500 Advent Scouts vs. upgraded Vasari Starbase

With 500 scouts you could actually use martyr all at the same time and kill the thing even without using its actual weapons.  250dmg x 500 is 125k raw damage(pre-mitigation).  You lose the scouts obviously but the SB is still dead.

[_]-Greyfox

hmm...

scouts have a reallly crappy modifier vs starbases... its like .35    ... comes out to 425 damage/second.  before shield mitigation and armor.

and the starbase is going to be microed well such that the starbase will be able to fire all 16 of its banks, most likely....

dude.

ya... no.

the starbase should win. expecially with that much support.  4 skirantas?  ya.

the martyderdom idea is intresting... but... i dont think its possilbe to use it all at the same time.

If you micro'd all the scouts to martyrdom and had a thousand, maybe.

But who wants to micro a thousand scouts?  Lol--it could only be for the glory!  Embrace the end!!

Three Against a Thousand

When I was young and daring and longing to see the World,

I said “Goodbye” to my dear old Mum and “Ta’ra” to my best Girl.

And with Kitchener’s encouragement, to the Recruitin’ Station I ran

never dreaming I’d soon be facing death, in the hills of Kafiristan.

We was out near the Limpazi, where a man could die of sweat

our feet all covered in blisters and our Scarlets wringing wet.

When the Captain turned towards us and said, “It’s with regret,

that by this time tomorrow, the enemy must be met….

…..and it’s three against a thousand“

“Three against a thousand?” Jocko muttered with chagrin.

“Never mind all that”, Said the Captain,”It’s time we’re digging in,

and with three against a thousand, put your backs into it men.

For if we die tomorrow, we go down the Queen’s own to the end”

The Captain loaded his revolver and carefully checked the sights.

Jocko fixed his bayonet and said, “I’ll take one with me, too right”.

I unrolled my stockwhip and clutched my rifle tight,

for with three against a thousand, it was gonna be

a long and lonely night.

The sun rose hot in a blood red sky, the horizon shimmered in the heat.

We saw those blighter’s comin’, they never missed a beat.

I turned towards the Captain, my eyes beggin’ for retreat.

“Steady on men, we may not win but we’ll not cry defeat.

Though it’s three against a thousand“

The cannons roared, the rifles cracked and men cried out in pain.

The bullets flew so thick and fast, it was a steely, deadly rain.

The carnage it was terrible, the likes I never wanna see again.

And though it was three against a thousand

not a single one remained!

When the dust had finally settled, I could scarce believe my sight.

The Captain was terribly wounded, yet he still remained upright.

And there was Jocko, limpin’ towards me, whimpering with fright,

“Those were the three toughest bastards this Army’s ever had to fight!!!”

I once tried using tec timed explosives to counter sb. but scout special abilities do not work against sb. So I doubt martyr would work for advent.

Can someone explain me that damn poem, cause I don't get it

Lol--it's about three guys going off to fight a hopeless battle against a thousand and you're supposed to think the guys saying the poem are the three--they aren't--they were part of the thousand.  They were a tough three.

kk, I get it. Thanks for explaing!

Given the current implementation of martyrdom it would be impossible to use all 1000 scouts at once...the ability has a stacking limit, so if multiple uses occur in a short period of time, only the first use counts...if you had 1000 scouts use martyrdom at the same time, you would still only see 250 damage....

If the stacking limit were removed and the AI autocast condition didn't require 50% hull damage, then microing 1000 scouts to use martyrdom wouldn't be any harder than microing one....simply right click the ability to turn on autocast, then give a move order on top of the SB...this would succeed in destroying the SB but obviously this is an extremely risky strategy (and not possible anyway)...

IIRC, Vasari SBs can have 5 targets per bank (1 more than Advent or TEC), so that makes 20 targets...if you add on the Defense tech that increases number of weapon firing banks, you are looking at 24 targets...I may not be entirely correct on this, but that is roughly 25 targets at once....if it takes 5s to kill a scout ship, you are looking at 200s to wipe out 1000 scout ships...

IIRC, seekers do what, 2 DPS?  Times a thousand, that is 2000 DPS...but there are other factors to consider...as pointed out earlier, shield mitigation and armor will seriously reduce that number...then there is the damage multiplier from the damage tables...

Shield mitigation is about 60%...I don't remember the armor on a Vasari SB but with the appropriate technologies I'm sure it could easily get to 15...then, the damage multiplier of antilight vs. module armor is .35...

2000 x 30% (what's not mitigated) x 1/(1 + 5% x 15) x .35 = 2000 x 6% = 120 DPS

Assuming a linear casualty rate, the total damage accumulated would be 200s x 120 DPS x 1/2 = 12,000

The armor reduction would not apply while the scouts worked on taking down the SB's shields, but since the total damage doesn't even exceed the hull HP of the starbase, that minor detail hardly matters...

I may have made a mistake with my numbers (or an off estimate), but it doesn't seem like a full fleet of scouts could even take out a Vasari SB with no shields...even if you added in tech upgrades for the Advent fleet, gave them a supply pact, and denied the Vasari any weapon/hull/shield/armor/SB techs, I still don't think the scout fleet could win...

And certainly, if the SB had any support (cap ship, repair bays, anything), the scouts guaranteed don't stand a chance...

Assuming I understand the mechanic right (which I may not since SINS Developers use alien math with their Percentages lol), we can calc the following:

If Seekers are fully maxed then we have a 30% laser power increase making base damage 2.6

Before Mitigation the dps is 500*2.6= 1300

Mitigation starts at 15% +1% per 10 Damage-1.25%/Sec. Mitigation & Damage are calculated in sequential waves, about ever other second, therefore the first "Wave" should do approx 1300*.85= 1105

After this Mitigation will be maxed to 65% making each sequential "wave" of damage 1300*.35= 455

So at 8000 Shield, we are at 6895 after damage wave 1 with 455 decrease with each additional. After approx 16 Waves, shields on Orkulus are gone without factoring Shield Regen. There is some damage overspill and I dont know the mechanics of whether this is applied to hull or "lost damage".

At the same time, deferring to Seleuceia's engagement calculation, in 15 waves or about 30 Secs, the SB has wiped out approx 150 Scouts ( 25 Targetsx(30/5sec per kill)) reducing DPS gradually down to 318.5 dps.

Horay!!! You knocked out the Shields and still have 350 Scounts! Sounds Great!

Wait......crap.......18,000 Hull.....Armor in the mid to High teens......still with 65% mitigation........

Unless these figures are absurdly wrong, its pretty fair to say at this point that Seekers will be turned into a tasty soup for the Vasari to happily consume.

Would factoring a Cap ability make a siginficant difference?

Sheild Restore?

Energy Aura?

Vertigo? (Does it affect SB?)

Shield regeneration on the prog combined with energy aura from a Halcyon would certainly help...but that seriously undermines the point of this discussion then even though it probably wouldn't help enough to make a difference...

It is no secret that advent scouts are far more powerful than they should be, but even so they are the worst possible ship to attack an SB with...antilight weaponry is pathetic against structures and individual seekers will get pulverized much faster than disciples, illums, destras, or anything else in the Advent arsenal...

The only redeeming quality of the seeker is that it is cheap and requires no resources (only credits)...however, destras would be more cost effective for the firepower they get and would actually build faster per fleet supply...

The bottom line is, the only reason you'd build a massive fleet of scouts is if you cannot build anything other than tier 0 units and you are looking at a massive amount of LRFs (otherwise, you'd be better off simply building LFs)...the only viable situations I can really see this being remotely effective is in large 4v4 or 5v5 games where your fleet would be supporting an ally's fleet...to expect a player to singlehandedly do much of anything with just scout ships (even seekers) is ludicrous....unless the only thing they would ever attack is LRFs (which means you should be winning if your enemy's that dumb) the seekers will lose no matter what...

However..once the space pony achievement has been unlocked in the game, the scouts can mount them and make their attacks unbeatable.

Even if we take into account the +2 charge bonus and 10% flanking bonus granted by the space ponies, the scouts still lose, albeit with much more style...

Yes but you have forgotten the +25 armor and moral boost--redo your math.

Who needs math? Lets test it online.

There is also the possibility the seekers could have the com jammer ability and two shock promotions...I believe testing it online is one of only two ways in resolving this problem...the other is a manly cage match to the death, and there's nothing worse than a laggy cagematch on ICO...

Online!?  My space ponies are in my back yard.  Meet you there.