Hellgate - Leaked Prize Analysis

To start off, I've been asked to join in a Facebook group page - the Battle Pirates Crib.  We've got a good group to put together a lot of info - URF, BigBen, CarpeDiem , Huggy, Double, Bezza, and myself.  For my part, I'll be taking a little more info out of each blog article (usually the charts) into the group post.  I'm also getting a little bit of input from that group on my posts, which I think will improve things over here too (thanks already guys!).

I think we're going to try to cut through the chatter and just post good solid info... stay tuned.

Head on over to https://www.facebook.com/TheBattlePiratesCrib and give us a like to keep up.

On to the post...
The "Hellgate" raid is starting this Thursday, and the Reavers are back.

See Robot's tips and Tricks thread here: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/520874/p1

That post is worth reading for every raid - it includes some specific strengths and weaknesses of the various ship types we will be encountering.  It also recommends keeping your distance from Reaver ships (hopefully you knew that already).  Frostburn fields, Engine Disruptor fields, and Assault Disruptor cannons may all come into play.  I would be wary about trying to depend on Cryo Launcher fields - they might not build fast enough before the ship is on top of you.

Over at the Unofficial BP Info blog, they have analyzed new data files from the game and published preliminary stats on the prizes.  The following analysis is based on that unofficial data.

(UPDATE 1/13 @5:45 PM)) - the Magma Thrower was brought back down to earth in the latest update - build time is now around 21 hours, and damage was reduced by about 20%.  This doesn't make the weapon suck, but it perhaps moves it out of the "good value" category.  The Hellhound stats were also tweaked a little - speed reduction from 14 to 13 is the most important change. Charts below are updated) 

There have been two new prizes announced - the Hellhound hull and the Magma Thrower weapon.

Hellhound Hull:
This new Reaver hull seems very powerful, but it also has a long build time to match.  It has a damage bonus for the new thrower weapon type, but it could also be a capable hull with other forms of armament.  The only hulls that I thought were comparable were the other Reaver hulls:

Statistic	Hellhound	Berserker R5	Hellstrike R10
Weapon Slots	9	9	7
Armor Slots	6	6	6
Special Slots	4	4	4
Max Weight	7,996	9,075	12,292
Base Armor	6,986	4,242	5,550
Combat Speed	13	11	14
Turn Speed	12	13	12
Evade	10%	10%	30%
Ballistic Defense	40%	40%	40%
Explosive Defense	40%	30%	50%
Penetrative Defense	40%	40%	30%
Concussive Defense	0%	0%	0%
Radioactive Defense	50%	30%	40%
Tac Field Resist	50%	0%	50%
Stun/Slow Resist	70%	0%	25%
Turret Defense	30%	0%	0%
Splash Bonus	40%	0%	60%
Rocket Reload Bonus	0%	0%	140%
Thrower Damage Bonus	40%	0%	0%
Building Damage Bonus	100%	85%	100%
Projectile Speed	30%	0%	0%
Repair Modifier	150%	150%	150%
Berserker Effect	10% Defense / 20% Spd&Thrower Dmg	40%	0%
Hull Build Time w/off	12d13h7m	10d9h56m	6d15h58m

(EDIT: these stats got tweaked a bit on the Tuesday update - I also added the splash comparison)

The Hellhound has the same slot configuration as a Berserker, but with a smaller max weight. A 4 hull fleet is needed to come close to the max Dock 11 weight.  It is fast, has high resistances, and has built in boosts for Turret Defense, Building Damage, and Projectile speed.  (almost like a built-in Siege Battery and Combustion System).  Its high value of slow resist may help it against the Wendigo ice fields that are currently giving many players fits.  It has a overload effect when taking damage like a Berserker, but the defense and speed bonuses lower.  From the Tips and Tricks thread, it seems that each ship in the fleet can give a stacking 10% bonus, so this could build quickly if the fleet takes splash or shockwave damage.  It also seems that if you get 4 ships to generate the overload simultaneously, they will ignore all slow, pinch, and hostile tactical fields.

Overall, this hull looks very powerful.  Loaded with Magma Throwers this should be a successful blitz fleet (see Building/Wall damage bonus combined with Thrower damage bonus), or it could be loaded with Chaos Mortars and still take advantage of the enhanced projectile speed.  The drawback is the build time - at 50 days to build 4 empty hulls, a Hellhound fleet will be a significant commitment of time and/or gold.  Although this hull certainly looks tough, and may very well be the new "overpowered best hull in the game", consider your willingness to commit to the long build before going after it.

Magma Thrower:
In the Reaver targets in the last raid, we may have seen a preview of this weapon - working at short range and creating a pool of fire.  From the statistics published, I'm observing the following:

• This is a radioactive weapon type, but called a thrower, not a launcher.  This seems to be a new class of weapon that does radioactive damage similar to a launcher.  I expect that the only specials that will affect this weapon are the specials that affect radioactive weapons (Countermeasure Loaders, and ... nothing else comes to mind).  We will have to wait and see if radioactive reload bonuses related to hulls affect this weapon.
• There is an accuracy stat (100%) and also spread/splash statistics (Spread = 20, Splash =6 to 24).  Using the Spread / (3/8 Splash) statistic as an accuracy equivalent puts it over 100% - I used 100% as accuracy for DPS calculations.  It looks like the splash value will build over the course of the salvo.
• It will operate like the other Reaver weapons - with a long burst of salvo fire followed by a relatively long reload time.
• Walls block Thrower projectiles (until destroyed).
• Similar to Inferno Rockets, ships hit by this weapon will explode in a fire pool upon being sunk.
• With the range & weight of this weapon, I compared it to some of the smaller ballistics and torrent missiles.

	Magma Thrower	Bypass Chaingun 1 w/HB3	Chaingun 1 w/HB3	Assault Cannon X w/HB3	Torrent Missile 3 w/SFB3	Inferno Rocket	Chaos Mortar
Max Range	68.0	75.0	70.5	67.5	80.6	59.0	82.0
Damage	2,414	1572	1,572	150	764	180	616
Bldg Damage	4,828	1572	1,572	225	764	251	800
Bonus Damage	0	786	550	37	267	45	1447
Salvo	25	30	30	2	16	1	3
Reload Time	8.0	7.5	12.0	1.5	12.5	0.75	7.0
Accuracy	100%	70%	70%	100%	90%	80%	34%
Weight +Special (Shipyard 2)	320	474	317	320	222	1,442	1,300
Bonus Armor	0	0	0	0	0	400	1000
Fleet DPS	188.6	124.1	83.4	110.0	59.9	240.0	94.6
Fleet DPS/hton	58.9	26.2	26.3	34.4	27.0	16.6	7.3
Building DPS	377.2	177.3	119.2	154.1	66.5	394.7	303.6
Building DPS/hton	117.9	37.4	37.6	48.2	30.0	27.4	23.4
Build Time (w Off)	20h 56m	7h 4m	6h 33m	20h 50m	5h 54m	2d 18h 49m	1d 11h 38m
Other	Fire Field, Explosion on Kill	25% Ballistic Bypass	0%	0%	0%	5% C/X/M defense	5% rad defense

(CHART IS UPDATED - Stat changes are highlighted)

• DPS of the Magma Thrower is large compared to other similar sized weapons.
• DPS of the Magma Thrower is similar to the Inferno Rocket & Chaos Mortar... but it is much lighter & quicker to build.  It may fall behind as it ranks up because of its high salvo. 
• Build time is very short compared to other weapons of this size - this looks like a "good value" weapon to build.Build time is similar to the Assault Cannon X, ballistic fleets can take a long time to build because the weapons are relatively light, but still can take a long time to build.  This thrower looks to continue that trend.
• No special is needed to get range similar to, and damage greater than ballistic weapons Range is similar to other ballistic weapons - Chainguns can get longer range(Bypass Chainguns can be longer range on hulls with 20% range bonus).
• Drones are going to be in trouble.
• As a weapon with spread and splash - it may be possible that this weapon will be less effective against moving targets.

Although the Magma Thrower may be a bit light to just fill a boat with them and be done with it, it certainly has a lot of damage-dealing potential.  Because of its short range, I think the best hulls to carry it will be fast hulls - Stingray and Sawfish with their base speed of 16, or Mercury R8 and Interceptors with a base combat speed of 15 and some hybrid weapon slots for speed-boosting torpedos could be good carriers.  If really looking to boost speed, I could see the Reaver Scout Engine being used with Thrower-armed ships - closing to a range of 40 32 seems doable with the 130% speed boost.  Of course the new Hellhound looks as if it was designed to be a thrower platform. 

This weapon looks both very powerfuland very reasonable to build.  It feels like when launchers were first released.  When we first saw the D92-U launcher, and compared it to missiles, we saw a lot of damage, similar range, and no special required.  Missiles quickly became obsolete in comparison to launchers until we saw the Siege Missile Z.  I think when comparing this first thrower weapon to ballistics, I feel the same way, except ballistics have been obsolete for a while.  We may see a comeback of ballistic style fleets in FvF...
For you SAT types:  Launchers : Missiles :: Throwers : Ballistics

We'll have to keep our eyes on this class of weapons because it has a lot of potential.

The other weapons that I think are the best value for the build time are the Siege Missile Z and the Cryo Launcher D104-N.  This weapon may join them, and right now I would put this in the "want very much" category.

(yes I reduced it from "want very much" to just "want" because of the build time)

Overall

With a new category of weapons, and a powerful new Reaver hull, Kixeye doesn't seem to be slowing down the torrent of new content.  

Magma Throwers look very strong, and I think players that pass up this weapon will regret it.  Hellhounds look strong too, but consider what you are looking to build before stretching to get that hull.  With the long hull build time, but relatively quick weapon build time, a Hellhound ship loaded with Magma Throwers will still likely be in the 25 30+ day build range... meaning a fleet of four would take around 100 days over 4 months of shipyard time.  Remember this info is all based on preliminary data, so it is subject to change. (and possibly change again) I'll keep looking for new info coming our way, and will post a raid preview before Hellgate starts.

Another Launcher Comparison

Since rank bonuses don't affect reload the way I thought they did, and the delay time between all salvos is 0.2 seconds, not 0.1 seconds... I need to come back to the #1 most frequent question I have been asked since I started this blog:

Which launcher should I use?

What Happened?
I did some testing, and found that the time delay between salvos on Impulse Launchers is not 0.1 seconds like we thought, but it is 0.2 seconds.  This hurts the D92-U & the D92-F, making their reload cycles 0.3 and 0.8 seconds longer (respectively).  That extra time is not affected by any reload bonuses (hull, rank, or otherwise).  The published salvo time for the D104-N was already 0.2 seconds, so no previous Cryo Launcher data is affected by this change.

We have also found that the rank reload bonus is not like other reload bonuses... it has a separate multiplier of (1 - rank).  This also helps the low salvo weapons (D92-S & D104-S) more than the other ones.

Test cases Comparing Launcher DPS
I'm going to compare the DPS/hton of the 5 launcher types as rank increases for 3 different cases:

• 10% reload bonus, 20% accuracy bonus (alliance only).  This would apply to a Juggernaut X or other hull with no bonuses that apply to launchers
• 90% reload bonus, 20% Accuracy bonus.  This would apply to Greta's Nuclear Cruiser (with full alliance bonus)
• 130% reload bonus, 55% Accuracy bonus.  This would apply to an Enforcer R5 (with full alliance bonus)

I ran these cases against a "zero" ship (no evade or resist), and against buildings (100% accuracy, no resist).  Adding Evade and Resist would (mostly) scale all the results the same, except for the cases where accuracy bonuses drive the non-S launcher accuracy above 100%  (the high accuracy launchers would lose less DPS against evading targets than the low accuracy launchers).

So here are the charts showing DPS/hton for each of those cases: 

What can we tell from these charts?

• Against buildings, the S launchers are always best.  By a lot.
• I was incorrect in my previous favorite launcher choice - the D92-F... now that I've learned about the increased salvo delay, and the much larger effect of rank, the D92-F is generally the WORST choice for launcher, especially once the ships get to even elite (25%) rank.  (I guess I better refit those Gretas).  If in a situation where the weapon slots are limited and you have trouble filling your weight... MAYBE the heavier D92-F would be an OK choice.
• The other area where I wasn't too accurate was to dismiss the building damage of the D104-N. The Cryo Launchers generally stay ahead of Impulse Launchers, even in Building Damage.
• Against ships, the D104-N is best at lower ranks, then the S Launchers get better at the higher ranks.  The S Cryo Launcher stays ahead of the S Impulse Launcher.
• Cryo Launchers get additional benefit from their cryo field debuffs (not shown on charts).
• What is also not shown on these charts is that the higher DPS S launchers do a smaller percent of their damage from the explosion, which means that they may do less damage overall to clustered targets.  That is often noticed on Drac Bases and Forsaken Missions, where D92-U launchers can be very effective at taking out the turret clusters.

So the answer is usually ... If you're gonna rank them up much past Elite or shoot at buildings only, use D104-S, otherwise use D104-N.  And before you comment that Evade or Radioactive Resistance will change my results... those effects basically multiply the DPS of all the launchers equally so it doesn't really affect the comparison.  Some exceptions exist if you are more concerned about making Area of Effect damage with Shockwaves... read on.

Not far behind is...

Should I use the Gauss Supercharge special?

Gauss adds a 0.5 factor onto the charge per hit for all Launcher weapons.  This is slightly different than what is implied by the blueprint, which shows x1.5 from the Gauss.  This means that a launcher with a supercharge number greater than 1 already doesn't have that number multiplied by 1.5, it has 0.5 added.  Think of these things adding like reload bonuses, not multiplying like defense bonuses.  That means that a D104-S, with its x5 Supercharge, ends up at x5.5 with Gauss, not x7.5.

I ran some numbers for the launchers with and without Gauss, and the first thing I noticed is that the relative effects of Gauss don't change with rank reload or accuracy bonuses.  So I'm not going to make another big set of graphs... just a chart showing you the Gauss benefit (or drawback) for each type of launcher.

The chart shows that the U Launcher (with its small weapon damage) does the highest percentage of its damage with shockwaves.  Cryo weapons do the lowest.  If you are in a situation where you have a lot of weapon slots available and you want to take advantage of AoE (often in mission hubs), D92-U might be a good choice.  

The Gauss Supercharger will always tilt the damage balance toward AoE damage, and will always increase the DPS.  But if considering the weight, the benefits of the Gauss against a single target are small, especially on the Cryo launchers, and in fact negative on the S launchers (because of the additive nature of the bonus).

So the answer is... Your special slot is usually more useful for speed or defense than Gauss.  I think Enforcers on guard may be an exception, where incoming base attack fleets can often cluster up, and also you are very limited in weapon slots (since you only have one ship in an area).  But if you are using S launchers on the Enforcer, then Gauss is not a good choice, and using Countermeasure Loaders to give you 10% better reload would also give you 10% more DPS.

And one more question:

Is a Goliath R10 with Bypass Chainguns going to be as good as an Enforcer R5 with Launchers?

(OK nobody has come out and asked me this one yet, but I'm curious for myself)

I'll start out designing one of each with similar weight... I'll try to use similar design goals for each ship... I think evade and missile defense will continue to be important for guards, so I'll emphasize that.

On the Enforcer, I'll use 10 D104-S (based on the info above), Countermeasure Loaders (10% DPS improvement will do better than Gauss), Heavy Plate, Radioactive Coat, and Pinch Resist Panels with E Armor.

On the Goliath, I'll use 6 Bypass Chaingun 3 (see my article on why), Hardened Barrel 3, Heavy Plate, and Radioactive Coat along with a mix of E and M armor.  I'm not going to try Autoloader, since most of the weapon cycle time is in the salvo time which is unaffected by reload bonuses.

Huggys: http://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!50LC51R0I1R1R0I2N2I5Y684X00004X4X4X4X4X4X4X4X4X02OA1R1R1R1R0K000K5Y1168AG00AGAGAGAGAG0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdB

Stats compare:

Statistic	Enforcer R5, D104-S	Goliath R10, Bypass Chain 3
Weight	11,438	11,371
Armor	15,898	21,501
Combat Speed	3.5	2.8
Evade	62.4%	60.5%
Ballistic Defense	56%	45%
Explosive Defense	73%	56%
Penetrative Defense	73%	55%
Concussive Defense	0%	0%
Radioactive Defense	62%	54%
Build Time w/off	25d 20h 19m	22d 20h 20m
Repair Modifier	50%	50%
Stun Resist	60%	30%
Weapon Range	100.1	94.5
Weapon Damage Bonus	0%	50%
Weapon Reload Bonus	140%	80%
Weapon Accuracy Bonus	55%	53%
anti-ship DPS, zero target, zero rank	4,552	4,977
anti-ship DPS, zero target, 51% rank	9,291	6,326
anti-ship DPS, zero target, 75% rank	18,209	7,251
anti-ship DPS, Kodiak Baser, zero rank	989	1,185
anti-ship DPS, Kodiak Baser, 51% rank	2,017	1,506
anti-ship DPS, Kodiak Baser, 75% rank	3,954	1,726
Survival Time: 15 D104S+Blast	34.5	38.6
Survival Time: 15 Siege Missile Z	15.0	14.7
Survival Time: 24 Hornet	20.7	16.8

On the stats chart - the "weapon" bonuses are the bonuses that apply to that ship's weapons (radioactive for Enforcer, Ballistic for Goliath). I included full alliance bonuses, and the 30% Ballistic Bypass is included in the Goliath's DPS.

To compare, the ships have similar total weight, and although the Goliath has more armor points, the Enforcer has more resistance.  The Goliath is a quicker build, but the Enforcer has better stun resist (if pinched) and also better range.

In terms of dealing damage, the Goliath starts out better at zero rank, but the Enforcer pulls away once ranked - taking advantage of its one salvo.  Using the "real" target closed the DPS gap a bit, but didn't significantly change the results. The bypass & slow effects of the Cryo Fields aren't accounted for either... especially if you are combining your guard with Wendigo/Cryo Turrets.

For Survival Time (computed with only alliance bonuses on those weapons), the two ships were fairly close, although the Goliath will take longer to repair due to its higher health overall.

So... the answer is: I'd probably still prefer the Enforcer R5... but the Goliath R10 with Bypass Chainguns doesn't suck.  Especially if you know you aren't going to be putting in the time or coin to really rank up your guards... the Goliath is a decent option.  Of course, if not ranking.. then maybe the D104-N would be better than the D104-S... you'll have to figure that one out on your own.  The DPS calculator is updated with Bypass Chainguns added, so enjoy!