In regards to Onslaught effectiveness and bringing weapons to bear, I find that Onslaughts essentially define the line of fighting, so they shouldn't need to turn all that much, especially against an opposing capital or cruiser line.
TPCs have firing arc of 5 degrees, so even a small turn of 10 degrees gets them completely off target.
5 degrees at range 1600 (1000 * 1.6 from Integrated Targeting Unit) is 1600 * sin(pi/180*5) = 140 units. At half range, distance 800, that's 70 units. For something like a Champion with say a 20% speed buff, so 60*1.2 = 72, it still takes a good second to cross that much distance assuming you're moving transverse, so you'll still be getting shots off. Its not a super tight tolerance.
An Onslaught with Heavy Armor (which is a default on my builds) takes ~28 seconds to do a 360 turn once at maximum rotation rate (12.8 degrees/second). With any one of Auxilliary Thrusters, Helmsmanship or Elite Impact mitigation it drops to ~24 seconds to do a 360 turn (15 degrees/second).
So at 1600 range, an Onslaught with a -10% maneuverability malus and +50% maneuverability bonus, can keep up with a transverse speed of ~400 units/second. At range 800, its roughly 200 units/second. Admittedly, that is not changing acceleration and changing rotation speed which takes some time, but I've never seen an Onslaught have serious issues hitting cruisers or capitals on a battle line with TPCs.
You have to actually get pretty close to be able to get under the TPC guns completely, which most non-maneuverability system cruiser and capitals cannot do, and certainly won't do under enemy AI control. Skilled officers on the Onslaught plus Auxilliary thrusters combined make it even harder to pull off.
Even if you get that close, it's not like the Onslaught doesn't have side guns. It can realistically bring more ballistic guns to bear than a Conquest anywhere in its front 150 degree arc, except for two small arc slivers. Essentially, it's got 2 turreted large Ballistics and 4 medium ballistics in that forward 150 degree arc.
So it mostly comes down to escort orders in a real campaign to keep frigates and destroyers away from the rear and flanks.
I assumed Advanced Optics affects base weapon range because that's what the description implies.
Cumulative in my mind means added with, not multiplied with, but I can see the confusion the wording might cause. Clearest comparison I can provide is take a look at Ballistic Rangefinder which is explicit about base range. You can also test relatively easy in game. Clearest might be simply set a beam weapon in the weapon_data.csv to have base range 1, and see what ITU + advanced optics on a capital looks like versus just advanced optics.
Yes, what better way to test AI getting distracted than by removing all distractions?
Admittedly, this was a quick 5 minute test. I'm open to suggestions for comparisons.
Taking a bit more time now to play around with it, I've got two conclusions:
1) Given the missile focused nature of Conquests, they actually tend to be much better at clearing frigates/destroyers than Onslaughts. The ability to focus fire over their allied frigates is just really strong. So like if I do a 4 capitals + X frigates/destroyers on both sides, the Conquests actually tend to come out on top depending on exact fittings. Onslaught support just disappears that much faster at which point 4 capitals + support beats 4 capitals.
2) Oddly enough, a set of appropriately configured 6 Onslaughts by themselves can handle both 6 Conquests or say, 4 Conquests with a bunch of frigate distractions. Given the heavy missile focus properly configured Conquests can bring to bear (actually throwing on Expanded Missile Racks/ECCM and a full compliment of large and medium missiles (say Squalls + Harpoons) mixed with decent guns (Say Mjolnirs + Hypervelocity or Heavy Maulers), Onslaughts need something like IPDAI and a set of Proximity Charge Launchers to actually clear incoming Squall streams (plus some Flak), but once they reach sufficient PD, they actually handle the situation pretty well. For such an Onslaught fleet, Reckless AI actually seems to work well.
Particular attachment was running Mark IX, 2 Mjolnirs, 2 Hypervelocity drivers,1 Dual Flak, 4 Flak, 6 Vulcans, Heavy Armor, ITU, Expanded Missile Racks, IPDAI, Armored Weapon Mounts. It was up against 2x Squall,2x Harpoon 2x Mjolnir, 2x Hypervelocity Driver, 4x Flak, 10x PD laser, ITU, Expanded Missile Racks, ECCM Conquests, and tempest_Attack variants.
This is all skill-less mind you, so the Onslaughts are much more over fluxed than they would be in a campaign with Ordinance Expertise on officers.
Although, to bring it back around to the actual thread, I also tried a non-officered, no s-mod, non-XIV variation on the energy weapon Onslaught presented in the opening, so 6 minipulsers, a cryoblaster, and a Voltile Particle driver, Harpoons instead of Reapers (because AI), with ITU, Ballistic Range Finder and Heavy armor. 6 Onslaughts vs 4 Conquests + 10 tempest_Attack had a pretty solid victory (only 1 Onslaught lost). Not sure what to take away from Omega weaponed Onslaughts, but it definitely works reasonably.
