I’ve been running numbers in both calculators, trying to determine what is the best way to fight the Polaris and made some interesting finds I want to share.
A Polaris, hunting another Polaris is a good measure in the calculators since the Polaris figures are more reliable than the Idris, and Void Bomber figures don’t exist yet. So this is the test case. Void Bombers reportedly have only S2 sensors. They should be vastly easier prey than the Polaris.
EM and IR are about 16k each, which is surprisingly low. Armor provided -20% on all three sensors, and you may be able to swap this out for -40%, which would be key but would likely take half your hull value.
Switching energy to ballistic weapons does not provide enough benefit in damage or stealth to be useful. Switching off guns drops your EM about 20%. Switching off your shields drops your EM to about 2k, which is insanely low. The shield takes 3m13s to charge.
At full battle stations, your detection range is 24km. Your torps and missiles range is 30km.
So the sweet spot for attacking unseen is with a spotter, “stealth recon” if you prefer, at between 24-30km range. This is where you can detect without being detected if you are sharing sensors with your spotter.
We don’t know the stats for S10 torps yet, but we should expect them to take a full minute from locking on to striking the target. Locking and arming times are torp specs. They can’t be changed. You can substantially reduce time to target by switching off shields and approaching closer than 24km. We don’t know exactly how close you can get, but time to target reduces by 2s/km, so if you get 10km closer, you take 1/3 off your time to target. Effectiveness at suppressing an attack is probably a quadratic function over time, so looks like a parabola.
What this means is your success to attack is tied most heavily to getting close to the target. You will be strongly tempted to shut down your shields, knowing that if you do not succeed, you’ll probably need to quantum jump away or get pasted with your shields down.
Anyway, that’s what it looks like so far, and exactly as suspected. The Polaris is intended to emulate the submarine combat of WWII. The only surprises with the Polaris so far have been the relatively low signatures, and the SCM of 210. CIG delivered the speed they promised.
There is a bewildering variety of S3, 4, 5, and 6 guns, and S2, 3 and 10 missiles and torps. There is probably value is separating these as short (<5km) medium (5-10km) and long (10-30km) range, and deciding which S2 missiles to use based upon whether you want more short or medium range.
A Polaris, hunting another Polaris is a good measure in the calculators since the Polaris figures are more reliable than the Idris, and Void Bomber figures don’t exist yet. So this is the test case. Void Bombers reportedly have only S2 sensors. They should be vastly easier prey than the Polaris.
EM and IR are about 16k each, which is surprisingly low. Armor provided -20% on all three sensors, and you may be able to swap this out for -40%, which would be key but would likely take half your hull value.
Switching energy to ballistic weapons does not provide enough benefit in damage or stealth to be useful. Switching off guns drops your EM about 20%. Switching off your shields drops your EM to about 2k, which is insanely low. The shield takes 3m13s to charge.
At full battle stations, your detection range is 24km. Your torps and missiles range is 30km.
So the sweet spot for attacking unseen is with a spotter, “stealth recon” if you prefer, at between 24-30km range. This is where you can detect without being detected if you are sharing sensors with your spotter.
We don’t know the stats for S10 torps yet, but we should expect them to take a full minute from locking on to striking the target. Locking and arming times are torp specs. They can’t be changed. You can substantially reduce time to target by switching off shields and approaching closer than 24km. We don’t know exactly how close you can get, but time to target reduces by 2s/km, so if you get 10km closer, you take 1/3 off your time to target. Effectiveness at suppressing an attack is probably a quadratic function over time, so looks like a parabola.
What this means is your success to attack is tied most heavily to getting close to the target. You will be strongly tempted to shut down your shields, knowing that if you do not succeed, you’ll probably need to quantum jump away or get pasted with your shields down.
Anyway, that’s what it looks like so far, and exactly as suspected. The Polaris is intended to emulate the submarine combat of WWII. The only surprises with the Polaris so far have been the relatively low signatures, and the SCM of 210. CIG delivered the speed they promised.
There is a bewildering variety of S3, 4, 5, and 6 guns, and S2, 3 and 10 missiles and torps. There is probably value is separating these as short (<5km) medium (5-10km) and long (10-30km) range, and deciding which S2 missiles to use based upon whether you want more short or medium range.
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