How rapidfire works

What is rapidfire?
I have decided to write how rapidfire works as I have read many comments on the internet about how it works and it seems to be something many players over look. Sure, most players know that ships/defense with rapidfire are more effective against things they have rapidfire against, but few know why or how the maths works. It appears to only be very experienced players who know these things.

I decided I would write down the knowledge I have about rapidfire in this thread as I feel it would be beneficial to alliance members to be able to read this.

So here is how it works:

Chance of RF = 100% – (100 / x)%

Where x is the rapidfire value.

For example: the Cruiser has a RF value of 10 against Rocket Launchers, therefore:

Chance of RF = 100% – (100 / 10)%
Chance of RF = 100% – 10%
Chance of RF = 90%

Therefore, the Cruiser has a 90% chance of firing again when it targets a Rocket Launcher. The next shot can target any other ship/defence (meaning the ship will stop firing that round, unless it also has rapidfire against this new target), or another Rocket Launcher (in which case the calculation is repeated).

When the ship/defense has stopped firing, the next round begins and all rapid fire calculations are repeated if the ship/defense again fires at something it has rapidfire against.

Rapidfie allows the ship to fire again - even if the thing it originally shot at was not destroyed/damaged. Rapidfire determines the number of shots not the number of kills it can make per round.

In theory: The cruiser could fire at every rocket launcher in the defenders defense in one round of combat making an attack against every one, or the same rocket launcher an infinite number of times.

A rapidfire value of 10 does NOT:

-Let the ship destroy up to 10 of the Rapidfire'd ship/defence a round, and the rapidfiring stops if the ship fails to destroy one.
-Let the ship shoot at no more than 10 of the Rapidfire'd ship/defence a round, even if some are not destroyed.
-Let the ship only target the Rapidfire'd ship/defence until the RF ends.

Those three misconceptions appear to be the most common. Rapidfire lets the ship fire anywhere from once, to a hundred thousand times or even higher, depending entirely on luck.

Hope this helps

spot the bal wrote:

The ship/defense may only target each thing once per round.

I just gave this a quick glance, but this caught my eye. The above statement is incorrect to the best of my knowledge. Try doing a speedsim with 1 rocket launcher and 1 cruiser, and see how many times it fires.

Captain Patrick T. James wrote:

spot the bal wrote:

The ship/defense may only target each thing once per round.

I just gave this a quick glance, but this caught my eye. The above statement is incorrect to the best of my knowledge. Try doing a speedsim with 1 rocket launcher and 1 cruiser, and see how many times it fires.

I used a speedsim with multiple rocket launchers and it appears that when a new target is selected after rapidfiring it may not target the same defense/ship.

If you want to run your own simulations feel free

Okay. when you are using multiple rocket launchers, how are you able to tell whether it targets the same one or not? Using just 1 rocket launcher and 1 cruiser, and giving the defender level 30 armor tech, the cruiser still wins in 1 round. Therefore, the cruiser absolutely must hit the rocket launcher multiple times in order to destroy it in one round.

Captain Patrick T. James wrote:

Okay. when you are using multiple rocket launchers, how are you able to tell whether it targets the same one or not? Using just 1 rocket launcher and 1 cruiser, and giving the defender level 30 armor tech, the cruiser still wins in 1 round. Therefore, the cruiser absolutely must hit the rocket launcher multiple times in order to destroy it in one round.

Okay I have tried this simulation and I believe you have a point. I will amend the original post.

One more thing I'd like to add. Please note this is from reading guides so I haven't tested this yet.

Anyway, if a ship or structure is hit in combat, it is not destroyed until the end of the round, no matter how much damage it took. For example, a structure can take enough damage to be destroyed, but still be the target for multiple rapid fire strikes. The reason for this is that the program only calculates destruction at the end of the round, not after each shot is fired.

I thought rapidfire caused a ship to fire at certain targets first. Which is one of the reasons having fodder in an attacking fleet will save your heavy hitting ships

Nope, not at all. Fodder is useful becuase if you have 9 light fighters and 1 battleship, your battleship only has a 10% chance of being targeted that round.

Captain Patrick T. James wrote:

Nope, not at all. Fodder is useful becuase if you have 9 light fighters and 1 battleship, your battleship only has a 10% chance of being targeted that round.

As Patrick said it just reduces the chance of it getting shot at. RF does not change target priority.

If you had 100 light fighters and one battleship then it would only be a 1% chance the battleship would be hit!

spot the bal wrote:

If you had 100 light fighters and one battleship then it would only be a 1% chance the battleship would be hit!

Actually that would be a 0.99% chance.

very interesting reading guys, thanks

Just thought I would post here... this is not how rapidfire works...

http://ogame.wikia.com/wiki/Rapid_Fire - Thats how it works.

very interesting!

Very helpful guide !!