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Author Topic: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.  (Read 2545 times)

Hatter

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Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« on: July 05, 2022, 01:58:22 PM »

Currently the Hephaestus Assault Gun is outperformed by the Hellbore in armor cracking, and DPS vs any armor heavier than ~318. Mjolnir also outclasses it in efficiency vs armor in the 240-1733 range, while dealing higher DPS and higher DPS against shields.

At armor values of 318 the Hellbore has more effective DPS than the HAG, due to the latter's lower shot damage. The only ships with armor this low are some (primarily civilian) frigates.

HAG fills a different role than the Hellbore. It is primarily useful for dealing DPS on stripped armor. In spite of this, they have the same flux efficiency. A HAG firing at any armor heavier than the breakpoint is going to be doing damage less efficiently than the Hellbore. I do not believe the the HAG's advantages, such as higher shot speed, accuracy, and tracking, warrant the same efficiency as the Hellbore. It's higher DPS than the Hellbore at the same efficiency means not many ships can afford it's flux cost, and those that can (Conquest) can use Mjolnir's instead. Mjolnir's currently are more efficient than HAGs on armor values past 240, even with the 1.25 flux efficiency. The HAG becomes more effective back at ~1733 due to 85% damage cap.

The HAG has a role firing at light targets such as frigates and destroyers. As a large weapon, it's primarily going to be found on capitals and some cruisers. Capitals have the secondary armaments that can fill the same role as the HAG, and the range boost to make medium mounts more competitive. What capitals cannot do is replace the functionality of the Hellbore with smaller armaments, outside of limited missiles.

I propose buffing the HAG by increasing its flux efficiency, giving it more of a niche as a hull-stripper. Dropping it from 1.0 to 0.8 or 0.7 would give it roughly the same flux footprint as a Mk.IX/Storm Needler, and make it much more comparable to the Hellbore.

At 0.9 efficiency the HAG is ~58% as efficient damage-per-flux as the Hellbore at shooting at 318 armor, and doing the same DPS. DPS and relative efficiency comparisons against the Hellbore just get worse past this point. At this efficiency it would have a flux cost of 432 flux/sec. Still higher than every large ballistic but the Gauss and Mjolnir. Mjolnir's become more efficient at ~560 - 1520 armor.

At 0.8, it would be ~65% as efficient at 318 armor and take 384 flux/sec. A smidge on the high side compared to the Mk. IX. Mjolnir's cannot be more efficient than Hepheastus' at this point, due to the 85% cap.

At 0.7, it would be ~75% as efficient at 318 armor and take 336 flux/sec. It would probably be too strong at this efficiency.

At ~0.53 efficiency it's as efficient as a Hellbore vs 318+ armor. Essentially a Devastator Cannon without the shot spread and lower hit strength.

In conclusion, increasing efficiency would make the Hephaestus more usable, and more competitive in use on a large mount. I recommend increasing efficiency to 0.8 (384 /s) at the minimum, possibly even to 0.75 (360 /s) to make the flux cost more comparable to other 'standard' ballistic weapons and to compensate for the relatively low hit strength.

Edit: Mjolnir damage forgets that HE deals 2x damage to armor, not just for hit strength calculations. Inaccurate sections have been crossed out.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2022, 03:40:46 PM by Hatter »
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FooF

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2022, 05:49:32 PM »

Does the HAG need help? I don't know. Making it more efficient means that you really don't have a lot of recourse against it outside of moving away. Low Tech Armor Bricks can tank it for a bit but most ships are going to raise shields. Capitals with a HAG are going to be firing this fairly accurate weapon outside the weapon range of most Cruisers so if shield-tanking it becomes less costly for the Capital, it just pounds away at range until your shields fail. Again, I see it first-and-foremost as a pressure weapon that just slowly and steadily wears you down.

I've never considered the HAG as a weapon-of-choice against Capitals, nor do I think it should be. Its niche is clearly anti-Cruiser/Destroyer, where it excels due to its range and pretty decent accuracy. Hellbores are not going to be reliable against speedier targets and their on-paper efficiency against armor (while stellar) is greatly diminished by the fact that you can avoid their shots altogether fairly easily and if not, you can shield flicker indefinitely. Ships don't get hit by Hellbores so much as they fail to get out of the way.

I've had some success with dual-HAG on Conquests (a ship that can support a pair easily) and again, as a pressure weapon, it does admirably. You stay at range and just. keep. firing. Time-to-kill is a little high but there's not a lot of ships in the game that can armor tank 2x HAG for long. Would 2x Mjolinir be better? Sure, but Mjolinir is clearly an Elite Ballistic choice and you're paying for it in OP and flux. I guess I manage my expectations with the HAG and know that it isn't a world-beater but it's OK for what it is.


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Megas

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2022, 06:25:03 PM »

HAG is flux hungry enough that if the ship can support it, it can probably support Mjolnir instead (although the loadout might need to lose a smaller kinetic elsewhere to keep flux use down enough).  I generally get faster kill times if the ship uses Mjolnir instead of HAG.  But there are exceptions.

I've had some success with dual-HAG on Conquests (a ship that can support a pair easily) and again, as a pressure weapon, it does admirably. You stay at range and just. keep. firing. Time-to-kill is a little high but there's not a lot of ships in the game that can armor tank 2x HAG for long. Would 2x Mjolinir be better? Sure, but Mjolinir is clearly an Elite Ballistic choice and you're paying for it in OP and flux. I guess I manage my expectations with the HAG and know that it isn't a world-beater but it's OK for what it is.
There was one time HAG did better than Mjolnir, and that was Onslaught flagship on autopilot against three SIM Dominators.  Onslaught was at high to max flux often.  With HAG, Onslaught could squeeze out HAG shots along with the Railguns and TPCs while flux was near max.  With Mjolnir, it rarely fired because of higher flux per shot made it impossible to fire sometimes when near max flux.  (Instead, it fired more Railguns and TPCs.)  HAG won out in that fight because Onslaught could fire it more while under high flux while Mjolnir could not fire under similar conditions because of insufficient flux.

As for OP, I would like HAG to cost less flux, but HAG is effective enough when it works.
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SafariJohn

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2022, 07:01:40 PM »

My #1 complaint about HAG is that it feels underwhelming. I think I would like doubled damage per shot, halved rate of fire; all other stats the same.

I don't think it needs a flux efficiency buff.
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Thaago

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2022, 09:49:52 PM »

Hmm, maybe I've messed up my math, but Mjolnirs never do as much DPS vs armor as the Hapehestus - I plotted the ratio with the following in Wolfram Alpha:

plot y= 960*240/(240+x)/(533*400/(400+x)) from x=0 to x=2000

Which simplifies to y= (576 (400 + x))/(533 (240 + x)), giving an asymptotic 8% advantage in the case of infinite armor (and much higher for realistic armor value: 22% at 1000 armor)

Adding in the flux consumption:

plot y= 960*240/(240+x)/(533*400/(400+x))*667/480 from x=0 to x=2000

Simplified: y = (4002 (400 + x))/(2665 (240 + x)), giving as asympotic 50% flux efficiency advantage for infinite armor (and much higher for realistic armor values: 70% at 1000 armor)

So the Heph always outperforms the mjolnir vs armor, and does so much more flux efficiently.

----

Vs stripped hull, in raw DPS the Heph is always less than the Mjolnir, starting at ~90% of the dps vs a 0 residual armor opponent and going to ~79% vs a 100 residual armor (IE 2000 base armor) opponent. Advantage in DPS goes to the mjolnir.

Vs stripped hull, the Heph is more efficient than the mjolnir vs any residual armor lower than 242, corresponding to 4843 base armor. The advantage is 25% at 0 armor and ~10% at 100 residual (2000 base) armor. So despite being lower DPS and lower penetration, the Heph retains an advantage in hull damage efficiency over the Mjolnir vs all targets currently in game.

Vs shield, the Mjolnir has .8 damage/flux compared to the Heph's .5 d/f, and a massive 533 to 240 DPS edge: Mjolnirs are not good vs shields compared to kinetics, but they are much better than Hephs.

On the other hand, and this is mostly theorycrafting because so much depends on the mounts available to the ship, the Mjolnir is dedicating a larger quantity of flux to a still relatively inefficient anti-shield than the Heph is: 667 vs 480. So for the same flux budget, lets fill that 187 flux per second gap with a kinetic weapon at 1.0 efficiency (some options are better than 1.0, but lets go with half of a Mk IX basically): that gives the Heph + half of a Mk IX a total anti shield dps of 614 vs the Mjolnir's 533 for the same flux budget, only taking more mounts. So in one way, because the Heph is dedicating a smaller portion of a ship's total flux budget to be "wasted", the total anti-shield DPS/flux can be higher. If the mounts are available. Maybe. This is a bit of a weird one and someone correct me if I twisted myself around.

---

For Hellbore vs Heph the Hellbore is by far the superior armor cracking weapon. However its inability to hit anything smaller than cruisers (and it misses them sometimes too) and low DPS make it a specialized anti-armor tool rather than a hull killer.
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Vanshilar

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2022, 10:36:07 PM »

Eh briefly, you have to be careful when doing this type of analysis: High Explosive weapons also do double damage to armor. Also, when looking at damage to hull, you don't really have to consider armor values past 100 or 200 or so; the damage is going to be against residual armor, which is 5% of the base armor value. So if the base armor is 1500, then the armor rating for damage to hull is 75. An armor value of 200 for damage to hull implies a base armor of 4000.

Currently the Hephaestus Assault Gun is outperformed by the Hellbore in armor cracking, and DPS vs any armor heavier than ~318. Mjolnir also outclasses it in efficiency vs armor in the 240-1733 range, while dealing higher DPS and higher DPS against shields.

HAG, as High Explosive damage type, deals double damage to armor, whereas Mjolnir, as Energy damage type, doesn't. So HAG always beats out Mjolnir in damage vs armor regardless of the target's armor value. It's also always more efficient.

At armor values of 318 the Hellbore has more effective DPS than the HAG, due to the latter's lower shot damage. The only ships with armor this low are some (primarily civilian) frigates.

HAG fills a different role than the Hellbore. It is primarily useful for dealing DPS on stripped armor. In spite of this, they have the same flux efficiency. A HAG firing at any armor heavier than the breakpoint is going to be doing damage less efficiently than the Hellbore.

Yup so Hellbore is always more flux efficient. However, HAG does more DPS. So it becomes a tradeoff between damage/flux versus damage/slot (since large ballistic slots are limited) and damage/OP. Since the breakeven point for DPS is around 318 armor, this means that HAG always does more DPS vs hull, unless the target had more than 6036 base armor, even if it's less flux efficient.
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Grievous69

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #6 on: July 05, 2022, 11:01:39 PM »

How are people defending this weapon ahahahahaha... It's such a noob trap that I've used it maybe couple of times when I was still learning the game and never touched it again. Did some tests for a research of mine and was once again shocked at how much it sucks. I'll just copy what I said about it in a tier list I did on reddit:
Quote
Hephaestus Assault Gun: C-

I swear there's a conspiracy online where people keep saying this gun is good. Its very design contradicts being a large HE weapon. Low damage per shot at this tier with high flux cost is just bad, you need to pelt away at your enemies far longer than if you had a simple Heavy Mauler. I'd take a Devastator instead any day of the week on any ship. It's one saving grace from being in D tier is dealing with fighters and smaller ships, although if you're using such a weapon to kill puny fighters you're already doing something wrong. I'm getting an existential crisis just thinking about this weapon. Noob trap, please avoid.
I'm already getting passionate about this topic but I'll just say this, I started reading the OP, and immediately remembered when people defended it, saying it was good and one person claimed that a 2x HAG Conquest build they have is doing wonders. That sentence still haunts me to this day. And wouldn't you know I see it again in this thread... You can't convince that isn't just a well hidden joke, paying almost 1k flux for the most underwhelming HE weapon. Literally every medium ballistic HE is miles better.

There was a time where in one discussion, I said that most large ballistics are undertuned. Thankfully some have been buffed (Mk IX and Devastator) but for some reason not many people have a problem with HAG. I don't get it, do people just have a fond memory of it, where it worked in one situation 5 years ago? Like I see all these arguments in this thread, and even math, and I can't see how could it be perceived as good.

I'm such a whiner I make balance posts about so many things I think are not alright, yet I'd never remember to make one for HAG because it's just so forgettable. I don't care in what way does it get buffed, but please move it out of the useless box.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2022, 11:38:25 PM »

HAG accuracy is a problem. In practice, the shots don't hit the same armor cell consistently, so all these theoretical calculations are somewhat inaccurate (no pun intended 8)).
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Igncom1

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #8 on: July 05, 2022, 11:55:50 PM »

I always thought it was fine as a 'general purpose' weapon rather then a tin opener. But if it was supposed to be it's not exactly the best, cheap and cheerful Hellbore does a much better job.

A large ballistic elite anti-armour weapon is missing to me, the HAG could make a good fit for the "Storm Needler" of high explosive weapons.
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BigBrainEnergy

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2022, 12:31:58 AM »

Compared to the assault chaingun it has better damage per shot and twice as much range. The downsides are it has significantly worse flux efficiency and slightly lower dps. I don't know if it's relevant but I thought it was funny that (setting aside the massive range difference) it has lower dps than a medium weapon, while also having a higher flux cost.
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Thaago

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2022, 12:43:42 AM »

Hmm, I think the OP's calculations on Hellbore dps and efficiency vs HAG are also not correct - those numbers are way too low. At 1000 armor, HAGs have about 58% the flux efficiency of hellbores, just eyeballing this graph. Meanwhile HAGs do more DPS vs armor for most reasonable ranged of armor (at 2000 armor HAGs are still doing more DPS, but as others have pointed out about accuracy this is a bit misleading).

How are people defending this weapon ahahahahaha... It's such a noob trap that I've used it maybe couple of times when I was still learning the game and never touched it again. Did some tests for a research of mine and was once again shocked at how much it sucks. I'll just copy what I said about it in a tier list I did on reddit:
Quote
Hephaestus Assault Gun: C-

I swear there's a conspiracy online where people keep saying this gun is good. Its very design contradicts being a large HE weapon. Low damage per shot at this tier with high flux cost is just bad, you need to pelt away at your enemies far longer than if you had a simple Heavy Mauler. I'd take a Devastator instead any day of the week on any ship. It's one saving grace from being in D tier is dealing with fighters and smaller ships, although if you're using such a weapon to kill puny fighters you're already doing something wrong. I'm getting an existential crisis just thinking about this weapon. Noob trap, please avoid.
I'm already getting passionate about this topic but I'll just say this, I started reading the OP, and immediately remembered when people defended it, saying it was good and one person claimed that a 2x HAG Conquest build they have is doing wonders. That sentence still haunts me to this day. And wouldn't you know I see it again in this thread... You can't convince that isn't just a well hidden joke, paying almost 1k flux for the most underwhelming HE weapon. Literally every medium ballistic HE is miles better.

There was a time where in one discussion, I said that most large ballistics are undertuned. Thankfully some have been buffed (Mk IX and Devastator) but for some reason not many people have a problem with HAG. I don't get it, do people just have a fond memory of it, where it worked in one situation 5 years ago? Like I see all these arguments in this thread, and even math, and I can't see how could it be perceived as good.

I'm such a whiner I make balance posts about so many things I think are not alright, yet I'd never remember to make one for HAG because it's just so forgettable. I don't care in what way does it get buffed, but please move it out of the useless box.

Its just not a bad weapon, IF you want to dedicate 480 flux to HE damage. Thats not something I want to do vs any of the current endgame enemies - Remnants and Tesseracts don't have chunky hulls/armor compared to their shields, so its far better to focus on kinetics with enough armor breaking to get the job done after that. The comparison to Heavy Mauler doesn't really stand up... heavy maulers have burst and 200 HE per shot compared to 120 HE, but HAGs have 4 times the DPS.

But here's an interesting anecdote: the current upcoming tournament is an anti-missile spam one (IE the enemies are going to be spamming missiles like crazy) and I've been testing Onslaught builds for their sweet PD screens. The enemies are not remnants and tesseracts, but instead a lot of factions or pirate ships (as in outnumbering the player 2:1 in weight). In this testing, the best weapon I've found for the Onslaught's center mount is the HAG because I just need to keep gunning down hull as fast as possible, and Mjolnirs cost too much flux.

HAG accuracy is a problem. In practice, the shots don't hit the same armor cell consistently, so all these theoretical calculations are somewhat inaccurate (no pun intended 8)).

This is true for anti-armor, and it adds a big uncertainty. For hull its less important because usually targets end up stripped or near stripped anyways (and asking a Hellbore to ask the same side of a capital twice is not going to happen).
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Grievous69

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2022, 01:01:23 AM »

My point is even IF we had chunky end game enemies, HAG would still be a bad choice purely because of damage per shot with that flux costs. And I don't think tournaments are very representative of the real game, I followed most of them and strats that are broken there would just be mediocre in campaign.
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Amoebka

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2022, 01:06:35 AM »

The closest thing we have to chunky endgame enemies is large derelict bounties with Rampart spam. I sincerely hope none of you bring Hephaestus there.  :-\
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vladokapuh

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2022, 01:08:17 AM »

Both assault guns are bad weapons with hit strengths significantly too low for the flux cost. Light assault gun is another thing i almost never use for  the same reasons.
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Grievous69

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Re: Buff Hephaestus Assault Gun.
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2022, 01:16:23 AM »

But Light Assault Gun is at least good for its size. You're not going to use only small ballistics to crack cruisers. But you will need the largest available mount to get that premium hit strength. And Assault Chaingun at least has a niche, insane DPS for size with good flux efficiency, but you need to get close. HAG tries to have standard stats of most guns, but falls apart at the damage aspect.
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