The purpose of this tool is to:
The tool is simply a visualization of data collected from in-game testing. If you feel something is represented on the spreadsheet unfairly, please contact us on the Legacy Fleet Discord server.
This tool is (at least for now) mainly concerned with combat effectiveness differentiation for single-piloted craft. There is no meaningful way to compare combat effectiveness with, say, exploration effectiveness.
Larger multi-crew craft have very different considerations for combat effectiveness. Omission of ships like the Hammerhead or Constellation is not an attempt to downplay their significance - it's just that comparing them to "small" ships is like comparing apples to oranges.
For example, a difference in length of five meters might mean a lot to a small fighter, but very little to a ship that is already huge and stacked with turrets. Additionally, larger ships require more players to use effectively, and how many players they need is a factor that dominates larger ship balancing.
Certain "multi-seat" combat ships have been included, such as the Super Hornet, Vanguard and Freelancer MIS. All indications from CIG point to these ships being intended to be reasonably viable in combat with a single operator. Some turret data is included in case the user wants to include it in a visualization, but it is not the focus of the comparisons.
Finally, some might question the inclusion of certain ships, like the Eclipse or the Terrapin. Though these ships might not be intended for "dogfighting", they still have to perform in combat. For example, the Terrapin obviously is intended to have strong defenses, so that it can safely perform its combat roles of tracking, command, and control. So, it's useful to see how its defenses compare to those of other ships.
Roles were obtained from the ASOP terminals. Some of the roles don't make sense, like the Cutlass being listed as a medium fighter. We recommend that when including roles in comparisons, to examine the results with extra scrutiny.
"Parameters" are numerical values of a specific ship that affect its performance in combat; how many of these scale according to component sizing can be customized in the "Input" tab.
Dimensions - Average - average of length, beam, and height (below).
Length, Beam, Height - dimensions of a ship; mostly affects the defensive capability of a ship, because a smaller ship is a smaller target and more difficult to hit; for the Tana and the Khartu-Al, we switched some of the values so that they resemble the dimensions in flight mode.
Dimensions - Avg - Inv - average of inverted length, beam, and height (below).
Length Inv, Beam Inv, Height Inv - Because all other charted parameters indicate values that are "better" the larger they get, the SPAT offers inversions of dimensions since dimensions are "better" the lower they are. Inverted dimensions are determined by subtracting, for example, the length of the spacecraft being considered from the length of the largest spacecraft in the dataset. This means that the longest spacecraft would have a value of zero and the value would increase from there.
Acceleration - Average - average of accelerations in all six directions of translational motion.
Acceleration - Combined - this is the maximum acceleration a spacecraft can achieve by using multiple axes of thrusters; when maintaining this acceleration while flying, we call it "the groove".
Acceleration Fwd, Back, Up, Down, Left, Right - ability of a ship to change its velocity over time in various directions; this parameter is the resultant performance of both thrust and mass, so those do not need to be included; affects both defensive capability because accelerating ships are more difficult to hit, and offensive capability because it affects the ships' ability to maintain firing range and position against an opponent.
Ovht Resist - Average - average of overheat resistance values in all six directions of translational motion.
Ovht Resist Fwd, Back, Up, Down, Left, Right - ability of a ship to resist overheating when using afterburner at full thrust in various directions; this parameter is measured in seconds until full overheat.
Rotational Velocity (RotV) - Average - average of rotational velocity about all three axes.
RotV - Pitch, Yaw, Roll - maximum angular speed about various axes; this parameter impacts the ability of a ship to both track a target and to maintain a defensive orientation toward a target (pointed at them), therefore it impacts both offense and defense.
Shield Score - calculated using the hitpoint values of the strongest shield in each size; you can customize this in the "Scaling" tab.
Armor SCore - currently armor isn't differentiated between ships, so all values are 1; left in for when armor is finally implemented.
Hull - Average - averages the two health values listed below.
Hull - Body, Nose - ships can currently be destroyed by reducing either body or nose health to zero; these were testing by counting how many single Omni IX shots it took to kill the ship by shooting the body or the nose.
Gun Score - calculated using the damage per second of the Klaus & Werner line for each size; conveniently follows the intended +50% for each size; Vanduul ships have their own calculations; Vanguard nose guns are separate since they can only be swapped out with other specialized Vanguard nose guns.
Missile Score - calculated using the highest-damage missile available for each size.
Turret Count - number of turrets on a ship.
Turret Damage Score - scaled the same as the guns parameter.
EMP Damage - calculated using EMP damage available.
Power Score - calculated using highest-generating powerplant in each size.
Cooler Score - calculated using highest-coolrate coolers in each size.
Hydrogen Fuel - hydrogen fuel capacity in thousands of units.
Quantum Fuel - quantum fuel capacity.
Quantum Speed - calculated using the fastest quantum drive in each size.
Cruise Speed - maximum speed in normal flight in meters per second.
Cargo - in SCU; not combat-related but included for the user to decide if its important.
Categories Not Included
Rotational acceleration - rotational acceleration should not be used to balance ships, as lowering it disproportionately impacts fixed weapons; since heavy fighters are intended to be able to use fixed weapons (or actually forced to, like the Vanguard), rotational acceleration should be kept relatively high for all non-multicrew ships. If rotational “stop times” are noticeably longer on any particular fighter, I consider that a bug.
Atmospheric Flight Tuning (CL / CD) - atmospheric flight is currently in a tentative state. When it solidifies, we intend to add these.
The Comparison tab allows you to compare one ship against another ship or against the average values for multiple ships. Parameters of both ships are compared proportionally and displayed via radar chart.
Ship Selection - you can select a specific ship, a role, or a rollup of multiple roles (e.g. “All fighters” or “Average All”) for an average. Which ships are included in an average is displayed in the notes in the upper right corner.
Baseline - here you can add in a third set of values that shows a baseline reference for the ship comparison; you can also select another ship here if you want to compare three ships.
Notes - any applicable notes are listed in the upper right corner; the case of averages of many ships being used in the comparison, which ships are included in the average will be shown.
Parameter - the parameter, as listed above; some parameters are indented to show that they roll up into averages listed; using the checkbox to the left of the parameters adds that parameter to the radar chart.
Value - this is the value from the “Data” or “Scores” tab; conditional formatting is based on difference between the value and the average for all ships.
Radar Chart - this shows the selected parameter comparison between the two ships and the baseline, scaled according to the setting below.
Scale spokes to - this is the maximum value that is used to scale the radar chart parameters individually. Scaling options can be selected via the dropdown. You can set the maxes to be:
The RangeBattle tab provides visualizations of certain parameters contextualized to a long-range, missile-focused combat scenario. This tab is currently in prototype.
Overview - Ship missile capabilities are shown in multiple “lines”, with the missile size and plume trail represented in a roughly proportional manner to the sizing and range of the actual missiles. Please note that a ship cannot carry all the missiles represented - the multiple lines show multiple loadout options available to the given ship.
Missiles chosen - currently, the highest-damage missiles in each size are also the longest-range missiles in each size, making this part easy. In the future, if this changes, the dropdowns in the upper right will allow you to specify which to utilize.
Shields chosen - as explained before, shields are currently listed as the highest hitpoint-shields in each size. For the missile battle, this represents the worst-case scenario for the attacked, as shield HP is much more important than regeneration in a missile fight. In the future, there will be dropdowns to allow pilots to see the effects of ships choosing to use different shields.
# req’d to assure kill - this is determined using math and confirmed with Camural’s testing (http://bit.ly/camural). Missile damage of 1.5x the shield HP almost always results in a kill. Note that, again, this is considering the highest-hp shields in each size.
Have suggestions for this section? Contact us on Discord!
The TurnBattle tab provides visualizations of certain performance parameters contextualized to a short-range, gun-focused combat scenario.
Effective Acceleration - For the graphs, you can choose whether how the acceleration is determined. Most players will use combined inward acceleration during turn battles - this means that they will use forward, vertical, and lateral acceleration simultaneously - it is actually easy to do and most players do it without realizing. There are other options, though - just forward acceleration, and just vertical acceleration. Finally, the “differential acceleration” is to evaluate the effect of a backpedaling enemy - it takes the first ship’s combined acceleration and subtracts the second ship’s backward acceleration.
Blue/Red Rotational Velocity - Experienced players will generally use both pitch and yaw during turning battles, but here you have the option to also select just pitch or just yaw, for either the blue or the red ship.
Afterburner Enabled - These graphs focus on sustained positioning during combat, so generally afterburner should not be considered. You can, however, see the effects with afterburner enabled using this option.
Energy-Maneuverability Diagram - This is a classic EM diagram showing turn rate, velocity, acceleration and turn radius together.
Excess Acceleration Diagram - This diagram maps maneuvering potential by range. Ships require a certain amount of acceleration to stay ahead of one another’s noses. This graph shows the available acceleration above that requirement as a function of range. Because more acceleration is required to stay ahead of an opponent’s nose as range increases, the requirement increases and the excess above that requirement decreases. To the right of the graph (at higher ranges), the acceleration requirement is greater than the ships’ acceleration capabilities.
This is where raw data is entered directly. If you see something that appears wrong, please let us know so we can fix it.
This is where parameter scores are calculated based on the data. The columns are formatted to allow you to easily see outliers - green is good, red is bad.
Here you can alter the hardpoint, missile and component point scaling to suit your needs.
There are some hidden tabs that do processing but that are not displayed to avoid confusion.