Should Howlrunner with a Stealth Device Focus or Evade, for maximum survivability?

Not sure about the stats, but using a focus also gives you a change to boost your damage output which might mean the difference between destroying an opponents ship of lower PS before it can shoot at you or simply damaging it and giving it the chance to fire back.

It will depend on you position. If you can't fire, evade is the obvious choice. If you're at long range, you may not need the extra evade because of the extra defense dice (unless you think you might be attacked by a secondary weapon). I don't think there is a cut and dry answer because so much depends on the situation each turn.

Should Howlrunner with a Stealth Device Focus or Evade, for maximum survivability?

For max surivability, the evade will likely be the best answer.

You have a 25% chance of rolling a [eye] on a defense die, where the evade token is a 100% chance to remove a [hit] or [crit]. Avg should work out that with 3 dice you will roll less then 1 [eye], per. That means the odds of rolling 2 [eye]s, which is what you need to make focus better then evade in terms of survivablity is fairly low.

So if the only thing you're looking for, is to avoid a hit, then the evade is the better option.

Should Howlrunner with a Stealth Device Focus or Evade, for maximum survivability?[/i uote]For max surivability, the evade will likely be the best answer.You have a 25% chance of rolling a [eye] on a defense die, where the evade token is a 100% chance to remove a [hit] or [crit]. Avg should work out that with 3 dice you will roll less then 1 [eye], per. That means the odds of rolling 2 [eye]s, which is what you need to make focus better then evade in terms of survivablity is fairly low.So if the only thing you're looking for, is to avoid a hit, then the evade is the better option.

Aren't there 3 evades on each die? Or did I count one twice? That would make each die a 3/8 = 37.5% chance to evade. So rolling 3 die would net you about 1 evade on average ;p. Correct me if I am wrong though. I have an incorrect spreadsheet if that is the case! ;p

Aren't there 3 evades on each die?

Yes 3 [evade], 2 [eye] and 3 [blank]

The question is between using an Evade action and a Focus action. Rolling [evade] on the dice doesn't really factor in, since niether a evade or focus token effects that roll.

No, only 0.75 because of the overlapping probabilities.

3/8+5/8*3/8+5/8*5/8*3/8

P(A) = 3/8

P(BNOTA) = 5/8*3/8

P(CNOTAORB) = 5/8*5/8*3/8

75% of the time you will roll atleast 1 evade,

I find the average results are better for this type of analysis than hard percentages. They are much quicker to figure out than percentages and will lead to the same answer (do I evade or focus) when you are done. Note, they will not factor in variance like percentages will, but I find thats a moot point when you are talking about a handful of dice.

Below is my simple math. Basically its either or for ranges 1 or 2, but Focus is better at Range 3 or if obstructed at range 1-2. In general, 3 or less defense dice, go with Evade, 4 doesn't matter and 5+ is Focus.

I do factor other things into my decisions, like if someone is only going to throw a single (or even 2) 2 die attack at me, I will tend to evade if my primary concern is avoiding getting hit and I will not get a shot since I figure I should roll at least one success and I do not need more than two successes on an evade in this case,

Range 1 or 2

Evade

4 (defense dice) * 3 / 8 = 1.5 + 1 evade = 2.5 dodges on average

Focus

4 (defense dice) * 5 / 8 = 2.5 dodges on average

range 3

Evade

5 (defense dice) * 3 / 8 = 1.875 + 1 evade = 2.875 dodges on average

Focus

5 (defense dice) * 5 / 8 = 3.125 dodges on average

math hammer, go with what jobu and the others have said.

realistically go with what the situation is like jason said. If you know for sure that you are not going to be in anyone's firing arc go with the focus (obviously). If you want to avoid getting hit and there is even a slight chance your opponent is going to target your ship / evade depending on how many agility you have. I'd like to point out that once you get hit once you'll lose your stealth along with its bonus agility.

Use your feelings, go with The Force...

Throw on Elusiveness for a little extra survivability which ever you decide.

With four dice you are likely to get at least one focus result, with a potentially higher spike and more versatility. On the other side Evade is a sure thing. It boils down to a guarantee vs a gamble. On lower agility ships evade is usually the better choice but a three ship with agility I think focus edges it out.

If you are looking for a guarantee you have to take an evade token, while focus provides the best result possibilities; you should on average get one focus die, but there is always the chance of rolling four focus dice. Remember, this is a dice game and all the probability in the world won't save you from repeatedly rolling blanks.

Give her PTL and get one of each!

Ok, I've done the math myself.

Assuming I have 4 dice and an EVASION token, the odds of me having:

4 or better are 15.16%, 3 or better are 48.12%, 2 or better are 84.74%, and 1 or better are 100%.

Assuming I have 4 dice and a FOCUS token, the odds of me having:

4 or better are 15.25%, 3 or better are 53.86%, 2 or better are 84.84%, and 1 or better are 98.02%

As you can see, the Focus has a slight edge on everything except the 100% chance of dodging 1 damage and the 1.98% chance of dodging 5.

The more dice you have, the better Focus gets. The largest gulf of this is around 5%, though, so it's not that statistically large of a difference, but it's nice to know where it lies.

Jobu used a different method, and we've arrived at the same choice: Evasion for 3 dice and lower, Focus for 5 dice or more, and on 4 dice the difference is in the margin of error. Go Math!

3 dice + focus and evade for the win!

Ok, I've done the math myself.

Assuming I have 4 dice and an EVASION token, the odds of me having:

4 or better are 15.16%, 3 or better are 48.12%, 2 or better are 84.74%, and 1 or better are 100%.

Assuming I have 4 dice and a FOCUS token, the odds of me having:

4 or better are 15.25%, 3 or better are 53.86%, 2 or better are 84.84%, and 1 or better are 98.02%

As you can see, the Focus has a slight edge on everything except the 100% chance of dodging 1 damage and the 1.98% chance of dodging 5.

The more dice you have, the better Focus gets. The largest gulf of this is around 5%, though, so it's not that statistically large of a difference, but it's nice to know where it lies.

Jobu used a different method, and we've arrived at the same choice: Evasion for 3 dice and lower, Focus for 5 dice or more, and on 4 dice the difference is in the margin of error. Go Math!

Can you show me how you got this?

@Ken at Sunrise

I did a spreadsheet charting out the odds for each individual 4 dice combination (i.e. 4 natural evades are (3^4)/(8^4), et c.), and added the totals for each criterion. The trick there is to remember that Evade, Evade, Focus, and Evade is technically a different result than Evade, Evade, Evade, Focus, and so gets counted separately. A sum of all of the blocks equaled 1, so I know I didn't have any data entry problems. It takes some time (but less time than doing the individual calculations), so I prefer not to brute force it like this.

@Ken at Sunrise

I did a spreadsheet charting out the odds for each individual 4 dice combination (i.e. 4 natural evades are (3^4)/(8^4), et c.), and added the totals for each criterion. The trick there is to remember that Evade, Evade, Focus, and Evade is technically a different result than Evade, Evade, Evade, Focus, and so gets counted separately. A sum of all of the blocks equaled 1, so I know I didn't have any data entry problems. It takes some time (but less time than doing the individual calculations), so I prefer not to brute force it like this.

Can you put this in a Google Spreadsheet and share or excel?

Similar table

This is all good and dandy, but it doesn't show the full picture. Rolling 6 evades is not useful if your opponent only rolls 1 hit. And for that reason, the game is always skewed towards the attacker (a good attack roll is always awesome. A good evade roll is only awesome if your attacker had a good roll as well).

So, if you keep that in mind, you get these two different charts.

Displayed above is the average damage caused by an attacker attacking with the number of dice represented on the top row, against a defender with number of dice on the left column. I have created charts of this for each permuation of TL/F/E/naked dice, but shown above the attacker has a focus. The top chart is the defender uses a focus, and the bottom is the defender takes an evade.


So, we're discussing Howlrunner with a Stealth device, so anywhere from 4-6 evade dice. But lets just focus on the base 4 dice scenario. As you can see, there really isn't much difference between Focus and Evade, regardless of how many attack die there are. But at 5 and 6 dice, you can see the average damage start to increase for evade over focus, indicating that focus is the preferred action to take. Note that this trend is consistent regardless of what tokens the attacker has.

However, the math doesn't take into effect the "human aspect" of the game. It is quite a turn off to attack Howlrunner with an evade and stealth device. If Howlrunner had a focus instead, it's a mind game that you can at least keep her from having a focus on offense. And then there's the real world rolls regarding when you have to spend the evade vs. when you have to spend the focus. The evade does not have to be spent unless it will absolutely prevent damage (and therefore strip the stealh device). Meaning that the evade token will stay on the table longer than the focus, allowing it to exist for the next attack on Howlrunner.

Edit: Put the tables in as pictures since the forums messed up the formatting.

But at 5 and 6 dice, you can see the average damage start to increase for evade over focus, indicating that focus is the preferred action to take.

That makes sense. More dice means more chances to roll a [eye] and the more of those you roll, the better focus becomes compared to Evade.

However, the math doesn't take into effect the "human aspect" of the game.

True, if Howlrunner has a evade token you know that it's what it will do. A focus token on the other hand may or may not come into play when she is defending.

Interesting that you should ask this. I just wrote up a program that will simulate a million engagements on ships with various stats and average out the number of attack runs it takes to destroy them. For Howlrunner (or any other TIE) here is what I have....

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 attacks to destroy: 2.861063

TIE + shield upgrade
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:4
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 attacks to destroy: 3.700585

TIE + shield upgrade
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:4
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Focus
 attacks to destroy: 6.763971

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Focus
 attacks to destroy: 5.199456

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Stealth
 attacks to destroy: 3.238153

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Evade
 attacks to destroy: 6.503297

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Focus Stealth
 attacks to destroy: 6.869658

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Focus Evade
 attacks to destroy: 17.56327

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Evade Stealth
 attacks to destroy: 7.532924

TIE
Attack Dice:3 Defense Dice:3 HP:3
 Attacker Using:  Focus
 Defender Using:  Focus Evade Stealth
 attacks to destroy: 25.1168

It doesn't appear that your calculations are upping stealth device to 4 defense dice or at least not all of them are. Your calculations give shield upgrade a better rating than stealth.

It wasn't a tie fighter, but in my last match I had an Awing with PTL and when it got down to 1 hull I just evaded and focused every turn. My opponent gave up on trying to kill the bugger after a few turns.

It doesn't appear that your calculations are upping stealth device to 4 defense dice or at least not all of them are. Your calculations give shield upgrade a better rating than stealth.

Without using focus, shield upgrade is better. Once you include focus, stealth is better, as you would expect. Remember, stealth goes away after the first hit, after that, it is just a regular tie. Stealth only adds a 3/8th chance to avoid a hit, while shield gives you a whole other hit you can take.