Orks... Flawed Ships

[Plaxor]

More advocation for D3 turrets instead of 1. I decided to do this as 6 is a non-standard value of launch bays.

For 4 bombers going into a KK they will do 4.3 hits. Compared to a chaos/in cruiser which will take 1.667 this means the KK will take 2.6x the hits.

With the D3 upgrade, they will instead take 2.68, which is worse than just 2 turrets (2.5).

So this means that the D3 turrets on a KK is 1.6x worse than a IN/Chaos ship. Still a significant weakness.

For 8 bombers, the IN/chaos ship will take 3.88 hits
The KK will take 9.375 hits, and probably be dead. hell, it is almost 50/50 that the IN ship will just be crippled. This value is 2.4x as bad (apparently the multiple gets less as the wave increases in size)

with the D3 turret upgrade they will instead take 6.43 hits. 1.65x worse than IN/Chaos ships.

With this upgrade the ships are still very weak to ordinance, but not to the point where an ork would be paranoid to take tons of lbs.

Also to the note of cheaper ships, with that you have more ships and therefore fewer ships that will be able to be on special orders, as you're likely to fail fairly soon.

Let's assume that you have 6 ships, and you roll 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 for their ld you'd want to roll with your highest first so:
on ld 8 you'd have an 73% chance of passing, so on a 7 you'd have a 59% chance of passing, on ld 6 you'd have a 42% chance, on ld5 you'd have a  28% chance.

So from this you'd have a 41% chance of completing two orders, a 23% chance of 3, a 10% chance of passing 4, a 4% chance of 5 and a 1% chance of passing all six.

It's safe to say that most of your fleet will not be on orders. 

Interestingly enough orks have an average 50% chance of passing ld checks.

[Plaxor]

Also for reasoning as to why prow HG should be reduced to str 4

so if 1hg=1.35wbs at the same range, (as proved previously) then a KK would have equivalent 17.6fp in it's prow arc at 15cm range. This is absurd for a kroozer, so reducing this to 4 makes the value only 14.9 a much more reasonable value. The idea is that orks are better than IN/Chaos at this range, but not to the point where they have 1.5x the effective weapons strength.

The old version had 13.6, which isn't much more than a IN/Chaos cruiser. Keeping this value similar while increasing the long range firepower was a semi-set thing. The orks shouldn't win out in 1 on 1 direct firefights, but they should do slightly better than them at close ranges, and slightly worse at medium ranges. Which they do as an IN ship has 12 eq wbs, and the ork has 9.5 on the prow.

Of course the sides for the modification would have 10.9wbs, about the same as a IN/chaos cruiser at close range. Still they would lose out at medium distances @ 5.5

[Plaxor]

So I thought I would do this calculation as well, comparing torpedo bombers to regular bombers:

So against an average cruiser 4 bombers will do 1.66 hits. 8 torpedoes will do: 2.333 hrmmmm... 8 bombers will do 3.88 hits, whereas 16 torps will do 5.

Apparently they are 30% better against cruisers. Let's see against BB: 4 bombers will do .333 hits, 8 will do 1 hit. Whereas the torp bombers will do: 2 and 4.66 hits respectively. however a wave of 5 fighters and 3 bombers will do 3.5 attacks, a lot closer to our goal.

Torp bombers are quite a bit more effective against battleships, but against cruisers it's not that much win. I guess I never really understood the reason for them being so costly. Now I do.

Oh and FBs: (the new HA rule is weird, liked the 2007 faq. was clean)  So 4 against the cruiser: 1.333 attacks   8 will do: 3.111

Interesting. Incidentally I figured out that orky FBs are worse than regular bombers as per faq 2010, by about 30% This is the cost of being both.

[Sigoroth]

How I did it was I took a random number of dice to hit from the centerish of the firepower table. In this case it was three.
I took every possible aspect that a ship could be in at 15cm, so closing, abeam, moving away. Then we can find the firepower needed to get to 3 dice for each possible scenario. This includes the shift for BMs So two columns will be incorporated.

WBs:
Closing cap ship: 3fp, 4fp with bm
Moving away cap ship: 4fp, 5fp with bm
Abeam cap ship: 5fp, 8 with bm

Guns:
Closing: 4fp, 5fp
Moving away: 5fp, 8fp
Abeam: 8fp, 13fp

Now the averages are taken of all scenarios, giving the wbs about 4.83 firepower to get 3 dice average. For the heavy guns: 7.166 dividing them we get a percentage: 67.3%, slightly different than my assumption before, but I did it more complex.

So in this math, a heavy gun is worth 2/3 of a 30cm gun

I agree, the interference should remain. It is for flavor. All assumptions are on the interference remaining. Your math here is about the same as mine, .65 vs .67, so we can assume 2/3?

OK, this is, um, weird. So to get 3 dice at 15cm averaged across the 3 aspects and a BM for WBs requires 4.83 firepower and for Heavy Gunz it requires 7.17 firepower. OK, I'm with you so far. Then you said that dividing them gives a percentage. This is how you get 67.4%. Right. So 1 HG = 0.67WB using this method. But HG do double damage so they're twice as effective as this. I think the reason that the results turn out the same is because upon doing an average with their value at 30cm (0) then it becomes halved so this makes up for the fact you didn't double. There are some other factors to account for though.

When you are shooting with them (ie, within 15cm) and there is a BM placed already then the HG are worth 1.375 times the value of a WB (from my calculation) or 1.35 times the value of a WB (using your method). This is about right, since I used best case scenario to show upper value limit. When there is no BM however this gets dropped to, at optimal conditions, 1.25 times. So averaging puts us around the 1.3 mark. Taking 30cm range into account, and valuing each bracket equally (ie, an equal amount of time is spent firing in each range bracket) then we can take the average value. In this case, simply divide by 2 since the HG do nothing in that range bracket, giving roughly 2/3 value (0.65 give or take a couple of hundredths).

Unfortunately it is not quite that clean, since it's a comparative value based upon a WB. WBs also drop efficiency in the 15-30cm range bracket (though not by so much!) so simply dividing by 2 will not work, as the WB value that we're comparing to has gone down. Since that RCS for normal range compared to short range drops the value of a WB down to about 66%, the average value of the WB across both range brackets (assuming equal usage) becomes 83% of what 1 WB would be if it had the range shift all the way out to 30cm. Since we're comparing the HG total value at 30cm to a WB total value at 30cm it becomes prudent to standardise the WB value, ie, multiply it by whatever number is necessary to bring it back up to 1 in value. In this case it is 1.2. So to get the proportional value of the HG we also multiply our previous value of roughly 0.65 by 1.2 which gives us 0.78 WB value.

So, after all that, my guestimate of 0.75 value wasn't all that far off, and when you factor in that I think that more time is spent on both 30cm fire over 15cm fire and also no-BM rather than pre-existing BM I think the 0.75 is closer to the mark. The number of assumptions make it imprecise and, even though I figure they're on the safe side rounding up won't hurt. So, we can slap a 0.8 value on it for shits and giggles and call it a day.

The D3 turrets leaves the ork weakness in tact, it just reduces the number of hits a kroozer takes from bombers. The numbers before indicated that the orks would take 6.87 hits from a wave of 6 bombers compared to the IN/Chaos value of 2.78, this is almost 2.5 times the number of hits! way too much for a weakness. By making the turrets d3 the number of hits they'll take from the same wave averages at 4.42, only 1.6 times the amount as IN/Chaos cruisers. This preserves the weakness, but keeps it from being absurd. Besides having a weakness so large like that skews the orks to losing drastically against LB heavy fleets, but would force balance to make them too strong against low launch bay fleets. This is for the sake of consistency against opponents, and to make the TS not in such high demand.

If you're going to increase the turrets just give them +1. Don't dick about with more rolls that produce bugger all difference to the average (which only appears due to a floor effect).

True. However they already outnumber Necrons 2:1 on a straight class ratio, and the Eldar with proposed changes they could outnumber their escorts 2:1. Space marines are a bit different as they have CLs.

Well Necrons are more formidable in space than they are on the ground, so it's more like a termie deathwing army in this comparison, in which case 2:1 isn't really outnumbering by much. As for Eldar, well I don't believe that their escorts should cost so much short of the MMS revisions where they actually get some defence. Even so, I hardly think that pushing down the cost of a KK to 140 instead of 145 is going to make them outnumber the Eldar by much more.

Yes, the orks are rather small for 10 hits. However their BBS are more than twice the size, and weigh more than an imperial BB in pewter. So it is justifiable.

Really? They weigh more than an IN BB? Well, they should get the extra hits then I suppose. Not that I'm against the idea in principle anyway.

Lol, come on, you don't like the spacefish look? I think it's funny, and a somewhat clever idea for a spaceship. I however don't want to focus on heavy guns. They need long (well medium?) range weaponry to better compete with the armada races/eldar. So it's my thought to leave them pretty much alone and just do our firepower additions to ranged attacks.

Nope, not a fan of the space fish. Given their looks I'm surprised that they have the class names they do really. They should have class names like Barracuda or Guppy or something. As for competing, well I don't think they need to compete. Not in technology, range or mobility. There should just be a lot of them. So much so that they don't care about losing 2 ships on the way in and 3 more after the first pass while they're trying to turn around.

[RCgothic]

@RC, orks are very good in 'melee' if they can stay within 15cm of an enemy they will effectively have 11.34 guns, outgunning most IN ships. This is how GW saw the orks, that they can only outgun at close range, and to show this the special heavy guns were added.

The point is to not make them better in this scenario as they don't need it, they need to be better from a slightly longer range more. With 6 heavy guns on the side this would go up to 14.3 eq firepower at close range, enough that it's a slap to the face of any IN/Chaos ship, especially considering they cost about 20% less than them.

How is it a slap in the face to IN/Chaos? For a start, they have FP12 standard broadsides, and for seconds the area in which a ship is within 30cm is four times larger than the area in which it is within 15cm. They also have superiority in shields and attack craft.

Given that it's four times more difficult to line up a shot with heavy gunz, ork players should be rewarded for doing so!

[Plaxor]

Area of 30cm 90' arc 706.5cm^2
Area of 15cm 90' arc 176.325cm ^2

Hrmm you're right. However neither of you have ork fleets, and area isn't as important as range. It's not that hard to line up one shot with a HG, however due to the limited area, it's hard to continue firing with them. You will probably be only firing heavy guns about 1/4 of the time.

Back up to 6 on prow then?

[Plaxor]

@Sig

Fish names... I thought that was a tau thing? Well I guess cetaceans.

You're right, for the sake of our sanities and not-overcomplicated rules, we'll just up to two turrets.

And as far as costs go, I couldn't see making the KK anything under 145, 150 is decent for the most sub-par cruiser in existence. And the limits on beefing it up that I would be willing to do are up to 6HG on each side. at this point.

Lowest would be str 4 heavy guns, and d6+4 prow guns, d6+1 p/s. With the higher firepower though, the orks get more consistent rolls, and it makes one feel quite a bit less screwed when they roll a one, and actually feel lucky when they roll a six. Rather than oh, I rolled a 6, I'm still significantly worse than the IN ships.

As a note, with the Faq 2010 returning FBs to their previous state of well... crap, the TS is easier to touch.

[Sigoroth]

With TTS (true turret suppression) the only differences between Ork AC and normal would be reduced damage (1d3 attack runs) and declaring how many are counting as fighters before rolling turret attacks. No complex rules.

As for cost, with an extra turret and firepower I can see the KK coming up to 150 pts. My preference would still be that the profiles be left as they are and costs simply decreased.

[Plaxor]

Sweet! Gah, now how do you feel about the torpedoes? 10 points or 5 points?

Terror ships, well with bombers that are worse than regular bombers, but faster, and worse than fighters because they are slower. So these probably about cancel out.

However the TS is worse to reload, but there are cheaper rerolls, free AAF, and +1 to boarding. So meh.

However, is a cruiser, with the survival stats worth 185?

Let's see, Comparing a TS with torps (at D6+4fp prow, D6+1fp sides, 2 turret) to a dictator at 210:


Firepower needed to take down in 1 turn: 99% of Dictator
Firepower needed to cause 1 internal hit: 43.7%
Survivability VS Ordinance: 55.5 (significantly less in the bomber category, at 36%)
Firepower Hull: 141% (including torps)

Total 85% or 178.5

I think that 5 points cheaper is justified. How does the world feel? Actually this even includes the torp upgrade. However a 175 point carrier base? However the fact is that everyone gives the ship torpedoes, and this version would be 185, the same as before, but with 1 extra turret and +4 total firepower.

The non-torp version sucks as you will never ever use the heavy guns on a carrier, and as well it is very worthwhile to have torpedoes on something constantly being reloaded. It is justified to do 175/185

Edit: screwed up before. Revised.

[Plaxor]

So looking to finish up work on this soon. Any other comments welcome, but this will be done soon.

[Plaxor]

So forgot one factor for heavy guns, terrain.

In 1/3 of the terrain set ups the heavy guns are much worse than regular wbs. In the Flare Region and Mercutial zone, where they would not get either of the double column shifts for range. In these two areas they are only 51% as effective as regular wbs. Making them closer to 61% as effective. So 2/3 is probably a reasonable value to give them.

Note that on savages heavy guns are almost 2x as effective as on cruisers. So for these they are close to being even with regular wbs.

[Plaxor]

Someone brought up leadership as a factor. So let's look into that:


Ld5=27.7% Ld6=41.6% Ld7=58.3% Ld8=72% Ld9=83.3% Ld10=91.6%

Average Chance of Success Ork=49.8%
Average Chance of Success IN=64%
Average Chance of Success Eldar=76.6%

So an Orks leadership is 78% as good as IN and 50% as good as Eldar. Ultimately it means that if a group of Ork vessels have a ld 5,6,6,7,7,8 or average rolls, then if you wanted to roll a leadership test for every one it would look like this:

So each test includes number of re-rolls, in order to get past 2 rolls with any reasonable chance of success they need to expend re-rolls
First Test: 72% (1RR=92.6), Second Test: 42% (after 1st RR:54%, with 2 RR's=81%), Third Test=24.36% (1st=31.32%, Second 46.98%, Third 76%)

For IN/Chaos:
1st 83.3% (1RR=97%), Second=59.76% (1st RR=72%, Second=92%) Third=42.48 (1st=52%, 2nd=66%, 3rd=90%)

Basically you can see that the Orks are about 1 re-roll behind them to keep up.

Orks don't get that cheap of re-rolls, 5 points less than chaos. However with the tiered style of IN, they do seem cheap. As well orks don't have any way to boost their LD and make their re-rolls more valuable.

Anyways, just thoughts.

[Valhallan]

but they can swap crews so that you have good LD on the important ships. that works just fine imo.

[Plaxor]

but they can swap crews so that you have good LD on the important ships. that works just fine imo.

I agree, I actually think it is perfectly fine the way that it is. It was just something I was curious about.

I really like the crew swap thing, but still people don't use BB's/BC's all the time, but that ability is so amazing, especially in the case of Gorbs.

I pretty much always use at least a hammer.

[lastspartacus]

On using Smotherman, I find there is a great points inconsistency in the escorts.  I wonder why that is?