Uh huh.

TEC = Bullets and armor + Credits.

Advent = Shields and Culture

Vasari = Phase Missiles and "DEAR LORD HOW BIG IS THAT FLEET?" (They get bonuses to supply points along with Returning Armada)

So the Vasari get damage, the TEc get antimatter, and Advent get shield mitigation, right?

so true but TEC all so has som tughf ships

Manual has a lot to say i'm sure jsut i was too lazy to read and experienced the gamea in person and came up with this little guide:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=302738

No. Fewer ships per DPS means Focus Fire works better against Vasari, not worse. Imagine the opposite case: Hundreds of tiny-DPS units. At some point focus fire becomes worthless because of turning-times / retargeting. So with few, large ships, Focus Fire is tastier and more effective.

While its true that there will be more hits after hitting the shield mitigation cap on a larger ship, this point is reached so quickly on any ship that it would only be extremely weak ships that would significantly avoid the high end of mitigation, focus fire or no.



True.

[quote=smacksim]No. Fewer ships per DPS means Focus Fire works better against Vasari, not worse. Imagine the opposite case: Hundreds of tiny-DPS units. At some point focus fire becomes worthless because of turning-times / retargeting. So with few, large ships, Focus Fire is tastier and more effective. While its true that there will be more hits after hitting the shield mitigation cap on a larger ship, this point is reached so quickly on any ship that it would only be extremely weak ships that would significantly avoid the high end of mitigation, focus fire or no.Third, because there are about 33% fewer ships in the typical vasari fleet, they tend to be considerably less impacted by AoE attacks such as the missile upgrade that TEC Javelis LRMs and Vasari Assailant LRMs have access to. True.[/quote]

i believe you are incorrect about how this works.

imagine two ships, the first has 50 health (where health is combined shields+hull) and the second has 75 health. this is a typical ratio of a vasari ship vs. a similar non-vasari ship. given that each ship is receiving DPS at the same rate they will each achieve shield mitigation cap at the same time. lets run some numbers and see which ship has more effective health.

assume that each ship will recieve 10 DPS and that this DPS is sufficient to increase mitigation by 15% per second until the cap is reached. starting mitigation is 15% and the cap is 60%.

time mitigation damage this second total damage received
0 15% 8.5 8.5
1 30% 7 15.5
2 45% 5.5 21
3 60% 4 25
4 60% 4 29
5 60% 4 33
6 60% 4 37
7 60% 4 41
8 60% 4 44
9 60% 4 48
10 60% 4 52

at this point the non-vasari ship is dead, lets see how much longer until the vasari ship dies.

11 60% 4 56
12 60% 4 60
13 60% 4 64
14 60% 4 68
15 60% 4 72
16 60% 4 76

at this point the vasari ship is also dead.

the non-vasari ship dies 10 seconds after first damage but the vasari ship dies 16 seconds after, thats 1 second longer than would be suggested by the starting health ratio.

compare the survivability statistics with and without shield mitigation.

50 health ship dies in 5 seconds to 10 DPS, 75 health ship dies in 7.5 seconds to to 10 DPS. The ratio is 1:1.5

50 health ship dies in 10 seconds to 10 mitigated DPS, 75 health ship dies in 16 seconds to 10 mitigated dps. The ratio is 1:1.6

the effect is subtle but its there. it gets amplified more heavily for lower health ships, such as the particularly fragile LRM frigates.

is this effect a decisive advantage? no, definitely not, its not even as good as a single shield or hull or armor tech upgrade. but its there and it does indeed contribute to vasari ship durability.

how does this compare to other combat factors like time lost in re-targetting and damage "overkill"? I don't know, thats hard to quantify.

Time lost to re-targetting and maneuvering to acquire the new target is a minimal factor in most battles where the ships are more or less stationary within each others firing arcs the entire time. They can usually begin firing on a new target as soon as their weapon cooldown has finished. A skilled player can try to split his forces and micromanage them to surround his enemy, this tactic would certainly favor a larger fleet of weaker ships. I don't see this occuring very often though so I have discounted it. You can't discount the Vasari shield mitigation advantage factor though because it is entirely passive and always occurs.

Damage lost to "overkill" (shots still in the air after the targetted ship dies) is another important factor. I'm not sure how best to analyze this one but my intuition tells me that larger fleets produce more overkill shots than smaller fleets. This is something that could also favor the Vasari.

when only direct firing of attacks is considered i think you're right that the turning/re-targetting gap can be exploited to a winning advantage by a skilled player. this is a big factor in favor of small ships when the conditions are exclusively direct fired attacks and the player is effective at micromanaging their position.

it doesn't always work though. for example, if your ships are nearer the planet and your opponents are further away he will benefit from a movement bonus and you will suffer a movement penalty (into vs. away from the center of the grav well). you'll effectively be running up hill and will not be able to reposition effectively. on the other hand you can cleverly exploit this by positioning your ships towards the perimeter of a grav well and then enveloping them as your enemy moves toward the center to attack your planet and platforms.

additionally some ships have abilities that restrict movement and keep your opponents ships tightly packed together. Vasari ships in particular have alot of these kind of abilities so it seems like their own forces are well equipped to counteract one of their potential weaknesses.

finally, the increased exposure to AoE attacks is SO significant a problem for the LRM blob that is common to TEC fleets that it makes me laugh. A couple of Radiation Bombs from a Marza or a shot of Reactive Nanites from a Kortul can just blow a fleet like that to tiny bits in no time at all.