Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 16

Author Topic: Ship Tier List  (Read 190518 times)

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #165 on: April 16, 2018, 03:37:50 PM »

Less DPS on pulse lasers means I may take more hard flux from the enemy because it takes longer to wage the flux war.  The main advantage pulse laser has over heavy blaster is it much more common than heavy blaster.  Pulse laser is one of the staples readily available from black market (and loot from enemies).  Heavy blaster is a rare item that I would most likely get as loot from enemies that use it.

Whenever I play conventional high-tech ships, I need to max out dissipation and have very high capacitors just to have enough flux stats to win the flux war and have enough to flux to spare to continue attacking with energy weapons.  With I try pulse lasers vs. heavy blasters, I tend to do better with heavy blasters (provided I do not mount too many).  I still consider Heavy Blaster and Tactical Laser combo generally superior to two Pulse Lasers due to similar performance for less OP cost.  However, in practice, heavy blaster rarity interferes with that theory, and pulse lasers get used for the few small high-tech ships I have in my fleet (until endgame when I eschew high-tech entirely except for flagships I pilot).
Logged

xenoargh

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 5078
  • naively breaking things!
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #166 on: April 16, 2018, 05:06:25 PM »

Quote
I disagree most strongly about the Heavy Blaster, and consider it a powerful weapon. Just not all powerful.
Hey, in all fairness, it's not the worst gun in the game.  I just think it fails the, "if I had a Universal, I'd still use it" test.

Versus Armor, it's 500 damage for 720 Flux; Heavy Mortar delivers 440 for 180, with 100 more range, which is pretty much the sole use case where it outshines the Pulse Laser's nice steady 300 for 333.

I think that we can all agree that the Heavy Mortar's not exactly OP?
Logged
Please check out my SS projects :)
Xeno's Mod Pack

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3784
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #167 on: April 16, 2018, 05:14:07 PM »

Quote
I disagree most strongly about the Heavy Blaster, and consider it a powerful weapon. Just not all powerful.
Hey, in all fairness, it's not the worst gun in the game.  I just think it fails the, "if I had a Universal, I'd still use it" test.

Versus Armor, it's 500 damage for 720 Flux; Heavy Mortar delivers 440 for 180, with 100 more range, which is pretty much the sole use case where it outshines the Pulse Laser's nice steady 300 for 333.

I think that we can all agree that the Heavy Mortar's not exactly OP?
To be fair, the game is -balanced- around the notion that ballistic weapons are generally superior to energy weapons, so an energy weapon failing that test is, um, not really a good indicator of anything.

And then there's the fact that it -doesn't- fail that test; if you've got the dissipation to support the Heavy Blaster it's basically a large weapon that fits in a medium slot - the only similarly-sized weapons that can beat it for raw damage output are a torpedo launcher or harpoon pod.  And versus armor it's a hit strength of 500 versus the heavy mortar's 220; raw dps values are much less important for armor cracking than hit strength, so the heavy blaster pulls well ahead in that comparison.  (Maybe not 540 flux ahead, though - if -all- I was going for was armor-cracking potential, I'd mount a heavy mauler, phase beam, or heavy mortar before I'd look at a heavy blaster.  But the HB does bring more than just armor-cracking; it's also better dps versus shields than any medium kinetic weapon.)
« Last Edit: April 16, 2018, 05:51:22 PM by Wyvern »
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #168 on: April 16, 2018, 06:32:39 PM »

Heavy Blaster would be one of the few energy weapons I would put in a universal (medium) slot.  Before 0.8, Heavy Blaster for Heron would have been a good choice for brawling.  Today, Heavy Blaster is a possible option for Paragon if I want to use Heavy Blasters in all heavy and medium slots, and it is effective, if not optimal.  (Optimal for Paragon is probably quad lance and dual HVD.)

Pulse Laser, on the other hand, I would never put in a medium universal.  I would sooner put ballistics in.  Pulse laser is simply a ballistic gun with much less shot range.

In case of mods, the only energy weapon I might mount in a large universal is Tachyon Lance.  Anything else is beat by Mjolnir.

Quote
To be fair, the game is -balanced- around the notion that ballistic weapons are generally superior to energy weapons, so an energy weapon failing that test is, um, not really a good indicator of anything.
And that is bad.  Energy weapons should be different, not be outright inferior.  They should be good enough that they are a viable alternative for midline ships or non-high-tech with universals.  I would like non-beam and non-EMP energy weapons to have some advantage.  Even high-tech ships need overwhelming flux stats advantage to win flux wars with energy weapons.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2018, 06:37:07 PM by Megas »
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1886
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #169 on: April 16, 2018, 07:31:36 PM »

The ships that slots go on matter just as much as the weapons themselves. The only problem Heavy Blaster has is that 600 is not far enough for fleet range.  But if it could fire at fleet range it would be ridonk
Logged

xenoargh

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 5078
  • naively breaking things!
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #170 on: April 16, 2018, 08:13:31 PM »

Quote
Energy weapons should be different, not be outright inferior.
Exactly my point.  Look, the HB's not awful for the ships it's put on.  But the ships have to make it work.  I honestly think the game would've been better from the start without the concept of Energy Slots; it's caused no end of balancing headaches.
Logged
Please check out my SS projects :)
Xeno's Mod Pack

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #171 on: April 16, 2018, 09:37:08 PM »

Quote
Energy weapons should be different, not be outright inferior.
Exactly my point.  Look, the HB's not awful for the ships it's put on.  But the ships have to make it work.  I honestly think the game would've been better from the start without the concept of Energy Slots; it's caused no end of balancing headaches.

In my opinion this is exactly how it should be! There is skill in making a loadout, not just plopping on the best weapons regardless of ships.

And while we vets all think we've figured it out, I note that we all keep coming up with different loadouts...

Quote
I disagree most strongly about the Heavy Blaster, and consider it a powerful weapon. Just not all powerful.
Hey, in all fairness, it's not the worst gun in the game.  I just think it fails the, "if I had a Universal, I'd still use it" test.

Versus Armor, it's 500 damage for 720 Flux; Heavy Mortar delivers 440 for 180, with 100 more range, which is pretty much the sole use case where it outshines the Pulse Laser's nice steady 300 for 333.

I think that we can all agree that the Heavy Mortar's not exactly OP?

I agree the Heavy Mortar is not OP, but it is actually a good weapon due to its good firepower and low OP, as long as you don't try to fight frigates with it. Not Heavy Mauler good, but it has its place. But lets do a breakdown:

DPS:                         500          220
DPS vs armor:           500          440
Penetration:              500          220
DPS vs 500 armor:    250          134
DPS vs 1000 armor:  167           79
DPS vs shields:         500           110
DPS vs hull (500 armor starting, stripped):     476       198
Accuracy:          Perfect, fast         Wide, slow, going to miss shots
Flux/s:                       720           180
Range:                       600           700

First note: every number on the left column (other than range) is bigger :P. Stupid, I know, but raw power is extremely important: the more you hit the enemy, the less they hit back. This is one of the reasons the HB is good in that universal medium: you have the flux, want to use other slots for other things, but still want to crush face. Example: it used to be an ideal thing on the Venture before the venture sucked: medium ballistics for that awesome flak at low flux cost, heavy blaster to punish.

Against shields: Heavy blaster does much more damage, and is even better in flux efficiency. Kinetic + heavy blaster is better than kinetic + heavy mortar.

Next: against armor, despite theoretically being 500 vs 440 DPS, in reality the Heavy Blaster drops armor twice as fast except all but the lightest targets. And those light targets don't have enough armor for it to matter as it will be gone in 1 or 2 hits, at which point hull dps starts. But yes, because the Heavy Mortar is 4 times as flux efficient, it does twice the armor damage per flux point. Does that matter? Sometimes yes, but often no.

Flux efficiency doesn't matter if you still have flux left. Hard flux is harder to get rid of than soft flux.

Obvious I know, but we get so caught up in comparing numbers that we forget that the combat in SS is all about seizing local advantage, before a target's allies get close enough to help. Focus fire and either maul or kill. The heavy blaster, with its huge damage output, allows for a fresh ship to rapidly punish a ship with high flux. Or, if using it on a ship with better flux reserves, you can quickly overwhelm and kill an opponent before they have a chance to damage you.
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #172 on: April 16, 2018, 09:42:53 PM »

I think the problem with the heavy blaster is that it is only useful in player hands of on a few specific ships or with extreme flux stats. It's just too much flux/s for the AI to handle well. It's very good but only situationally.

I think most energy weapons are useful enough in particular situations but there are so few weapons in the energy category that high tech ships sometimes feel pigeon-holed into certain builds. There are many unfilled roles for energy weapons that could add variety without going against the high tech design philosophy or being OP.

Logged

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #173 on: April 16, 2018, 10:05:23 PM »

I think the problem with the heavy blaster is that it is only useful in player hands of on a few specific ships or with extreme flux stats. It's just too much flux/s for the AI to handle well. It's very good but only situationally.

Well, AI is bad at handling any flux-heavy variants (when enemy is actually dangerous and cannot be just stomped). It's basic flux management strategy seems to be "fire everything while flux is not too high" - which obviously won't get you far.

Also on HB vs Heavy Mortar.
HB can provide credible anti-armor threat (prevent armor tanking) by just being pointed at enemy while other weapons build up hard flux. Heavy Mortar needs to continuously fire due to slow projectiles. That's 0 vs 180 flux per second spend to prevent armor tanking (and HB punishes harder, if/when enemy actually tries to).
« Last Edit: April 16, 2018, 10:13:06 PM by TaLaR »
Logged

Dark.Revenant

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2806
    • View Profile
    • Sc2Mafia
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #174 on: April 17, 2018, 01:18:33 PM »

If we define:
Armor DPS = DPS against 1500/1250/1000/750/500/250 armor; weighted average with 1/2/3/4/5/6 weight factor
Hull DPS = DPS against hull with stripped armor values 75/62.5/50/37.5/25/12.5; unweighted average
OP efficiency = DPS / (OP + 5/10/20 depending on slot size)
Flux efficiency = DPS / (Flux/sec + (10 * OP))
Overall efficiency = DPS / (OP + 5/10/20 depending on slot size + (Flux/sec / 10))

Then the lowly Heavy Mortar manages 3.15 shield efficiency, 3.73 armor efficiency, and 5.28 hull efficiency, and is ranked 15 out of 19 among medium non-missile weapons for shield efficiency, but 2 for armor efficiency and 3 for hull efficiency.  Meanwhile, the Heavy Blaster gets 5.32 shield efficiency, 2.51 armor efficiency, and 4.9 hull efficiency; this ranks it 9, 4, and 6, respectively.  Notably, for medium energy weapons, the Heavy Blaster is the most overall efficient anti-armor and anti-hull option.

As for flux efficiency, the Heavy Mortar stomps the Heavy Blaster except against shields, where it loses by about 50%.  OP efficiency, however, heavily favors the Heavy Blaster, which enjoys the best anti-armor and anti-hull, and second-best anti-shield performance per OP of any medium non-missile weapon.

Other interesting results include the Pulse Laser, which is ranked 7/8/10 to be overall the most well-rounded medium weapon in the game.  However, it's not an efficient option by any measurement; the combination of a Heavy Mortar and Heavy Autocannon beats double Pulse Lasers for shield and armor efficiency and matches them for hull efficiency.  And that's assuming you're not selectively firing weapons.

Fun fact: Heavy Needler sucks.  It's only ranked 3 in anti-shield efficiency, and 15 for anti-armor and 17 for anti-hull.  Those non-shield ranks are abysmal even for a kinetic weapon, but the nail in the coffin is that it loses to the Heavy Autocannon in all categories (ranked 2/13/14).

Funner fact: The Graviton Beam is more efficient at killing shields than the HVD.  Rank 5 vs Rank 6.  The Graviton Beam, however, has horrid armor/hull efficiency (rank 18 out of 19, and even that is arguable because the Ion Beam (rank 19/19/19) can proc extra damage), while the HVD ranks 14/16 for armor/hull.
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1886
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #175 on: April 17, 2018, 02:59:39 PM »

OK, so i get why Flux efficiency has a space for OP as you lose 10 dissipation in vents for every OP you spend on a weapon. And i get why we would want a weighted average against various armor values(as lower armor values are more likely to occur)

But i don't understand why there is a 5/10/20 size penalty for slots. Nor do i understand how we can make an overall efficiency number by summing the denominator between two things which have no seeming relation. Just break things down in absolute numbers and denote their slot size.
Logged

Dark.Revenant

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2806
    • View Profile
    • Sc2Mafia
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #176 on: April 17, 2018, 03:06:27 PM »

The 5/10/20 represents opportunity cost of picking a weapon, in line with the baseline OP a ship receives per slot.  Empirically, we know that a 0 OP weapon isn’t infinitely efficient because there’s essentially no penalty for using your entire OP allotment.

As for the overall efficiency, it’s DPS divided by (base OP plus opportunity cost plus OP required to cancel out the flux cost).  It combines OP and flux efficiency as a basic indication of how much bang you get for your buck.
Logged

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #177 on: April 17, 2018, 05:12:39 PM »

I appreciate this analysis and think its useful, but add one caveat: the maximum number of vents, which adds a bound to the DPS / (flux/sec + 10*OP) formula.

If you are against that limit, then the Heavy Needler's "baked in" efficiency very much changes the numbers, by effectively raising the dissipation of the ship (just for the case when firing the guns, not for venting). Also I will note that the heavy needler is more accurate, so better at fighting frigates than the heavy auto cannon. Its not a no brainer better choice than the heavy autocannon, but it has its place when you are really maxing out the flux capabilities of a ship but still have free OP.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #178 on: April 17, 2018, 05:24:42 PM »

Legion is one ship that really benefits from Needlers.  It has bad flux stats even with max vents.  Heavy Needlers really help keep flux costs under control when it has leftover OP and desperately needs flux-efficient weapons after maxing vents.  Hellbore and Heavy Needlers are an effective brawling combo on Legion.

Heavy Autocannon turns slowly and has atrocious accuracy.  Occasionally, that is a big enough liability to get something faster or more accurate.
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1886
    • View Profile
Re: Ship Tier List
« Reply #179 on: April 17, 2018, 05:28:45 PM »

The 5/10/20 represents opportunity cost of picking a weapon, in line with the baseline OP a ship receives per slot.  Empirically, we know that a 0 OP weapon isn’t infinitely efficient because there’s essentially no penalty for using your entire OP allotment.

As for the overall efficiency, it’s DPS divided by (base OP plus opportunity cost plus OP required to cancel out the flux cost).  It combines OP and flux efficiency as a basic indication of how much bang you get for your buck.

There is no opportunity cost (or that amount) here because ships slots are fixed and we are not picking them. The actual opportunity is either the OP or the weapon (as we are leaving this slot empty) or the difference in OP between it and the next “best” weapon. In the latter case the DPS is marginal between the weapons.

Your estimation will unfairly penalize smaller OP cost weapons as well as encourage downfitting when it is actually inefficient. It does not produce the analysis needed to answer the question of whether or not you should fit the weapon.

I kinda get the second one but... this implies an equivalence between OP and flux use, which can hold in small quantities by modifiying vents... but won’t hold in large cases.

Logged
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12] 13 14 ... 16