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Topic: Seismic skills effect - not sure if I'm doing this right.

I was trying to figure out the applied damage this does so I slapped together a quick sheet on it but I'm not sure if I'm working the data correctly.


It's based upon an assault bot - 4.0 explosion radius -- against the smallest surface area on a bot - 2.75 of a light EW bot.

Example:  (both skills are 3x) 
Basic Ballistics = 3% increase across the board.  100 damage goes to 130 at level 10.
If I'm hitting small targets at 68.75% damage -- with basics at 10 but seismic at 0, I'll hit for 89 damage.
If I'm hitting small targets at 98.21% damage - with basics at 0 but seismic at 10, I 'll hit for 98 damage.

Anything larger than my explosions - I'm better off with basics but looking in this one direction ...

The extension grants a 3% reduction to the explosion area and the formula for applied damage is surface/explosion.

So the formulas I used.
Col 1 = 4 * (1 - (.03 * level)
Col 2 = 2.75 / Col 1
Col 3 = Col 2 - Col 2.(row -1)
sum at bottom of col 3.

Col 4 = Col 3 / Sum
sum of col 4 at 100% was just my "??? am I doing this wrong?" checking.

(some might find the following table skewed around - layout wise.  I adjusted it to look proper based upon my monitor, font choice and the like).

Exp. Vs Surface		App. Dmg	% diff from prev	% of total improve
4			68.75%		
3.88			70.88%		2.13%			7.22%
3.76			73.14%		2.26%			7.68%
3.64			75.55%		2.41%			8.18%
3.52			78.13%		2.58%			8.74%
3.4			80.88%		2.76%			9.36%
3.28			83.84%		2.96%			10.04%
3.16			87.03%		3.18%			10.81%
3.04			90.46%		3.44%			11.66%
2.92			94.18%		3.72%			12.62%
2.8			98.21%		4.04%			13.70%
Totals					29.46%			100.00%

In other words,
At level 1, you are hitting 2.13% harder than at level 0
At level 10, you are hitting 4.04% harder than at level 9. 

The improved performance escalates the farther you get into it - not just improved damage but how much of an improvement.

With the general theme in-game seeming to aim towards less gains for more invested.  ("Optimization" style where you are refining performance the longer you play vs actual bigger gains). It struck me as a bit odd.

This is why my question - Am I doing something wrong?

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Re: Seismic skills effect - not sure if I'm doing this right.

nope your doing nothing wrong there,
the accumulator recharge extension has the same effect.

also, i find this not wrong - the extension costs are also escalating, and as missile user, you also have the "missile guidance" extension which determines how often your missiles will miss the target, which is much more expensive as the falloff extension that the turret user get instead

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

3 Reply by Marak Mocam (edited by Marak Mocam 2011-12-17 21:41:37)

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Re: Seismic skills effect - not sure if I'm doing this right.

Annihilator wrote:

nope your doing nothing wrong there,
the accumulator recharge extension has the same effect.

also, i find this not wrong - the extension costs are also escalating, and as missile user, you also have the "missile guidance" extension which determines how often your missiles will miss the target, which is much more expensive as the falloff extension that the turret user get instead

Actually I do feel something is wrong with this view of it and comparisons between weapons systems, nor other skills impact on performance, isn't being covered by this (8 with guidance, 8 with basics and 8 with seismics - so I'm pretty strong with these - not "topped out", just decently trained.).

How I'm looking at it has a feel like the old math joke where "you're doing it wrong" comes into play.

3 guys book hotel rooms and get a discount - $25 off of the $100 per room cost - so $275 vs $300 should be  paid.  When they get there, the clerk doesn't know about it and charges them full amount and each coughs up their $100 - $300 total.

Later the manager comes in, finds the error and has a bellboy go up to refund the money - giving him 5 $5 dollar bills ($25 total).  The bell boy gives each of the 3 guests back a single $5 dollar bill and pockets 2 of them.

So...  Each of the 3 paid $95 -- $285 paid.  The $10 the bellboy kept makes it $295 -- where did that missing $5 go?

Very old math joke showing how breaking rules leads to misinterpretation/bad results that "make sense".  This has a feel to it like that old joke.