Onca still says Sammael is a bad wep.... it's pretty average on the damage scale, but efficiency is terrible. Even compared to other laser guns, which you'd expect to have lower damage for their higher rate & speed.
Gee I completely missed Hornviper! It is absolutely atrocious.... how do the poor Rheinlanders survive???? (oh wait, I am one....) I guess Firekiss kind of makes up for it.
' Wrote:Next, range is important... in Vanilla, weapons with better range deal less damage. Always.
I have to agree, there is a difference in looking at the stats vs actually using the weapon in a combat environment. Take the Buckshot for example:
Buckshot: 1832 hull points per second of fire
Reaper MkV: 2104 hull points per second of fire
however, the buckshot has an extra 200m of range
At a ship veleocity of 80m/s, I can deliver 4580 points of hull damage to a static target before I recive any fire. (yeah, my math is oversimplified, but... so am I)
As far as the Samael is concerned, the power usage could at least be decreased... it seems rather disproportionate to the damage/energy of other rouge weapons, particularly the vassago (both of which are refered to as "the best laser weapon" that the LR have to offer, btw).
Onca, thanks for making this post, I didn't have much time to check over mine and I went on a trip the next day. My damages were all wrong on my chart due to some wierd wording in DS.
A couple things we might do with this... One, I think range needs to have a bigger impact on a weapon's evaluation. I typically look at muzzle velocity over range to evaluate a weapon's accuracy but that doesn't mean there aren't effective ways to fight with high range weapons. If we want to have balanced weapons, and have a variety of styles to choose from at the same time, we'll have to consider multiple fighting styles in equality. Longer range means you have more time to apply damage to your target. A higher range weapon would need be defficient in one ore more other areas to be balanced. The muzzle velocity (Projectile velocity,) has a large effect on accuracy in my experience as a lower projectile velocity gives your target more time to evade your shots and you don't have to lead your target by such a drastic amount. I simply averaged the two values to come up with an accuracy rating for the weapon but that method assumes range and muzzle velocity are equally important, which is debatable. So in summary, range might not mean much to Onca, but to have a good analysis that includes many perspectives we should take it in to consideration. It might help visually to rank the weapons in each category rather than list them alphabetically.
I agree having two faction weapons with different muzzle velocities gives one accuracy problems, but perhaps they were made that way to force players to use one or the other? It seems that those factions that have 2 class 9 weapons have one really good weapon and one mediocre to poor weapon. The exception to this is the Corsairs, who have two very good weapons. It should be noted that this game currently has 2 widely used sheild busters, one with 750 m/s (Adv. Debilitator,) and the Tizona/Colada at 600 m/s. Those factions with weapons that go 500 (Reinland) or 700 (Outcasts) will have accuracy issues if they try to use sheild busters with their own weapons-this may be a good thing as both of those two factions already have primo weapons-except now that we've added the inferno torpedo mount weapon, Outcasts have the best faction fighter weapons in the game.
As for the weapons themselves
Your efficiency rating: did you divide hull damage per second by power used per second? or hull damage per second per unit of power? They describe two different things.
The Sammael: High range and High muzzle velocity makes it a very accurate weapon (also 8.33 refire.) Also, I noticed there are 2 versions of the gun, I understand there is one for the Guards (640 hull damage per shot OUCHHH) and one that is for sale to all (250 hull per shot EWWWWW) Compare Sammael with the Skyblast B, which has the same accuracy, same refire, takes 150 energy less per second but does 230 more hull damage per second (it also does 100 more sheild damage.) Skyblast B is clearly better than Sammael in every way, yet they are classed equally as weapons.. So yea, either the Sammael needs an upgrade, or redo the guard guns and put them up for sale.
As it looks now the Sammael either needs a damage boost, closer to the Skyblast, or an energy usage decrease.
The Disinfector is still inferior to other weapons like it (like the Salamanca II,) but it doesn't have as big a problem as the Sammael.
Onca, put range in your chart somehow and rank the guns in each chategory please, then we can really see all the problems.
' Wrote:<snippage>Onca, put range in your chart somehow and rank the guns in each chategory please, then we can really see all the problems.
ok;)
As for ranking, I'll order the table by efficiency... not by everything as it will get too cluttered. But I'm gonna include an Excel spreadsheet so you can sort it by whatever column, and compare that way. (As soon as I can find my Orifice 2000 disk :\ )
Yeah DS stuffs up its infocards, quoting the dam/shot as dam/sec.
My efficiency ratio is dam/sec divided by power usage/sec. (Giving units of damage/energy, if that makes sense.) I'm still trying to think of a formula that takes all the variables into account -- damage, power, range, speed, etc. -- to give a grand number to compare all weapons by. Like: Dam*speed*range/power or something like that.
Could we use Google Spreadsheet for this in any way?
Even if not, this concept will be very useful for me since I'll be adding more level 9's in the new release.
However, we should remember that there still will be worst and best weapons.
' Wrote:I'll be adding more level 9's in the new release.
YAY thankyou
Quote:However, we should remember that there still will be worst and best weapons.
agreed, we only wish to eliminate uneccessary deficiencies in weapons, not ones that can be attributed to a corresponding ship's strengths. Like the Titan being a slow turning fighter and needing a more powerful gun like the tizona, or the Wrath needing better guns due to fewer gun mounts.
This doesn't depend on the ship. You think we should give the best Level 9th to Xenos or LWB cause they've got poor ships? Or maybe make Nomad weapons 3 times more powerful? Come on... weapons must be more or less equal, whatever ship they are mounted on.
Working on the google spread now, just double checking the stats and making the math automatic.
EDIT= This is what I have so far. Published in html format, just let me know if you wan xls. I included the Nomad Cannon and Blaster, Tizona Del Cid, Reaver Mk II (also class 9), Colada Del Cid, Purple Goddess, and Solaris Chain Gun, and all the code names as well as a class column to keep them seperated.
Address: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pbK...eaTdEua-gyYG4Ng
All values were taken from datastorm, please let me know if you see any corrections that need to be made.
I'd kind of like to add all weapons evntually... but dont hold yoour breath. If you have a google account and are interested in such a monumental undertaking, please pm me. Planning on starting with the class 8 and working my way back.
Hey sunergos, that looks pretty good dude:)Saved me some work!!
Just one suggestion.... make all the columns 0 decimal places, except for Rate and Efficiency, which make 2 decimals.
Oh no.... I don't recommend using Datastorm, since it stuffs up its weapon stats badly. Instead I used FLstat -- verified its accuracy by looking in the .ini file, which I wouldn't recommend if you want to keep your sanity;)Although FLStat doesn't give you range information, but DS should be ok for that.
' Wrote:Hey sunergos, that looks pretty good dude:)Saved me some work!!
Just one suggestion.... make all the columns 0 decimal places, except for Rate and Efficiency, which make 2 decimals.
Oh no.... I don't recommend using Datastorm, since it stuffs up its weapon stats badly. Instead I used FLstat -- verified its accuracy by looking in the .ini file, which I wouldn't recommend if you want to keep your sanity;)Although FLStat doesn't give you range information, but DS should be ok for that.
But the numbers still look right.... Nice work:)
I'm not certain that datastorm actually changes anything, as it does mislabel hull damage and shield damage as per second in stead of per hit.