Previously I said that in almost all situations it was better to use Rage rockets over faction. I would like to correct that point right now. Versus webbed MWD-fit frigates and above then, yes, Rage is the correct answer. Faster ships such as those with an afterburner are going to give you problems and you should switch to faction missiles. To illustrate this point here are some plots. For the Vengeance the switchover point is 300 m/s.
Vengenace shooting a frigate moving at 250 m/s.
Vengeance shooting a frigate moving at 300 m/s.
Vengeance shooting a frigate moving at 500 m/s.
Apologies for any confusion that I have caused. Oh, and for anyone interested I am generating these plots using the excellent pyfa fitting utility.
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Uncategorized December 7th 2011
December 7th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
OK, I'm completely confused at this point…perhaps I need more coffee. I can't reproduce these results. I mean, I can reproduce them in Pyfa (which I just downloaded after reading this post), but I can't reproduce them mathematically. EFT tends to agree with me here, that a Vengeance, or any other ship with a 37m Sig) takes more damage from Rage rockets than Faction until the target is moving faster than ~755m/s. And mathematically, I also agree with your conclusion from the other day…against a target with a 40m Sig Rage is better unless the target is going over 800m/s, which is rarely ever the case if I'm shooting Rockets at something as it's likely to be webbed. However, this 300m/s number is troubling…and I'd like to believe Pyfa has something off in their damage calculation, but I'm ready to be proven wrong if I can be shown what it is that I'm missing.
PS The Damage graph in Pyfa having a velocity and sig variable is handy. To check my math in EFT I've always just slid the % of the Tar Vel down and then plugged it into a calculator.
December 8th, 2011 at 10:34 am
So it looks like the maths in pyfa is wrong? I'll dig out the source code later and find out what model they are using. The pyfa numbers seem to go with anecdotal evidence.
December 8th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Since missile damage is absolute rather than chance based, it should actually be fairly trivial to test this hypothesis in game (obviously you will need to take into account the attacker's target navigation prection skill if not lv5).
December 8th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Yes, I think some in game testing is going to be required here.
December 8th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Like I noted in the other post, I saw roughly 20-40% less DPS with Rage on a pretty regular basis.
December 8th, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Which suggests that the accepted missile formula is wrong…
December 10th, 2011 at 4:51 am
I would recommend filling in a support ticker on pyfa website. DarkPhoenix – the guy working on the math – is pretty active and may provide you with a clarification without a week long wait time.