14 hours ago, JediConsular4hire said:But QD with AC attacking from both arcs yields 4 hits... and there is no standard deviation whatsoever. I do appreciate your entire comment though. Good analysis of FCS and AC. Maybe I need to spend more time playing the game. I just feel that AC on a ship that has 2 die is nuts on a game that runs on probability.
Thing is, you don't run FCS for the times when you can get 2.25 hits on three dice. You run it so that when you get to range 1 with a focus and TL, for a 3.75 hit average, and a less than 3% chance of fewer than 3 hits, and a shield token so you can do it again (for an average of 7 hits across both attacks, and a 98.7% chance of at least 5). Attacking from both arcs happens sometimes, but not *that* often. It's a lot easier to line up a R1 front shot. Yes, it's possible to blank out. But at some point, you've got to play the odds.
I love-love-love AccC on a generic. Blows away FCS by far on a Zeta, probably an Omega. But Quickdraw has the potential to focus fire a single target with double 4-dice attacks in a turn, and that degree of spike, concentrated damage really just works out better. Even if the spread damage potential is fairly high, the fast single-target damage of QD is what wins games.
Don't get me wrong on AccC. I think it's really good on 2 dice ships, and any 2-dice ship with a System slot needs to be pretty careful. Someone had a custom designed ship the other week with double-front-attacks and 2 reds and a system, and it looked broken as **** to me, at least at the lowish point cost But that was double-front, so it concentrates damage, rather than spreading it out.