LB 10-X vs UAC/5

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KitK
07/08/14 01:58 AM
69.11.32.247

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I was going to delete or edit my previous post but time has expired, and it is now forever etched into the timelessness of the internet - errors and all.

My CCDP stat is admittedly convoluted. My apologies for that. Again the best way to interpret it is the average damage in a 20 turn game, firing the gun every turn (in range or not) with a 4 gunnery pilot while walking against a +2 target modifier. Actual results will vary from the canned, idealized weapon testing parameters.

Figuring out the jamming rate seemed pretty straight forward. 1 in 36 jams. I divide the number of shots fired in the combat cycle by 36 to find out how many jams. Then I spread that evenly between the ranges. Getting the damage lost is trickier because it is ammo based. So, the question becomes, which shot will the jam occur on? Well, every shot has the same separate chance of a jam, so there is no way to know. I assumed worse case scenario that the jam occurred on shot 1 of 10 (ultra mode). And I assumed only 1 ton of ammo. These are key assumptions to the outcome. To remove the stranded ammo I reduced the number of shots taken to get the damage production by the number of shots stranded, but count them in the total shots as if they were taken.

So the uAC5 scores a CCDP of 26.2 ignoring jams. Add targeting computer and that score bumps up to 37.6

Accounting for jamming the score falls to 19.7. And with a targeting computer to 28.2.

I applied this to the other Inner Sphere ultra autocannons as well to see what happened and it revealed how ammunition dependent the number is, which may be the error in it that needs fixing. Here is how it works. The first thing is that the more shots per ton the more drastic the damage drop off. The ultra AC2 get slammed from 12.5 to 5.1, whereas the ultra AC20 only goes from 58.8 to 56.3. The second thing is that the more tons of ammo you add the more drastic the damage drop off. So, where you would only have 1 ton of uAC2 ammo, you might have 4 of the uAC20. This is where your uAC20 will start taking a drastic drop in damage production.

So, you can manipulate the numbers for jamming quite a bit by tinkering with how much ammo you want to consider as typically left in the bin after the jam and/or by changing how many tons of ammo you want to account for. KJ, I think you mention 2 tons. You end up with 12.4 or 17.8 with TC. And you mentioned 2 medium lasers once too. The CCDP for a single medium laser is 9.4.

KK
KamikazeJohnson
07/10/14 06:34 PM
24.114.25.152

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Quote:

So, you can manipulate the numbers for jamming quite a bit by tinkering with how much ammo you want to consider as typically left in the bin after the jam and/or by changing how many tons of ammo you want to account for. KJ, I think you mention 2 tons. You end up with 12.4 or 17.8 with TC. And you mentioned 2 medium lasers once too. The CCDP for a single medium laser is 9.4.

KK



Since the damage lost due to jamming is a "waiting time distribution" (i.e. how many trials until X occurs the first time), naturally the lost damage increases with the number of trials performed, since the odds of a jam happening AT SOME POINT increases with the number of times the weapon is fired. I chose 2 tons of ammo for my comparison because that's the amount of ammo I prefer to have for a LB 10-X, and it feels like a reasonable "happy medium" amount.

Your numbers don't feel right though...I don't recall the Waiting Time formula, but I had the helpful hive mind over at BoardGameGeek work it out for me a while back, and there is about a 50% chance of the jam occuring in 21 rounds or less. If we assume that a jam after the 20th shot is meaningless (no ammo left), then the average damage output for the UAC has to be more than 50% of the no-jam figure. Without actually running the numbers, I woukd expect the number to come it at around 75%. The formula I gave in my earlier post should total around 15 (0.75x20) if someone went to the effort of adding it up.

Maybe Cray can help with the numbers here? I'm too out of touch with the required techniques to get a no-guesswork answer.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
Karagin
07/10/14 10:38 PM
70.118.139.48

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One question how many games actually burn through all of the UAC or LB-X ammo of a given BOOK mech?
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
KamikazeJohnson
07/10/14 11:30 PM
24.114.24.52

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Quote:
Karagin writes:

One question how many games actually burn through all of the UAC or LB-X ammo of a given BOOK mech?



In a duel between slow heavies, it's not unusual to go through a full ton of AC/10 or LB 10-X ammo (I'm looking at you, Orion). Between 'Mechs with 5/8 movement or faster, going through 20 shots might not be the norm, but it would not be too unusual either.

In a lance-on-lance battle, the last surviving 'Mech or two could easily go through 15-20 shots, depending on firing decisions.

Company-scale fights can burn through just about any amount of ammo, particularly support units.

So the likelihood of going through any given amount of ammo depends on the fight.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
KamikazeJohnson
07/11/14 11:55 AM
50.72.218.68

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Ok, I just pumped the numbers into Excel to brute-force it for me.

Parameters:
The trial assumes 20 rounds firing in Ultra mode each round, with the weapon jamming on a To-Hit roll result of 2.
A jam results in 0 damage for that round, and 0 damage for the rest of the trial.
Since a roll resulting in a jam would be a miss even without the jamming rule, the jam probability only effects the damage adjustment for future rounds, not current round.

So Round 1 starts off with 0% chance of weapon already being jammed, so weapon effectiveness is identical to NoJam number.

Round 2: 35/36 = 97.22% chance of starting jammed, so average Round 2 Damage multiplied by 35/36.

Adding up the probabilities for each round gives the average number of shot fired by an unjammed UAC over the length of the trial, which in this case is 20 rounds.

Cumulative Probability of Failure over 20 rounds worked out to about 41.4%, meaning 58.6% chance of the weapon running out of ammo without jamming.

Average Number of Unjammed shots:15.5, which works out to a damage multiplier of 77.53%. Multiply your CCDP by that to get your CCDP adjusted for jamming potential.

Damage multipliers:
5 shots: 95.60%
10 shots: 88.38%
20 shots: 77.53%
30 shots: 68.46%
40 shots: 60.83%

Hopefully that makes sense.

edit: KitK's jam-adjusted number of 19.7 (down from 26.2) works out to a multiplier of 75.19%, which I guess is pretty close Although that was calculated for 1 ton ammo...the number given for 2 tons was 12.4, which is a multiplier of 47.33%, much lower than my calculated result...actually pretty close to what I got for 60 shots. Odd.


Edited by KamikazeJohnson (07/11/14 12:03 PM)
KitK
08/29/14 01:59 AM
69.11.32.247

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Kamikaze! Thank you, I am so glad I popped back in to check on this thread. When I get some slow time I'll get your number's incorporated in to my calculations and see what happens. Something was definitely messing up the multiple tons of ammo, this may fix that nicely.

KK
KamikazeJohnson
08/29/14 08:44 PM
50.72.218.68

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Another refinement you could add: an "optimized" valuation for the LB 10-X. Essentially, if the to-hit number is 10-12, you get HIGHER average damage out of Cluster shot. Numbers are nearly identical at 9 (slight edge to Slug), and the Slugs advantage increases steadily as the target number drops.

Still doesn't account for "situational" advantages, such as the chances of punching through an armoured location with the big 10-point hit vs the crit-seeking potential of the scattered hits, but that's pretty tough to quantify.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
Christopher_Perkins
08/29/14 08:51 PM
76.104.37.168

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One thing that you may not be factoring in, the LB-10X has a bonus to hit against Aircraft, Flying LAMs, and VTOLs that the UAC/5 Does not...

if the clay pigeons fly, you want to use a shotgun
Christopher Robin Perkins

It is my opinion that all statements should be questioned, digested, disected, tasted, and then either spit out or adopted... RHIP is not a god given shield
KamikazeJohnson
08/29/14 08:53 PM
50.72.218.68

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Quote:
Christopher_Perkins writes:

One thing that you may not be factoring in, the LB-10X has a bonus to hit against Aircraft, Flying LAMs, and VTOLs that the UAC/5 Does not...

if the clay pigeons fly, you want to use a shotgun



Another situational advantage that's difficult to quantify. Not familiar with that rule, tbh...never played using aircraft.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
Christopher_Perkins
08/30/14 03:08 AM
76.104.37.168

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LB-X cluster (-3) Flak vs VTOLs, AeroTech units & Flying LAMs
(that is the -3 REPLACES the -1 for Cluster)
BattleTech Compendium (1990)

Modern Rule Books break it out
LB-X Cluster (-1) vs all targets
Flak Ammo (-2) vs Flying Targets
That is the -1-2=-3 vs flying targets

the end point is the same,but even the developers get it bollixed (Answered) VTOL vs. LB-X



LB-X Autocannon @Sarna

"The cluster round fragments in flight, peppering the target with submunitions. The cannon is able to punch through an opponent's armor with standard rounds, and then fire cluster rounds to increase the chance of scoring a critical hit on a target's internal systems. The LB-X's flak-like 'shotgun' effect also makes it an effective and deadly weapon against AeroSpace Fighters, VTOLs and Infantry.[5][6][7]"
Christopher Robin Perkins

It is my opinion that all statements should be questioned, digested, disected, tasted, and then either spit out or adopted... RHIP is not a god given shield
Christopher_Perkins
08/31/14 01:36 AM
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youve never fought against VTOLs, Fighters, Dropships, WiGE, or LAMs?
Christopher Robin Perkins

It is my opinion that all statements should be questioned, digested, disected, tasted, and then either spit out or adopted... RHIP is not a god given shield
ghostrider
08/31/14 10:34 AM
66.74.189.38

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It is possible his party does not use those craft in combat roles. The earlier box games had them completely separate from the mechs and vehicles.

Even using vtols and lams is unlikely unless you are fighting mixed units. Most people I have played with only use land units unless they play a scenario that requires flying units.

I believe cray stated he is not allowed to use artillery by the group he deals with since everything he made used tag. For alot of people, they have never used artillery.

I do know someone that will not play anything but mech on mech. It just depends on the people playing.

And the reason flak is so dangerous to those craft is the control surfaces. Being that close to the ground, any control damage tends to send the craft into the ground at high speeds.
KamikazeJohnson
08/31/14 06:52 PM
24.114.44.110

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I played mostly back in high school at lunch, so we mostly played pick-up games...duels mostly, the occasional 2-on-2. On rare occasions we'd use tanks. That's about as complicated as we got. Just never really got organized for anything bigger, as much as I want to.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
Christopher_Perkins
09/01/14 12:25 PM
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most vehicular units use VTOLs in scouting roles....
Christopher Robin Perkins

It is my opinion that all statements should be questioned, digested, disected, tasted, and then either spit out or adopted... RHIP is not a god given shield
ghostrider
09/02/14 12:02 AM
66.74.189.38

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Vtols were not popular when they first came out. They were extremely fragile with a single hit on the rotor tending to kill the unit. It was only after years that vtols were more main stream, especially when people found they were great at finding the enemy and being able to outrun most without any problems, like a ground vehicle has, and even some mechs. Aerofighters are expensive, and are better used to strafe then just scout.

Honestly, I have yet to play a game with the old group that does more then just put mech against mech. I have done test runs myself, but problems with pets, (cats), loving to jump on the table and attack anything standing, either cardboard or pewter. Even the dice disappear as a paw reaches past the tables edge and grabs them.

But this is straying from the comparison topic.
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