Notable Beginner Weapons Discussion

[digdug]

the most under-used MAG is the Siege MAG, it's highly expensive, very slow, and up to 0.98d it could have been stopped by any stray shot.
I propose them to have a massive number of hp and/or an extremely low interaction, so that they can reach their target.

Moreover, by the time I need them, i search and buy only the High Flux MAGs for a better job.

[Atarlost]

You missed the part about the 12 light second range on them. They need a lifetime on the order of 650 to be a competative basebuster with their pathetic missilespeed.

[Song]

Well, they ARE grenades, so you'd expect them to time out quickly....but the range is pathetic.

I'd love to see both increased speed and lifetime, and maybe detonation at the end of lifetime....since they ARE an analogue of present day grenades.....and because fireworks are fun to watch

[Aeonic]

Modern grenades are, as I've been trying to point out, crowd control (killing) weapons. The idea is that you throw them, hide behind something, and everything around you dies. If MAGs are the same concept, then they SHOULD be short range, and speed is pretty irrelevant. They're not missiles, they're not about long range bombardment. If you want that, equip the proper weapons for it. MAGs should concentrate on massive explosions of fragments that damage everything near you. That's what grenades do.

Only MAGs which are specifically designed for base bombardment really need any kind of range.

I also believe that the shield-buster MAG would be much more useful if it launched a bunch of shield-busting fragments as well, since that would essentially take down the shields of everything around you. If it were possible to create an effect similar to the Earth Slaver's shields down cyber attack, that would be good too, in effect simulating a special EMP explosion that knocks out shields.

[Song]

They should be short range....but at present the range isn't just "short"...it's ridiculous. And I'd love to see MAGs actually EXPLODE when thery time out, rather than just vanish....since they ARE grenades.

[schilcote]

Yeah, I was playing with the MAG and I thought to myself that they had absolutely nothing to do with grenades. They're just really slow short range missiles. I should be able to toss down a bunch of MAGs, GTFO, and watch my enemies asplode.

[Song]

Yeah. They are only grenades in name. Although that might explain the short range and poor range...sending a guy down to the airlock to throw them at the enemy.....

There is only one weapon that is at all like a MAG that I find is good.....and that's the CRM500 Running Man "Mine". It has a long range, and will damage your own ship, so you have to be REALLY careful how you use it, it detonates when it times out (since it's a frag weapon), and the maneuvering depends entirely on how you are travelling.

I'd love to see MAgs behave a little like it, without tracking (although a tracking version of the 400 or 600 MAG would be really nifty)....

[Song]

One question I have to ask for the number crunchers......is the newly buffed Ballista worth it now?

[Prophet]

I found a ballista in Eridani AND a cannon accelerator, boosting it up to almost 100 kinetic damage!
It's a cheap pre-howitzer but usually doesn't appear early enough to be useful.
(unless you're lucky!)

[Atarlost]

While a +50% Ballista is impressive and will instagib enemies for quite a while it has a dissapointing tendancy to not reach the target, especially against enemies with repeating weapons.

I'm liking the RK15 a lot more. It's in that special class of omnis that somehow escaped the nerf bat (the only others in 1.0 being the omni tev-9 and ares lightning turret) and it's a better damage type for its level than the tev.

[Blitz]

While a +50% Ballista is impressive and will instagib enemies for quite a while it has a dissapointing tendancy to not reach the target, especially against enemies with repeating weapons.

I'm liking the RK15 a lot more. It's in that special class of omnis that somehow escaped the nerf bat (the only others in 1.0 being the omni tev-9 and ares lightning turret) and it's a better damage type for its level than the tev.

True, there are two level 4 omnis - omni turbo and omni rk15. Omni turbo does 3-12(3d4) damage and rk15 does 3-17(2d8+1) AND it fires slightly faster.

[Retroactive]

While a +50% Ballista is impressive and will instagib enemies for quite a while it has a dissapointing tendancy to not reach the target, especially against enemies with repeating weapons.

I'm liking the RK15 a lot more. It's in that special class of omnis that somehow escaped the nerf bat (the only others in 1.0 being the omni tev-9 and ares lightning turret) and it's a better damage type for its level than the tev.

True, there are two level 4 omnis - omni turbo and omni rk15. Omni turbo does 3-12(3d4) damage and rk15 does 3-17(2d8+1) AND it fires slightly faster.

On the other hand, the omni turbo has a higher projectile speed, which means greater hit %, and the laser collimator improves its damage by 75% as opposed to the kinetic accelerator's 50%.

EDIT: Also the omni turbo can be enhanced with longzhu spheres while the RK15 cannot.

[Atarlost]

If you're using longzhus on a laser you're nuts. You shouldn't have any lasers by the time they start showing up except maybe an x-ray with dual enhancers, and you should optimize something that's going to be used with +125% worth of enhancers for multiplicitive benefits.

But let's look at the numbers. For a first approximation let's just consider average damage no enhancments except the device. firerate 15 and firerate 16 are the same until you use an optimizer ROM so we can ignore that.

Turbolaser does 3d4 damage for an average of 7.5 damage. +75% gives 13.125 damage.

RK15 does 2d8+10 damage for an average of 10. +50% gives 15 damage.

Even though the laser enhancer gives an extra 25% of base damage looking at just average damage the partisan does about 14% more damage.

It's more complicated than that though because of rounding.

Turbolaser has 64 possible rolls.

Code: Select all

1, 1, 1 = 3
1, 1, 2 = 4
1, 2, 1 = 4
2, 1, 1 = 4
1, 1, 3 = 5
1, 3, 1 = 5
3, 1, 1 = 5
1, 2, 2 = 5
2, 1, 2 = 5
2, 2, 1 = 5
...

That comes down to

Code: Select all

1/64: 3
3/64: 4
3/32: 5
5/32: 6
3/16: 7
3/16: 8
5/32: 9
3/32: 10
3/64: 11
1/64: 12

Where the number after the colon is a result and the fraction before the colon is a probability.

Applying the +75% and rounding down we get

Code: Select all

1/64: 4
3/64: 7
3/32: 8
5/32: 10
3/16: 12
3/16: 14
5/32: 15
3/32: 17
3/64: 19
1/64: 21

Real Average damage is 12.734375

For the RK15 there are also 64 possible rolls and the damage curve looks like

Code: Select all

1/64: 3
1/32: 4
3/64: 5
1/16: 6
5/64: 7
3/32: 8
7/64: 9
1/8:  10
7/64: 11
3/32: 12
5/64: 13
1/16: 14
3/64: 15
1/32: 16
1/64: 17

and applying the +50% bonus from the enhancer device gives

Code: Select all

1/64: 5
1/32: 6
3/64: 7
1/16: 9
5/64: 10
3/32: 12
7/64: 13
1/8:  15
7/64: 16
3/32: 18
5/64: 19
1/16: 21
3/64: 22
1/32: 24
1/64: 25

Real Average damage is 14.765625

That's just shy of a 16% advantage for the RK15 +50% over the turbolaser +75%.

But beyond that the cannon accelerator is useful for several weapons that have no laser competitors. There is no laser that does one hit kills or busts bases like an AK505. There is no laser with the spread and anti-missile capability of the PK25. There is no laser with the range of a flenser or dual flenser. On the other hand in the flensers the kinetic user has choices that can perform like a laser, but have nearly twice the range.

[Blitz]

Nice table *copy and paste*. This is a little off-topic but did you use a software to calculate the dice rolls? I've tried doing it before by hand but it gets ridiculous with large numbers...

[schilcote]

Nice table *copy and paste*. This is a little off-topic but did you use a software to calculate the dice rolls? I've tried doing it before by hand but it gets ridiculous with large numbers...

RTDBot has an awesome dicerol function.

That would be funny if that was how Atarlost got his numbers, by using my bot