Rapid fire laser cannon completely useless

[Bolo_Yeung]

Eh?? Maybe because that's what you should do with every single weapon??? Shooting when you won't hit isn't very bright.

 

As I said before - shooting when you won't hit isn't bright. Shooting when you have a "small chance of hit" is different... sure, in open space fight it sucks, but near sat it is actually useful.

And fun

[Verain]

Some of these just make me so cross.

 

Some of you guys look at the math, figure it's still ok, and want to run with them. That's fine. As I'm sure you can seem from my thread, I'm a big fan of the weapon- I just think there's no payback.

 

Because there isn't.

 

But then I see stuff like:

 

Using accuracy rates with RFL is kinda pointless. It's like saying a gatling gun is useless because it misses the majority of shots. The idea is that whoever fires the most shots hits the most targets. RFL's issue is that it doesn't hit hard enough for the 'spray and pray' to be useful

 

Which is CORRECT (mostly). In fact, if the average case with RFLs made their case, it would be fine, and no one would care about their accuracy.

 

The issue is, the dps on the weapon is typical to low. You are projecting YOUR intention of the weapon (that it's a gatling gun) onto the weapon. You see the rapid fire, and figure the low dps is the oversight. That's fine, and if they fixed it like you said, the gun would be that thing, and I'd be thrilled. But... you could claim that the dps is correct, and it needs other reasons to use it. You could claim that the accuracy should be ramped up high, to reward the few players who can meaningfully get a really high hit percent with the gun, because that alone would make it at least have some role (Nemarus likes this fix).

 

So, maybe it's a gatling gun with the damage tuned low. Or maybe it's a series of weak shots that should not be dissuaded by evasion. Or whatever. When you see that the gun is lacking, it becomes hard to divine the intent and then suggest a solution that goes along with it. Maybe the devs will look at it and thing "...people would use this if we only reduced the cost of its firing mechanism more..." or something.

 

Baseline lights range from 980ish to 640ish from short to long range. Baseline rapids from 860ish to 620ish. They have like, the same skill tree too. And lights shoot pretty fast too! Baseline bursts go from 930ish to 470ish. Clearly a big drop off at high range. And accuracy, the lights and the rapids start ok, and then the rapids falls off faster. The bursts predictably start higher than both, and lower than both.

 

Meanwhile, you can ALSO check out the dps value of quads (850ish to 640ish), lasers (800 to 550ish), and even the unique heavies (750ish to 630ish).

 

So, while they play like the "rapid machine gun" archetype, their damage is entirely average, their range poor, and their accuracy low.

 

Why bring up accuracy? At a glance, one sees they have a low tracking penalty. The only reason we are on accuracy is that many players believe that's a feature of the gun. Maybe not on this page of the thread, but in general.

 

Anyway, if they made rapids into what you want, I'd be pretty happy. The dps would have to be HIGHER than ALL OTHER GUNS though. Light lasers is already arguably this niche, though, I wouldn't make that argument.

 

Rapids have this going for them from a game design standpoint- they are VERY hard to use compared to all other lasers. By carrying almost no "charge" they reward a flight style that involves sticking to a target and actually holding a cursor over a resisting opponent, with no "click to damage" mechanic. It's essentially a solid stream of pain, and you have to play it like that and make flying decisions like that. That part is great, but the downside is, if played perfectly, it's still worse than the others. If they made it so that perfect RFL play was optimal, especially versus targets where you had a skill delta in your favor, then you'd have a pretty big argument for it. You'd be like "I can't shoot down the scouts of equal skill (or, if you are a top player, then just the top scouts) because they only get hit twice, but everyone I'm better than poofs away in vapor", and that would be a great argument.

 

But it isn't that gun.

 

BLC are extremely inaccurate outside of bursting people down from pointblank range.

 

That's not even true. Lets assume you have an accuracy crewman (of course) and talent points spent (also yes).

At point blank range, bursts have 123% accuracy. The tracking penalty at this range (500 or 550, depending on your cap) needs to be 10 degrees before it changes at all. 10 degrees is a huge arc for this kind of thing. At 20 degrees, the accuracy at point blank is 118%. Rapids max at 116% accuracy, and under those conditions are at 105%.

 

Ok, lets move out of point blank range. Lets go all the way out to 3000m, remembering that this is all linear between those. At 3000m at 10 degrees of arc, BLC are at 93% accuracy. A huge fall off. RFL at that range and deflection are at 88%, however. So even at mid range, and with a SHOCKING fall off of accuracy, BLC are still ahead of rapids here.

 

And of course, you are absolutely more able to take the snap shots with BLC. You are able to take more sub 1000m shots. Remember, if you take a snap shot at 700m with BLC, that's the equivalent of holding that range for over 1.2 seconds. You might only be in that golden spot for half a second, but because you have so much "charge" on each shot, it's as if you had held it there for that whole time. RFL you pretty much need to hold that range and everything for that whole time.

 

So no, BLC doesn't become inaccurate at high range or high deflection. It takes really odd situations for BLC to be less accurate that LLC or RFL, even with its huge falloff of damage and accuracy, and that's before factoring in exactly how good it is to be able to essentially take three to four shots at once, every time.

 

The reason for "HURRRRRR....70% accur-macy!"

 

Ok, how about you go HURRRR accur-macy with BLC then? If it's so HURRRR you should be pulling those numbers, right, with that gun? And also, lets not forget- even if we discount accuracy, the proof is in the dps, and we know that BLC with 100% perfectly aimed shots will outdamage RFL at 100% perfectly aimed shots... even if a lower number- say 20% RFL accuracy- translates to 35% BLC accuracy (a higher number) in terms of skill required, we know the RFL will deal a lot less damage, because its baseline dps is roughly equal to BLC, but it has a bunch of restrictions on its use.

 

The same logic there also applies to all other lasers. I could make that point with quads or lasers.

 

is that burst scouts will usually hold their fire until they're aligned and in the opponent's face, with TT and Wingman up.

 

Burst scouts will take every shot given them. Yes, they often use cooldowns correctly, but you'll do the same cooldowns with an RFL scout and get less results. Sure, the BLC scout might not take an edge shot at max range that you WOULD take with RFL (because RFL has such a low power draw), but these shots are in the minority and have such a small amount of expected damage that they have almost no game impact. Most of the time, if you are in a position to use BLC, you do.

 

As I said before - shooting when you won't hit isn't bright. Shooting when you have a "small chance of hit" is different... sure, in open space fight it sucks, but near sat it is actually useful.

 

Agreed, and RFL, with their low cost, encourage this play. This would in fact lower your accuracy, but actually up your average damage, because a few of those shots will connect. There's nothing wrong with that model, but RFLs don't reward. When I play quads on a strike, I take almost every shot offered, because some hit and I have more energy than I do time on target. When I play quads on a scout, I line up shots more because I'm on the target a lot more and lack a magazine.

[Squatdog_nz]

I'm looking at the tooltips for my RFL Bloodmark and BLC Sting.

 

At 3000m:

 

RFL Bloodmark - 1082 DPS to hull, 91% accuracy, 295 RPM

 

BLC Sting - 834 DPS to hull, 93% accuracy, 80 RPM

 

Am I missing something here?

[Ardaneb]

I'm looking at the tooltips for my RFL Bloodmark and BLC Sting.

 

At 3000m:

 

RFL Bloodmark - 1082 DPS to hull, 91% accuracy, 295 RPM

 

BLC Sting - 834 DPS to hull, 93% accuracy, 80 RPM

 

Am I missing something here?

 

Two things:

1. Tracking penalty. The more off center the target is, the more it will favor the burst lasers, which have a lower tracking penalty.

2. Damage per shot. The burst lasers have almost three times the damage per shot. Thus, you can wait until the target is about to cross the center of your firing arc and take one instantaneous shot instead of holding the target there for about a second to get 3 shots.

3. 1 + 2. This allows you a higher probability of landing a single, larger shot at the edge of your firing arc. Larger shots are less likely to be eaten up by the target's shields. This is why burst lasers are so good on a satellite.

[Squatdog_nz]

Two things:

1. Tracking penalty. The more off center the target is, the more it will favor the burst lasers, which have a lower tracking penalty.

2. Damage per shot. The burst lasers have almost three times the damage per shot. Thus, you can wait until the target is about to cross the center of your firing arc and take one instantaneous shot instead of holding the target there for about a second to get 3 shots.

3. 1 + 2. This allows you a higher probability of landing a single, larger shot at the edge of your firing arc. Larger shots are less likely to be eaten up by the target's shields. This is why burst lasers are so good on a satellite.

 

RFL have well over three times the rate over fire, which results in MUCH better real world damage application against a crossing target.

 

This is the difference between theory-crafting and reality.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Squatdog_nz

[caederon]

RFL have well over three times the rate over fire, which results in MUCH better real world damage application against a crossing target.

 

This is the difference between theory-crafting and reality.

Doesn't there come a point when you look and see that experienced people who play the game a great deal are saying you're wrong, point out the ways in which you are wrong, and back that up with actual data, and then think to yourself 'perhaps I should re-evaluate my opinion?'

 

There is a reason why top scout pilots are not zooming around with RFL tearing up the leaderboards. The reason is because the weapon is worse than the alternatives, by a large margin. I've even been using them lately, on a whim, just because I am bored enough to do that. And they don't kill things, because in actual real world non-theorycrafting practice, it is not easy to hold your damage hose spraying on a target long enough to kill it unless that target is flown by a poor pilot. And in that case BLC or quads would have finished the job much faster.

 

- Despon

[Ardaneb]

This is the difference between theory-crafting and reality.

 

I think I may have discovered the disconnect. Could you post those screen shots again? This time don't crop them so that we can see the lasers that you are using. I am concerned that you have rapid fire lasers confused with another type of laser, since you are citing real world evidence.

 

Why did you ask a theory-crafting question then dismiss it as theory-crafting? By the way, your answer is also theory-crafting, just done with more capital letters and less understanding of tracking penalty.

 

A real-world answer would involve a video of you successfully landing shots on a well flown ship flying straight across your bow. Of course, you would have to fly the rapids for the whole match against a good player. Please. Please. I want to see it. It will revolutionize the game. We could call it the Yeti maneuver.

[Squatdog_nz]

Doesn't there come a point when you look and see that experienced people who play the game a great deal are saying you're wrong, point out the ways in which you are wrong, and back that up with actual data, and then think to yourself 'perhaps I should re-evaluate my opinion?'

 

There is a reason why top scout pilots are not zooming around with RFL tearing up the leaderboards. The reason is because the weapon is worse than the alternatives, by a large margin. I've even been using them lately, on a whim, just because I am bored enough to do that. And they don't kill things, because in actual real world non-theorycrafting practice, it is not easy to hold your damage hose spraying on a target long enough to kill it unless that target is flown by a poor pilot. And in that case BLC or quads would have finished the job much faster.

 

- Despon

 

In my original post I specifically stated that RFL AREN'T THAT BAD (ie: aren't 'completely useless' as per thread title) but NEED A BUFF.

 

You seem to be getting very upset and confused.

[caederon]

You seem to be getting very upset and confused.

I'm neither upset nor confused. You've been making arguments through this thread that are flat out wrong. You've demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of situations where burst lasers are really very good, and operate with great efficiency. You've been dismissive and mocking of clear explanations that point out the flaws in your reasoning. If you're going to promote the opinion that RFLs 'aren't that bad' then at least try to come up with some sort of argument that passes basic scrutiny.

 

There's no time which I would choose RFLs over any other laser if my goal was to fly competitively. It lacks even a single compelling reason to use it over any alternative. And the worst thing is that it's the first laser that a lot of beginners are forced to use by default. In my opinion, that's indefensible.

 

- Despon

[Archonitek]

In my original post I specifically stated that RFL AREN'T THAT BAD (ie: aren't 'completely useless' as per thread title) but NEED A BUFF.

 

I love rfls but I think the problem here is that when listed in terms of usefulness rapids are rated at the bottom of the list of available lasers, so while they're not complete ***, the fact that there are 3-4 other better (not alternative) choices that you can pick from make them redundant.

 

RFL buff ftw.

[Verain]

I'm looking at the tooltips for my RFL Bloodmark and BLC Sting.

 

At 3000m:

 

RFL Bloodmark - 1082 DPS to hull, 91% accuracy, 295 RPM

 

BLC Sting - 834 DPS to hull, 93% accuracy, 80 RPM

 

Am I missing something here?

 

You are missing a whole lot.

 

First, 3000m is a pretty long range for both of those lasers. You've probably chosen it either for that reason, or because it's pretty accessible (it's a tooltip value, after all).

 

Notes: You are looking at the 0 deflection, 3000m range mastered of both, with frequency capacitor.

 

 

RFL:

 

You shoot 4.92 shots per second. Each shot, if it hits (does not crit, does not miss) a target with no damage reduction, deals 220 damage to hull, or 190 to shields. This represents the listed 1082 or 933 dps.

Accuracy at 0 deflection and 3000m: 91%

Chance to crit: 0%

 

LLC:

 

You shoot 3.69 shots per second. Each shot, if it hits (does not crit, does not miss) a target with no damage reduction, deals 313 damage to hull, or 270 to shields. This represents the listed 1154 or 995 dps.

Accuracy at 0 deflection and 3000m: 91%

Chance to crit: 0%

 

BLC:

 

You shoot 1.53 shots per second. Each shot, if it hits (does not crit, does not miss) any target, deals 571 damage to hull, or 492 to shields. This represents the listed 876 or 755 dps.

Accuracy at 0 deflection and 3000m: 93%

Chance to crit: 5%

 

First, there's the obvious assumptions. Armor is not being considered, and everyone has that except for scouts. We're assuming a hit, but not a crit. You're quoting 0 deflection numbers, while talking about tracking enemies across the screen, so that's a huge disconnect.

 

But lets get to that in a moment. Lets instead talk about this golden case- this highly unlikely case- where the enemy is just SITTING THERE and has no armor (the very common "afk scout"). You don't have to take deflection shots (the deflection shots mess up RFL super hard while not bothering BLC), you can't take any closer shots (where BLC just smokes the competition), and you aren't worried about missing (where BLC gets even more credit).

 

 

Time 0:

BLC: 571

LLC: 313

RFL: 220

Summary: At the initial snap, the BLC takes a commanding lead.

 

Time 0.2:

BLC: 571

LLC: 313

RFL: 444

Summary: After connecting twice, the RFL has a small edge over LLC and is behind BLC still.

 

Time 0.27:

BLC: 571

LLC: 626

RFL: 444

Summary: A quarter second in, LLC takes a small lead over BLC. RFL remains in last place.

 

Time: 0.41:

BLC: 571

LLC: 626

RFL: 666

Summary: At almost half a second of the armorless target who you can't miss being directly under your face, at a terrible range choice for all these weapons, RFL takes a small lead. Note: This situation is NOT representative. RFL takes MUCH longer than this, as we will see in a moment.

 

Time: About 0.6

BLC: 571

LLC: 939

RFL: 888

Summary: At 600 milliseconds on target, LLC leads RFL, and both have a decent lead over BLC.

 

Time: .65

BLC: 1142

LLC: 939

RFL: 888

Summary: The time delta between 600 and 650 milliseconds is small. At 650 milliseconds on target, the BLC is again top damage. This is after hitting twice. In order to be even CLOSE, the RFL has to have connected four times, and the LLC three times.

 

Now, if you continue- if you sit here for a LONG time, way longer than any ship has health- you'll eventually see that small edge that the tooltip implies to you. DPS implies S goes to infinity, after all. But look at this! Just look!

 

From time 0 to about half a second, BLC was in the lead or about equal. From time 0.6 to 0.65 (50ms), BLC was behind a bit. But at time 0.65, when BLC gets that second shot, it suddenly IS IN FRONT AGAIN. It keeps that lead for awhile too.

 

 

It is MORE damage per second, over the course of almost all reasonable engagement windows. If the enemy flies across your screen, BLC takes one shot near the middle, and usually hits, and does good damage. RFL has to start tracking, and unless the enemy takes several seconds- plural- to make this track, the RFL won't even be in the same league.

 

 

This- with nothing else- is the biggest problem when comparing tooltips. The burst situation is very common, and a fight versus many enemies involves walking in and out of this mode. Each time you engage, your weapon has a "charge". This is because your first hit doesn't require you to "wind up"- it is as if you deliver a wad of damage equal to your firing rate, instantly. In the case of BLC, this is around 2/3rds of a second of "charge" . In the case of RFL, it is around 1/5th of a second of "charge". Other lasers are in the middle. Since you spend so many shots in this situation, it is big. And it doesn't go away instantly, or ever after a small amount of time.

 

What is it like after, say, 3.2 to 3.3 seconds? That's a good long volley, and also around the time we have a nice integer number of shots from RFL and BLC. Specifically, at this three second volley (full uptime, and you don't even miss once), you've had a chance to shoot 17 RFL shots, and 6 BLC shots.

 

The infinite case has that 1082 for RFL and the 876 for BLC. The infinite case, (with all these other impossible nonsense assumptions to favor BLC, lets go ahead and assume infinite time), is 1082 / 876 = 1.24. RFL dealing 24% extra damage compared to BLC, straight from the tooltip.

 

How much with that 3.2 to 3.3 range? Which is almost infinity is GSF.

220 * 17 = 3740 (RFL)

571 * 6 = 3426 (BLC)

3740 / 3426 = 9% more.

 

The 24% advantage you saw in the tooltip is, over the coures of a 3.2 second burst, only a 9% advantage. It would need to grow VERY close to infinity to actually catch that straight divided value.

 

Do you see? In the case where both ships spend time on target, ANY amount of time, the BLC's first shot credits it with an extra 0.4 seconds of dps, roughly- the RFL starts with 0.2 seconds or so, the BLC with around 0.65 seconds.

 

 

 

Now lets briefly consider a more realistic scenario, though you should already have realized your claim that BLCs are inaccurate at this range, and hit softly, to be utter and complete bunk.

 

 

First, lets assume a moderate amount of tracking. Most shots are taken, especially with close range weapons, at some amount of deflection. We'll assume a moderate 12 degrees of deflection. Second, lets assume a couple enemies:

 

1- Strike fighter with evasion armor.

3- Gunship with evasion armor and distortion field. The field is not active.

3- Scout with evasion armor and distortion field. The field is not active.

 

I think we don't need to discuss the bomber case, even without charged plating.

 

 

First, lets figure out the chance of hitting before evasion. 12 degrees gives penalties to hit- 6% for BLC, 9.6 for RFL, 12 for LLC. Then lets take the 5% accuracy talent (the reason that the LLC and the RFL don't have crit is that they take this instead of that). But all have the talent- they ignore the first 5% of tracking penalty. That reduces the penalty to 1% for BLC, 4.6% for RFL, and 7% for LLC.

 

This yields the following base accuracies at 3000m and 12 degrees deflection:

BLC: 92 (93-1)

LLC: 89 (96-7)

RFL: 81.4 (91-9.6)

 

Only one gun here is inaccurate at this range, and it isn't the damned BLCs. In fact, it is, to the surprise of no one who did this math, RFL. Again, you didn't even talk about a small range like 12 degrees, you talked about tracking the enemy across the arc. That makes things MUCH worse for RFL.

 

The strike fighter with evasion armor has an evasion of 19% and reduces hull damage by 5%.

 

So, lets multiply the hull dps (again, pretending that weapons deal "dps" instead of "damage" really masks how bad RFL is, so it's a huge assumption in favor of the RFL) to figure out what's going on versus the strike:

 

BLC: 655 dps = (876 dps) * (.92-.19) * (1.025 [5% crit adds 2.5% damage]) * 1 [no damage reduction]

RFL: 641 dps = (1082 dps) * (.814-.19) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from strike fighter base class stats]

RFL with crit talent: 613 dps = (1082 dps) * (.764-.19) * 1.04 [8% crit adds 4% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from strike fighter base class stats]

LLC: 807 dps = (1154 dps) * (.89-.19) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from strike fighter base class stats]

 

BLC is more accurate, and does more damage, at this reasonable deflection and relatively longe range, than RFL. This assumes that your time on target is very high- if you are less than half a second, BLC is ahead of everyone. If you are there for 2/3rds of a second but less than 1.1 seconds, BLC again is ahead of everyone. If you stick on them long enough, LLC will eventually win, and in order to do this, it has to show a VERY healthy lead over the long game. But RFL loses over this long game. It starts the game behind, and then gets FURTHER behind, because its average damage is lower than BLCs, even under situations chosen to favor it heavily.

 

Because it's bad.

 

Ok, gunship with evasion armor and disto field has evasion of 23% and reduces hull damage by 5%.

 

BLC: 620 dps = (876 dps) * (.92-.23) * (1.025 [5% crit adds 2.5% damage]) * 1 [no damage reduction]

RFL: 600 dps = (1082 dps) * (.814-.23) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from gunship class stats]

RFL with crit talent: 570 dps = (1082 dps) * (..764-.23) * 1.04 [8% crit adds 4% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from gunship class stats]

LLC: 723 dps = (1154 dps) * (.89-.23) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage] * (0.95) [5% damage reduction from gunship class stats]

 

Again, RFL loses. Remember, RFL would need a substantial edge in average damage to make up for starting the fight with an average opening volley of 122 (in this number, I factored in the miss and armor- the 220 would definitely be hurt by armor, and has a miss chance to reduce it further), while the BLC opens the volley with an average first hit of 394. It will take a very long time for the RFL to catch its average dps- which, again, is lower than BLC, and much lower than LLC.

 

 

Finally, the scout with evasion armor has 33$ evasion and does not reduce incoming hull damage.

 

BLC: 529 dps = (876 dps) * (.92-.33) * (1.025 [5% crit adds 2.5% damage])

RFL: 524 dps = (1082 dps) * (.814-.33) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage]

RFL with crit talent: 488 dps = (1082 dps) * (.764-.33) * 1.04 [8% crit adds 4% damage]

LLC: 646 dps = (1154 dps) * (.89-.33) * 1 [0% crit adds 0% damage]

 

 

Without the hull to mess things up, and with a higher base dps, RFL, over infinite time, only loses out slowly to BLC. But that's over infinite time- over practical times, listed above, it's still not even close. And it's still not more: the average dps in this case is STILL in favor of BLC. Oh, and LLC remains a lot more damage per second.

 

 

LLC is better than RFL, period. BLC isn't really playing the same game, but, if you want him to, he just kicks over RFL in the average damage game (which you seemed to imply was better), the accuracy game (where he really shines), the tracking-an-enemy-across-the-screen game (where he's roughly quadruple damage on average), and, of course, he's much easier to use to actually hit a target who isn't sitting still.

 

 

And all this at 3000m- if you can even once get closer, BLC takes the lead so commandingly it's ludicrous.

 

Oh, and all of this also burdened BLC with frequency capacitor. While a higher dps, you normally want range or burst, because that credits you with even more time. That 0.4 second thing is what you get with frequency BLC versus frequency rapids. Burst in these examples hits for that 571 damage, and will shoot again at time 0.65. If you instead take damage capacitor (or better yet, range, see my calcs in Stasiepedia), you bring 628 damage, and you have to wait longer (about 0.75 seconds instead of 0.65). Essentially, you can carry 0.75 seconds of charge instead of 0.65 seconds of charge.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Verain

[RatPoison]

You forgot the:

 

~ drops mic ~

[StrixHiraeth]

I will continue to use RFL sometimes. Because freaking laser gatling guns are cool, no other reason. (okay, it's also because I enjoy the challenge of using a weaker weapon)

 

That is a very informative breakdown, Verain. Even if it does illustrate that yet more tooltips are misleading/wrong... (iirc the tooltip on mouseover shows that the dps goes LLC > RFL > BLC when they have the same level of upgrades... I could be mistaken though).

Edited April 16, 2015 by Ymris

[Verain]

It's not that the tooltips are wrong. The dps value can't account for armor (it's enemy ship specific), accuracy (it lists accuracy separately, but your actual chance to hit depends on your accuracy value minus their evasion, so it's also enemy ship specific), and it completely ignores the fact that the damage graph doesn't start at the origin- it's steady state dps.

 

The problem is in reading the dps value while forgetting all the other stuff!

[nyghtrunner]

It's not that the tooltips are wrong. The dps value can't account for armor (it's enemy ship specific), accuracy (it lists accuracy separately, but your actual chance to hit depends on your accuracy value minus their evasion, so it's also enemy ship specific), and it completely ignores the fact that the damage graph doesn't start at the origin- it's steady state dps.

 

The problem is in reading the dps value while forgetting all the other stuff!

Nitpicky, but I'd also add that it's a problem because unlike Op boss fights, you don't care a whit about sustained DPS. Burst damage is all that really matters, and the question that needs answering is, "How quickly can I do X damage?", not "how much damage do I need to sustain in order to take X down?"

 

It's insanely telling that, while something like LLC has a quoted DPS (even at max range) of 624, the DPS record for a game, as per the 2.8 records thread, is 279, done by Tomm, who's an absolute anomaly when it comes to GSF (or maybe prodigy would be better description?). When it comes to GSF, DPS in the tool tip is a largely meaningless number when comparing weapons. The 3 things that matter are accuracy, rate of fire, and damage per hit. I think it would be much more beneficial if the tool tips listed a base damage/hit, unadjusted for armor or shields, rather than a DPS number. The only one that "feels" accurate to me is the railgun, and that's because the DPS number is for an unaltered hit from full charge, which isn't really the DPS of a railgun when considering charge up time and such. With that in consideration, the DPS drops from 1600 to something like 470. That's DPS from start of charge to shot, and doesn't even take into account the cannon CD.

 

EDIT - Just looked at the charge time, and it's 3s, not the 3.7 I was thinking of. I guess I was confusing it with the 2.7 after the first upgrade, which means the DPS from charge to shot is instead 592.5 with the 1st tier upgrade, and 533.3 with no upgrades. That's still considerably lower, and I would say, more accurate, than the flat 1600 DPS number in the tool tip.

Edited April 16, 2015 by nyghtrunner

[Verain]

The railgun thing is damage per shot, not damage per second.

 

When it comes to GSF, DPS in the tool tip is a largely meaningless number when comparing weapons.

 

It's not entirely meaningless. It's a start point for calculations. The dps number is "assuming you never miss and never crit, and are shooting a target with no damage reduction, this is the steady state damage". Every single one of those factors isn't realistic, of course. But the steady state assumption is the big deal- that's the part that is almost always missed.

 

Example, ignoring armor and accuracy entirely:

 

Weapon A deals 1000 dps. How much damage does it deal after 4 seconds? 10 seconds?

Weapon B deals 1000 dps. How much damage does it deal after 4 seconds? 10 seconds?

 

A naive assumption is to take 1000 times 10 and get 10000, and 1000 time 4 and gets 4000. The real thing is, you can't answer yet. These assumptions both represent graphs of the same slope (every second adds 1000 damage), but NEITHER cross the origin. Lets add:

 

Weapon A shoots once per second.

Weapon B shoots once every two seconds.

 

Weapon A's formula is now "opens with a shot for 1000, then shoots for 1000 every second". The average damage over non-infinite time is then:

1000 + 1000 * t / 1

Becoming:

1000 + 1000t

 

And Weapon B's formula is now:

2000 + 2000 * t / 2

Becoming:

2000 + 1000t

 

So after 4 seconds, weapon A has dealt 5000 damage, and weapon B has dealt 6000 damage.

After 10 seconds, weapon A has dealt 11000 damage, and weapon B has dealt 12000 damage.

 

They are two lines, with the same slope, but weapon A brought in one second's worth of "charge", letting it start at Y=1000, and weapon B brought in two second's worth of "charge", letting it start at Y=2000. In this example, weapon B will always have dealt 1000 more damage than weapon A...

 

Because in GSF you hardly ever get to approach true steady state damage, the rate of fire is both discrete and super important.

 

 

But, the damage isn't continuous either. At .8 seconds in, both have fired one shot, and B is at 2000 and A is at 1000. At time 1.9, A has fire twice, dealing 2000 damage, while B has fired once for 2000 damage.

 

Here's a fun experiment:

 

Weapon C fires a zillion billion times a second. It still deals 1000 dps on the tooltip, though.

Weapon D fires six times a minute. It still deals 1000 dps on the tooltip, though.

 

Weapon C ends up with this formula:

1000t

Because it fires so fast, the base damage is super trivial- we can round it to zero. But each shot is really tiny. This actually looks like the dps predicted by the "dps" stat- a line, with the dps as the slope, rising from the origin. At any point X, the corresponding Y tells you how much damage has been done- and in this case, it matches the steady state dps on the tooltip.

 

This means that the dps tooltips are for that infinite shoot case- certainly, no weapon fires infinitely fast, though RFL tries.

 

Meanwhile, shooting six times a minute means that your first shot will deal 10,000 damage. This means that if you had this weapon, you could one-shot anything, and then hide for 10 seconds and do it again.

 

 

The net effect is that weapons that shoot rapidly need to be balanced around that fact- they need higher base damage. Light laser fires fast, and it has the highest dps in the game baseline. The set of stuff yields a reasonably powerful weapon with some strengths and weaknesses. Rapid fire fires even faster, and doesn't have good other numbers to fall back on.

 

Firing rates:

 

Burst Laser Cannon:

80 shots per minute = one shot every 750 milliseconds (three quarters of a second).

One and one third of a shot every second

 

Heavy Laser Cannon:

120 shots per minute = one shot every 500 milliseconds (half a second).

Two shots every second

 

Quad Laser Cannon and Laser Cannon:

150 shots per minute = one shot every 400 milliseconds (two fifths of a second).

Two and a half shots every second

 

Light Laser Cannon:

180 shots per minute = one shot every 333 milliseconds (one third of a second).

Three shots every second

 

Rapid Fire Laser Cannon:

240 shots per minute = one shot every 250 milliseconds (one fourth of a second).

Four shots every second

 

 

If ALL of these weapons did 1000 dps:

At the START, rapids would have done 250, lights 333, quads and lasers 400, heavies 500, and bursts 750. Then, all would increase at the same average rate of 1000 every second. If at time 0, rapids have dealt 250 and heavies 400, such that heavies were ahead by 150, how much further would heavies be over rapids at one million minutes of firing? The answer is, that same 150. But over a million minutes, the damage of both guns would a ludicrous- one billion damage and 250 damage for the rapids, one billion and 400 damage for the heavies. They would look pretty similar.

 

But we don't get anywhere close in practice, to the uptime needed to ignore that initial "weapon charge" you bring to an encounter. Likewise, if a target escapes your reticule for half a second, rapid fires have lost a couple shots, but burst may have lost nothing at all- you are "borrowing" from your time off target, to deal damage ON target!