There are going to be maths in there, so read only if you're prepared.

If you think anything seems wrong, teel me so that I'll correct myself (if I'm actually wrong)

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First things first, let's start with the stats of ships I'll be using.

Distortion Scout :

Hull = 950

Shield = 1040

Shield Regen = 65/s

Evasion = 41%

Quick-Charge Scout :

Hull = 950

Shield = 1040

Shield Regen = 104/s

Evasion = 26%

They both use Turbo Reactor. Don't start to say that Turbo Reactor don't fit Quick-Charge, refilling shields from 0% to 100% after a hit is only slightly slower with Turbo and without the 60% in combat (takes additional 0.5s) than Regeneration with the 60%. And if you put Turbo with the 60%, you'll exceed the Regeneration Reactor capacity. I won't demonstrate that, do it if you have the courage to do so.

Now let start with Effective health, the number of damage they can take before to be crushed down

The formula will be like this :

Eff.Health = (Hull / (1 - DR) + Shield) / (1 - Evasion)

I know, I didn't introduced DR (aka Damage reduction) but scout have 0%, so who cares ?

Hey what, I didn't add By-pass ? not that it will care much in our comparison but lets go :

Eff.Health = (Hull / (1 - DR) + Shield) / (1 - Evasion) * (1 - By-pass) + (Hull / (1 - DR)) / (1 - Evasion) * (By-pass)

By default By-pass will be set at 10%, because there are hits that ignore 20%, other that don't...

What ? Missiles ignore Evasion ? Let's add it :

Eff.Health = ((Hull / (1 - DR) + Shield) / (1 - Evasion) * (1 - By-pass) + (Hull / (1 - DR)) / (1 - Evasion) * (By-pass)) * (1 - Missile ratio) + ((Hull / (1 - DR) + Shield) * (1 - By-pass) + (Hull / (1 - DR)) * (By-pass)) * Missile ratio

Now, how much for the missile ratio ? If we look at Cluster, it's optimally once every 3s...

So missile ratio should be something like 650 / (650 + 600 * 3) if we add blaster damage at 600/s (it's low), then making it 26%. But we know that locks can't be optimal, and can be dodged with the engine mechanic. We can lower this percentage. 10% is what I'll use.

Let's go to the results :

Distortion Scout : 3065 HP

Quick-charge Scout : 2482 HP (- ~20%)

Quick charge can regen its shields, I know. Let's assume we need 3s of continuous fire to take them down.

Regen = 104 * 0.6 *3 = 187

Let's ignore all this bloody By-pass and evasion for this added survivability, and let's remember that quick-charge has been very slightly exageratted, or we'll need to enter a loop.

Quick-charge Scout : 2669 HP (- 13%)

So Distortion has a better strait survavibility. Well, that was called, these 15% evasion aren't for show.

Now let's take a look at their effects.

Quick-charge effect : give 36% of Shield max charge.

I'll assume these 36% are from the capacity at 100%, but quick charge (with companion I chose) make the max capacity to be 80%. I won't take 36% of these 80% but 36% of 100%, meaning actually 45% of 80%.

Because I'm lazy, I'll round it to 500 shield power which is more than even these 45%... So I may be grossly over-estimating Quick-charge.

Now how much shield it will regain over 6s ?

500 + 104 * 0.6 * 6 (Assuming it's still under fire) = 874

or

500 + 104 * 0.6 * 2.4 + 104 * 3.6 (optimal regen) = 1024

That how much HP Quick-charge saves.

Now Distortion : Full evasion

So, in 6 seconds it will save us from : incoming blaster damage per second * 6

Let's assume there is only one opponent (I'm minimizing it's effect here, multiple opponents would make Dist even stronger), whether he decides to stop attacking because of distortion is not the matter, because after all the attack would have been nullifiyed.

Let's go for 600 * 6 = 3600. (Again these low 600/s)

Let's minimize it because after all a part would have been dodged no matter what.

3600 * (1 - Evasion) = 3600 * 0.59 = 2124

You know what's the side effect ? By not taking hits, Distortion forces regen to start again, so he have to add that it gives back :

65 * 3.6 = 234

So let's do the difference of saved HP

2124 + 234 - 1024 = 1334

Distortion have saved 1334 more HP during this effect... with Quick-charge being over-estimated and Distortion minimized.

You may say that Quick-charge will keep regenerates stronger after that. It's true. How much time it would take for Quick-charge to regenerate all that without hindrance (which obviously it won't be able to since it's bigger than the shield pool anyway)

1334 / 104 = 12.8s

12.8s... Plus the past 6s, it means it can overcome its lack of power 1.2s before distortion being avaliable again... and assuming the the Distortion didn't regenerated at all. Add to that the fact it can't regenerate 1300+ shield when the pool is only 1040.

So let's resume... Distortion gives :

- Better effective HP

- Better avoidance against burst damage

- Better effect over time

What Quick-charges gives :

...

I think the conclusion is pretty clear, no ?

Distortion Field completely outperforms Quick-charge. And pretty badly.

In my opinion, the passive 15% Evasion it provides needs to go. That way, both ships in my exemple would have the same Effective HP, but distrotion would slightly outperform in its use against one opponent (but still completely outperform against multiple) but it would be much a matter a of tastes than now.

I didn't take the time to compare to a strike here, but if you have the courage to, take these stats :

Hull : 1450

Shields : 1440

Shield regen : 144

Evasion : 11%

DR : 5%

Quick-charge and Turbo

You'll see, that's hilarious how the Distortion Scout is completely comparable to the Strike in survivability even though it's supposed to be thougher.

Now, if you find something odd/wrong, tell me. I may have written some crap here and there, because wrote that between 12AM and 2AM in my time zone.

So, here's my take on it:

The distortion field's effective hit points are often too high. But they SHOULD be higher, because the passive is very likely to result in you taking hull damage when you don't expect it. The question is the magnitude.

I totally disagree with removing the 15% passive evasion. I do think that it could come down a bit, but the REAL thing is, the cooldown on that move is just too damned low, and the other shields (including directional and quick charge, but super duper including fortress and feedback, who are in an even worse spot) just need buffs. Ex: why does quick charge reduce the shield by 30%? Wouldn't 10% be adequate? Could directional maybe INCREASE the shield power? Etc.

That's a completely ridiculous mathematical breakdown comparing apples and oranges, with a spurious formula to boot. And you took 3 pages of screen to come to your bogus conclusion.

You completely ignore the actual strengths of Quick Charge, namely the thruster regen and ability to use it /after/ you've been hit, and you also left out the weakness of Distortion Field -- that you have to guess when to use it ahead of time and a skilled opponent will just stall it out.

So yeah, if you just stand at point blank and trade fire, with a signal so the Distortion Field Scout can pop it at /just/ the right time then Distortion Field comes out ahead. Pity that bears no resemblance to the actual game!

That's a whole lot of math to say one simple opinion:

"A sting with shields vs a NovaDive popping distortion is probably best off breaking off for a few seconds before making their attack run".

1. That's not that interesting.

2. The formula presented is not based on any testing of the system in place. For all you know, evasion has a diminishing return, or a distance-modifier. Who knows? People who take the time to test it empirically and understand the scientific method. Certainly not people who base their assumptions of game mechanic formula's off the tool-tips and write things like, "We can lower this percentage. 10% is what I'll use".

So really, the entire post is just an opinion. It's not mathematically derived information.

It's not fair to dismiss the analysis just because we don't have the exact combat mechanism. We do know that distortion field is not worth shooting through unless you absolutely have no other choice, so the conclusion he came to with that is correct. The effective health of someone with distortion field not active is probably done right- I tell you, there is nothing dumber than having to fully charged rail shot some scout four times because nothing connects, and we know that quick charge would not offer such defense.

I don't think it's fair to use effective health during the bubble though- you can model the bubble as probable invincibility.

It's no shock that distortion field is better than the other shields.

I only skimmed this, but I did not see the proper conclusion:

i = incoming damage

d = survivability provided by distortion field

q = survivability provided by quick-charge shield

s = shield maximum power pool

lim (i -> inf) d = inf

lim (i -> inf) q = 0.3s

It's not fair to dismiss the analysis just because we don't have the exact combat mechanism.

Actually, we don't know that. Because not only was his math describing an extremely unlikely scenario, he also uses bogus numbers to describe it. So it's BOTH logically invalid AND the premises are false. There's absolutely no calories in this post to digest. No proof in either direction of a conclusion like:

distortion field is better than the other shields.

Reality could be the opposite for all we know. Perhaps my shields with their 60% continual regen even while being attacked are far superior to the 15% evasion bonus offered by Distortion Shield. Perhaps Distortion Field is useless against a fully-charged slug one-shot that get's past the 15% evasion. You can't pop a cooldown dead. But I survive the first shot of a max'd slug railgun and have time to pop my Shield back up to full. If slug-using gunships are a problem on your server, maybe surviving 15% of their shots isn't as good as surviving 100%?

Until math says otherwise, speculation is only as strong as the knowledge of the player speculating.

This isn't undiscovered country, we gots plenty of hours here. Quick charge won't save you from a bypass slug hit- you will die. Distortion can. Now, once bypass is nerfed, neither one will be a one shot, but quick charge still won't really matter. It'll still be a reasonable amount of armor ignore and a really big hit.

Distortion is definitely the best shield. I've seen a few people argue for quick charge, and under certain dogfight only situations it may in fact be better. But in general? Go distortion. For the win.

And devs? Buff the other shields!

Let's assume there is only one opponent (I'm minimizing it's effect here, multiple opponents would make Dist even stronger), whether he decides to stop attacking because of distortion is not the matter, because after all the attack would have been nullifiyed.

It does matter. If he disengages and evades for 6 seconds(as any experienced pilot will do whe the enemy pops distorton), then not only does he stop damaging you, but you stop damaging him.

This isn't undiscovered country, we gots plenty of hours here.

I see no data quoted. Where? Where are the hours of testing? I do not see them. Additionally, why the mention of Bypass? Do we have data indicating 100% of all gunship pilots use Bypass, a shield-piercing ability? That would surprise me given that the majority of players run distortion and an evasion based build on scouts.

There's nothing wrong with saying "I prefer ____" or "I think ____ is better". But misrepresenting an opinion such as this as mathematically proven irks me. I don't care which is better for the purposes of this post. That is a massive discussion that will start with how evasion is calculated and under what situations it is used based on evidence. I want to read that post. I want that post to rock and make me really think about developing new nuances to my play-style.

Encouraging these kinds of posts declaring the currently popular meta-game choice to be mathmatically superior won't help the community create a real mathmatical understanding of Starfighter.

It does matter. If he disengages and evades for 6 seconds(as any experienced pilot will do whe the enemy pops distorton), then not only does he stop damaging you, but you stop damaging him.

In a sense, yes you are partially right, but I wanted to focus on the defensive aspect, because that's it's original use. Partially, because nothing says you are attacking back, and even if you did, you can trail him... That may not be the most effective, but you'd still damage during that time.

But I also minimized its potential by limiting the number of attackers to 1. Because I know Distortion is quite an odd thing in terms of survivability, its effectiveness is variable.

If the attacker disengages, you are not effectively avoiding all that damage. It may have been redirected to someone else.

But its potential is also unlimited.

If you want, you can take it as a comparison how how much it would lengthen your lifespan. In that regard, my calculation would be like averaging it comparable terms.

And these calculations says that it lengthens the user lifespan for at least as much time.

And so, while its burst efficiency can't be denied it's as worth for the long run as the component that sustains it's efficiency over time..

In my opinion, it's not that much of a problem that its on-use effect end being as effective on the long run even if one is burstier allowing more strategies, because in the other hand, it may not be as beneficial for the team (ennemies redirecting to mates)...

What is disturbing, is that even though the effects happen to be of similar efficiency (but people will still prefer a Resilience-like ability than one like Reactive Shield, and I can understand that) that one provides better passive survivability. And it's not a marginal difference we're speaking about...

I think it is funny that he assumed turbo with the quick charge shield. Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing for regen reactor, but a *large* reactor might be better.

It was to ensure the comparison. One may lead to a marginally better build, but then the components would not be properly comparable.

But since you mention it, I can tell you that its effect will only be a better effective HP of the Quick-charge Scout, comparable to the Distrotion Scout... but slightly worse effect on regeneration, as a consequence. But The Distortion Scout could also drastically increase its effective HP at the cost of the little 234 shields regenered in last part of my post. In the end, they would be somewhat comparable in their effect, but distortion would still own in the effective HP area.

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To the ones that says both components don't use in the same way... Apple and oranges...

You take damage, you're endangered, you hit the key to survive. How is that different ?

The only difference, is that Distortion can also be used preemptively, while Quick-charge can't. What were you trying to pull here ? It only shows one other advantage of this component over the other one.

And I did not compare a Flashfire to a Novadive. A Novadive don't have a reactor.

You take damage, you're endangered, you hit the key to survive. How is that different ?

The only difference, is that Distortion can also be used preemptively, while Quick-charge can't. What were you trying to pull here ? It only shows one other advantage of this component over the other one.

Serious question here, is this is a troll post? You quoted someone as saying:

If he disengages and evades for 6 seconds(as any experienced pilot will do whe the enemy pops distorton), then not only does he stop damaging you, but you stop damaging him.

So you just read there's a difference. I can see when you pop your cooldown. I can break off my attack (and therefore dodge your attacks). You now have no cooldown, I have my cooldown. Now we attack again. You see how, if in the situation where the dog fight lasts more than 6 seconds a shield-build still has a cooldown and you don't? We could go on and on about how the shield upgrade increases in effectiveness based on the number of attack-passes you make in which I do not take hull-damage (because you recharge shield 60% during combat).

You take damage, you're endangered, you hit the key to survive. How is that different ?

You're taking damage, you pop a medpack. You're tacking damage, you pop a healing adrenal. How is that different?

This isn't undiscovered country, we gots plenty of hours here. Quick charge won't save you from a bypass slug hit- you will die. Distortion can. Now, once bypass is nerfed, neither one will be a one shot, but quick charge still won't really matter. It'll still be a reasonable amount of armor ignore and a really big hit.

 

Distortion is definitely the best shield. I've seen a few people argue for quick charge, and under certain dogfight only situations it may in fact be better. But in general? Go distortion. For the win.

 

And devs? Buff the other shields!

Distortion will also not save you from being oneshot by that slug. Unless you are talking to that enemy GS pilot and they tell you "incoming bypass slug in 3 seconds" you will not know to hit distortion. Some forms of damage are just going to happen and nothing you can do about it, distortion or not. With quick charge's 60% recently consumed, plus the 20%regen/20% extra recently consumed recharge from the reactor, you can recover from taking unavoidable damage very quickly, AFTER it has happened and is too late to use distortion. and that 80% recently consumed with proper reactor is active constantly, not for only a few seconds with a cooldown. I've tried both shields, have both mastered and much prefer quick charge over the 6 second immunity crutch that can just be waited out. But if you want to call to a buff to other shields, I'm ok with that.

Distortion will also not save you from being oneshot by that slug. Unless you are talking to that enemy GS pilot and they tell you "incoming bypass slug in 3 seconds" you will not know to hit distortion. Some forms of damage are just going to happen and nothing you can do about it, distortion or not.

Not entirely true. If the battlefield's not too hectic and/or there's only a couple gunships out there, you can keep an eye out for the big yellow cloud.

With quick charge's 60% recently consumed, plus the 20%regen/20% extra recently consumed recharge from the reactor, you can recover from taking unavoidable damage very quickly, AFTER it has happened and is too late to use distortion.

But by that point your hull is smoking so much that any other shield penetration weapon is going to kill you.

Not entirely true. If the battlefield's not too hectic and/or there's only a couple gunships out there, you can keep an eye out for the big yellow cloud.

 

 

But by that point your hull is smoking so much that any other shield penetration weapon is going to kill you.

If the battlefield is that calm, I am attacking those gunships and killing them rather than sitting there waiting and watching for their tell tale cloud. I am talking about those shots that come from nowhere that you do not see or expect because they are out of sensor range or the battle is too heated and you haven't spotted them yet.

The whole point of the quick recovery is so that your hull does not get to that point barring the occasional unseen snipe referred to above. And D-field will not stop that from happening anyways. You still have to KNOW it is coming and then once that 6 seconds are up you are even more vulnerable, much prefer having the constant, quick recovery and let actual piloting skills be my evasion.