Last word on ship comparisons...thanks to map edit

[Rust_Lord]

Okay I got myself the map editor last night and made a few maps to one and for all determine which ships are stronger, just to end debate. I know many have probably arranged multiplayer games just to test which vessels were stronger but I used only Hard AI and made the following matches. I swapped sides and tested each strategy (described below) with each ship...

 

Neb B Vs Acclamator

Ass. Frigate Vs VSD

ISD Vs MC-80

Home One Vs Accuser

 

No upgrades to any side were in effect.

 

In every battle the Imperial ship was victorious only due to the fact that they had fighters. TIE fighters may seem useless but they can draw fire away from the bombers which give the Imperial ships the advantage. Without TIE support Imperial ships are at an obvious disadvantage but they are certainly not completely helpless. It depends on which strategy you use, and making use of the ships strengths, which is very much linked to the ships design. Two basic strategies you can use is to simply duke it out or to try and out maneuver your opponent, maximising your shots while minimising those of your enemy.

 

Acclamators are completely outclassed if not supported by fighters; it doesn’t matter if you sit there or try to maneuver. The Nebulon-B is too tough, especially with its ability to boost shields. Its proton torpedoes are handy and you can give the Neb-B a run but ultimately its suicide.

 

Assault Frigates stand no chance against VSDs if they try and duke it out. They are way faster than VSDs so they have to use this speed to their advantage. Getting up close and running circles with the VSD is not a good option because it can maneuver to and once it gets its TLs and Ion cannon in position the frigate is in real trouble and if you try to break off the VSD will just pound you, and if you lose your engines its over. Hit and run is the best option because you can break off when your shields get low and recharge. The VSD is deadly once its shields are down. This is the best time to use the supercharge weapon ability. Remember, the VSD will always win provided it can actually catch the Assault frigate.

 

The ISD vs MC80 is an interesting one. Due to all the hype I expected the MC-80 to destroy the ISD with ease. I must say against a computer is different to against a player who knows what they are doing. This battle is dependant upon the design of the ships and heavily dependant on what hard-points were targeted once shields were down. The MC-80 is built for broadsides (just look their design and weapon layout) and its best tactic is getting up close with the ISD and running circles with it. If the MC-80 sits there and tries to slug it out with the ISD then it is anyone’s fight, however a player who knows that they are doing with an MC-80 should win. The ISD’s wedge shape is designed for this frontal slugfest. It seemed to me the MC-80s accuracy on its rear batteries was poor when fighting front on. This was actually still very fair despite the ISD not having any fighters. I have seen posts that the firepower of the MC-80 is greater than that of the ISD, and Home-Ones firepower is greater than the Accuser but this is not correct.

 

The Accuser wiped the floor with Home One time and time again because of the photon beam. In one hit it can take out the MC-80s shield generator and it’s all over after that. Home One is built for broadsides even more than a normal MC-80 but the photon beam totally tips the scales in the Accuser’s favour.

 

As for the changes in 1.4, I think it is only fair the effectiveness of the corvette class be reduced as well as the ISD and Accusers price. This more accurately reflects their worth.

 

What u think?

[Darth_Extas]

I disagree besides, with the Home-One being faster, as I said before, they both have blind spots, the Proton Beam only has a one time use, within the direct confrontation and even then, by that time, Home-One could have taken out the Accuser's sheilds. I have lost many times, with a key strategy against Home-One against the Accuser. Even with the Proton Beam, you have to get close to fire it at Home-One.

I as well disagree with the Nebulan-B Frigate winning over the Acclamator, you forgot one other factor that turns it in the Acclamator's favor, the Proton Torpedo Launcher! The Proton Torpedo Launcher nullifies the Nebulan-Bs Manuverability advantage because you (in Empire at War) cannot dodge or run from Proton Torpedo's without getting hit as well, did you look at the hardpoint ratios? The Acclamator has 7 hardpoints(sorry I do not have the XML open right now, that could be wront) compared to the Nebulan-Bs 4. hen I was saying that Home-One has greater Firepower, I was aware of the Proton Beam!

[TheMonsterOfTheIsland]

Okay, which of these machups has more in the terms of firepower without factoring in speed, a clever player, special abilites, or fighter compliments? In other words, one-on-one slug fests:

 

ISD vs. MC-80?

Accuser vs. Home One?

 

Can you figure out which one would win in terms of raw firepower and in terms of an actual battle (shields, etc.)?

[Slocket]

In every battle the Imperial ship was victorious only due to the fact that they had fighters. TIE fighters may seem useless but they can draw fire away from the bombers which give the Imperial ships the advantage. Without TIE support Imperial ships are at an obvious disadvantage

 

 

That balance also depends if you are playing Human to Human, or Human to AI. Or AI vs AI which happens in the game when you are not directly controlling the ship -they have a limited mind of their own, you do not have 100% control over your ships and fighters. Too much going on, they think for themselves.

 

Just playing with the LUA script which under patch 1.4 is fully decompiled to source code..you can alter the behaviour.

 

I like to watch the AI controlled ISD against a AI controlled MonCal.

 

The fighters have a habit of just sitting there dead after attacking a target. So I am playing with the AI LUA and XML Perception Equations (and target priortity and Threat levels and Magic numbers and Evaluators and 'my head is hurting' to understand all this!).

[Rust_Lord]

Hey Extas, I wasn’t slagging off at you but here is a few explanations:

 

In the XML files Accusers speed is 1.4 and Home Ones is 1.5. There is hardly any difference in speed in actual game play. Once the two ships encounter, unless Home One makes an immediate break for it, Accuser will be able to keep it in range until one of them is destroyed. Yes both ships have blind spots but the photon beam if used correctly can make up for any surprise attack. If Home One was invulnerable to shield generator destruction it would be en entirely different story. With the bigger ships it can depend on what you target. A human player is going to but much smarter than even Hard AI, that’s why I tested it with both sides, with different strategies. Home Ones design is particularly vulnerable to frontal attack. When I played as Accuser Home one did knock my shields down but the photon beam ate through Home Ones shields and took at the shield generator every time. The AI targeted my shield generator first and this gave me valuable time to start taking out Home Ones guns or its engine. The photon beam can be used as many times as you like, as it recharges but once your tractor beam gets destroyed you lose it as well. As for the beam I didn’t know if you factored it in or were just going on the comparative firepower of turbolasers and ion cannons. Of course Home One has more firepower, its got 2 extra Ions, but see below…

 

With the ISD Vs Mon Cal, it was pretty much the same deal; MC80 targets shield generator, engine and launch bay first. As ISD all you can do is target the MC80s engine and then start knocking off its turbo-lasers. I will leave it to you to decide whether the AI priorities are right or not. For the record Mon Cals health is 8500 autoresolve / 8000 tactical with 2000 shield and a recharge of 800. ISDs health is only 7500/7500 (I disagree with this) with 2000 shield and 800 recharge. Home Ones health is 3000/8000 with 2500 shields and 80 recharge.

 

As for the Acclamator, I mentioned the proton torpedo launcher, but it only manages to damage the Neb-Bs turbolasers before it is itself destroyed. Neb-B has 700 shield and 3600/3600 health. Acclamator has 600 shield and 2400/2000 health. Combined with the shield boost ability of the Neb-B it was never even close. I must state that these were controlled environments and when the AI has one ship to destroy, it doesn’t stuff around. There is nothing else to distract it. (Slocket I would be interested to know the outcome of the modified AI battle between ISD and MC80) The Acclamator has 8 hardpoints but 3 of them aren’t worth shooting it until the battle is beyond doubt. Against a cap-ship the laser cannons and concussion launcher don’t do much. Once you knock out the turbo-lasers and torpedo launcher the Acclamator is lost.

 

As I started to say above, as for actual firepower, no special abilities etc, Home One has more firepower than Accuser, as it has two extra Ion cannons however, Accuser uses modified ISD stats and has 9375 health (25% more than an ISD) ; a lot more than Home One. Home One also has trouble bringing all its guns to bear as they are spread along its hull. If you allow shield boost, Home One has some chance, depending on what hardpoints are targeted by both ships, but generally Accuser will win, especially if you don’t allow Home One’s shield boost.

 

As for ISD Vs MC80, again it depends if you allow shield boost ability and what hard-points are targeted. If you allow shield boost, and both ‘AIs’ were of the same level, MC80 will win. It is marginally tougher.

 

One of the biggest factors as I said was hard points you target. I don’t play online so I will never have my tactics used against me ( ) but as for what I would target: Engines are important. If you can immobilize the enemy while staying mobile yourself you have a big advantage.

Taking out launch bays could be important if your facing TIE bombers, but if its one on one, your not going to be able to hit them anyway. Forget it.

Shield generators are not as important as they may seem. Once you’ve got the enemies shields down there are more important things to damage.

Forget laser cannon, missiles launchers and tractor beams.

Personally the most important things to take it are TURBO LASERS. You can’t be destroyed if the enemy has nothing to destroy you with. The quicker you can take them out the less damage you will take. Ions only eat shields and you are going to lose them anyway. Leave them until after laser cannons because they can still damage you.

Turbolasers are the primary and most deadly weapons a ship carries. If you think about it, Acclamator’s, Neb-B’s, Assault frigate’s and VSDs all only have two. Its not many hard points to take out. With Mon Cals you don’t have many hardpoints to chose from, they are all pretty important but once the four turbolasers are gone its over. ISDs have a lot of hardpoints and it can buy valuable time if the unimportant ones get attacked first.

Essentially; attack engines first because you cant afford the enemy to knock out your engines while you’ve been concentrating on something else and find yourself immobile while they are not = disaster. After that, start hammering turbos. To the players who have fought against ships I have described and lost but I won, this is the strategy I used. Hope it helps. Gotta find a strategy for SSDs now. Can’t run circles with them!

 

oh yeah and this thread could have gone in the ground assault topic area, i realise.

[arkodeon]

Hey Extas, I wasn’t slagging off at you but here is a few explanations:

 

In the XML files Accusers speed is 1.4 and Home Ones is 1.5. There is hardly any difference in speed in actual game play.

 

Very untrue. Test this for yourself; it works just like scaling: 1.4 size ship is considerably smaller than 1.6, only 2 decimals apart.

[hk47]

its easy for piett all he has to do is use protom bam to get ackbars sheilds down(even if ack has sheild boost its unstoppable)then target all ackbars turbo lasers then engins and its over ackbar practically has no weapons then and what can ackabr do? nothing by time pietts finished him off pietts sheilds would be like 50% down so piett always wins even without proton beam cause i didnt even mention the bombers

[Darth_Extas]

There are some exaggerations in that, something else that you guys are forgetting is that Home-One has greater HP then a normal Mon Cal. I have the experience with the game to realize some other factors as well. The ion cannons of Home-One are generally stronger then the Accuser's Ion cannons. If you see them in direct combat, I have lost many times. A reminder of the blindspots of both, they are behind, but it is harder to get around Home-One without much damage due to the arrangements of the Hardpoints.

 

Rust_Lord you did not originally agree with me.

The Proton Beam's Range is 800

Home-One's Range: 2000

Thus if the proton were to fire, at Home-One, Peit would be under heavy fire, since if you do the proton beam from a distance, the Accuser would not fire at Home-One as a common universal AI function. The Accuser would do "move" not "attack-move" to target to get into range .

Also note this, the max speed of Home One is 1.5 and the max speed of the Accuser is .25 I am comparing them directly from the XML here.

There are some more XML stuff that I can compare it to.

If you can find the range of an SD then compare that to Home-One

[Rust_Lord]

Sorry Extas you lost me, I dont know what I was suppossed toa gree or disagree with you about anymore, apart from Accuser V Home One generally.

 

Yeah the Photon beam is short range and it takes some time to fire but if you let it do its thing it does destroy shields (even when boosted as mentioned above) and any hardpoint targeted (ie shields). Accuser does take a pounding on the way in but once it gets the beam off it is in slightly better condition than Home One. I have noticed that on some uses of the beam that if you fire it, get impatient and interfere with it, it will only fire a weak blast. (?) I did find, against hard AI that with Acclamator V Neb-B, just before torpedoes hit Neb-B for the first time it activated its shield boost which absorbed the torpedoes. A bit rude I think but that is what it does. The Neb-B then proceeded to hammer the Acclamator.

 

As for speed of Accuser, Accusers stats are a modified generic star destroyer. It does not seem to be an entirely new ship like Home One. Second line under name, it says "variant of existing type". The speed your referring to is the death model of the Accuser. As i said above, Accusers stats are exactly the same as an ISD but some are modified (ie health).

 

I have had a look and found the following interesting things about firepower and range etc.

 

Mon Cal and ISD Ion AND TLs all have a range of 2000. ISDs Ions and TLs a have a health of 325 whereas Mon Cals have 420. Home One only has 400 health for its weapon hardpoints.

 

Both ISD and MC TL fire 7 pulses and recharge between 3-4 secs. ISD ions have 3 pulses whereas MCs have 5. Home One has 7. Recharge is again between 3-4 secs. MC Ion damage is 20. MC TL damage is also 20. I couldnt find Home Ones Ion or TL damage but suspect they are same as standard. I also could not find the damage for ISDs TLs or Ions. All it said was 'damage type star destroyer'.

 

One thing I did find however was that MCs TLs against star destroyers armor has a modifier of .75 whereas ISDs TLs against MCs armour is 1. This indicates to me that whatever damage an ISD does, it penetrates MCs armor better. I would expect ISDs TLs to do 20(-30) damage.

 

Another interesting thing I found was that a VSDs TLs only did the standard 20 damage when they are supposed to be enhanced. Assault frigates do 40. Me thinks the only reason the VSD seems effective is because of the Ion cannon.

 

Its hard to say which has the greater because we dont know the damage of the ISD and I couldnt be bothered looking up accuracy if you want to take that into account. Range is the same. MCs Ions appear better. ISDs TLs do more damage to MC than MC does to ISD due to armour.

[Rust_Lord]

Very untrue. Test this for yourself; it works just like scaling: 1.4 size ship is considerably smaller than 1.6, only 2 decimals apart.

 

I have tested it; over the length of a standard map. Mon Cal took 2 min 55 secs and ISD took 5 seconds longer. This is a VERY small difference and in fact I will correct what I said: even if a MC broke off at first sight the ISD will always be able to keep it in range unless there was some serious maneuvering. You can accurately judge comparisons between ships just by looking at the numbers in XMLs but there will always be exceptions, like scaling. I can't explain the great variance in only 2 digits apart but to say that because that this has great variance, all info in XMLs has great variance is wrong.

 

And I would also say I am certain ISDs TLs do more damage than MCs after some specific testing.

[TheMonsterOfTheIsland]

I miss the good old days of Galactic Battlegrounds, where every attack value was (more or less) a simple number and when all attacks were some form of cheesy laserblast. It was a simpler, happier time, similiar to the fictional time period that so many Republicans yearn for.