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Jedi Counsel: Accuracy Vs. Defense
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Jedi Counsel: Accuracy Vs. Defense:
Based on the discussions with Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera, in this STOked podcast, and the PDF for 'Accuracy vs. Defense' that can be found accompanying that podcast, I would like to posit a (heavily-tested) theory on how Accuracy and Defense work in relation to each other.
For starters, let's look at what Accuracy and Defense are, and how they are modified:
Accuracy:
Accuracy is the primary factor in determining the effectiveness of the attacks of your ship's weapons.
Accuracy is derived from several sources:
Defense:
Defense is the primary factor in preventing enemy attacks from outright hitting your ship.
Defense is derived from several sources:
How do Accuracy and Defense relate to each other?
First, all ships have an inherent 100% Accuracy (1.00 for the STOked spreadsheet) and an inherent 100% Defense (also 1.00 for the STOked spreadsheet).
Second, all weapons calculate their inherent Accuracy bonus independently. Thus, no matter how many [Acc] modifiers one of your weapons may have, they only apply to that specific weapon. The Accurate Trait for Captains, however, applies to all weapons (as if they each were gaining an extra [Acc] modifier). For example: if your ship has 4 Beam Arrays, 1 of them with [Acc]x2, and the other 3 with no modifiers, only the attacks by that one BA with [Acc]x2 will benefit frorm the +20% Accuracy bonus, while the other 3 will use your unmodified Accuracy rating.
Third, the baseline for 'To-Hit Chance' (i.e. how often your weapons will Hit or Miss their targets) is: 100% Chance To-Hit, if your Accuracy = the target's Defense. Therefore, if you are shooting an unmodified attack at an enemy ship that is moving as slowly as possible (to negate the Defense penalty for being stopped, but not enough to gain any bonus Defense), you will hit them 100% of the time.
Fourth, by using the STOked spreadsheet (and, again, assuming that the 'baseline' Accuracy and Defense values for all ships is 1.00, and each +X% is converted to a decimal value, e.g. +10% Accuracy would equate to .1, +50% Defense from speed would equate to .5, etc.), you can see the sliding scale of To-Hit Chance, as the difference between Accuracy and Defense increase. The minimum possible To-Hit Chance is 25%, but the realistic To-Hit Chances are typically in the 40-70% range (Escorts typically have higher Defense bonuses from speed, thus, are a little harder to hit, and Cruisers typically are slower and get hit a little easier).
Fifth, what happens when your Accuracy is greater than a target's Defense (usually only possible if you are able to stop your target, using Tractor Beams or Beam: Target Engines, etc.), well, a few things:
Then, just for an example of comparing Accuracy vs. Defense:
Let us assume that you are firing a weapon with no inherent Accuracy modifiers, and your opponent is moving and has a +50% Bonus Defense rating from his ship's speed. On the STOked Spreadsheet, you would enter 1.00 into the Accuracy box in the top-left of the sheet, and you would enter 1.5 into the Defense box.
You will see in the "Diff:" box: -0.5 (because the target's Defense is higher than your Accuracy), and below that, you will see to boxes: "If Diff Negative" and "If Diff Positive" In this case, the difference is negative, so you would look to the right of that box, and see: "0.666666667" which is your To-Hit Chance... Meaning, you have a 66.67% chance of hitting your target with any weapon shot (i.e. 2/3 of your shots should hit the target). (NOTE: This also illustrates that you do not simply subtract your target's Defense score from your Accuracy to determine your To-Hit Chance.)
On the flip-side, assume that you still have no inherent Accuracy modifiers, but your target is stopped (and taking a -15% Defense penalty, or -.15), plugging in 1.00 into the Accuracy box, and .85 into the Defense box, you get 0.15 as your Diff score. Since this is positive, you would look in the If Diff Positive box, and get "1.13..." as your result... Meaning you have 'Accuracy Overflow'... You have 100% chance to-hit your target, and, if you look in the lower-right hand portion of the spreadsheet, you can look on the Accuracy Overflow table, and look at the entry for 0.1 (since your overflow is 0.13-ish)... You would gain a little more than 1.25% Critical Chance, and a little more than 5% Critical Severity.
Hope that helps clear up some confusion, and, if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them here,
-Big Red
Based on the discussions with Al "CaptainGeko" Rivera, in this STOked podcast, and the PDF for 'Accuracy vs. Defense' that can be found accompanying that podcast, I would like to posit a (heavily-tested) theory on how Accuracy and Defense work in relation to each other.
For starters, let's look at what Accuracy and Defense are, and how they are modified:
Accuracy:
Accuracy is the primary factor in determining the effectiveness of the attacks of your ship's weapons.
Accuracy is derived from several sources:
- The Accurate Trait for Captains (+10% Accuracy to ALL of your ship's weapon attacks)
- The [Acc] modifier on Uncommon or more rare weapons (+10% Accuracy to THIS weapon's attacks, does NOT apply to any other weapon)
Defense:
Defense is the primary factor in preventing enemy attacks from outright hitting your ship.
Defense is derived from several sources:
- Your ship's speed - The faster that you travel, the greater your Defense rating, up to a maximum Defense at an Impulse speed of 24.00 (NOTE: Being stopped at Impulse speed 0.00 will give your ship a -15% Defense penalty.)
- The Elusive Trait for Captains (+10% Defense at all times, as long as your ship is moving)
- Some items (e.g. 2 pieces of the AEGIS set, the Subspace Field Modulator, etc.) - Can be permanent, conditional increases (AEGIS) or temporary boosts (SFM).
- Some powers (e.g. Attack Pattern Omega, Evasive Maneuvers, etc.)
How do Accuracy and Defense relate to each other?
First, all ships have an inherent 100% Accuracy (1.00 for the STOked spreadsheet) and an inherent 100% Defense (also 1.00 for the STOked spreadsheet).
Second, all weapons calculate their inherent Accuracy bonus independently. Thus, no matter how many [Acc] modifiers one of your weapons may have, they only apply to that specific weapon. The Accurate Trait for Captains, however, applies to all weapons (as if they each were gaining an extra [Acc] modifier). For example: if your ship has 4 Beam Arrays, 1 of them with [Acc]x2, and the other 3 with no modifiers, only the attacks by that one BA with [Acc]x2 will benefit frorm the +20% Accuracy bonus, while the other 3 will use your unmodified Accuracy rating.
Third, the baseline for 'To-Hit Chance' (i.e. how often your weapons will Hit or Miss their targets) is: 100% Chance To-Hit, if your Accuracy = the target's Defense. Therefore, if you are shooting an unmodified attack at an enemy ship that is moving as slowly as possible (to negate the Defense penalty for being stopped, but not enough to gain any bonus Defense), you will hit them 100% of the time.
Fourth, by using the STOked spreadsheet (and, again, assuming that the 'baseline' Accuracy and Defense values for all ships is 1.00, and each +X% is converted to a decimal value, e.g. +10% Accuracy would equate to .1, +50% Defense from speed would equate to .5, etc.), you can see the sliding scale of To-Hit Chance, as the difference between Accuracy and Defense increase. The minimum possible To-Hit Chance is 25%, but the realistic To-Hit Chances are typically in the 40-70% range (Escorts typically have higher Defense bonuses from speed, thus, are a little harder to hit, and Cruisers typically are slower and get hit a little easier).
Fifth, what happens when your Accuracy is greater than a target's Defense (usually only possible if you are able to stop your target, using Tractor Beams or Beam: Target Engines, etc.), well, a few things:
- You still have 100% chance to-hit your target.
- You gain a bonus to Critical Chance.
- You gain a bonus to Critical Severity.
- The bonuses to Critical Chance and Critical Severity depend on how much greater your Accuracy exceeds your target's Defense (this is referred to as 'Accuracy Overflow') and can be tracked on the STOked spreadsheet (NOTE: The decimal values in those columns work the same as for Accuracy and Defense, and convert to %'s)
Then, just for an example of comparing Accuracy vs. Defense:
Let us assume that you are firing a weapon with no inherent Accuracy modifiers, and your opponent is moving and has a +50% Bonus Defense rating from his ship's speed. On the STOked Spreadsheet, you would enter 1.00 into the Accuracy box in the top-left of the sheet, and you would enter 1.5 into the Defense box.
You will see in the "Diff:" box: -0.5 (because the target's Defense is higher than your Accuracy), and below that, you will see to boxes: "If Diff Negative" and "If Diff Positive" In this case, the difference is negative, so you would look to the right of that box, and see: "0.666666667" which is your To-Hit Chance... Meaning, you have a 66.67% chance of hitting your target with any weapon shot (i.e. 2/3 of your shots should hit the target). (NOTE: This also illustrates that you do not simply subtract your target's Defense score from your Accuracy to determine your To-Hit Chance.)
On the flip-side, assume that you still have no inherent Accuracy modifiers, but your target is stopped (and taking a -15% Defense penalty, or -.15), plugging in 1.00 into the Accuracy box, and .85 into the Defense box, you get 0.15 as your Diff score. Since this is positive, you would look in the If Diff Positive box, and get "1.13..." as your result... Meaning you have 'Accuracy Overflow'... You have 100% chance to-hit your target, and, if you look in the lower-right hand portion of the spreadsheet, you can look on the Accuracy Overflow table, and look at the entry for 0.1 (since your overflow is 0.13-ish)... You would gain a little more than 1.25% Critical Chance, and a little more than 5% Critical Severity.
Hope that helps clear up some confusion, and, if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them here,
-Big Red
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If you follow the link to the STOked podcast, then scroll down about 1/3 of the way under the "MATH" header, you'll see a download link (copied here for convenience) for the spreadsheet.
Hope that helps,
-Big Red
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/124307/STOAccuracyvsDefense.xls
I know defense soft caps somewhere, I believe 75%, meaning no matter what your defense or their accuracy, your opponent will only have a 25% miss chance, worst case. This I am pretty sure is something snix posted on the forums somewhere, and was very easy to see with stacked defense buffs and values that could reach well over 100% defense values in the past, yet you were never unhittable with that.
Also, the 26 impulse speed cap is old info. It was changed when defense values were nerfed and escorts got the bonus defense. I believe the cap is 24 now (unless it changed again and I missed it) and the speed defense bonus is lower along with that as well, 45% now, I believe. Easy to test in any case.
Something to note, the -15% defense penalty for full stop is unrealistic to even see in practice based on my own testing, unless someone manually stops their ship. Even tractored, if they still have engine power, they will be moving, albeit very slowly, and won't ever actually have that penalty. Another note on this, the -15% is guaranteed if that ship is at full stop, no matter what static defense bonuses you have (like elusive trait), but if you have even a little speed, all those static bonuses get applied immediately and fully.
This, however, may be true. I don't know the exact speed cap, but I remember it was changed, and I think the final value was effectively lower than it used to be.
The minimum "possible" To-Hit Chance is 25%, but the way that To-Hit Chance scales is not quite as simple as combining your Accuracy with your Target's Defense, the spreadsheet show's the formula that calculates the actual To-Hit chance, with a cap on the final value at 25% (it doesn't cap the value of Defense or Accuracy, but it caps the minimum possible To-Hit Chance).
Whoops, that's why trying to write something like this, from memory, while on vacation, can be silly... It's 24.00, not 26.00 for the Speed Cap to Defense (edited to correct value above), thanks, Foxrocks.
For Speed, it's either 50% max and 5% for being an Escort, or 45% max, and 10% for being an Escort (I have to check).
True, it's rare to see it, but it can happen, especially if you run higher versions of Tractor Beam (particularly in combination with PSW), or Target: Engines and Tractor Beam/Gravity Well. The only bonus that needs a little more speed to kick in, is the Escort Defense bonus, which doesn't seem to kick on until your ship is at 1/2 Impulse or above (doesn't seem to matter what 'Speed' you are at, just that your slider is set to 1/2 Impulse or better).
Thanks for the help, Foxrocks,
-Big Red
It may be hard to exceed an escort's defense, but against a cruiser moving at half throttle? Devastating.
And 100% base defense, and bonus defense (like 100% and the -15% when i dont move without aegis)?
Correct, and using the formula from the spreadsheet, you can calculate your 'actual' To-Hit Value. Much like many of the tooltips in the game, the one for Accuracy apparently goes back to pre-Season 2 (if not earlier).
-Big Red
Neh its not like you get more then 10+ severity or +1% chance most of the times, if not less... The critc/d is no where comparable to CrtH/Dx3 weaponary. Nevertheless Accuracy is a great choice
Every single jedi, including your friend MTnubKenobi, will now use Accuracy weapons for the PvP'z
Seriously, even my Noobula has a bonus defense of 70% at 65/30 engine setting, 67% at lowest 61/25. But ofcourse if you have alot of disable and slow abilities/weapons u might be better of with CrtH/D
So basically if you don't have any means of reliably shutting down an enemy's mobility ACC is better by a significant margin. However it is worth noting while your average damage will be higher, your crits will not hurt as hard, and your crit chance still will not occur as often.
No! My Acc x3 Lolarons are bettah!!!
Anyway, I wanted to add something to the information if its worth anything;
Basically the Torpedo story is perfect, i just want to add something that is probably only applicable for the Tricobalt torpedo (Now with HYT2~, same damage around 20K) that if it crits, its almost always quaranteed a win
So basically, what I'm saying is that Trico's can be excluded from taking CrtDx3 over CrtHx3 respectively.
You basically want them to crit as much as possible. Or, if you have trouble detonating them on a subject with high bonus defense (Often misses on Escorts, which are already hard to hit because of their faster speed/turnrate, you might consider [acc] [crth]x2 on those, or just go full Acc x3 on them to make them hit as much as possible
(This is based on before and after the latest Trico change patch btw, no real damage boost or nerf when using HYT1/2)
yeh perhaps, although my logs consistently gives me somewhat more crit chance on all my Acc x3 weapons compared to people using CrtH or CrtD combo weapons. Ofcourse the crits will probably be lower, not sure.
I do know that even with an Acc x3 Beam Overload I or II you can get 50/60K crits so thats pretty good still
Thanks for this post.
Is this still correct? My Captain has the Elusive trait and maxed defense skill. At a dead stop, my defense is +10%.
No its no longer accurate. My Bonus defense when standing still is like 13+%. Its bugged.
Mustrum "Taking to myself may be a sign of insanity - No, it's not, you're cool" Ridcully
your comments please?
it also accounts for a significant chunk of an escorts ability to take fire.
if their wasn't acc mods, you wouldn't think defense is overrated.
stickies being locked because of zombie posts... only on sto forums.
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i dont like this, everything is confusing to me.
It is worth noting the Acc math does appear to have changed somewhat since Bigred made this sage council.
I'm too lazy to confirm it, and frankly I have had the care ground out of me, by Cryptic and PWE.