EVE General Discussion

focus firing isn't the only viable tactic though. just because its widely used doesnt make it good.

lets have a fake fleet fight a nice 500vs500, for simplicity sake lets say they are all the same on both sides they can lock instantly and follow orders without problem

fleet 1 lazy FC only call one primary at a time, fleet 2 splits fire between 2 primaries

first round fleet 1 losses 2 ships, fleet 2 loses one
second round fleet 1 has lost 4 ships fleet 2 has lost 2
third round fleet 1 has lost 6 ships fleet 2 has lost 3

see the problem? fleet one is focusing fire and is loosing very fast.

Now if you want to get really efficient then take a fight like this same fleet but this time fleet two splits their ships into 10 different wings each with their own commanders directing fire (it would be silly to expect one person to direct 10 different wings at the same time) and one FC commanding movement of the fleet as a whole and special "priority" targets.

first round fleet 1 looses 10 ships fleet 2 loose 1
second round fleet 1 has lost 20 ships fleet 2 has lost 2
third round fleet 1 has lost 30 ships fleet 2 has lost three

50 ships firing on one target will make short work of that target you are then not wasting so much damage on over kill.

this will be the third time i say this but i really needs to be said again, focus firing is bad and should be stopped.....at a player level.

Let me introduce you to the concept of the bomb.

good luck with capturing station or system.... or killing/defending POS

if only alpha from 1 wing can instakill target. Let's say you have 10 ships in wing. Not sure they will blow target. Then logistics can work and next alpha will need to kill almost helthy target.

this is the main problem with splitting fire. Distance, tracking speed, resistances.... Many things do matter here.

I see them working just fine rather often.

Basically the socalled "alpha problem" is the result of a concious game design descison thet limits offensive output of any given ship (excluding doomsdays) to a level far below the effective hitpoints of said ship. If you were to revert that descision, EVE would be a totally different game.

This is also known as attrition mechanics in contemporary operational research that the worlds militarys conduct on a daily basis.
The principle is rather simple:

- If the attacker - on average - kills less than one opponent (multiple hits required to take down the target), it will always pay off to concentrate force on each target to take it down as quick as possible, resulting in the "alpha problem", aka blobbing.

- If the attacker - on average - kills equal or more than one opponent(a single hit will kill one or more targets (precision strike, area of effect weapons)), concentration of force will not enhance combat effectivenes, but may lead to taking heavier losses, which is not desirable, leading to dispersion and decentralization of forces.

To counter the "alpha problem" aka blobbing, you need to reduce the effective hitpoints or increase damage output to a level found in modern naval battles (a single misslie or torpedo sinks the ship), so that if you hit a target you will kill it.

Now this would ofc open up a whole new can of worms, rendering buffer and active hard tanking and remote repair obsolete, and increasing the necessity of speed, sig and ewar tanking. A whole new set of tactics would also need to evolve. in 1 v 1 engagements for example, the one who shoots first would always win, rendering missile systems and drones at a serious disadvantage compared to guns with current mechanics.

In conclusion, solving the "alpha problem" to a level where concentration of force would no longer pay off, would neccessitate a total rewrite of the eve combat system, and rebalancing every ship in the game. In short, a mammut task.

it was 10 wings of 50 ships. the example was a hyper simplified one to show that focused fire with a limited set of primaries is a very inefficient way of doing it.

the goal is to not instapop a ship but to take them out in one to three shots.

remove logistics from game only way to fix it.

If we abstract ships to spheres 1 km in diameter (a gross over-estimation of how big shps are), and assume a distance of 70 km (common engagement range for alpha fleets), you get an effective 0.81° angle of field of view that that ship occupies. In a 45° field of view (something like half your screen), you can fit 2172 of those ships (unless my math serves me wrong).

Of course, 2000 ships wouldn't be able to cram themselves that way in a perfect firing line (or surface), but a few hundred would -- and your "fix" would be rendered pointless.

Line of sight is just impractical for a space game since space is so friggin empty you can see everything. Not to mention the line of sight calculations are not trivial at all, especially because the ship models are not simple spheres like what I reduced them to. The calculations to see whether a shot passed between the two panels underneath a Maelstrom would be very difficult -- and doing thousands of these (8 per Maelstrom, of which there can be hundreds) would create the ultimate lagfest of doom.

So, no. Line of sight combat does not work as a mechanic in Eve.

Edit: and regarding "meat shields":

How easy do you really think it is to position yourself in that few degrees wide angle in just the right position to block shots when you are piloting a ship that moves 2000 mph (894 m/s) and masses more than 11 million kg (250,00,000 lbs on Earth)? Very. Hard. What about when both the ship you are protecting and its attacker are both moving at similar speeds, and your ship has a weird irregular shape? Nigh impossible.

Those numbers are for a meat shield Maller, by the way.

hi I'm from wow, just here to tell you wow pvp is often all about alpha too

well, bye