Lower accuracy versus improving evasion

[drspendlove]

I had a brief conversation in a Twitch sidebar chat about Evasive Maneuvers versus Bombardment. I argued that E.M. is better to start a combat with because it immediately gives benefit, whereas Bombardment allows your foe 1 turn at full chance to hit. Someone else argued that decreasing enemy accuracy has a bigger impact than improving your own evasion.

It seems that if you are already close to evading your foe, improving your own (high) evasion will give better benefit. It also might follow that if your foe is able to hit you most of the time due to high accuracy, multiplying that roll by 0.75 would give a better benefit.

What is the overall consensus on this among forum-goers?

[fallen]

Seems like you've got the crux of the decision here. You have to hit to get Bombardment. You leave yourself open for a turn. It is hugely dependent on how much you trust your starting accuracy / defense.

[drspendlove]

Suppose the talents were an instant +25% evasion versus an instant -25% enemy accuracy. Would those two talents be functionally identical? Or would it still depend on your relative strength compared to your opponent?

[fallen]

Depends, I imagine.

[athios]

Given that it's all percentage based, I would say it's dependent on who the opponent is.

Bombardment will probably have a bigger impact against larger ships and Military types (who I'll assume have high Nav/Pilot/Gunnery/Tactics dice pools and better weapons) compared to non-combat enemies. The caveats being that (1) you have to actually hit them for the Talent to stick. If you have a high level torpedo though, it probably won't be an issue unless you are severely outmatched. (2) the Talent won't protect you the first round.

Conversely, EM will give you a bigger boost if your crew & ship are already kitted out with high Pilot/Elec/Cmd dice pools.

Personally, unless your Shields are already maxed out at 60%, I would never choose Bombardment over EM for first round.

[drspendlove]

Yeah, I'm thinking EM is way better/safer on turn 1. I just was hearing from someone that (seemed to?) have better combat experience/knowledge than I did.

[drspendlove]

After some playing around on Brutal with a ship combat focus, I learned the following:

When you're about evenly matched with, or in a smaller craft than your foe, bombardment is the better option on turn 1, so long as you aren't so outmatched that you cannot hit your foe without an accuracy boost. The accuracy decrease will grant you a far larger delta than boosting your smaller evasion. The damage decrease more than offsets the shield and armor bonus EM grants.

If you are in a larger or significantly higher level crew/ship, EM is better. Not taking hits on your first turn prevents painful effects like electrical fires which slow down your other buffing talents while you put out the fire.

If you cannot hit your foe and you doubt you can dodge your foe, you should probably be fleeing. If you aren't fleeing for some reason, the scanner talent that adds +25% Defense and +25% Accuracy may be warranted instead despite its shorter duration.

[fallen]

Good analysis!