Somewhere on the net there is a mass battle simulator I got hold of during the Scorpius War Championship game. Instead of singular battles it spits out percentages, how likely a certain ship will perform vs another while simulating hundreds of times. Unfortunately i have forgotten the name and place where to get it.
However: The task was to find out how i can safely sit in Webmines with my T-Rex Class Sweepers without having to worry about those nasty Crystal Thunder Class Carrier, which usually are stronger than T-Rex’s.
After simulating different specifications i found the following, which would call a major finding for advanced players: A Mark 8 T-Rex Class Battleship equipped with 8 instead of 10 beams has a near 40% survival chance when fighting a Crystal Thunder Class Carrier, a ship that is known to beat a T-Rex every single time.
I believe with 7 or 8 beams installed there will be a wave of fighters travelling back, jamming the fighter bays for a little longer, which gives the T-Rex enough time to fire another round of torpedoes. The same will happen with any carrier, so this might be a better specification when fighting a carrier race.
Planets Magazine 
Wow thin, this is quite a discovery! This definitely contradicts the traditional wisdom about fighting against carriers. I’d be very curious if you ever discover anything else about the reason for the fighter bays to jam before re-deploying!
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So if the T-Rex you’re building was going to have x-rays anyway, in other words not going to be used to sweep mines, it seems wise the always build with 8 (instead of 10) beams, correct?
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Well this seems to be related to a 6 bay carrier? How does this work vs. a 5 bay (Madonzilla), 7 bay (Instrumentality), or 8 Bay (Automa/Virgo)? I imagine there’s a sweet spot with the numbers…
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The results of course depend on the simulated beam types, yes, and the enemy ships you have to fight. In this specific situation i had to find a good mix of sweeping power and combat strength – 8 Heavy Phasers will sweep about the same amount of Webmines like the 10 Heavy Disruptors would.
What i mainly wanted to point out is that not always the maximum number of possible beams will do the trick – especially when playing a race with small battleships such as the Lizards, this little extra punch can decide over the survival or destruction of the next ships in the battle order.
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Thin, maybe you used the battle simulater of PCC2 – the best one I know. It even has a toggle for NuHost specific rounding.
You can find it at http://www.phost.de/~stefan/pcc2.html.
In general there are unexpected local maximas and minimas when 2 specific ships are fighting and at least one is a carrier. E.g. a 200/60-base does better against a Virgo the more planetary DP (and therefore more beams and fighters) it has? Wrong! With 62 planetary DP the base fights slightly better than with 64 planetary DP. I hope I remembered the exact number correctly. I’m on vacation at the moment and my Excels are at home.
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Just because it fits in here:
somewhere I found the advice that it is wise to equip a Darkwing with just 1 beam (instead of 10) if you plan to let it fight against a strong carrier.
The reasoning was (similar to what thin said) that it is better that the fighters have to travel back and forth (from the Darkwing to the Carrier and back) instead of being shot down by the Darkwing (which results in new fighters being launched immediately).
I never really practised this though.
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This is a great concept Thin. In the old 3.2 days, I often built 1 beam T-Rexes when going against Star bases. However, I must admit that I have not done this in NU. I love the concept, like developing capturing T-Rexes, but have found that I need the versatility of having the best ship available more often then I need the specialized ship to accomplish one main mission. Still, sweeping with 8 HP’s is nothing to sneeze at š and a very valuable ship. Keep up these GREAT ideas!
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As a Bird I used the 1 beam concept for DWs very successfully against heavy carriers. 1 xray and lowtech engines, always the first to fight. Made it possible for them to send out, in the best case, one extra round of torps, thus making the second DW less likely to get destroyed (against Golems), and of course with much less damage.
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This is very interesting concept. I am excited to try running this in some battle simulators.
I usually play the lizards, it was the first race I have played and I have a long-way to go to master playing the game as well as understanding all the tactics.
Thanks for sharing.
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I ran this in the battle simulator 20 times with a T-Rex with 8 and then 10 beams vs. the Crystal Thunder. In only 1 of 20 times did I destroy the Thunder with 8 beams.
(note: T-Rex on left / Thunder on Right).
I think I will have to look into this further.
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This phenomenon is exactly why the new Thor Heavy Frigate for Feds is so amazing. With he Fed crew bonus it exceeds the magic mass of 320kt and is really cheap to build (relatively speaking). I could see making this ship my primary combat build, supported by Nebulas for mkt while in the field.
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