Stirk's cost calc corner!
Mostly for myself, numbers may or may not be typical results.
Buying new V upgrading.
A green tank with a green crew (assuming 1 gunnery) adds 1 shot to maximum hits/turn, increases the standard shots to-kill by one tank, and has a cost of 250.
--For example in my last match, it would have increased the shots to wipe by 6.6 (theoretically). ~37.9 points per shot.
--Chance to hit -4/-3/-2 at long/medium/short moving target (97.2% miss/91.66%/83.33%). Average shots to hit 35.7/11.99/5.99. Increases hits/turn by 0.028/0.0834/0.1667, for a cost of 250.
Upgrading a tank:
Increasing gunnery has a cost sink in buying the facility (1000), in addition to paying 100 per rank. The average cost goes down as more upgrades are used, and is (1000+100n)/n for non zero n. Upgrading all seven of my tanks means that the average cost is 242.85 per gunnery up (almost enough for a new tank), upgrading all tanks three times would instead cost 147.62 per gunnery up (much more reasonable).
-The increase in average hits increase depends on the gunnery skill. The fact that ties are considered misses means that there are depreciating returns, the better the gunnery skill the less they benefit from it until they get no benefit (since every shot would hit). In the best case, upgrading -4/-3/-2 to -3/-2/-1 (my average accuracy for last game!), the average increases to 91.66% miss/83.33%/72%, 11.99/5.99/3.57 shots/hit. This decreases shots/hit by 23.71/6/2.42, and increases hits/turn by 0.0554/0.0833/0.1133.
-At the plausible "One gun upgrade for everyone!" level, these two upgrades are competitive. The hit/turn/cost for new tank is 0.000112/0.0003336/0.000666, while a theoretical hit/turn/cost (best case) is 0.000375/0.000564/0.000767. In this case high numbers=good for cost efficiency. This means that, in the best case, it is cost effective to train your soldiers from a purely offensive standpoint. At the "reasonable" case, it is instead 0.000228/0.000343/0.000466, competitive but not stunningly so.
-In a worse case, upgrading a 5 to a 6, you get from +1/+2/+3 to +2/+3/+4, for an average increase of 0.1389/0.1111/0.086 hits/turn. For some reason I forgot that the range change would still be dramatic at longer ranges (maybe cuz I do all my planning assuming short range
), so this actually turns out to be a reasonably massive increase doesn't it? Hit/turn/cost 0.000571/0.000457/0.000354 "reasonable" 0.000941/0.000752/0.000582 "best case". This is better cost efficiency at long ranges, while it is slightly worse at close ranges.
What does that mean for us? Overall, you will increase your shot/turn more by upgrading instead of buying new tanks. This does have some downsides: While your average increases, you maximum doesn't. In addition, you can only upgrade each gunner once per phase. Theoretically once you hit the "never miss" point you will no longer gain any benefit, and the more you invest the more efficient the cost. This is mostly due to 1 gunner tank's inability to actually hit things. The increase tapers off the higher you get in +s. So going from +0 to +1 is the biggest change, while going from +5 to +6 is the smallest change. Once you get to the point you are hitting +5 at long range, you don't gain much benefit from the extra help. Notably where I screwed up above, the reverse is also true-changing -5 (automiss) to -4 is also an incredibly small benefit compared from raising -1 to 0, and I just kinda blanked on that
When I get more time, I'll calculate the benefits of wet stowage vs disposable ablative shielding (read: mook shields), and probably the medical bay's cost to benefit ratio.