I have been doing some thinking about how the threat range of each ship effects its value and decided to put my thoughts on here. bear with me this is going to be fairly long (but mostly pictures)
first off lets take a look at each ship, I have diagrammed the threat range using Vassal and a Paint program. the scale is roughly as follows and inspired by the Danger to a corvette class ship (i.e. how long a Cr90/ Raider can survive)also note the threat ranges are based on what i consider the Standard load-outs. so Glads, raiders and Mc30s will be treated as if they have APTs or Acms etc..
Also keep in mind that double arcs have the Combined effective threat value of both Contributing Arcs
Green:
Expected damage is 1-2, this range is considered safe and will not kill a Corvette over the course of a game
Yellow:
Expected damage is 2-3, this range is relatively safe but will kill a corvette given enough time (3-4 turns)
Mustard/ light orange
:Expected damage is about 3, a little more severe then yellow
Orange:
expected damage 4-5, not safe, a corvette will probably be killed by 2 shots
Red:
expected damage 6-7, dangerous, a corvette will likely die in a single hit at this range
Dark red:
expected damage 7-8, Very dangerous, a corvette is almost guaranteed to die in a single hit at this range
Wave 1 imperials:
Victory-1
things to note about the victory:
-it as a small Red zone
-if you are not in its front arc it is mostly green except in close range of the sides
Victory 2
the victory-2 has an increased threat range over the victory 1, however it does not have a red zone
Gladiator
(assuming Acm)
both versions of the Gladiator have a short but severe threat range, and have the most red of wave 1. also note that the rear is yellow, a unique feature for the imperials.
Rebels:
Cr90
First off, wow that's a lot of green. although the B cannot fire at Long range the end diagram is similar enough that it can be shared with the A variant. as expected the Cr90 does not do much damage, even with CF. But in mass they can be deadly.
Cr90b
Nebulon-b:
once again the core set neb is incapable of inflicting much damage unless it has a double arc. the threat range in general is not much to concern you self with
Assault Frigate:
And here the rebels finally get some light Orange
also notice how much area the Assault frigate threatens, even though it is yellow it is by far the largest threat range from the wave 1 ships.
the A varient has yellow Front and rear arcs at medium range as well
Wave 2 Imperials:
ISD-1
the isd-1 gets the the Only Dark red Area from the generic ships but we still see a lot of Green
ISD-2
now the shift of threat range in the ISD-2 is significant, we see the Largest red zone the imperials can field (well almost, we will come back to that point later) and a significant amount of yellow making only long range while flanking and isd-2 "safe"
Raider
the raider is the only ship in the game that cannot fire at long range, but maintains a relatively dangerous threat area at close range (depending on upgrades)
The raider 2 can increase this slightly using ion upgrades but it is going to be relativly mild
Rebels Wave 2
Mc30
With upgrades the mc30 becomes a close range beast, but there still is an awful lot of green around it.
Mc30 Torpedo frigate
Mc80
here we see a HUGE threat range very similar to the Assault frigate, except a little more severe. this diagram shows why Side arc Dice cost more then Front arc dice quite well.
next up I will analyse what this all means and how we can apply this in our list building and tactics
Edit: not enough room for all my pictures so i have to make another post standby