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Vulnerability Exploiter consoles are pointless [Warning: Math]

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  • dahminusdahminus Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Just for fun. What do the numbers show when exploiters are 16% crtd(as they should be)

    And you have 6 tactical console slots

    This maintains the 1:10 ratio in a big global increment, curious if the 1:10 remains optimal.

    The reason for asking is that I see a bit of skewing where 5 exploiters =102250(if the exploiters had double crtd as it should. Then it would be 104500...didn't do the hard math as I only have my phone with me)
    And 5 locators =105250

    If 1:10 is optimal wouldn't 1% crit equal 10% critd?
    Chive on and prosper, eh?

    My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    I have updated the tool with the weapon specialisation skill as well as DHC and antiproton severity bonuses. I also added the suggested option to be able to see what would happen if the Exploiter and Locator stats were different.

    STO Magical Mystery Weapon Crit Advisor

    It's quite pleasing to play with this and see that if we move the Exploiter bonus up to 16% (or lower the Locator to 0.8%) a lot more builds including both Exp and Loc become viable, within a few 0.001 of optimal. Rather than the max number of Locs being the runaway winner, you can construct a decent build by selecting the complementary tac consoles to your weapon modifiers. To me, this feels more like the way it should be.
  • dahminusdahminus Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Brilliant, 1:10ish ratio remains constant...

    Wasn't expecting that...

    Thanks for the super handy calculator.
    Chive on and prosper, eh?

    My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,282 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    valill1 wrote: »
    I have updated the tool with the weapon specialisation skill as well as DHC and antiproton severity bonuses. I also added the suggested option to be able to see what would happen if the Exploiter and Locator stats were different.

    STO Magical Mystery Weapon Crit Advisor

    It's quite pleasing to play with this and see that if we move the Exploiter bonus up to 16% (or lower the Locator to 0.8%) a lot more builds including both Exp and Loc become viable, within a few 0.001 of optimal. Rather than the max number of Locs being the runaway winner, you can construct a decent build by selecting the complementary tac consoles to your weapon modifiers. To me, this feels more like the way it should be.
    no options for romulan operative?
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    no options for romulan operative?

    Heh. I didn't even know that existed. Now added to the tool. Thanks for pointing it out.
  • mwhitakermwhitaker Member Posts: 131 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Let's get this straight: go crit or go home.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    "The Borg - party-poopers of the galaxy" ~ The Doctor
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,282 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    valill1 wrote: »
    Heh. I didn't even know that existed. Now added to the tool. Thanks for pointing it out.
    there, that's better; i think that's everything except the bioneural infusion circuit console out of the lobi store - that boosts crit severity by 15.2% according to its tooltip on the wiki
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    there, that's better; i think that's everything except the bioneural infusion circuit console out of the lobi store - that boosts crit severity by 15.2% according to its tooltip on the wiki

    Well spotted. Have added that now. Thanks.
  • rakija879rakija879 Member Posts: 646 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    [CrtD] [Loc]x4 ....... so this combination is the best right? :confused:
  • atlmyklatlmykl Member Posts: 305 Arc User1
    edited November 2013
    Tier 3 console better than tier 2 console, stop the presses. The tier 3 console has x2 the secondary bonus as a tier 2 console. 1 crth = 10 crtd

    No suprise there, just like tier 2 embassy kits are not as good as the tier 3 kits.

    Since everyone will have the exploiter consoles long before the locator consoles they are extremely useful.
  • eisenw0lfeisenw0lf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    valill1 wrote: »
    I have updated the tool with the weapon specialisation skill as well as DHC and antiproton severity bonuses. I also added the suggested option to be able to see what would happen if the Exploiter and Locator stats were different.

    STO Magical Mystery Weapon Crit Advisor

    It's quite pleasing to play with this and see that if we move the Exploiter bonus up to 16% (or lower the Locator to 0.8%) a lot more builds including both Exp and Loc become viable, within a few 0.001 of optimal. Rather than the max number of Locs being the runaway winner, you can construct a decent build by selecting the complementary tac consoles to your weapon modifiers. To me, this feels more like the way it should be.

    Thanks for the tool.

    As virusdancer pointed out in the PvP forums locators are NOT always necessarily better than the exploiter consoles. It really depends on what you are doing and against what you are fighting. Locators will guarantee you a higher average DPS (perfect for beam cruisers I guess). Exploiters on the other hand will up your spike damage but you will be doing less damage over time (better for a decloak ambush?). Also high damage/low firing rate weapons like quantum torpedoes (or pretty much any projectile weapon) do a lot more damage with exploiters than with locators.
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    atlmykl wrote: »
    Tier 3 console better than tier 2 console, stop the presses. The tier 3 console has x2 the secondary bonus as a tier 2 console. 1 crth = 10 crtd

    No suprise there, just like tier 2 embassy kits are not as good as the tier 3 kits.

    If the devs' intent were to have one console better than the other, why give them different modifiers? Why not make the T2 one +0.8% chance and the T3 +1.6% chance? It is more logical that they were meant to complement each other, giving us a choice of what to improve. As I have shown, this is not the case, the Locators are simply the better choice.
    atlmykl wrote: »
    Since everyone will have the exploiter consoles long before the locator consoles they are extremely useful.

    T2 to T3 is 20 days worth of projects plus the T3 upgrade (5 days?). It's really not that long. To have a set of consoles designed for use only in this short period seems unlikely.

    For my next trick, I will be performing some analysis on "burstiness" to evaluate the idea that PvPers might want to trade damage-over-time for high severity (thus a reason to use Exploiters over Locators).
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    edited November 2013
    I have to say, this thread with the calc tool has been one of the most useful things I've seen on these forums in a long time. Thanks for creating that web tool.
  • nandospcnandospc Member Posts: 1,260 Arc User
    edited November 2013
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Ok, I've had some time to look at burst damage. The idea that sacrificing chance for severity (moving you away from the maximum C*S) is better for burst damage in PvP is false.

    The reason for this is that a "burst" of damage in STO does not consist of a single packet of damage with a single crit roll. It is a volley of shots, each with their own crit roll. So what you really want is to maximise the effectiveness of a volley rather than a single shot.

    Let's run through this with an example. You're flying an escort with 5 DHCs. You activate Cannon: Rapid Fire III and unleash a volley of pain and suffering at your unsuspecting foe. In this situation, each DHC fires 4 shots per activation, so we have a volley of 20 shots hitting our target.

    If you have a high severity and score a crit, that shot will do a lot more damage than the others. However, with a lower severity and higher chance, you are more likely to score multiple crits, each adding less severity, but adding more total damage to the volley. Does this mean we should boost our chance instead of severity? No, because you have the same problem if you score lots of crits but they each contribute only a tiny amount of damage due to low severity. Obviously, there's a balance to be struck.

    I'm going to introduce the concept of a volley rating. This is the number of crits scored in that particular volley multiplied by your crit severity. This gives us a measure of how much damage our crits have added to the volley. For example, a volley scores 5 crits and my severity is 100%, this gives a volley rating of 500. Bigger is better so we want to be able to produce highly rated volleys as much as possible.

    We can now take a particular crit chance and severity and plot the probability curve to show how likely each of the possible volley ratings will be, from zero crits through to all 20 shots critting.

    I've made up an imaginary configuration for our escort and put the details into my crit tool. The exact configuration doesn't matter as what we'll do is take the top and bottom (most and least optimal C*S) chance/severity values and compare them.

    The top suggestion from the tool lands us with 12.5% chance with 135% severity. The volley rating probability looks like this:

    http://i.imgur.com/J90ha1h.png

    The horizontal axis contains the volley rating and the vertical is probability of seeing that rating (0.1 is equivalent to 10%). The reason the curve looks like can be compared to rolling two six-sided dice and adding the score. There are lots of ways to roll a 7 (1+6,2+5,3+4,4+3,5+2,6+1) but only one way to get a 2 (1+1) or 12 (6+6). Likewise, each shot in our volley has a crit roll and there are more combinations of results that give us "some" crits, but few combinations that give us none or 20.

    Back to the aim of this study - We want high-damage volleys as often as possible. We need to define "high-damage" and we can do this in terms of volley rating. It turns out it doesn't matter where I draw this line, but I'm going to pick a value for this demonstration. Let's say that in order to destroy my target in one volley, I need a volley rating of 500 or more.

    One of the features of these curves is that the area underneath the curve represents all of our possible volleys, so if we slice it in two at a particular point - at our 500 rating - we can easily visualise the proportion of our volleys that will be above and below that rating.

    http://i.imgur.com/TVzheeu.png

    As you can see, a fair proportion of our volleys hit or exceed our 500 target. The actual value is roughly 25%.

    Now, let's take our other example case. The bottom suggestion from the tool where we have sacrificed chance for severity in the hope of bursty damage. The configuration of weapon modifiers and tac consoles gives us a mighty 175% severity, but a chance of just 4.5%.

    That extra severity will give us some really big volley ratings, right? Well, no.

    http://i.imgur.com/o8YmNhO.png

    As you can see, much less of the curve area is above 500 rating - Just 6%, in fact. What you don't see is that the curve carries on to the right a lot further (to the max rating of 20 crits * 175 severity = 3500), but the chance of getting a rating above 1000 is a tiny 0.02%.

    Hopefully it's clear that the second setup is far worse that the first - we hit our burst target 6% of the time instead of 25%. As I mentioned earlier, where we place our target line doesn't matter. You can slide this up and down and the first setup still wins, right up to the point where you exceed the first one's max rating (20 * 135 = 2700), but at this point I'm sure you can imagine how low the probability is. The chance of the second setup exceeding 2700 rating is about 0.0000000000000008% - You could be shooting your target until the end of the universe and still probably wouldn't have managed this :)

    You may be wondering about all the other setups between the two I've shown here. How do they perform? Well, I've taken the two extremes here - the value of C*S (and thus the tool's damage multiplier) determines where the peak of the curve lies on these graphs. The higher the C*S, the further to the right the peak is, and so the better we perform. All the other setups have curves which peak somewhere between the two examples.

    The keen-eyed may also point out that I've only shown graphs for 20-shot volleys. What happens if I'm firing torps? Well, the probability curve still applies for the 4 impacts from High Yield III. I chose the 20-shot volley as it produces smoother graphs that are easier to compare. With single-shot volley weapons like high-yield plasma you maintain your natural crit chance and severity, but you are still bound to a probability curve over time - you are never going to crit every shot in a match, and unless you are using just that weapon, you're dragging down the volley rating for all your other attacks by shifting away from the maximum C*S. It's just not worth it.

    I hope I've explained this well enough to conclude that if you move from the maximum C*S, there is no benefit to burst damage. It is in fact detrimental.

    Hence, the best option is always to achieve the maximal C*S. Coming back to my original point, Vulnerability Exploiters are pointless because fitting Locators instead almost always* brings you closer to maximal C*S.

    * The only situation I've found where you'd want a mix of Exp and Loc is where you have no [CrtD] or [CrtH] weapon modifiers and pick only the +chance consoles/passives.

    TL;DR: It's always best to use maximal C*S, even for "burst" damage.
  • eradicator84eradicator84 Member Posts: 1,116 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    valill1 wrote: »
    * The only situation I've found where you'd want a mix of Exp and Loc is where you have no [CrtD] or [CrtH] weapon modifiers and pick only the +chance consoles/passives.

    So what about Acc modifiers? Loc, Exp or a combo is best?
    AFMJGUR.jpg
  • doffingcomradedoffingcomrade Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Acc modifiers function as a weaker combination of CrtH and CrtD if you are shooting a parked target. If you're not shooting a parked target, without Acc, you miss, so your damage is 0 and it doesn't matter what your CrtH/D are.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • alienfrombeyondalienfrombeyond Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Acc modifiers function as a weaker combination of CrtH and CrtD if you are shooting a parked target. If you're not shooting a parked target, without Acc, you miss, so your damage is 0 and it doesn't matter what your CrtH/D are.
    This is why I always figured Acc weapons were best, doing 0 damage from not hitting is a not insignificant DPS loss. The fact that it increases your crit against slow stationary targets like Borg gates or Voth dreadnoughts/power cores and massively increases your hit rate against fighters is icing on the cake.

    These new crit consoles have been making me reconsider that though.
  • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    [Acc] is a tough one. Let's say without modifiers you hit a given target 95% of the time. If you choose [Acc] and this increases it to, say, 96%, you'll hit more times, but each hit does (on average) the same amount of damage. Choosing [CrtD] or [CrtH] would instead increase the (average) damage of each hit - even though you're still only hitting 95% of the time, your damage output increases. If [CrtD] ended up adding 2% to your average damage, it'd be a better choice than [Acc]. These are all imaginary values, but hopefully it shows that it's not necessarily a case of "[Acc] is better because you'll hit more often".

    Unfortunately, we'll probably never really know how effective [Acc] is. Crits are a simple system - For each hit you have C% chance to add S% damage. Accuracy has a bunch of unknowns that make it tough for us to work out its effectiveness. Presumably we have some (unknown) base chance to hit, modified by items (we can add up the % modifiers but have no knowledge of how this is applied to the base chance - could be 50% + 10% = 60% or 50% + 10% = 55% or something entirely different - diminishing returns?). Then our accuracy is modified down by our target's defense - Another unknown. Once our result is over 100% we then spill over into [CrtD] and [CrtH], but by how much? Unknown.
  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,282 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    valill1 wrote: »
    Once our result is over 100% we then spill over into [CrtD] and [CrtH], but by how much? Unknown.
    not exactly unknown; someone did some checking into it, but i don't know how old this is - it may be outdated: http://blackwyvernarts.com/blog/?p=58
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
  • alienfrombeyondalienfrombeyond Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    not exactly unknown; someone did some checking into it, but i don't know how old this is - it may be outdated: http://blackwyvernarts.com/blog/?p=58
    If that holds true, then against a completely stationary target with 0 Defense Acc weapons still lose out, and still want Crit Chance consoles. Against higher Defense targets its impact is much harder to determine other than parsing a bunch with and without Acc weapons.
  • theraven2378theraven2378 Member Posts: 6,014 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    I have a fleet advance phaser dual beam bank and 5 phaser fleet advanced beam arrays all with DMGx3 and Crtd, how would the new tac consoles help in that respect if i bought the phaser variants of the console?

    I also have the Nukara,assimilated and romulan consoles on my Regent as well
    NMXb2ph.png
      "The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
      -Lord Commander Solar Macharius
    • eradicator84eradicator84 Member Posts: 1,116 Arc User
      edited November 2013
      I have a fleet advance phaser dual beam bank and 5 phaser fleet advanced beam arrays all with DMGx3 and Crtd, how would the new tac consoles help in that respect if i bought the phaser variants of the console?

      I also have the Nukara,assimilated and romulan consoles on my Regent as well

      Using The Magical Mystery Weapon Crit Advisor, and setting it to 0 available modifiers (just treat those extra dmg modifiers as if the weapon was a common MKXIII weapon or something) then Locators are the best option.


      @valill1 - Might want to point out on your magic crit advisor page that if using DMG or ACC in modifiers to remove them from the available modifiers number they put in?
      Also, using the following from what someone linked above, is it possible to include ACC in your advisor? Even if manually set by the user.
      If you exceed 100% chance to hit, every 10% over that, you get 1.25% Critical Hit, and 5% Critical Severity.
      AFMJGUR.jpg
    • maliusnightmaliusnight Member Posts: 30 Arc User
      edited November 2013
      @valill1 - Might want to point out on your magic crit advisor page that if using DMG or ACC in modifiers to remove them from the available modifiers number they put in?
      Also, using the following from what someone linked above, is it possible to include ACC in your advisor? Even if manually set by the user.

      It's not practicable to include acc, the model being used to generate the math is simplified, its assuming 100% hit rate. It also ignore resistance, which is not a constant variable. One of the reason I don't really find this discussion meaningful is that predictions are only going to be true under some very predictable PVE situations. I am prepared to admit there are plenty of very predictable pve situations in STO.

      It is fairly meaningless for PVP, where high defense is critical, and any time a mob does anything to increase its defense (EptE for example) this model immediately begins to fall off.

      It also is fairly meaningless vs the Voth, and anything that can activate an immunity shield for some period of time.

      Really the long term point is that most folks will get a hugely meaningful buff to their damage by switching to the first 31.8 consoles, they can get their hands on. If that console has 8% severity that portion may or may not be the most optimal additional bonus, but 100% certain they will get some level of Energy weapon bonus out of it.
    • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited December 2013
      not exactly unknown; someone did some checking into it, but i don't know how old this is - it may be outdated: http://blackwyvernarts.com/blog/?p=58

      I have updated the tool to include [Acc] modifiers according to these formulae. I'm not sure how confident we can be in them given that there's no indication of how the author came to those results. I haven't included the Starship Targeting Systems skill or the Accurate trait as these appear to be included in the displayed Bonus Accuracy value.
    • neotrident12neotrident12 Member Posts: 287 Arc User
      edited December 2013
      Is the magical calculator down, I haven't been able to use it for several days.

      I found it quite useful!

      Cheers
      [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    • valill1valill1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited December 2013
      Is the magical calculator down, I haven't been able to use it for several days.

      I found it quite useful!

      Cheers

      The link changed because of reasons. The one in the original post should work now.
    • neotrident12neotrident12 Member Posts: 287 Arc User
      edited December 2013
      Got it, thanks!
      [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    • ovinspaceovinspace Member Posts: 310
      edited December 2013
      Weird counter intuitive result: each additional consoles only adds a couple of % extra yet the first does 6-9% extra.
    • atreidesscionatreidesscion Member Posts: 0 Arc User
      edited December 2013
      In case you guys want it, further down on this page (under the heading of, shockingly, "MATH") is a link to the spreadsheet for figuring the acc overflow stuff. As I recall, the guys also discuss it in the video.

      http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/6611/meet-al-rivera-stoked-76/
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