1 rack of Packhounds vs 1 PDT, who wins?
- Thread starter dekot
- Start date
WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
ECM works vs packhounds. Try your best to fly up and away from them.
If you're hull tanking, turn your ship away from the low integrity modules.
PTD sucks vs hounds
What also helps is spamming Silent Running on and off during the joust. (doesnt work vs NPC's or Emissive).
If you're hull tanking, turn your ship away from the low integrity modules.
PTD sucks vs hounds
What also helps is spamming Silent Running on and off during the joust. (doesnt work vs NPC's or Emissive).
Packhounds are awesome.
PDTs don't do much against them, and if you target their PDT, you'll likely annihilate it.
They don't do much damage against shielded SLFs, but are lethal to unshielded.
I have 2 fitted on nearly every ship.
As stated earlier, ECM is the bigger concern.
PDTs don't do much against them, and if you target their PDT, you'll likely annihilate it.
They don't do much damage against shielded SLFs, but are lethal to unshielded.
I have 2 fitted on nearly every ship.
As stated earlier, ECM is the bigger concern.
ECM has a long cooldown though, it's not much use against packhound spam.
I love pack-hounds. Mod them for high ammo capacity (or for shorter engagements maybe sturdy for the piercing damage). If your can fit two, equip one with drag munitions and the other with overload, this should make short work of small, even shielded enemies without having to break out the lasers first.
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Thanks for the replies but I was wondering about whether a single rack of packhounds would be effective versus a single PDT. A PDT makes short work of 2 seekers, a packhound shoots 4 missiles. So how effective would a single packhound hard point be against a single PDT?
A single packhound would be enough to kill a single PDT?
Packhounds are awesome.
PDTs don't do much against them, and if you target their PDT, you'll likely annihilate it.
They don't do much damage against shielded SLFs, but are lethal to unshielded.
I have 2 fitted on nearly every ship.
As stated earlier, ECM is the bigger concern.
A single packhound would be enough to kill a single PDT?
Why use one PDT when you can have three?
In my experience, which is purely pve, it doesn't really matter if your target has PDT. Pack hounds obliterate anything unshielded as standard, or with overload munitions, anything shielded, at least up to a certain size. They'll rip small ships to pieces on their own, and deal reasonably high damage to anything bigger
Powderpanic
Banned
Packhounds every time.
The PD needs a major buff.
I am not saying full counter to missiles, but it should be close.
If you are going to give up an entire utility, just in case of missiles. It should be worth the investment.
PD should also hurt torps, which they don't.
Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing
The PD needs a major buff.
I am not saying full counter to missiles, but it should be close.
If you are going to give up an entire utility, just in case of missiles. It should be worth the investment.
PD should also hurt torps, which they don't.
Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing
TL/DR: Pack-Hounds are better than seekers, but most people don't really know why. And on the actual question of the OP: in the long run missile launchers win, but PDs can take away a good deal of their damage.
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Unknown to many, when you look at the average damage delivered (or prevented) point defense is actually more effective against Pack-Hounds than against seekers.
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We did a lot of testing on this topic during the 2.1 and 2.2 beta and all significant parameters are unchanged since then. Important things to know:
- A whole 6 missile salvo of Pack-Hounds has the same health as a single seeker missile.
- Pack-Hounds fly slower than seekers, so even if they'd fly in the same way as seekers, the PD would have more time to fire at them.
- Pack-Hounds fly in a tumbling path, which adds to the flight time.
- The Pack-Hounds tumbling is not enough to give them any advantage in survivability.
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Now for the next part, a big warning: the numbers i now state are rough averages over several ships used as targets, with PDs at different locations and shots fired from different distances. In all cases, the shooter and target were stationary to keep things reproduceable. Since a ships geometry and position of the PD makes a big difference, the numbers you see during a single test situation might be noticeably off.
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With that out of the way, things generally looked like this:
- On shots over short distance, seekers have enough health to not be shot down, while Pack-Hounds loose one or two missiles.
- On shots over longer distance, seekers have about a 50% chance of survival, while usually one or two Pack-Hounds make it to the target.
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In either case, for a single launcher the seeker had a higher average of damage delivered. Things get more interesting when increasing numbers.
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- Two PDs means that a single Pack-Hound launcher needs to be very close to the target to be able to hit it any more, but then another not so well known drawback of the Pack-Hounds come into play: they have a minimum range. When you fire them, they have a "spread out" phase, before they start tumbling. If they can't finish the spread out phase before they go into "final approach" phase, they deal no damage to the target. Seekers do not exhibit this behaviour, they are armed the moment they are launched. (And yes, when firing them point blank, they can also harm you. )
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- More than one Pack-Hound launcher means that Pack-Hounds usually still loose the same number of missiles against one PD, but the percentage lost is smaller, so it hurts less.
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- More than one seeker launcher against a single PD seems to be the same as the 1 launcher, 1 PD scenario: the chance for the missile to be destroyed varies on some parameters, but we never managed to produce a situation where a single PD could destroy two seekers.
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Despite all of this, Pack-Hounds have a noticeable damage advantage over seekers, due to their fire/reload cycle. Seekers launch one missile every 3 seconds and go into reload after 15 seconds. (The 6 missiles means five times the 3 seconds waiting time in between. ) Pack-Hounds launch two missiles per tick, for a total of 6 missiles over 1.5 seconds, then goes into a 3 second reload cycle.
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This means that at 0 and 3 seconds of the firing cycle, seekers are ahead of damage, for the rest of the first 15 seconds of sustained fire the two systems are almost equal, with Pack-Hounds having an insignificant advantage. But then the normal seekers go into a rather long reload cycle, while Pack-Hounds just keep firing. That is the actual reason, why Pack-Hounds are a noticeably stronger weapon. It can keep up its firepower till all missiles are used up, while the seekers can have very inconvenient reload breaks.
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And the last aspect to consider is engineering. If you use an experimental effect like drag munitions, even one missile reaching the target is enough. In that case, the Pack-Hounds again win against a single PD. While the PD on the average prevents more damage from Pack-Hounds than from seekers, Pack-Hounds still under almost any circumstances are sure to get a bit of damage on target, which is enough to deliver the experimental effect.
.
.
Unknown to many, when you look at the average damage delivered (or prevented) point defense is actually more effective against Pack-Hounds than against seekers.
.
We did a lot of testing on this topic during the 2.1 and 2.2 beta and all significant parameters are unchanged since then. Important things to know:
- A whole 6 missile salvo of Pack-Hounds has the same health as a single seeker missile.
- Pack-Hounds fly slower than seekers, so even if they'd fly in the same way as seekers, the PD would have more time to fire at them.
- Pack-Hounds fly in a tumbling path, which adds to the flight time.
- The Pack-Hounds tumbling is not enough to give them any advantage in survivability.
.
Now for the next part, a big warning: the numbers i now state are rough averages over several ships used as targets, with PDs at different locations and shots fired from different distances. In all cases, the shooter and target were stationary to keep things reproduceable. Since a ships geometry and position of the PD makes a big difference, the numbers you see during a single test situation might be noticeably off.
.
With that out of the way, things generally looked like this:
- On shots over short distance, seekers have enough health to not be shot down, while Pack-Hounds loose one or two missiles.
- On shots over longer distance, seekers have about a 50% chance of survival, while usually one or two Pack-Hounds make it to the target.
.
In either case, for a single launcher the seeker had a higher average of damage delivered. Things get more interesting when increasing numbers.
.
- Two PDs means that a single Pack-Hound launcher needs to be very close to the target to be able to hit it any more, but then another not so well known drawback of the Pack-Hounds come into play: they have a minimum range. When you fire them, they have a "spread out" phase, before they start tumbling. If they can't finish the spread out phase before they go into "final approach" phase, they deal no damage to the target. Seekers do not exhibit this behaviour, they are armed the moment they are launched. (And yes, when firing them point blank, they can also harm you. )
.
- More than one Pack-Hound launcher means that Pack-Hounds usually still loose the same number of missiles against one PD, but the percentage lost is smaller, so it hurts less.
.
- More than one seeker launcher against a single PD seems to be the same as the 1 launcher, 1 PD scenario: the chance for the missile to be destroyed varies on some parameters, but we never managed to produce a situation where a single PD could destroy two seekers.
.
Despite all of this, Pack-Hounds have a noticeable damage advantage over seekers, due to their fire/reload cycle. Seekers launch one missile every 3 seconds and go into reload after 15 seconds. (The 6 missiles means five times the 3 seconds waiting time in between. ) Pack-Hounds launch two missiles per tick, for a total of 6 missiles over 1.5 seconds, then goes into a 3 second reload cycle.
.
This means that at 0 and 3 seconds of the firing cycle, seekers are ahead of damage, for the rest of the first 15 seconds of sustained fire the two systems are almost equal, with Pack-Hounds having an insignificant advantage. But then the normal seekers go into a rather long reload cycle, while Pack-Hounds just keep firing. That is the actual reason, why Pack-Hounds are a noticeably stronger weapon. It can keep up its firepower till all missiles are used up, while the seekers can have very inconvenient reload breaks.
.
And the last aspect to consider is engineering. If you use an experimental effect like drag munitions, even one missile reaching the target is enough. In that case, the Pack-Hounds again win against a single PD. While the PD on the average prevents more damage from Pack-Hounds than from seekers, Pack-Hounds still under almost any circumstances are sure to get a bit of damage on target, which is enough to deliver the experimental effect.
.
Why use 1 Packhound when you can have 5?
[video=youtube;MoTU7k-A5hY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTU7k-A5hY&t=568s[/video]
My trade Cutter rocks 7. I actually start smiling like the Grinch everytime I'm interdicted by any non-large NPC ship.
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I haven't tested that, also i don't know the exact damage threshold for assault and thus being wanted in the new system. That being said, with the single Pack-Hound missile doing only a fraction of what a seeker does (that's why you fire volleys), the single missile should only lead to an assault charge when hitting an unshielded target and thus doing hull damage.
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And thanks to the flight pattern of Pack-Hounds, it's also extremely unlikely that several missiles hit the same target if it's not what you were aiming at. It would really require an authority Anaconda to park right in front of your target for this to happen.
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