stellaris combat rambling //
Corvettes (the first and lightest mil ship type) start with a base evasion rate of 60%. With upgraded thrusters and a few multiplicative boosts, this can go as high as 90% — which would mean it takes more fire to kill than a battleship 16x as expensive
except! weapons have both an accuracy (hit %) and a "tracking" stat, which can negate (but not exceed) evasion. small weapons have 40-60 tracking, medium 20-30, and large 0-5, before other bonuses.
stellaris rambling //
i. e.: basic laser, 90% accuracy, 50/30/5 tracking, against a basic 60 evasion corvette
small laser: 90 - (60 - 50) = 80% hit rate
medium laser: 90 - (60 - 30) = 60% hit rate
large laser: 90 - (60 - 5) = 35% hit rate
(but against a 35 evasion destroyer, would have 90%/85%/65% hit rates)
a cannon has 75% base accuracy but same tracking, for 65%/45%/20% hit rates against our base corvette (but slightly higher base damage, to compensate)
stellaris rambling //
so if you're a little technologically advanced vs. your opponents, you field the ship one size up from what they do (destroyers vs. corvettes, cruisers vs. destroyers, etc)
but if you're /really/ technologically advanced, you just field big balls of 90% evasion corvettes because they don't have the +20 tracking targeting computers yet.
stellaris rambling //
tracking wasn't originally in stellaris; corvettes were simply the best ship type, and it was kinda a mistake to invest much in battleships. then they added tracking to fix that, and it became that battleships >>> everything else & the only viable weapons were the armor-piercing ones —
because armor was an additively stacking percent damage reduction, and battleships could get -90% damage reduction (while a max armored corvette would take -15% damage or something)
