speed vs power

[Betelgeuse]

There are two upgrade paths for weapons. A speed enhancement and a power enhancement.

I did some tests and found that the speed enhancement gives you a +50% bonus to your rate of fire. Effectively giving you an easy 50% boost to your power. It also has the effect of making it easier to hit enemies and takes down bases much faster (do to doing 1 damage for most weapons to stations)
Power enhancement is a per type basis and you need alot to max it out but once you do you get a +150% bonus to damage. Far more than the speed enhancement but much harder to get.

I did some cost tests too. The speed enhancement raises the cost by 40%. Each power enhancement raises the cost by 20%. With the max (15) power enhancements on that raises the cost by an extra 300%.

Any questions or comments?

[Burzmali]

Keep in mind that ships can have damaged rounded down to zero very easily with some weapons (i.e. omni laser vs. zulus). So just because you are scoring 50% more hits, you might not cause 50% more damage. Also, fuel use for weapons is by shot, a weapon that fires 50% faster uses 50% more fuel.

[FAD]

Also, that formula for +Fast does not hold true for slow-firing weapons such as Howitzers. At stock 1.6 RoF, enhanced only ups it to 1.8...nowhere close to 50% RoF, more like 10%.

[Frits]

Burzmali i don't think your first point holds true.

[Burzmali]

There is no such thing as fractional damage. If a weapon's damage is adjusted to less than 0.5, the hit causes no damage. If you don't believe me, grab a freighter and start a fight with some zulus, you'll notice that about half of the shots cause no reaction on impact.

[Betelgeuse]

found the fast formula

the fast enhancement decreases the firerate by two

to find the ingame rate of fire in sec you use this formula (it works with the ones in the xml too)
30/((firerate + 1)/2)
and to get the firerate from the ingame rate of fire in sec you just do
60 / rate of fire in sec

[Frits]

Yeah that's fine but if i shoot 6 times instead of 4 times i will inevitably kill them using two thirds of the number of shots, on average. Ok i might miss 6 times in a row but i have the same odds to hit 6 times.

[Betelgeuse]

I am wondering if weapon fuel use is time based (with buffers) or shot based. My guess is that it would be time based so you can just use the power for all normal fuel use. (that and fast fire laser doesn't seem to take more fuel than similar powered things with reasonable fire rates)
If it is time based how long is the fuel still being used after a shot is fired.

This is assuming continuous firing, no one questions that you can save fuel by sniping. (I used to love sniping wind slavers with fusion fire but I have been getting the lit cannon very early recently)

[FAD]

Another discrepancy I notice in the +Fast formula.... The RoF of an Ares Lightning Turret will increase by 100%, not 50%. And while it will drain the capacitor much faster, it also charges a little faster as well.
One sweet weapon, BTW!

[Fossaman]

Hehe...yeah. It was a lot more fun to use than a lot of others. Strategy required!

It's not the strongest weapon, though. There are others that are much better.

[Boris the Cat]

I've found in all the games I've played, that on average, a boost of speed always out-performs a boost in power. Maybe it's because I'm a bit quicker to run away, but then again...