Pilot Archive

That's very cool.

So, as is kinda obvious, the JSF and B-22 have the highest in agility, but so-so offensive power. A nice package, when combined though.

What's interesting is how the Heavy X-Wing stacks up... looks to have the highest total when you combine offense and agility. Is that correct? If so, shouldn't it be the most effective ship in the game?

Or does this point out just how much agility outweighs offensive power?

I also don't see the Heavy variants of the Tier 0/1 chassis. You planning to add those?

I don't see any mention of hit box in the post, that matters too ... but isn't so easy to nail down.

Very interesting Shona. I too would like to see how the little heavies stack up. I would also like to see how the Kryat fits with no turret gunner. I don't see the firespray or ARC in there either. If you include turrets, it should have higher agility and offense than an X-wing, although not much.

I am also not sure how to account for the fact that you could easily mount a very high YPR L10 engine and still have lots of firepower on something like a Vaksai. If you did the same on a JSF/B-22, you'd be a little underpowered for weapons and/or shielding. Hmm, I'll have to think about it.

I'm sure I had a reson for not including any of the heavy starter variants, but I can't recall what it was. Using the same original formulae, they would appear essentially all as one mark on the same level as the JSF/B-22, but a bit to the left (96 Offense instead of the 127.3 of the JSF/B-22).

It would be possible to plot separate points for the Krayt single person and the Krayt with a gunner, but that would require one formula taking into account the turret gunner and one formula not. Using two different 'ratings' on the same side of the scale might be frowned upon on a comparison chart, but that may be the best way to go. The question would be how to properly account, in the formula, for the change in Offensive power when using a turret. There is a loss in mass available to the pilot's weapons (which is not accounted for in the formula used right now), but is a Gunner with a weapon mounted as effective, less so, or more so than if that weapon was just attached to the Pilot?

The Firespray and ARC statistics available are too incomplete to use. I will look into filling them in, but I'm afraid I don't know how SSSnuggles or the people who helped him aquired some of the numbers used.

The issue, Alirc, that you bring up about the Vaksai absorbing a better engine is a good one. What it essentially says is that mass might have to be a factor in Agility to show that a much heavier mass ship of slightly lower PYR chassis can make up for some of that through a heavier, higher PYR Engine.

Eliane, the position of the JSF/B-22 does say a lot about Agility, but I think there is also a message about Offense. It seems that two weapons and 90k mass is all that is required to handle any PvE content in the game, though the ability to swing those two weapons around on a dime in combat is an important factor.

Some stuff to think about so far, in addition to the issues I'm coming up with myself.

Shona

A note about Square Roots (using numbers greater than or equal to 1):

While at first I thought they were a good idea, and at initial analysis they were not, I think I'm deciding that a square roots, or roots of higher powers, are an invaluable tool to lessen the effect of one term when the composite is a product of the terms.

The proportion of a number to its square root gets larger with the size of the number. Taking the square root of a string of numbers will not change their relative positions, but will shrink the variation between them in a way that lowers the increase gained by higher and higher values.

Pitch, for example, varies from 50 on a B-Wing to 600 on a JSF/B-22, but I don't like the idea of using such a large variation as a term in a product, as it will have an unseemly large impact on the final rating. Using a square root is a way to keep the gist of the Pitch scale, but "tone it down" some to lessen the rating's dependence on it.

Whether the specific example of lowering Pitch's effect on Agility is the right thing to do is what I'm trying to decide.

Shona

Message Edited by SheenaBrelya on 07-13-2005 12:54 PM

A pretty good start I'd say, I like the idea.

Here is some feedback I have though:

In your offense equation, I am thinking mass should not be square rooted. Everything else in the equation is, but I think mass is the most important so its variation should be the most pronounced. An example of this is the RGI vs. the TIE Advanced. The Advanced ends up beating out the RGI because of its two weapons vs. the RGI's one. In reality, with the 15k more mass in the RGI you are going to be able to fit a really nice single weapon and beat out an Advanced.

In the agility equation, I like that speed mod is not square rooted. However, after a discussion with Tomo yesterday it seems that the YPR of the chassis is just how responsive it is which is much less important that the max YPR which is a product of he chassis speed modifier. So I think it should be given even more importance, maybe raised to the 3/2 power or something.

Finally, the numbers on your axis are meaningless aswe don't really care about the units. Therefore divide all the numbers by the max (i.e. all agility numbers by the highest agility number) to non-dimensionalize them. Then you get ratings from 0 to 1. Or you could even do 0 to 100 like a percentage.

So, I decided I want a visual aid for any discussion about ship "balance." Just the thought of the dicussion gets some peoples' backs up, so I have already kissed good-bye any desire to please everyone. What I want instead is something that at least a significant portion of the Pilot community can point to as a tool to use when comparing one ship chassis to another.

My first attempt has consisted of taking the ship stats from the Pilot FAQ, inserting them into a spreadsheet, and creating a chart comparing Agility to Offense of several chassis types.

Most people at this point should be wondering what I mean by Agility and Offense, while some of the bright members of the audience are already moaning, as this can only lead to a discussion about statistics.

I thought about what Offense and Agility meant to me and how I could use the quantitative measurements available and combine multiple numbers into a single "rating." I'll never admit to being good at such a task, which is why I'm here to get help.

After a little fiddling, I came up with the two required formulae:

Offense:
SQRT(Mass)*((SQRT(Mass)*SQRT(Pilot Weapons)+SQRT(Mass)*SQRT(Turret Weapons)/3))

Agility:
=SQRT(Pitch)*SQRT(Accel+Decel)*(Speed Modifier)


Good lord, those are ugly!

If my Statistics teacher could see me now, he'd be soooo embarassed.

Why all the Square Roots? I don't know, they felt right at the time. Looking at it and figuring out what the formulae are doing, I see them as a waste.

Why is Ordnance not considered at all? Because I got the chart all done before I realized the glaring mistake.

Why Pitch only, but Accel and Decel? Because Pitch seems to always be proportional to Yaw and Roll modifiers, so including all three seemed to do nothing in a comparison, while Accel and Decel were not always the same, so including both did have some minor purpose.

What about X and B-Wing speeds? I used the "combat" speed modifier and ignored the higher "traveling" one.

What I would like is for some of you people to tear down my ugly formulae and build what might be better composite ratings than what those that I have crafted.

For reference, the chart that was created using the original formulae is available here. It serves as a solution to the problem of creting a visual aid, but it is not (to me) yet refined enough to consider pointing to and saying "here, look at this and get an idea of how ships compare to each other."

*Edit* To get Chart 3 on the first post, the link has been provided.

Shona

Message Edited by SheenaBrelya on 07-15-2005 01:10 AM

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SheenaBrelya wrote:

While at first I thought they were a good idea, and at initial analysis they were not, I think I'm deciding that a square roots, or roots of higher powers, are an invaluable tool to lessen the effect of one term when the composite is a product of the terms.

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Ducimus wrote:
Im not much with stastics, i only know their easily misleading.

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It would be good, I think, to be able to quantify our issues with the new chassis. Maybe we could explain it to the dev team better with charts

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SheenaBrelya wrote:
So, I decided I want a visual aid for any discussion about ship "balance." Just the thought of the dicussion gets some peoples' backs up, so I have already kissed good-bye any desire to please everyone. What I want instead is something that at least a significant portion of the Pilot community can point to as a tool to use when comparing one ship chassis to another.

My first attempt has consisted of taking the ship stats from the Pilot FAQ, inserting them into a spreadsheet, and creating a chart comparing Agility to Offense of several chassis types.

Most people at this point should be wondering what I mean by Agility and Offense, while some of the bright members of the audience are already moaning, as this can only lead to a discussion about statistics.

I thought about what Offense and Agility meant to me and how I could use the quantitative measurements available and combine multiple numbers into a single "rating." I'll never admit to being good at such a task, which is why I'm here to get help.

After a little fiddling, I came up with the two required formulae:

Offense:
SQRT(Mass)*((SQRT(Mass)*SQRT(Pilot Weapons)+SQRT(Mass)*SQRT(Turret Weapons)/3))

Agility:
=SQRT(Pitch)*SQRT(Accel+Decel)*(Speed Modifier)


Good lord, those are ugly!

If my Statistics teacher could see me now, he'd be soooo embarassed.

Why all the Square Roots? I don't know, they felt right at the time. Looking at it and figuring out what the formulae are doing, I see them as a waste.

Why is Ordnance not considered at all? Because I got the chart all done before I realized the glaring mistake.

Why Pitch only, but Accel and Decel? Because Pitch seems to always be proportional to Yaw and Roll modifiers, so including all three seemed to do nothing in a comparison, while Accel and Decel were not always the same, so including both did have some minor purpose.

What about X and B-Wing speeds? I used the "combat" speed modifier and ignored the higher "traveling" one.

What I would like is for some of you people to tear down my ugly formulae and build what might be better composite ratings than what those that I have crafted.

For reference, the chart that was created using the original formulae is available here. It serves as a solution to the problem of creting a visual aid, but it is not (to me) yet refined enough to consider pointing to and saying "here, look at this and get an idea of how ships compare to each other."

Shona

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My personal belief sense I'm 3 wins, 0 loses on the JsF, I think the A-wing got the short end of the stick on the chart... But its a good idea, it will give me something to think about at work tonight....

My two biggest concerns at the moment are how to handle turrets in the Offense rating, as the Krayt may be best rated differently with a turret or without, and the use of Mass as a factor in Agility, as the Mass for a better Engine can affect handling performance.

Other notes include the inability to use the KSE Firespray without complete stats - I do not know how to properly determine the Accel and Decel ratings. The ARC stats are also incomplete, though I seem less interested in it's Chart placement than other people (but I'd be happy to add it if I could).

Getting the proper ratio of weight of Mass to other factors (WeaponSlots, Turrets, Ordnance) for the Offense rating will be difficult and very subjective.

Ahh, well, it's an interesting little project and I'd still love some more suggestions and feedback.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to address the Hitbox. I not only do not know how to quantitatively measure it, but I have no idea how it would fit into either formula. If someone has an idea, I'd willing to listen.

Shona

Message Edited by SheenaBrelya on 07-14-2005 01:42 AM

Im not much with stastics, i only know their easily misleading.

Balance wise, i think theres 3 factors involved

Mass, manuverablity, and firepower.

Its a ratio betwen the three that define balance.

At the very least... Mass to manuverablity.