How many of each unit does it take to smoke somthing in one shot. I.E. how many ions does it take to kill 1 ion in 1 shot, how many torps? how many bomb squads to take out a mod in one pass, ect. has anyone compiled a magic number list for stuff like this?

Lame question, next...

I take it your joking about this question.

Yes it was a joke. These numbers are not really labbed that much, because in most cases you want to target one ship at a time. It can be useful in frig on frig battles, or bomber mod hunting, I suppose.

i may have to install this game on another computer and run some labs then. magic numbers are hella usful in frig on frig battles. This is HW1 101 stuff. I guess the lack of a true support frig could be the reason it never developed here.

instead, leaning how to micro frigs make u survive than calculating numbers while ion frigs are pulled in and all toast.

but a small thing about bombers is, if u got 2 improved bombers with no interruption, u can take mods off in 10 seconds, with 6, without heavy interruption, u can definately own a mod. with 12 bombers, some flaks mean nothing. but then again 1 int can own a bomber in 10 seconds too.

or, vettes die with 1 torp no matter what hull they have. but theres 5% chance if vette turns around when torp is about to hit, vette lives as some semi dead ship. i wonder if i can do this intentionally...

There can be a pretty good use for dividing frigs up in 1v1 situations, but normally players are way too busy with other stuff to manage different groups of frigs.
Btw, the frigs won't necessarily attack the same target after they kill one, so you have to constantly keep targetting to keep that magic number working.

As I said, the lack of a true support frig is probably why this concept never developed here.

Iirc 1 shot from 11 heavy vets took out 1 heavy vet in hw. So if you lined 11 heavy vets vs 10 heavy vets both with 3 sf the 11 heavy vets side would win with 7 vets left over given = players because of the magic number since 1 shot from 11 nulled the sf repairing the first vet targeted.

With ions if the magic number is say 8 ions and you both rolled in with 12, side 2 groups all 12 to fire on 1 target, the other groups 9 to fire on 1 and 3 to fire on another. After the first shot 1 frig will be dead on side one while side 2 has 1 dead and another with 1/3 damage. After 2rd shot regroup 8 to target 1 and the remaining 2 of the 3 to finish off their target. After the 4th shot side 1 has killed 5 of 12 with 1 shot damage on 1, side 2 killed 4 of 12. The next two shots are where it gets noticeable. after the 5th shot side 1 will still have 8 frigs to side 2s 6, it will take single targeted 2 full shots to bring side 1 down to 7 and that shot will put side 2 down to 5 with 1 other frig 2 shot damage. Next shot will bring total numbers to 7 and 4, next shot 7 and 3 (killing the one previously hit twice by 1 frig) now it takes 3 full shots to take 1 frigs from side one and side 2 has only 3 frigs remaining. Next shot 6 to 3 next shot 6 to 2, next shot 6 to 2, next shot 5 to 1, last shot 5 to 0.

I know this sounds complicated, and the lack of true formations will probably make it a lot harder to regroup on the fly, but the new method of selection, shift selection and control selection from that bottom menu HW2 added might make it easier. I do miss the "de-group' option HW and HWC had (either shift + ~ or ctrl + ~ I don't remember) would ungroup a unit or units. However, the way hid does it (selecting the group the shift clicking to deselect then regroup remaining) also works well.

F4 doesn't cause a single group to attack a single target together any more? Meaning finish off one together and retarget as a unit the next target?

No, they won't act as a single unit, even if you put them into a formation, which nobody does anyways.