For the different large HE weapons (Devastator, Hephaestus, Hellbore, and HIL), damage/flux efficiency really just depends on the base DPS/flux and the hit strength. Hephaestus, Hellbore, and HIL all have 1-to-1 DPS/flux ratio (i.e. their damage per second equals their flux per second), so it just comes down to their hit strength. Hellbore's hit strength is highest so from a damage/flux efficiency point of view it'll always be more efficient. This does assume that it always hits though, when it has the slowest projectile out of all of them.
However, the Hellbore's DPS is the lowest of all of them. So then it's a matter of whether or not the weapon's higher hit strength can win out relative to its lower DPS. As already noted, HIL does more DPS than Hellbore when armor is less than 1500, and Hellbore does more DPS when armor is above 1500. So if the target's armor is less than 1500, then HIL has higher DPS. The remaining issue is at what value of armor, if any, somewhere above 1500, whereby the Hellbore's higher DPS vs higher armor values will outweigh the HIL's higher DPS when armor is below 1500, such that the Hellbore's total time to strip armor is less than the HIL's.
The problem with that is the assumption that the Hellbore will hit the exact same spot multiple times, when it's a slow projectile so the target will likely have moved. The other problem with this comparison is that the Hellbore's projectile, because it's slow (500 su/s), takes time to reach its target. while the HIL is for all intents and purposes more or less instantaneous (technically, 2400 su/s, but which I'll just assume is instantaneous here).
So let me frame it another way. Let's count up at what armor will it take for the Hellbore to fully strip the armor in X shots, and then see how long it takes for HIL to strip that amount of armor. Note that stripping armor includes stripping away the outer armor as well (so the inner/outer armor cell mechanic applies here), so the ship is taking hull damage at this point, but we'll ignore the hull damage.
So the table for the number of Hellbore shots, the armor that's needed to exactly (within 0.01 armor anyway) match that number of shots in armor damage taken, and how long it takes HIL to strip that much armor (measured in 0.1 second time intervals), is:
#Shots Armor HIL Time
1 549.04 1.6
2 1050.77 3.7
3 1488.49 6.2
4 1877.69 8.8
5 2247.29 11.7
6 2585.16 14.7
7 2897.62 17.7
8 3199.49 20.8
9 3488.65 23.7
10 3754.90 26.4
11 4014.51 29.1
12 4267.87 31.8
Here's what the numbers mean. Say it takes 1 Hellbore shot to exactly strip armor. This happens when the base armor is at around 549.04. (This is due to the inner/outer armor cell mechanic.) HIL would strip that armor in 1.6 seconds. The Hellbore projectile travels at 500 su/s. So if the target were less than 800 su away, then the Hellbore would hit it and do the armor damage before HIL finishes stripping the armor. But if the target were more than 800 su away, then the HIL would win -- it would have finished stripping the armor before the Hellbore's projectile arrives. (If we consider the HIL's travel speed of 2400 su/s, then this equivalence distance is actually 1011 su.)
If it takes 2 Hellbore shots, it takes HIL 3.7 seconds. Hellbore's refire delay is 3 seconds. So the remainder is that 0.7 seconds for how long the second shot has to hit the target. So if the target were less than 350 su away, then Hellbore wins. If the target were more than 350 su away, then HIL wins.
If it takes 3 Hellbore shots, it takes HIL 6.2 seconds. So the remainder is 0.2 seconds. That means a range of less than 100 for Hellbore to win. Otherwise, HIL wins.
For 4 or more shots, HIL always wins. Also, it might seem counterintuitive, but HIL's lower hit strength means that at armor values of more than 2833.33, it is doing its minimum damage (shots always do at least 15% of their damage to armor, ignoring skills), so its DPS is as low as it can be. But since Hellbore's hit strength is so high, its DPS against higher armor continues to decrease as the armor increases. Hence HIL actually starts outpacing Hellbore at higher armor values. (Notice how HIL time increases by 3 seconds each midway through, matching Hellbore's 3 second refire delay, but HIL time actually gets faster at higher armor values, because it does constant damage while Hellbore's damage keeps decreasing.)
In short,
HIL will always beat out Hellbore in terms of how quickly it strips armor, except in the case of low armor values *and* when the target is close by (and thus the fact that all of the Hellbore's damage is done right away on impact, while HIL's damage is over time, makes the difference).
As noted already though, this assumes that they can hit the exact same spot all the time. That's not particularly realistic. Also, even though HIL might beat out Hellbore in terms of how quickly it strips armor, it uses twice the flux to do so. So this matches the general gameplay design that ballistic weapons are usually more flux efficient for their specialized damage type than energy weapons. So it's not necessarily better when you consider flux usage. This analysis also excludes the possible effect of skills for both the attacker and the target.
Attached are graphs of the DPS vs armor for Devastator, HIL, Hephaestus, and Hellbore, as well as the total time it takes to fully strip armor (both inner and outer cells) for them. For the latter, it assumes continuous damage, so it doesn't take into account discrete projectile damage i.e. that Hellbore's damage is done instantaneously at the beginning when each projectile hits. Hephaestus takes the longest out of all of them, while HIL is generally fastest. Note that it assumes all shots hit the same place (when shots have a spread and the target is likely moving, so that almost never occurs in practice), and that for Devastator, that every shot hits (when some of its shots won't reach maximum range and thus some of its shots won't actually hit the target, thereby decreasing the DPS).
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Returning to the original topic, I was hoping for a tier list. Oh well. Generally speaking though I'm finding large missiles to be the best slot, because of Squalls; they generally do more damage throughout the fight than anything else, and they soften up the enemy fleet really well. But my target is mostly [REDACTED] fleets, so it depends on what you're up against. Medium ballistics seem to have the best versatility, whether for SO or non-SO, although it lacks a good anti-armor/hull weapon for longer ranges, though the Heavy Mauler and Heavy Mortar work "well enough". Medium missiles are good for shorter fights, but they tend to run out in longer fights. Medium energy is good for the [REDACTED] frag weapon which is so good I savescum for it to maximize how many I get per playthrough, although it can be put on medium ballistic as well. (When I tried out SO Eagle with 3 HMG and 3 [REDACTED] frag weapons as the flagship, oh man that thing kills stuff really fast. The problem is even with SO it can't get from point A to point B fast enough to make use of all that firepower.)
But pilot skills can change this on the high end up to about 6000 (because the HIL is is now at the .1 cap and so we're going to where the hellbore hits .2) and on the low end to down to 1000 or 750 (depending on how the -25% armor damage interacts with hit strength [does it reduce damage after or before hit strength? If before then 750 is the minimum point and if after its 1000]) and whether or not the target has high flux armor reduction.
Impact Mitigation's -25% armor damage actually work by reducing incoming damage by 25%. This means that an incoming projectile that does 400 damage ends up counting as a 300-damage projectile. Thus it affects both hit strength and damage. This double-counting means that in practice it'll actually reduce armor damage taken by 35-40% compared to without the skill.
I'm sorry, could you try stating this again? I have no idea what it is you're trying to say here.
I believe it's along the lines of, looking at how much the player is going to prioritize one slot over another when equipping a ship. In more concrete terms, for example, how much OP are you willing to spend on each slot, and/or how much of the flux budget are you willing to dedicate to each slot. When comparing weapons I tend to look at overall damage per OP spent (including things like ITU, ballistic rangefinder, EMR, etc.) and overall damage per flux, where overall damage is the total damage done throughout the fight based on the Detailed Combat Results mod.
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Topic: What is in your opinion the best mount type? (Read 8566 times)