[Dark]

Please note that only hangers available to Fed captains are tested, because I'm a Fed captain.

Introduction!

Hello again! As some of you probably noticed, if not from my constant calling for ISE in {UFP-UFPK} then from my last created thread, I've been parsing and compiling data to tweak my DPS. Along the way I got into a discussion regarding hangers with some other people.

Now, if you've been around when the Romulan reputation system was implemented, you'd know that the Elite Scorpions are considered the highest DPS hangers for ISE. This is due to their High Yield Plasma Torpedoes making mincemeat out of the immobile high-hull Borg structures in STFs.

When the Elite Swarmers became available, there were a lot of mixed opinions as to if it was better or worse than Scorpions. Some say it did the most DPS, others disagreed. Hearing from some high DPS guys that the Swarmers out-DPS the Scorpions caused me to purchase them (at no small expense), and now here are my results.

I also parsed the Elite JHAS hangers because I have them and needed to check if they were awesome. The Recluse's frigates aren't even considered here - their DPS is decent but irrelevant, the multiple APBs they throw on targets make them highly valuable regardless.

The Data!

Keeping in mind that these are for TWO hangers:

ISE	 Scorpions 	 Swarmers 	 Attack Ships 
	 4,864.71 	 3,294.94 	 3,742.00 
	 4,999.48 	 3,552.77 	 4,331.00 
	 5,042.56 	 3,303.38 	 4,613.34 
	 5,095.33 	 3,786.68 	 4,631.19 
	 5,208.66 	 3,830.77 	 4,759.55 
	 5,272.08 	 3,929.73 	 4,779.50 
	 5,368.06 	 3,968.71 	 4,883.02 
	 5,390.96 	 4,243.13 	 5,333.76 
	 5,644.39 	 4,265.90 	 5,399.68 
	 6,015.08 	 4,285.46 	 5,618.43 
	 6,025.95 		
	 6,035.48 		
	 6,075.36 		
	 6,180.19 		
	 6,237.32 		
			
Mean	 5,563.71 	 3,846.15 	 4,809.15 
StDev	 486.92 	 370.74 	 550.26

These were run with people from {UFP-UFPK}, PublicEliteSTF, and even a few PUGs.
The average time for them was roughly 4 minutes.

The Conclusion!
If your ISE runs take around 4 minutes, it's very clear that the Elite Scorpions remain the highest performing DPS hangers for ISE.

Further Research!
Why do I mention that it takes 4 minutes? Well, there has to be a reason for the top DPS players saying that Swarmers outperform Scorpions. With that in mind, I went and joined the 20k DPS channel, and intend to parse more runs with a stronger team.

My hypothesis is that once the group does high enough damage, targets die before the HYT from the Scorpions hit, which will cut their damage by around 50%. That would certainly cause Swarmers to outperform Scorpions.

20 runs will take 20 cooldowns, so it'll probably be a while before I can get that data, hence I'm posting these results now. For most members of the Fleet, the Elite Scorpions are what to aim for if you're looking to maximize DPS in ISE. (Though again, the Tholian frigates are always much loved for their APB.)

[Daedalus]

Thanks for posting Dark! I also own the JHDC with Scorps and Swamers and use the Scorpions for STF and Swarmers for everything else. I also like that you posted numbers for your frigates, which I don't own. Very interesting data so far.

[Dark]

Further Testing Aborted

I ran ISE twice with exclusively 20k DPS folks. That cut the time of the match to 120s and 125s, where you split into groups of two and three to destroy both sides at once. The parsed results?

2 Elite Scorpion Hangers: 5838.04
2 Elite Swarmer Hangers: 3708.94

That's within 1 Standard Deviation from the previous group of results, so I really don't see a point in running each one ten times.

The hypothesis, revised by my results and comments from the 20k DPS channel, is that Swarmers only out-perform Scorpions in the Borg STFs when the team has so much DPS you can do ISE in around 1 minute. I can't test that hypothesis, since my highest recorded DPS thus far is only 23.3k.

So for most of us - it doesn't matter. Scorpions > Swarmers.

[Bill]

Excellent report Dark and good information for all Feds to have. Thank you!

[Dark]

In a discussion with another JHDC pilot, I've discovered I may have overlooked a critical component in the JHAS damage calculations.

While I noticed that the Plasma HYT for Scorpions were not being added to "Pets (Sum)" in the parser, I did not realize that if the JHAS use Ramming Speed, that is also not added to "Pets (Sum)". (I did subtract the DPS from Nimbus pirates from Pets (Sum) for the numbers above.)

In a recent parse with this captain, my Pets (Sum) was 3,668.221 and Plasma Torpedo - Heavy 1 was 2,374.066, for a total of 6,042.29. Their Pets (Sum) was 4,202.472 and Ramming Speed 3 was 2,193.731, for a total of 6396.203. Their two hangers of JHAS did slightly more damage than my two hangers of Scorps.

With that in mind, I'm going to need to rerun tests for the Scorps (because my build has changed) vs JHAS. (Swarmers still suck, though. )

[Dark]

I don't know what that other pilot was doing, or how they got their JHAS to use Ramming Speed all the time, but mine never really get hurt and the DPS has no real notable difference. It's fairly consistent with my previous JHAS trials:

JHDC (2 Tac, with Marion, JHAS)						
	 ISE 		 Pets 		 Ship 		 Time 			 JHAS 
	 24,713.03 	 6,650.14 	 18,062.89 	 137.00 		 5,741.15 
	 21,402.89 	 5,742.46 	 15,660.43 	 213.00 		 5,402.77 
	 26,597.98 	 7,352.01 	 19,245.97 	 146.00 		 6,193.19 
	 19,015.48 	 4,191.82 	 14,823.66 	 273.00 		 3,903.33 
	 24,199.63 	 5,102.70 	 19,096.92 	 141.00 		 4,426.61 
	 21,522.36 	 4,415.51 	 17,106.85 	 179.00 		 3,765.28 
	 22,613.28 	 4,538.78 	 18,074.50 	 129.00 		 3,605.04 
						
Mean	 22,866.38 	 5,427.63 	 17,438.75 	 174.00 		 4,719.62 
StDev	 2,515.09 	 1,207.21 	 1,679.31 	 52.62 			 1,047.76 
	11.00%		22.24%		9.63%		30.24%			22.20%

Adding those results to my previous runs gives a Mean of 4,856.46 with a StDev of 765.45 - changes nothing in my rankings.

[Daedalus]

Well, at least I know I don't need to covet the jhas pets any more, so your testing is immensely helpful to me. Thanks Dark!