Lost Greybeard
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Posted - 2010.11.02 20:15:00 -
[1]
To elaborate on missile damage formulae:
There is a "radius reduction factor" of ship signature radius / missile explosion radius, call it Fr.
There is a "speed reduction factor" of missile explosion velocity / total ship speed, call it Fs.
There is a "reduction scaling factor" that varies from missile to missile and with your skills, call it k
The formula for missile damage is:
(Base damage) * MINIMUM( Fr , (Fr*Fs)^k, 1 )
So, if your ship is moving quickly (faster than the explosion velocity) then you're going to take less damage-- how much less varies a bit with skills and missile type. If your ship is smaller than the explosion radius the damage will be reduced even if you're sitting still by that factor. If you're in a ship that's both slow and large, you're taking full damage.
(Note: bombs don't have an explosion velocity, so it's Base*MIN(Fr, 1) for them)
The primary role of generic frigs is light tackle and drone hunting. There are specialized frigs for speed tackle (interceptor) and heavy damage (ah, the Stealth Bomber, everyone's favorite glass cannon) as well as scouting (covert ops). Frigs are also preferred for cynosural field generation in many instances, since they're cheap so who cares if they get blown up. Basically, plenty of things for you to do. If you bump it up one size there's also interdictors, which are extremely tactically valuable, and of course cruisers can be fit for speed and in many ways form the backbone of everything but boring POS-bashing fleets.
Basically, don't worry about it. Whatever you want to fly, there's a place for you somewhere.
And the answer to question 2 is: neither. In PvP you BUFFER tank, i.e. have a lot of HP so the other guy goes down first, speed tank, i.e. don't get hit, or spider tank, i.e. get repaired by your buddies when you're the primary target and repair them when they're the primary target. As a frig pilot you're usually talking the second one, frigs have very little in terms of HP or resists in most cases and they're designed to be cheap. Half the fun of flying frigate is "oh, they got me! oh, well, I have 235 more of those in that station over there-- you're fast, disposable, and don't have to really care if you're protected. Which is good, 'cause you'll get blown up every time you make a minor mis-step.
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If you outlaw tautologies, only outlaws will have tautologies. ~Anonymous |