Monday, January 4, 2010

What Are The Odds?

by SandWyrm



Long-time readers will remember my waffling on whether to equip my Sentinels with autocannons or lascannons. To find out, I did a series of dice rolls to simulate 20 attacks and then used those to come up with my average chances of stopping or destroying a particular target. But I was never quite sure of my results. So... (more)

Last month, I finally got around to writing a small program (300 lines or so) to simulate a series of attack rolls against vehicles of various armor values. Unlike a simple equation, I could add logic to handle cases such as stacked weapon destroyed results that get upgraded to an immobilized or wrecked result.

What was surprising was the luck quotient. I found that I needed to simulate 100,000 attack rolls to keep the statistical variations under 1%. So luck is still a huge factor. :)

Anyhow, here's my results. Which should be of interest not only to Sentinel players, but users of IG heavy weapons teams. Enjoy...


Multi-Lasers

3 BS3 Multi-Lasers Vs. Ork Trukk - AV10 (Open Topped)
    Stopped Target Movement: 87%    (Stunned, Immobilized, Wrecked, or Explosion)
    Stopped Target Firing:   89%         (Shaken, Stunned, Weapon Destoyed, Wrecked, or Explosion)
    Destroyed Target:        64%           (Wrecked or Explosion)
    Did Nothing to Target:   8%

3 BS3 Multi-Lasers vs. Chimera (Side/Rear) - AV10
    Stopped Target Movement: 78%
    Stopped Target Firing:   89%
    Destroyed Target:        44%
    Did Nothing to Target:   7%

3 BS3 Multi-Lasers vs. Rhino  (Front/Side) - AV11
    Stopped Target Movement: 61%
    Stopped Target Firing:   75%
    Destroyed Target:        25%
    Did Nothing to Target:   19%

 3 BS3 Multi-Lasers vs. Chimera (Front) - AV12
    Stopped Target Movement: 32%
    Stopped Target Firing:   48%
    Destroyed Target:        1%
    Did Nothing to Target:   46%


Autocannons

3 BS3 Autocannons Vs. Ork Trukk - AV10 (Open Topped)
    Stopped Target Movement: 86%
    Stopped Target Firing:   87%
    Destroyed Target:        63%
    Did Nothing to Target:   9%

3 BS3 Autocannons vs. Chimera (Side/Rear) - AV10
    Stopped Target Movement: 76%
    Stopped Target Firing: 87%
    Destroyed Target: 44%
    Did Nothing to Target: 9%

3 BS3 Autocannons vs. Rhino (Front/Side) - AV11
    Stopped Target Movement: 64%
    Stopped Target Firing: 76%
    Destroyed Target: 31%
    Did Nothing to Target: 18%

3 BS3 Autocannons vs. Chimera (Front) - AV12
    Stopped Target Movement: 46%
    Stopped Target Firing: 60%
    Destroyed Target: 17%
    Did Nothing to Target: 33%

3 BS3 Autocannons vs. Russ (Side) - AV13
    Stopped Target Movement: 23%
    Stopped Target Firing: 35%
    Destroyed Target: 0%
    Did Nothing to Target: 59%


Krak Missiles

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Ork Trukk - AV10 (Open Topped)
    Stopped Target Movement: 72%
    Stopped Target Firing:   73%
    Destroyed Target:        46%
    Did Nothing to Target:   20%

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Chimera (Side) - AV10
    Stopped Target Movement: 60%
    Stopped Target Firing: 73%
    Destroyed Target: 31%
    Did Nothing to Target: 20%

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Rhino - AV11
    Stopped Target Movement: 51%
    Stopped Target Firing: 63%
    Destroyed Target: 24%
    Did Nothing to Target: 30%

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Chimera (Front) - AV12
    Stopped Target Movement: 39%
    Stopped Target Firing: 50%
    Destroyed Target: 16%
    Did Nothing to Target: 42%

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Russ (Side) - AV13
    Stopped Target Movement: 26%
    Stopped Target Firing: 36%
    Destroyed Target: 8%
    Did Nothing to Target: 58%

3 BS3 Krak Missiles Vs. Russ (Front) - AV14
    Stopped Target Movement: 12%
    Stopped Target Firing: 19%
    Destroyed Target: 0%
    Did Nothing to Target: 77%


Lascannons

3 BS3 Lascannons Vs. Ork Trukk - AV10 (Open Topped)
    Stopped Target Movement: 80%
    Stopped Target Firing:   81%
    Destroyed Target:        55%
    Did Nothing to Target:   13%

3 BS3 Lascannons vs. Chimera (Side/Rear) - AV10
    Stopped Target Movement: 69%
    Stopped Target Firing: 81%
    Destroyed Target: 38%
    Did Nothing to Target: 13%

3 BS3 Lascannons vs. Rhino (Front/Side) - AV11
    Stopped Target Movement: 61%
    Stopped Target Firing: 73%
    Destroyed Target: 31%
    Did Nothing to Target: 20%

3 BS3 Lascannons vs. Chimera (Front) - AV12
    Stopped Target Movement: 50%
    Stopped Target Firing: 63%
    Destroyed Target: 24%
    Did Nothing to Target: 30%

3 BS3 Lascannons vs. Russ (Side) - AV13
    Stopped Target Movement: 39%
    Stopped Target Firing: 51%
    Destroyed Target: 16%
    Did Nothing to Target: 42%

3 BS3 Lascannons vs. Russ (Front) - AV14
    Stopped Target Movement: 26%
    Stopped Target Firing: 36%
    Destroyed Target: 8%
    Did Nothing to Target: 58%


And Just for Comparison's Sake... Meltas

3 Vet Meltas (6" Range) vs. Chimera (Rear) - AV10
    Stopped Target Movement: 91%
    Stopped Target Firing: 93%
    Destroyed Target: 72%
    Did Nothing to Target: 4%

3 Vet Meltas (6" Range) Vs. Rhino (Front/Side) - AV11
    Stopped Target Movement: 91%
    Stopped Target Firing:   92%
    Destroyed Target:        70%
    Did Nothing to Target:   4%

3 Vet Meltas (6" Range) Vs. Chimera (Front) - AV12
    Stopped Target Movement: 88%
    Stopped Target Firing:   90%
    Destroyed Target:        66%
    Did Nothing to Target:   6%

3 Vet Meltas (6" Range) vs. Russ (Side) - AV13
    Stopped Target Movement: 84%
    Stopped Target Firing: 86%
    Destroyed Target: 60%
    Did Nothing to Target: 9%

3 Vet Meltas (6" Range) vs. Russ (Front) - AV14
    Stopped Target Movement: 77%
    Stopped Target Firing: 80%
    Destroyed Target: 52%
    Did Nothing to Target: 14%

6 comments:

  1. Hooray for math!

    Seems to me that autocannons or multi-lasers are your safest pick since they can outflank and hit side armor pretty reliably.

    Lascannons need to be twin-linked (Vendetta or BiD).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, autocannons. Since I tend to leave my Sentinels on the table.

    Twin-linking does help lascannons significantly. Though I'd rather take twin-linked autocannons on my vendettas if I could. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Out of curiousity, why would the odds of 3x BS3 multilasers actually be lower against an open-topped AV10 ork truck vs. an AV10 Chimera rear? Is this just an anomoly caused by the average of alot of iterations?

    Also, in case you weren't already aware of it, there's a program out there called "the Hamulator" which computes odds like this. I did a write-up on my blog last month. You can read that here if you'd like:
    http://www.warhammer39999.com/2009/12/the-hamulator/

    Lastly, if you're really into numbers (and it looks lke you are). There's a software snap-in for Excel called "Crystal Ball" you should look into.

    Er... well, after searching Google, it looks like they were purchased by Oracle. You may still want to look into it, because there were cheap licenses for students. Essentially the software allows you to predict the unknown and run thousands (if not more) iterations on ideas very quickly. Then it breaks down and analyzes the data for you. I used it in a statistical analysis / spreadsheet modeling class in college, and it proved to be amazing.

    The link to Oracle where you can find the product is here:
    http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/crystalball/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Ork Trukk gets it in the shorts because it's open-topped and the Chimeras is not.

    Also, the Chimera has a 2nd weapon, which helps slightly (1%) against stacked damage results killing the tank. Although there is no significant boost to having more than 2 weapons.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hamulator looks cool. I'll give it a go later.

    I knew there had to be something like this out there already, but I wanted to have a go at creating my own. I'm also enough of a perfectionist that I want to make sure that it's done right. :)

    As for the Excel add-on, I'm not a number cruncher by trade, so I won't get a lot of benefit from spending the time to learn it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Autocannons are the way forward then Sandwyrm. I think a compromise from a multi laser isn't that bad really.

    ReplyDelete

out dang bot!

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