Matrix Games Forums

How does Harpoon calculate their effectiveness?

Taking a purely fictional set of stats, say a Prowler when launched had a 25% chance of picking up an aerial target at 100nm.

Now if I launched four Prowlers in one group, would that then automatically assume that the group had a 100% chance of acquiring the same target at 100nm?

Or would Harpoon calculate that the 2nd Prowler had just as much chance as say the 4th Prowler to detect the target, so the patrol group as a whole still wouldn't exceed the 25% chance of acquiring a target? I.e., the detection rates of each aircraft were not cumulative?

Cheers (another n00b question - sorry!)

AFAIK the calculation is done for each individual unit with that sensor

So yes you could get really unlucky and still not detect anything in the detection check! but it will not guarantee 100% you are only increasing the chance that detection will occur.

That would be great if it does. The 'randomness' would be a great aspect to the game, imo.

StalinTC recalls correctly, one die roll per sensor.
 
 

2 comments on sensors

1) i believe the check is done once per (time interval) so if you wait longer, the detection probability increases.

2) if you have 4 detectors at 25% each, then the proper calculation would be

probability of detection = 1 - .75 ^ 4 = 1 - 81/256

so your total detection probability would be 68%, still a lot below 100%.