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[Plantissue]

... Ackchually, if AAF is considered to be a 30% boost in DPS, the identical defensive properties of the standard Eradicator must be considered. A ship that output twice as much damage is not twice as good afterall. Lanchester square law makes it square root 1.3 which should make the standard Eradictor 14% more than the pirate eradicator. So relatively speaking from 22 DP would be 19 DP. But that's a straight forward mathematical model. In starsector AAF allows a ship to frontload damage, retreat, vent and try again which makes AAF much better than such a simple mathematical analysis.

...

Lanchester's square law works in the opposite way that you applied it, a square rather than a square root. By that analysis (which doesn't take into account most things in SS like regenerating shields), a 30% increase in firepower is a 69% increase in effectiveness. I don't think this is accurate for SS, but its more accurate than taking the square root.

Not really, since Lanchester's law concerns itself if equal "strength" units which I had converted to "offence" and "defence" and concerns itself with differring numbers of equal strength units. But if that doesn't convince you, consider that a "unit" with double offence is not worth double cost of the original, and likewise a unit with double defence is not worth double cost of the original either. A unit that is now double offence and defence is not worth 4 times the original, but rather close to double. More due to granuality but lets ignore that.

What I am saying was that from a purely mathematical model point of view, a ship with 30% more offence is only worth 14% more DP, not 30%, and in any case out of the sim like conditions of where you force two opposing ships to burn into shooting range and doesn't attempt to manoeuvre, such mathematical analysis would not properly model the DP worth of starsector ships.

Anyhow, I quite like the Eagle, but the main problem is the mismatch of the weapons and turrets it has only puts it into a tend got a few configurations, either that of a short ranged SO build or of a longer ranged frigate killer. You can personally pilot the Eagle with builds like phase lance, but there are far more effective and easier to use cruisers to personally pilot, including the Eradictor itself. By the way, what planet stock the normal Eradicators? I can never seem to find them.

[Nimiety]

normal eradicators are sold by the luddic church

[Sly]

Eagle eats a lot of slander, but it's easily a great Cruiser, the stats just need a teeny (emphasis on SMALL) touch-up. Frankly speaking, I trust Alex and more frequent fans to determine what that should be. All I know for sure is that something should be done.

It doesn't kill anything fast by itself, but it's a very reliable nuisance. Fantastic maneuverability and regular bursts of speed in any direction, solid shield, and impressive long-range suppression via beam weapons. Even if it isn't an immediate "Sweet JESUS get everyone to the escape pods we just detected that EAGLE OVER THERE at maximum sensor range!" it still has enough firepower to be a serious threat. You can usually plop an Eagle down in the middle of your formation and completely forget about it while your sharks and piranhas sink everything around it. In the midst of all that it'll still be casually applying pressure while the Captain presumably sips tea aggressively.

Extreme disparities in enemy tonnage and firepower not withstanding.

The biggest weakness of the Eagle is that it isn't very flashy or fun to fly. The best it can do on a tactical level, in the hands of a player, is make broad strokes. Compared to higher damage dealers or faster, smaller ships, there's no big thrills. It's pretty gratifying to push into a weak part of an enemy formation, isolate a section, and order a nearby wing to sink or scatter the cut-off ships, though. Other cruisers *can* do the same thing, but not as fast or reliably as an Eagle (or Falcon, to a lesser extent).

I only Captain an Eagle rarely these days, and only when it's necessary. I can command just as easily from any other ship, so there's no draw for me. But... maybe if the Eagle was the one ship that had "Operations Center" or some variant there-of built-in? I might consider it. Strongly.

[Salter]

Eagles nice. I prefer the XIV variant though, as its tougher and has more OP and the speed debuff isnt huge.

Eradicator doesnt need debuffs I feel. It feels just right, all things consider. I would even go so far as to say it could probably use a slight DP increase, up to 25 like the champion. (Convinient plug to say that the Aurora should probably get the 25 dp treatment too).

Cruisers really need to hit that nice balancing point with strong shields, strong weapons and tough armor if they wanna get into line battles, or have a strong action of support ships in the case of ships like the Gryphon or Carriers to cover them. I think there should be a strong emphasis on killing power though. With the 30 ship fleet limit in campaign, you either need to edit game files to get a much larger fleet or your ships need to frequently be able to kill ships smaller than itself, which the eagle cruiser doesnt really have that punching power I feel.

Otherwise its a losing battle against numerically superior foes like pirates who can swarm you with junk or Ordo's which like to gang up.

[Grievous69]

At this point I feel like I should make yet another new thread, but for Eagle. Then again I'd surely be detected by the system as a bot or something.

Yeah for all the harsh talk it gets, Eagle isn't that bad, I'm literally using one right now in my end game fleet, not even a XIV variant. I honestly can't say if the new 20 DP cost will make everything juat righr. I'm going to repeat myself and say it needs a tiny speed bost (probably 5 su) so that it has some speed over Conquest.

[smithney]

Anyway, no need to turn this into a back-and-forth Eagle thread. We already had that one.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Igncom1]

Hey hey now! Not like this is a Conquest thread! 

[ILuvLegion]

Honestly, I'm not convinced that the Eradicator needs to be nerfed. I think it might be helpful to compare the Eradicator to the Champion. In broad strokes I would argue that the Eradicator is pretty similar to the Champion. Both are cruisers with similar speed. Both have most of their firepower mounted on turrets, almost all of which converge forward. Both have ship systems that increase burst damage output (AAF vs HEF). They have generally similar armor/hull/shield values. Also helpfully, I don't really see people talking about the Champion being overpowered (although I am not super active in the community, so I might just be missing things), so the Champion seems like a helpful benchmark to determine if the Eradicator is worth more than its current 20dp cost.

Compared to the Champion the Eradicator is 10 units faster, but pays for that with a much weaker shield and slightly lower armor/hull. Plus, the Champion has significantly more missile firepower (at least in my opinion) and about the same energy/ballistic damage output (it even has a similar ship system). Couple that with 15 more OP and I think that that Champion is noticeably more effective.

Currently the Eradicator takes 20dp, or 80% of the cost of a Champion. If it was bumped up to 22dp or 23dp that would be ~90% of a Champion. At this point I think it might be difficult to justify an Eradicator over a Champion, even with the ~14% higher max speed (unless I was doing a low tech only run, or something). Maybe I'm just not valuing that extra 10 speed enough though.

[Thaago]

... maybe the Champion should lose 10 speed, it also come up when discussing the Eagle...

(But I like Champions being good ships!)

[Grievous69]

... maybe the Champion should lose 10 speed, it also come up when discussing the Eagle...

(But I like Champions being good ships!)

I generally hate when devs make one thing worse (that was previously in a good place) just to promote the worse options. Why nerf the Champion when it performs as it should. It's also a midline cruiser so hard to minmax with skills, but even worse than Eagle since it has energy + missile + ballistic firepower.

[Plantissue]

normal eradicators are sold by the luddic church

I've visited Hesperus about 100 times during the course of a game and never saw a Normal Eradicator in the black market there even once. I know they are available with a Luddic commission. On the other hand visiting Sindria I saw Conquests being sold on the black market a fair few times. But I am a sample size of one.

[Zironic]

Not really, since Lanchester's law concerns itself if equal "strength" units which I had converted to "offence" and "defence" and concerns itself with differring numbers of equal strength units. But if that doesn't convince you, consider that a "unit" with double offence is not worth double cost of the original, and likewise a unit with double defence is not worth double cost of the original either. A unit that is now double offence and defence is not worth 4 times the original, but rather close to double. More due to granuality but lets ignore that.

No, Lanchester's Law does not concern itself of units with equal strength, that's the entire point of the equation. To determine the balance of forces with unequal strength.

The reason it is called the square law is because the solution to the equations say that if you have X less units, you need X^2 firepower to compensate.

We can translate this to DP thusly.  If you have a 20 DP ship, it means you can field 12 of them. This is then equal to (12-x)*0.3 =x^2 which solves to 1.8. That means 10.2 Ships with 30% more DPS should equal 12 20DP ships and thus they should cost 240/10.2 = 24 DP or 20% more.

As others have already pointed out however, firepower is more valuable in Starsector then the equations assume because of how shields work.

[Delta_of_Isaire]

Guys guys guys. Lanchester's square law assumes all units are in range of each other (i.e. functionally infinite range) and have a clean line of fire to any enemy of their choice (i.e. no cover or hiding behind each other). Both assumptions are violated in Starsector combat.

Aside from that, the central point of the square law is describing the advantage of numerical superiority. Namely, that the strength of an army does not scale linearly with size, but rather faster-than-linear (approximately - but not exactly - quadratically). This contrasts with the strength of a single unit, which does scale linearly with that units firepower. For example:

• 1 unit, given +30% firepower, becomes 1.3x as strong.
• An army of 10 units, with each individual unit given +30% firepower, becomes 1.3x as strong.
• An army of 10 units, reinforced with an additional 3 units (+30%), becomes 1.3^2 = 1.69x as strong.

Therefore, assuming the square law holds, using a linear measure like DP to balance the strength of ships doesn't work. Say for example that the Dominator at 25 DP is 25% stronger than the Eradicators at 20 DP. But for every 4 Dominators (100 DP) you can field not 4 but 5 Eradicators (5x20 DP = 100 DP). And 5 Eradicators are 1.25^2 = 1.56x as strong as 4 Eradicators. Which is a bigger jump in power than the 1.25x jump of 4 Dominators compared to 4 Eradicators.

Fortunately the square law does not hold, because as I said its assumptions are violated.


As for the Eradicator: my impression is that it is exceptionally good at punching down, but can struggle to punch up due to a lack of bigger-caliber weapons for armor-cracking, as it has no large guns or medium/large missiles, unlike the Champion and Dominator. Thus the Eradicator feels strong against pirate thrash and weakly-armored Remnants, but should struggle against more robust Lowtech or Midline fleets.

Which, come to think of it, is exactly the same situation the Eagle is in. Except the Eagle has it worse because its turrets are Energy rather than Ballistic and Energy weapons are crap.

[BCS]

As for the Eradicator: my impression is that it is exceptionally good at punching down, but can struggle to punch up due to a lack of bigger-caliber weapons for armor-cracking, as it has no large guns or medium/large missiles, unlike the Champion and Dominator. Thus the Eradicator feels strong against pirate thrash and weakly-armored Remnants, but should struggle against more robust Lowtech or Midline fleets.

The thing is that Eradicator can simply disengage from anything bigger than itself. Some absurd 375k Hegemony bounty with five Onslaughts? Yeah it will take a while but eventually you'll clear everything except for the Onlsaughts at which point it won't matter how fast the Eradicator can crack them since even five unsupported Onslaughts will - eventually - die to eight Eradicators(at that point it's like a Battlestation fight, heh) I had no problems with midline fleets because midline ships are generally shield tanked.

Then it gets more meta - you can simply not fight low-tech bounties. There are other bounties than Hegemony's and there are other ways to earn money than bounties in the first place. But if you want more AI Cores you have no choice but to fight the Remnants. Which is why there's a bias in judging every ship, or at least every cruiser, by how well it would do against Remnants.

The thing with Eradicator - and why I dread the next patch - is not that Eradicator is OP. It's that it's the only cruiser that is actually good, it's the only cruiser that actually succeeds at what cruisers are supposed to be. Smaller ships can't touch it except in numbers, it can disengage from larger ones, it has enough PD not to resist fighter spam, it is still reasonably cheap DP-wise. Only Champion comes close but Champion is let down by its flux, lack of good medium energy weapons(which forces you to use HVDs on a ship with High Energy Focus - always feels bad) and the fact that AI is bad with Tachyon Lances and High Intensity Lasers.

We should be bringing other cruisers up to Eradicator level and using it as a "base", not nerfing Eradicator into uselessness. Then we're back to Wolfpack Tactics Hyperion/Brawler LP(now HERE is a ship that needs a nerf) spam.

[Grievous69]

Heavily disagree that other cruisers are just worse than Eradicator. Also with your first example, the Onslaught can just burn in and kill the Eradicator before it has a chance to run away, seen it happen many times. The only cruisers that are currently not up to par imo are Eagle (got a lot of attention, Alex is probably buffing it) and Fury. Gryphon, Apogee, Heron, Mora, Champion, Dominator are all fantastic cruisers that are well worth their cost. None of them need any buffs because someone had a silly thought that the Eradicator outshines them all.

Also if you're that stuck on comparing ships based on Remnant performance, then Apogee, Gryphon and Champion are all better than Eradicator simply because they can mount Squalls, along with the supporting arsenal.