Why is the damage output of Quad Lasers so inferior to Burst Laser ?

[Mikla]

Title says it all - why is it that the Quad Laser is so inferior to the burst Laser. According to the accuracy and DPS numbers for the Quad vs Burst the quad should be the superior weapon - but my game play experience tells me otherwise. Are the numbers on the Quad and Burst just outright wrong. Are the bursts just bugged - the damage numbers I see for burst is about double that of quad.

 

For a weapon that on paper is supposed to have less range less accuracy and DPS about 20% less the burst sure seems to be more than twice as good as the quad - something seems not quite right here.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Mikla

[Delta_V]

It's because the nature of GSF heavily favors burst damage (like BLCs) over sustained (Quads). When you only get a fraction of a second to hit a target, BLCs let you squeeze far more damage into that window.

[Armonddd]

Do you have detailed tooltips turned on? Cause I don't see anything that implies that bursts do twice the DPS of quads.

 

It's also important to note that the tooltips show damage per second, not damage per shot, which is often more useful to know.

[Mikla]

Do you have detailed tooltips turned on? Cause I don't see anything that implies that bursts do twice the DPS of quads.

 

It's also important to note that the tooltips show damage per second, not damage per shot, which is often more useful to know.

 

The actual fly text of damage numbers for burst is about double that of the fly text damage numbers for quad is what I'm saying. I understand that DPS is sustained damaged versus burst - but I still find it hard to reconcile the damage numbers with the DPS stats. The time to kill with quads is way longer than burst - and burst fires a burst pretty darn frequently.

[Delta_V]

The actual fly text of damage numbers for burst is about double that of the fly text damage numbers for quad is what I'm saying. I understand that DPS is sustained damaged versus burst - but I still find it hard to reconcile the damage numbers with the DPS stats. The time to kill with quads is way longer than burst - and burst fires a burst pretty darn frequently.

 

The damage per shot (seen via the flytext numbers) is a function of the DPS divided by the number of shots per second. BLCs have a *much* lower rate of fire than Quads, so the damage per shot is naturally much higher. The theoretical dps should even out if you can sustain fire on the target, but in GSF, the burst nature of BLCs means their *effective* dps will almost always be much higher.

[Mikla]

The damage per shot (seen via the flytext numbers) is a function of the DPS divided by the number of shots per second. BLCs have a *much* lower rate of fire than Quads, so the damage per shot is naturally much higher. The theoretical dps should even out if you can sustain fire on the target, but in GSF, the burst nature of BLCs means their *effective* dps will almost always be much higher.

 

My contention is that 2 contiguous burst from the burst laser is doing more DPS than stated. I understand that one burst may do more damage per shot - but two contiguous bursts should be yielding about 20% less damage than a sustained burst from the quad over the same period. Without detailed combat logs it is impossible to know, but it certainly FEELS like the quad is doing significantly less DPS than burst laser and certainly not more.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Mikla

[Sindariel]

And the energy consumption of quads is way too high, imo.

 

Their damage output is too low for burst damage and their energy consumption is too high for sustained damage.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Sindariel

[Luneward]

You also have to take into account that with quads, usually the only way to get sustained fire on an opponent is to sit a bit further back, which lowers their dps a bit. Not as much as a burst laser would be, but you still need to be able to track an opponent, and up close even small movements have significant effects on tracking. Keep in mind that burst laser also either have armor pen or shield piercing, which will up their effective damage a little bit.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think you're ever going to believe anyone. Perception is a large part of the game. An opponent on your tail that can fire two or three shots of burst lasers up your tailpipe is just as deadly as a gunship in the same period of time. Yet more people think gunship railguns are more dangerous because the damage comes in larger chunks for a much more dramatic effect.

 

A burst laser feels much more lethal than a quad for the same reason. Yes, in practice they are more deadly since the game favors quick flybys and occasional strikes over sustained focus fire, but on paper they are roughly about the same in an ideal condition.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Luneward

[Sindariel]

Unfortunately, I don't think you're ever going to believe anyone. Perception is a large part of the game. An opponent on your tail that can fire two or three shots of burst lasers up your tailpipe is just as deadly as a gunship in the same period of time. Yet more people think gunship railguns are more dangerous because the damage comes in larger chunks for a much more dramatic effect.

 

1. Sneaking up behind an enemy at close range and shooting them requires much more piloting skill than sniping them away from 15k range.

2. Looking out for enemy gunships requires much more situational awareness than looking out for scouts behind your tail which significantly increases the difficulty of taking countermeasures.

[Verain]

My contention is that 2 contiguous burst from the burst laser is doing more DPS than stated.

 

I don't really think so. BLC has 80 RMPS, Quads have 150 RPMS baseline- that's almost double, and bursts hit for around double the quads. Their dps values are similar, but note that burst is higher very close and falls off.

 

I understand that one burst may do more damage per shot - but two contiguous bursts should be yielding about 20% less damage than a sustained burst from the quad over the same period.

 

No, it should do more if close, and less further out.

 

Without detailed combat logs it is impossible to know, but it certainly FEELS like the quad is doing significantly less DPS than burst laser and certainly not more.

 

In practice, it does even less than stated.

 

Ex: You acquire target, and you fire. In world A, you hit with a quad. In world B, you hit with a burst. You are already ahead by over a factor of 2 with burst. Now, if you are able to stay on target at the precise moment that the gun becomes able to shoot again, in world A you hit with that quad, and are about tied with the burst. But in world B, you can use that time to get adjusted for a later shot- no need to try to stay on the bead precisely with that time. Since your reticule might naturally find a position that will drag you off course, this means that the BLC pilot has more actual time to maneuver, and that this is a function of time, not skill (aka, a pro pilot will still be hurt by this- it's not an APM issue).

 

Now time passes and the second or third hit happens. If it's the BLC, you have now connected for about four quad's worth, but the quads have only had time to fire thrice. You must wait again for the quads to have their firing moment to almost tie the BLC again.

 

 

So if you had to dps a wall at close range, the burst would win. At medium range, the quads would win. But even at medium range, you would begin with a big advantage with the BLC and during MOST of your time, still have it.

 

Since most enemies dodge around, your first hit will often not be rewarded with a second hit for some time. It's quite awhile, often long enough for the recharge to have happened and both shots to be good to go. In this more typical case, the BLC is over twice as good as the quads over a long period of time.

[Armonddd]

My contention is that 2 contiguous burst from the burst laser is doing more DPS than stated. I understand that one burst may do more damage per shot - but two contiguous bursts should be yielding about 20% less damage than a sustained burst from the quad over the same period. Without detailed combat logs it is impossible to know, but it certainly FEELS like the quad is doing significantly less DPS than burst laser and certainly not more.

 

Bar in mind that two contiguous burst shots take 1.5 seconds, not 1 second.

[reclipsed]

1. Sneaking up behind an enemy at close range and shooting them requires much more piloting skill than sniping them away from 15k range.

2. Looking out for enemy gunships requires much more situational awareness than looking out for scouts behind your tail which significantly increases the difficulty of taking countermeasures.

 

>sneaking in a scout

Yeah, no. Piloting a scout takes a different type/kind of skill that is different compared to sniping...not better. Are you implying that flying straight to a target that is under 2k m and tapping mouse button 1 twice takes more skill than tracking a tiny dot that zips around your scope and having to time your charge perfectly to avoid structures with said target using activated & static dodge?

[Ramalina]

The dps of weapons in GSF is normalized, or at least is supposed to be. Basically over the long run every weapon is supposed to do the same amount of dps. I think the target value is probably in the range of 1000 to 1500 dps during continuous fire. The differences are there to balance for things like range, buffs, debuffs, accuracy, etc. There are also a few oddities like ion railgun that only damages shields for the most part.

 

Balance seems to be based around fully geared ships, and probably assumes even player skill in flying, shooting, and choosing good ship builds.

 

So the answer is, in theory there should be no difference in dps between quads and burst lasers, and if you took the time to build a good math model of GSF it would almost certainly show that they are equivalent weapons.

 

In practice most people will find it easier to get closer to the theoretical performance of the burst lasers than they can to the theoretical performance of the quads. Staying on target is the main challenge in GSF gunnery, and as others have pointed out, with burst lasers you don't have to spend as much time staying on target.

[Verain]

The dps of weapons in GSF is normalized, or at least is supposed to be. Basically over the long run every weapon is supposed to do the same amount of dps.

 

This is trivially incorrect. One of the stats provided on each gun is the dps it does, and at what range it does that dps. Each gun has three listed dps values that represent the sustained damage over time, and none of them are the same.

 

So the answer is, in theory there should be no difference in dps between quads and burst lasers, and if you took the time to build a good math model of GSF it would almost certainly show that they are equivalent weapons.

 

They have different dps values at different ranges, so no. At 3500m, quads are a thing and BLCs not as such. At 800m, BLC will smoke them.

 

In practice most people will find it easier to get closer to the theoretical performance of the burst lasers than they can to the theoretical performance of the quads. Staying on target is the main challenge in GSF gunnery, and as others have pointed out, with burst lasers you don't have to spend as much time staying on target.

 

This is, however, the big reason. A more subtle one is that times between engagements are far longer than the "swing timer" of having your weapon available again. If you had a gun that did only 400 dps but had a rate of fire of once every 10 seconds, it would be the most broken gun in the game, hitting for 4000 damage. The delay would be of no real consequence!

 

So opening with BLC sort of assumes you've been on target for the entirety of the cooldown period, which may or may not be the case- you get credit for the BLC 800ish hit right away, while, say, rapid fire laser is gonna hit for around 200. The target could most certainly dodge the remaining shots, but the BLC got through with like 1.5 seconds worth of damage, while the rapid fire got through with like .4 seconds worth of damage.

 

Yeah, no. Piloting a scout takes a different type/kind of skill that is different compared to sniping...not better. Are you implying that flying straight to a target that is under 2k m and tapping mouse button 1 twice takes more skill than tracking a tiny dot that zips around your scope and having to time your charge perfectly to avoid structures with said target using activated & static dodge?

 

So much this. When someone gets owned by a gunship, they just assume that what the gunship was doing was just that easy. We have pilots who are better at scout and pilots that are better at gunship- the skill sets are related, of course, but they are not the same.

[DEATHICIDE]

OP:

Im going to go out on a limb here and assume you are comparing maybe a pike to a flashfire:

 

Flashfires have one loadout cooldown that highly increases damage output, and one crew cooldown that punches through 65% of shields, plus the burst cannon have "ignore 100% of armor" as one of its options in the tree.

 

You get into a FF and pop all your cooldowns at the same time, get in close range with burst, and yeah you are going to see some scary, dare I say broken things happen with that set up.

 

Comparing to the pike, we have tracking penalty to consider, we do not have anything ignoring armor in the weapon tree, we have no loadout cooldown, and chances are that because of this, the active crewskill ability selected is not HK's shield piercing cooldown, and is more likely something else.

 

At the end of the day, if you want an accurate comparison, you are going to have to do this yourself, without the use of cooldowns, and make a point not to choose ignore 100% of armor in the burst laser's tree.

 

Now you will see that burst are only useful at extremely close range, and the quads suddenly have the edge in everything aside from a turning dogfight.

 

I would say that the issue here is not with the baseline of either weapon, it is the ability to use a certain loadout configuration that can greatly change the effectiveness that one ship has access to, while the other does not.

 

This is being, in my opinion mildly, addressed in next weeks patch, which should lower the crazy burst cannon numbers somewhat.

[Armonddd]

Im going to go out on a limb here and assume you are comparing maybe a pike to a flashfire:

 

Flashfires get quads too, FYI.

 

Flashfires have one loadout cooldown that highly increases damage output, and one crew cooldown that punches through 65% of shields, plus the burst cannon have "ignore 100% of armor" as one of its options in the tree.

 

This is laughably incorrect. Bypass is 35% shield penetration, not 65%, and none of these options are necessarily used at all. I personally use none of them on my favorite build.

 

You get into a FF and pop all your cooldowns at the same time, get in close range with burst, and yeah you are going to see some scary, dare I say broken things happen with that set up.

 

This is also laughably incorrect. Blowing all your cooldowns at the same time is a great way to not have something available when you need it, and most cooldowns are countered by going evasive for some seconds.

 

Comparing to the pike, we have tracking penalty to consider, we do not have anything ignoring armor in the weapon tree, we have no loadout cooldown, and chances are that because of this, the active crewskill ability selected is not HK's shield piercing cooldown, and is more likely something else.

 

At the end of the day, if you want an accurate comparison, you are going to have to do this yourself, without the use of cooldowns, and make a point not to choose ignore 100% of armor in the burst laser's tree.

 

Now you will see that burst are only useful at extremely close range, and the quads suddenly have the edge in everything aside from a turning dogfight.

 

This is unrelated to the OP's concern that the DPS of burst cannons was not, in practice, equal to that of the tooltip DPS. This concern was mostly caused by confusion over whether the tooltip showed damage per second values or damage per shot values. Also, HK-51 does not get bypass. (I'm really starting to wonder whether you've been playing GSF on a modified private server or something.)

 

I would say that the issue here is not with the baseline of either weapon, it is the ability to use a certain loadout configuration that can greatly change the effectiveness that one ship has access to, while the other does not.

 

This is being, in my opinion mildly, addressed in next weeks patch, which should lower the crazy burst cannon numbers somewhat.

 

Blaster overcharge isn't available on pikes, true. However, as above, that's not what the OP was talking about. Also, if you had been reading any of the forums you post in, you would know that the next patch isn't touching burst cannons at all - it's changing bypass, and largely because of railguns.

[Verain]

While blowing your cooldowns at the same time is vulnerable to an opponent who LOSes, escapes, or goes invincible, none of that matters. It is still sometimes correct to blow them all at the same time, and at other times correct not to. Certainly, it is very powerful to have that many cooldowns to blow in the first place, whether you are stacking them in a multiplicative fashion or not!

[DEATHICIDE]

Yes armonddd:

That is why I said I was going out on a limb.

 

I have asked around what most FF players are doing for their assault and it is doing what I mentioned above, and tonnes of other players are falling hook line and sinker for the combo, and can only tell that they are being smoked by burst cannons.

 

The big issue to my understanding with the triple pop cooldown strategy here is the shield piercing + the bursts with armor pen, making the mild adjustment something that would lessen the effectiveness of this tactic, hence the perceived problem with burst cannons.

 

And I agree, it is a stupid way to go about it, when I encounter a scout more often than not I bait them into this triple pop, bust away until it wears off, then turn around and eat them for dinner.

 

That doesn't mean most players out there are wise to it, nor that this wasn't what the OP was actually wondering, as OP did not specify, I was just rolling the dice.

[Verain]

Pulling the OP flashfire into the convo versus the weaker strikes is very much an assumption though. If the Starguard had access to burst laser cannons, I think we agree that almost everyone would run that as one of their guns, right?

 

Only two ships have burst laser cannon. One of them is the flashfire, who also has quads. The BLC are generally very superior.

[DEATHICIDE]

Pulling the OP flashfire into the convo versus the weaker strikes is very much an assumption though. If the Starguard had access to burst laser cannons, I think we agree that almost everyone would run that as one of their guns, right?

 

Only two ships have burst laser cannon. One of them is the flashfire, who also has quads. The BLC are generally very superior.

 

Totally.

But why else would someone raise the question then is what I was thinking.

 

From my own experimentation, quads are just as effective as burst cannons unless you stack complete packages on to them.

 

I use quads on my pike, bursts on my gunship, and light lasers on the scout. I have a character on a server aside from my main however that is trying out the burst+flashfire loadout, and I do not see what all the fuss is about.

Unless I conform to what I am told is the Fotm scout loadout, then I can see 3 seconds of the burst cannon looking like it is the king of guns, hence the diceroll.

 

Clarification: I play all the ships in the game, I am not a scout hater, I am not a Gunship lover.

I am a strike fighter lover. Thats why going out on a limb to me, seemed like at least a 50/50 of answering this for OP. If not, maybe it could illuminate the mystery of burst cannons for others just a little bit, being the real danger is bursts + cooldowns, not bursts on their own, and I don't think they are better at damaging a ship than Quads from my playing experience without the CDs, only different.

Edited February 2, 2014 by DEATHICIDE

[dancezwithnubz]

my $0.02.....

 

Bursts and rocket pods are the two weapons in GSF that give the most rewards for skill.

 

if you're a 'spray and pray' type player, Bursts aren't for you. If you're a bit better at lining up your shots, then Bursts > all.

 

One thing worth mentioning, the damage on Bursts drops off rapidly once you get beyond point blank range.

[Zharik]

my $0.02.....

 

Bursts and rocket pods are the two weapons in GSF that give the most rewards for skill.

 

if you're a 'spray and pray' type player, Bursts aren't for you. If you're a bit better at lining up your shots, then Bursts > all.

 

One thing worth mentioning, the damage on Bursts drops off rapidly once you get beyond point blank range.

 

And ironically, I find that using rapid-fire lasers are the ones that require more "skill", but to each his own!

[Verain]

Yea, there is no way that BLC "requires the most skill", or even, for that matter, rocket pods.

 

BLC in particular involves a target who has relatively little lateral movement, but you do need to maneuver to get into position. This is very much similar to all the close ranged weapons, but BLC has a low rate of fire- which is generally advantageous. Yes, if all you need is 100 damage to score a kill, a rapid fire laser will probably get that with less effort- but to get up to 800 damage or so requires you fly very carefully to hold a bead on them for so long.

 

Meanwhile, rocket pods are a second type of blaster, essentially. You can't effortlessly los them like you can a missile lock, and while the targeting area for, say, cluster missiles is quite generous, there is still a lockon time.

 

None of these things lack skill to land, but none of them stand out that much IMO. In particular the rewards for BLC seem to outweigh the effort by a bit.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Verain

[Mikla]

OP:

Im going to go out on a limb here and assume you are comparing maybe a pike to a flashfire:

 

Flashfires have one loadout cooldown that highly increases damage output, and one crew cooldown that punches through 65% of shields, plus the burst cannon have "ignore 100% of armor" as one of its options in the tree.

 

You get into a FF and pop all your cooldowns at the same time, get in close range with burst, and yeah you are going to see some scary, dare I say broken things happen with that set up.

 

Comparing to the pike, we have tracking penalty to consider, we do not have anything ignoring armor in the weapon tree, we have no loadout cooldown, and chances are that because of this, the active crewskill ability selected is not HK's shield piercing cooldown, and is more likely something else.

 

At the end of the day, if you want an accurate comparison, you are going to have to do this yourself, without the use of cooldowns, and make a point not to choose ignore 100% of armor in the burst laser's tree.

 

Now you will see that burst are only useful at extremely close range, and the quads suddenly have the edge in everything aside from a turning dogfight.

 

I would say that the issue here is not with the baseline of either weapon, it is the ability to use a certain loadout configuration that can greatly change the effectiveness that one ship has access to, while the other does not.

 

This is being, in my opinion mildly, addressed in next weeks patch, which should lower the crazy burst cannon numbers somewhat.

 

Just to clarify I'm basing the question on my experience in the flash fire using tier 4 versions of quads and burst laser. The difference is chalk and cheese. Try it, a sustained burst with quads seems inconsequential compared to a sustained burst of the BLC.

[DEATHICIDE]

Just to clarify I'm basing the question on my experience in the flash fire using tier 4 versions of quads and burst laser. The difference is chalk and cheese. Try it, a sustained burst with quads seems inconsequential compared to a sustained burst of the BLC.

 

Here is how I based my not better, just different conclusion:

 

Start approaching gunship who did not see you coming, the second you can begin to fire, unload with your quads while flying towards it, now repeat with the burst hopefully shortly after.

 

Burst only wins in that 500 range, and when you take into account gameplay VS stationary targets, getting in that 500 zone happens a tonne less, and the more reliably frequent target distances favor the quad cannons.

 

I suppose it falls on the fact that burst success boils down to contingencies more often than the quads will by virtue of their dmg/distance/tracking ratios.

 

I admit, I do not have tier 4 quads on the Flashfire, but I do have tier 4 burst on the flashfire and mastered quads on the pike, and I have tried playing quads vs burst, and aside from popping cooldowns at close range, I just don't see burst being able to damage an actual moving opponent any better than the quads.

 

I will grant you this though, with the right build in the state things currently are in, burst has much more potential, but does that make stand alone burst better than stand alone quads??