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Author Topic: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla  (Read 23403 times)

MesoTroniK

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #120 on: March 06, 2020, 06:40:51 PM »

All missiles have a 50% chance to disarm when the engine fizzles out at and of life. Except for I believe Squalls (and mod missiles using the same AI type as it) will always "hit" in that scenario but not 100% sure off the top of my head would need to be tested.

Igncom1

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #121 on: March 09, 2020, 01:04:06 PM »

So what is the Thumper actually good at?

It's got around 500 frag dps, 700 range, and 150 flux per second.

But when compared to a single barrelled flak that has 200 frag fps, 500 range, and a 50 flux dps along with it being a designated PD weapon so it will actively shoot at missiles with it's aoe shells, the thumper seems like a makeshift bad trade.

It fires a stream of bullets sure, but that seems kinda naff vs aoe flak shells. It it uses three times the flux per second to put out two and a half times the dps. It's got range which I suppose adds up but it's also not a point defence weapon, directly anyway.

So what's it do? What is it for other then as pirate trash? It only does 125 dps vs shields and armour. A light mortar only does 150 dps vs armour I guess? But that's a small HE weapon and the cheapest available. An IR Pulse Laser does 152 dps, but again that's a small energy weapon. I suppose it DOES do more armour damage then a arbalest auto-cannon but not even half of it's anti-shield capacity.

Even as a poor stand it it just seems too expensive to bother using over just using the wrong weapon for the job. And for 9 OP no less!

 :o anybody else figure this weapon out? As even small weapons seem to basically be better then it, let along other medium contemporaries.
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Thaago

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #122 on: March 09, 2020, 04:37:46 PM »

Its... pretty bad yeah. It can sneak in a burst against bare hull simply because its otherwise so bad the player might be ignoring it?
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #123 on: March 09, 2020, 06:22:32 PM »

Thumpers are actually pretty effective against light armor, and the salvo of 20x100 (20x25 against shields or armor) is not-inconsequential (that's 500 hard flux to a shield). And flux-cheap, which is one of the hidden strengths of generalist frag weapons; if you have more medium slots than your flux can handle, slap a Thumper or two in there; you have other weapons (perhaps HVDs or Maulers) to crack armor and stress shields, and the Thumper can fill in for short-range DPS at a pleasantly low flux cost.

Once armor is stripped, high DPS and flux efficiency are useful traits in a brawl, and they really are ubiquitous. It's a decent second choice to a lot of things.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #124 on: March 09, 2020, 06:32:37 PM »

Armor never gets completely stripped though, so you're never actually getting the list dps (I'm actually not sure how the math works with that, so I'd like to hear from someone more knowledgable). It's also important to remember that shooting a weapon essentially does 'self damage' by building up flux in your own ship, so inefficiency vs shields is very bad, especially on low and mid tech ships that have worse flux stats. I don't think the thumper is worth using ever.
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Thaago

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #125 on: March 09, 2020, 07:10:14 PM »

Hmm, I think the anti hull formula is going to be:

(Frag Damage)*(Anti-Armor/(anti-armor + armor))

IE the frag part does full damage, but the reduction ratio is determined with the armor piercing abilities. I'm not 100% on this, but I think its close.

For a 500 armor destroyer stripped of armor, IE 5% residual = 25 effecting armor

20 x 100 * (25/(25+25)) = 20 x 50 or half DPS.

So its not bad against bare hull, but even going up against stripped destroyers its already 50%. Impact mitigation 1 (150 extra armor that apparently does count for minimums, whoops) really messes with it though (it also really messes with kinetics).

[Edit] Though thats still 1000 burst hull damage. If the player isn't expecting it and has shields down, that can be game over!
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #126 on: March 09, 2020, 08:35:16 PM »

The thing is that it's very bad against stuff with enough hull that you would want extra hull dps (thicc capitals and cruisers) because they also have lots of armor and it's also bad against officers with armor skills. It's basically bad in all the places where you really need some more dps/burst, and its fine in place where you can already easily kill the enemy (low armor frigates and destroyers).
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bobucles

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #127 on: March 10, 2020, 11:50:01 AM »

(Frag Damage)*(Anti-Armor/(anti-armor + armor))

Here, this is as far as I got with the armor formulas (now enter your own numbers!):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZlC2ZkiuB0fs5VSDXsmxJy30uRqqZ6oWCQ0ifsvUS9c/edit#gid=0

The basic formula is something like:
Damage = DMG*Type * (DMG*Type)/(DMG*Type+armor)
The armor reduction chooses the weakest of DMG*type / (DMG*Type+armor) vs. 85% reduction cap. Armor chooses the strongest of (5%+Impact Mitigation 1), or current armor strength. I don't know how low armor works, but even a single point of leftover armor can absorb a ton of kinetic or frag damage.

Damage type gets counted TWICE, once for armor strength and again for armor damage. The 25% frag damage multiplier renders it practically useless even against the thinnest armor, and extremely weak against 5% armor. The flat +150 armor will basically leave you always armor capped against frag damage, even with 0 armor plates.

Thaago

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #128 on: March 10, 2020, 01:34:24 PM »

That looks right - in the case above though its anti-hull, IE the armor is already stripped, so the "type" is different inside and outside of the damage reduction fraction. Outside it is 100% (frag vs hull) and inside is 25% (frag vs armor).
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bobucles

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #129 on: March 10, 2020, 05:50:48 PM »

Yeah, that would match what I've been seeing. The Ship damage is either against hull or against armor and uses the appropriate type for that. I don't know how damage is divided between armor tiles and bare hull, it's black magic to me. The second multiplier for armor reduction always uses the anti armor attribute. Impact mitigation 1 ends up supremely good here because it will double or triple your hull against kinetic or frag damage, and will put a serious dent in most minor HE hits as well. The difference in weapon performance can be night and day against IM1 and that could skew results.

Given the current damage mechanics, I don't really see why Fragmentation multipliers are half of everything else. It seems to me that it should have 200% anti hull and 50% armor/shield, with DPS in half so it can be fairly compared to everything else. At least the math works out the same.

Thaago

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #130 on: March 11, 2020, 10:48:46 AM »

I was recently quite happy with the performance of the Squall on a Legion XIV I recovered as part of a mixed Squall/Hurricane. It wasn't the best weapon by itself, but it saturated PD, kept shields raised, and forced targets to dodge sideways while under bomber and HVD/Mauler fire. And on cruisers+ it does decent shield damage as well. I just wish the AI wouldn't fire it against frigates.
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Daynen

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #131 on: March 11, 2020, 04:19:37 PM »

Thing about pilums is they're not weapons, per se; they're herding tools.  The enemy tends to go where the pilums are not if they have the opportunity; with a swarm of pilums on the field you have a good chance to flank the enemy and/or push them to a corner of the field where they have trouble running away.  If some pilums hit and deal damage that's great; if not they constantly apply a bit of push to the AI's positioning, helping you corral them in or at the very least discourage some of the enemy's own flankers.

The thumper is never going to be a better weapon than anything else for its slot, period.  It's not supposed to be.  It's the economy weapon for its class--cheap to build, repair, mount and sustain.  It's a filler when you're trying to keep costs down OR, if it happens to be your style, it's great for making cheap, tanky junkers where you want to spend your OP on defenses instead of weapons but still need a throwaway ship to be a credible threat to things that turn their back.  If your income is cozy enough to afford better stuff and you actually care about the welfare of your ships then the thumper isn't for you.  It's also a reasonable choice on a smaller vessel that can mount it but can't handle the flux for anything better.

Okay actually I lied.  The thumper might still be a better choice than flaks...at least it can actually hit things. :P
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Thaago

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #132 on: March 11, 2020, 04:53:23 PM »

But... flaks are one of the best anti-missile weapons in the game and have AoE, so even when firing at flares they will hit missiles/fighters near them. I'm confused.

I think if I was ever tempted to mount a Thumper I'd just mount a heavy mortar or Arbalest instead. Both are also extremely cheap, but they are decent at their jobs (Heavy Mortar is downright good).
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Goumindong

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #133 on: March 11, 2020, 06:04:31 PM »

If the Thumper was continuous fire instead of burst it would be good to OK against fighters/bombers.

Its damage efficiency looks good but is actually very bad. .83 dmg/flux vs hull and armor at 25 penetration... that is bad. A pulse laser, a weapon everyone loves to hate, is .9 shield/armor with 100 hit strength... but it also has 33.3 dps/OP while the thumper has 13.9. So in order to perform like a pulse laser you need to run a 13.8 OP deficit compared to the Pulse equipped ship.

It does OK against structure but the only ships that have enough structure to matter with regards to this mind of thing are huge and therefore have significant armor as well. A Heavy Motar vs a hammerhead is doing (.61, 2.44@220, .995)(shield, armor, hull) with 31.4 dps/OP vs hull. And its a cheaper weapon per OP.

Now sure the mortar is innacurate like woah. But the thumper isnt much better.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2020, 06:20:13 PM by Goumindong »
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Lucky33

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Re: So let's try to find the worst weapon on vanilla
« Reply #134 on: March 11, 2020, 06:18:10 PM »

Thumper is not cheap in any way.

It has base value of 700, 9 OP and even 600 instantaneous flux cost.

When I said that empty small energy mount is better I wasnt joking.
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