CCP Larrikin wrote:Sentient Blade wrote:So in order to guard your fleet effectively, you really need to put these almost directly on top of your existing fleet (which to need them would be something slow and heavy, say battlecruisers or battleships)... But they're destroyers... so realistically one or two bombs gets through and they're going to explode due to the low EHP of destroyers, especially when sig-bloomed by MWD.
They'll probably get annihilated by a small wing of RLML caracals anyway prior to bombs launching, but I'd say a passive bonus resistance to bomb damage wouldn't go amiss when fitting to destroyers.
This is by design. We want to ensure there is plenty of counter-gameplay to destroyers screening a fleet from bombs with defenders.
If this is a design decision, I would suggest that it's a poor one...
There obviously needs to be counterplay, but by introducing the need to pray to RNGesus you've turned a potentially solid idea into something that is utterly wasteful.
My statistics are a little rusty... but as soon as the first missile is launched, every other ship has a 1 in 8 chance of being completely wasted, the second has a 2 in 8 chance of being wasted, the third has a 3 in 8 chance of being wasted, and so on. By the time you've got 4 missiles in the air you're just as likely to completely waste your shot as you are to help your fleet.
This is birthday paradox central.
Someone will have to check my maths as I'm pretty tired, but 1/8 * 2/8 * 3/8 * 4/8 * 5/8 * 6/8 * 7/8 * 8/8 means that if you counter 8 bombers with 8 support destroyers, your chance of destroying every incoming bomb is practically non-existent (0.2%) giving a 99% chance that a bomb is going to explode on top of your anti-bomber ship and likely destroy it.
That's from ONE wave... and in any major fight you're going to have 4 or 5 waves minimum to wreck the EHP of most doctrines.
With those kind of numbers, and the number of people required to effectively guard against multiple bombs in multiple waves, with such massively diminishing benefits, I see no circumstance where it would not be preferable to field those same people in sebo'd arty / rail destroyers, sit further away outside defensive bubbles, and try to blap the bombers before their bombs detonate.