
Another real tracking number is 0.15. Following up on the same strategy you end up 24 and 6.

One cannot simply by looking at the number identify that the adjusted tracking of 6 is infact 50% more effective tracking when flying 0.3 rad/s. Or that 24 is 100% less effective.

They're just 24 and 6 pitted against 0.3. This is what this suggestion introduces. For me to get a answer, I have to calculate directly. Cheers for giving my 2 redundant steps to worry about in a brawl.

From Ashley's good idea at page 3


I think if the aim is to "simplfy" things so that it is easier to understand, something like this can be used too:

In addition to tracking use the term "Normalized Tracking" (Short NT) which is guns tracking/signature
Add a new column to overview called "Normalized Angular Velocity" (Short NAV) which is targets angular velocity/signature radius.

So that player can directly discern if his gun can hit the enemy or not by looking at these values. If NT is smaller than NAV, less chance to hit, if NT is larger than NAV more chance to hit.