In ages past, every turret had a different interpretation of their Turret Tracking/Accuracy Score trackng because they were relative to different “Optimal Signature Radii”. So a turret with a tracking of 300 might have better tracking than a different turret with a tracking of 500 simply because they were relative to different optimal signature radii. This made comparing turret tracking numbers tedious until, some years ago, CCP released a new system where they normalized all tracking numbers relative to the same optimal signature radii, thus making them directly comparable to one another: henceforth, 500 is strictly better tracking than 300 in all instances. (The actual tracking ability was unchanged, only the numerical representation of their tracking ability changed.)
Thing is… when they converted numbers to the new system, they forgot to do this for drones.
Example: the base stats of a Hobgoblin I indicate its OLD tracking score is 1.81; if you had compared this in-game to, say, a Light Neutron Blaster I’s tracking score of 379.8, you might think it to be grossly inferior and question how they manage to maintain even a tenth of their accuracy if their score is that bad.
In truth, the accuracy score, using the NEW system, is actually 2904 - which is 7.64x better than the turret.
Fitting tools like pyfa have the courtesy of converting to the new score for us, but both as a matter of principle and for in-game comparisons that inevitably come up by both those who don’t use fitting tools as often as they should and even by the occasional use by those who do (esp using Compare tool to compare modules of “different series”, eg. hybrids vs projectiles), CCP should finish the job and convert the tracking scores of drones to the new system released many years ago so that all tracking numbers (not just turrets) use the new system, and the old system ceases to exist entirely.
(Apologies to 3rd party developers who would need to remove the soon-to-be obsoleted conversion code. Less is more! Less is more! )
Except in doing so they made it far harder to understand in game. One stat is not simpler than two stats when you have to do maths to the one stat.
The old system was far superior, angular velocity could be displayed directly on the overview, and you could approximate the sig radius of your target based on class of ship.
This thread is not to debate the merits of the old vs new system. The new system is here to stay. Having both systems exist simultaneously is nonsensical. There is no regressing to the old system and no reason to change to yet another new system. Consistency is key - for these reasons alone, the job that was started must be finished.
To respond to points that otherwise have no impact on the merits of this request:
Fitting tools use the new system.
I would imagine the majority of the community, certainly the pro community from which newbies should learn from, have come to adopt (if not necessarily embrace) the new system. There is no demographic worth mentioning, if one even exists, that is converting the new turret values to old turret values except for historical comparative purposes, or to compare with drones that use the legacy system.
I’m fully versed in the trigonometric aspects and the damage formulas/mechanics employed in the old and new systems. Having developed my own tools and in making use of these columns in the overview myself, I know for a fact that the old system did not facilitate use of angular velocity any more than the new system does, especially when one turret tier is aimed at ships of a smaller or larger tier.
In practice, traversal velocity is more useful than angular velocity even if angular velocity is more useful in theory; the reason for this is because it is not practical to mentally estimate angular velocity at varying ranges, especially when you should concern yourself with a primary operational window and consider ranges outside of this window as “■■■■■■”.
You should know your fit’s “traversal tolerance” relative to target signatures and distances in advance of using it by conducting damage modeling prior to using your fit. The damage modeling would, ideally, employ target profiles up to and including max traversal velocity for their respective signature sizes and ranges. If you know what the damage curve looks for your ship against multiple target profiles, then traversal velocity is sufficient relative to operational ranges. These are things fitting experts would do and novices should learn to do. It is much easier to do this than to rely on angular velocity since that figure does not change linearly with distance or with target movement, whereas traversal velocity does not change with distance at all and is linear with target movement - much easier.
Why not?
It’s just as easy to regress to the old system as to finish transferring to the new system,
That’s nice.
Yes there is, because you need to constantly do the maths back to angular velocity in order to actually understand if you can hit your target or not.
Uh, but transverse velocity requires you to calculate the angular velocity based on range, like your argument is literally pants on head backwards here.
Angular velocity is presented to you as a pure number in your overview, there is no estimating required.
Seriously, I mean, I get you want it all the one way, but the new system has literally no upsides compared to the old system. The new system is a perfect example of obscurement simply for the sake of it.
The problem is not that it is difficult to convert to angular. There is no need to convert to angular. There is no need or benefit to using the angular column in the overview. That column is now 100% obsolete. Completely useless. This is how it should be for reasons I’ve given you: in practice, traversal is better. This was true then, it is true now. Traversal has always been better (in practice).
I have even given you visual evidence that all you need to do is understand your operational tolerances relative to target profiles (sigs and typical max traversals) and ranges for those sigs. They make a pretty graph that is easy to remember the shape and span of. There is a newer and better way of doing things. There is no fault with the new system; there is fault with you failing to adapt to and reap the benefits of using it.
Just for clarification, fighters don’t actually use tracking; they use a hybrid of missile and turret mechanics, taking into account explosion radius/velocity and then optimal/falloff ranges.
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