Sebat Hadah's Force Multiplier Experiment

[Sebat_Hadah]

So I got out of a PVP fight where I and some mates got relatively spanked. We didn’t die but we didn’t kill anything either, Get Good, You suck blah blah I know. Thank you:) But I got to thinking about the anatomy of the fight, tactics, etc and thought I might make a little experiment. Force Multiplier is a term used by most Militaries of today to describe an asset or assets that improve the capabilities of the force (in our case fleets) exponentially. I got to thinking about certain ships by type (Frig, Dessie, Hauler, Dreadnaught, etc) and thought i would put them on a scale from like 0-11. Mind you I thought of this in the aftermath of my flaccid attempt to kill some people so it is a bit rough around the edges. Anyway, let us get started.

The scale ranges from 0-10 and regards individual ships in fleets ranging from small to large. 0 being the most harmless or an annoying pest, like a Hauler and 10 being something more strategic, like capitals of some kind. The scale considers ships properly fit with weapons and their respective tank types
(shuttles will not be considered)

0: Most Industrials (Nereus will be discussed later) Most industrials are not used for combat operations and except for like one or two. Barges and Haulers belong either in the graveyard or in their respective roles.
1-3: Frigates, Faction Frigates, Destroyers, T2 Frigates, Some T2 Destroyers (class-dependent).
4-6: Some T2 Destroyers (class-dependent), T3 Destroyers, Some T1 Cruisers, T2 Cruisers (class-dependent), Battlecruisers.
7-9: Some T2 Cruisers (class-dependent), Battleships, Strategic Cruisers, T2 Battleships (both Marauders and BLOPs).
10: Capitals and Super Capitals.
11: Armed Citadels.

Why is there an 11th position Sebat, you oddly sexy fellow? Because dear reader we are going to play around with a scenario. YAY!

The Scenario:
Defending Party: 3 Brick tanked Procurors. 1 Armed Raitaru.
Offending party: 1 Hurricane Fleet Issue, 1 Vedmak, 1 Kikimora, 1 Crane.

So based on my scale above the scenario. The Barges are obviously 0, the raitaru is 11
The HFI is a 5 or 6 The Vedmak I would say is 5. The Kikimora is a 2, and the crane was a mistake (0).

The Crane uses combat probes to scan down the Procs, the Crane warps to the Procs and is the warp in for the DPS boats. Kikimora lands first and grabs initial tackle, establishes range at 21k, has drones sicked on it and destroys all the drones engaging it. Vedmak sticks back and doesn’t establish tackle (thanks mate), and the HFI goes in GUNS BLAZING! (typical Minmatar). Three Procs on the grid. Two escape, one tackled. Raitaru in the background gets manned by one of the other two procs and the Vedmak gets neuted, Vedmak warps out. The attention of raitaru controller turns to the Kikimora (OH CHET!). Gets ECMed and Neuted, Tackled Proc gets away, kikimora warps out…The HFI is lost in the sauce and just docks up in the station. mad skillz dawgzzzzzzzz.

Sebat what the FU** is your point! My point is, FCs need to know how to properly asses threats and targets. were I the FC I would have reasoned that the Force Multiplier of the Raitaru was not worth the risk of engaging some stupid barges. The point is the proper threat assessment and proper tactics.

[Sebat_Hadah]

I would like to see this topic become refined and evolve. i would require some assistance with it though.

[Dark_Lord_Trump]

It seems to me that rather than rank ships by their ability to multiply force, you ranked them by approximate size. For example, you have interdictors ranked pretty low as targets (t2 destroyers they are) and yet most experienced FCs will primary them, because dictors can bubble your ass and trap your fleet in a not-so-good situation. You rank Marauders and BLOPs highly, but BLOPses can’t put up as much of a fight as a t1 battleship and are usually used for a hit-and-run on a defenseless target, and marauders aren’t that great out of bastion and will get kited while in bastion. Upwell structures are nasty against small gangs but not nearly as effective against a large fleet.

Target priority isn’t really something you can learn from a list where you kill X before Y before Z, it depends on what’s on grid and what you’re doing.

[Commander_Kane]

Depedning on your fleet, theirs and your/their ability to use ships kinda throws that idea out of the water. I have a kill board with an old char where a solo frigates or cruiser takes down multiple ships including battleships. Then suddenly that frigate does not look so harmless.

As Dark Lord mentions situational awareness will reorders that scale of yours drasticly. And the biggest threat will not always come from the biggest ship. And in low/null 3 bricked tanked procurors is normally a trap. And the best trap is a sprung trap :).

I mean a rookie ships now is looked at carefully because it is able to light a cyno. Not for long though

[Wyk_Bathana]

as others suggested, your ranking does not seem good for me:
dictors, or command dessies which do serial mjd for your fleet, etc, can be small ship of very high impact on the fight
Some cheap webbing frigs can be very important if your main dps ships have bad tracking,
kirins/deacons as logis can be very good

And most of all, the impact of one ship type on the global efficiency of your fleet will depend on the situation: which ships are you fighting? which range? etc

As everythg in eve: it depends

so no, i would not put a fixed rank to some ship type

[Daoden]

Force multipliers in this game would typically be logi, ewar ships, and command ships/dessies as they boost the capabilities of the rest of the fleet. Citadels fall under this because their ewar is very powerful compared to the ship varients.