EM guns vs lasers, the huge imbalance. (Page 4 of 5)

Those weren't actual DPS tests, I just divided damage modification with cycle time. And I could only do this for EM-laser comparison because ammo damages are the same for both. But it's different for missiles.

This is also why I wrote there that light and medium DPS numbers should not be compared as they are arbitrary numbers.

Calculations made without including extension bonuses, this is just the basic unequipped modules, standard variety.

Light missile launcher (ammo: chemoactive compact missile): 4.6 dps
Light missile launcher (ammo: sonic compact missile): 5.3 dps

Light HCL laser (ammo: chemoactive energy cell): 5.5 dps
Light HCL laser (ammo: multispectral energy cell): 7.5 dps

Medium missile launcher (ammo: chemoactive ballistic missile): 5 dps
Medium missile launcher (ammo: sonic compact missile): 8.5 dps.

Standard medium HCL laser (ammo: medium chemoactive energy cell): 7.3 dps
Standard medium HCL laser (ammo: medium multi-spectral energy cell): 10 dps

Unless i've miscalculated then missiles really are the lowest dps weapon. This was just a raw dps comparison though based on ammo damage multiplied by weapon damage divided by rate of fire. I have not factored in extension bonuses atall, nor have I factored in hit/miss rates. Just remember though, missiles may have the lowest DPS, but they require almost no energy atall to fire.

Also to note, light missiles and non range penalty energy cells dps are fairly close. When it comes to medium weapons though, this is no longer the case. One of two things needs to happen here, and this depends on if they want missiles to do as much damage as turrets or not. Either medium missiles need a dps increase, or light missiles need a dps decrease.  It looks to me like the cycle time on missile launchers should be changed to achieve whichever is desired because cycle time on small launchers vs medium launchers seems a bit out of whack compared to the small turrets vs their medium counterparts.

Roughly, medium missiles could do with a 20-25% damage increase, or light missiles need a 13% dps decrease. Personally I say give medium missile a 20-25% damage increase and let turret bots fit energy drain/neuts without it taking up a turret slot.

Last edited by Sinister (2010-01-21 20:34:42)

This change would not make all dps equal, dps would still be EM > lasers > missiles. This just just fixes a glaring issue which at the moment means the warpish does the same damage as a tyrannos, a fully skilled warpish does 50% more. You're blind if you can't see that medium missiles do practically the same damage as light missiles, and I question wherever you are ignorant if you believe this right.

I'm really starting to wonder if they should have tightly screened better testers because the amount of people posting thoughtless comments, trolling infact, in the balance forum is becoming rather annoying.

Last edited by Sinister (2010-01-21 22:37:35)

This contributed to balance discussion how?

Light: 40 damage each 7.5s 20pcs,
high RoF: 40/7.5 = 5.3,
low RoF (with reload) = 20*40/(7.5*20+10) = 5

Ballistic Medium: 70 damage each 14s 20pcs,
high RoF: 70/14 = 5s
low RoF = 20*70/(14*20+10) = 4.83

Compact Medium: 120 damage each 14s 20pcs,
high RoF: 120/14 = 8.57
low RoF: 20*120/(14*20+10) = 8.27

and then

oh wai...

and let look on lasers:
basically medium cells do twice more damage than small
but even HCL laser have only 1.5x higher cycle tyme, therefore it have +33% dps

Last edited by deadok (2010-01-22 12:53:30)

Ok lets get some facts shall we since you are unable to provide them?

No extensions:
Small Missile launcher and Medium missile launcher both have 100% damage modifier.

Small missile launcher has cycle time of 7.5s
Medium missile launcher has cycle time of 14.0s ( x1,87 more)

Small missiles have only one type of missiles so its quite easy to look at them
Compact Sonic missile 40 damage, 150m range, 4m explosion size

Medium missiles have both long range and close range which are usable with same launcher
Compact Sonic missile 120 damage 150m range, 10m explosion size
Ballistic Sonic missile 70 damage, 350m range, 7m explosion size

Now when we start comparing we really can see that light missiles and medium missiles seem to be almost same dps:
Small: 5,33DPS
Med Comp: 8,57DPS
Med Ballis: 5DPS

Since same ranged missiles only has roughly half more DPS its almost same for you right? This is of course without any extensions. With seismics we get a lot more variation and medium launchers get more bonus from RoF extensions since each 1% is larger number that gets reduced. Same happens for damages since 1% from 120 is 1,2 and 1% from 40 is 0,4, 10% from 120 is 12 and 10% from 40 is 4 etc etc.

Since you seem to see something that I fail to see, please show it instead of do your normal bashing posts.

Light missile launcher (ammo: chemoactive compact missile): 4.6 dps
Light missile launcher (ammo: sonic compact missile): 5.3 dps

Medium missile launcher (ammo: chemoactive ballistic missile): 5 dps
Medium missile launcher (ammo: sonic compact missile): 8.5 dps.

Sonic compact missile damage does increase quite a lot, but what about chemoactive and the other similar missiles? 4.6 dps light, 5 dps medium, the dps is almost the same, i guess the only real advantage to medium missiles here is the greater range.

Perhaps i'll retract my statement about changing missile launcher cycle time, maybe a better idea would be to simply up the damage values on medium chemoactive ballistic missiles and the other similar missiles, increase their dps up to about 6, instead of the current 5. This sets the increase more in range with the other weapon types.

Last edited by Sinister (2010-01-22 16:01:04)

If we compare the 150m range and 350m range and their damages, we should get a bit different numbers though IMHO current DPS seems low when explosion size brings it even lower. Since we can actually swap missile types to close range or long range in middle of field it kind of makes balancing harder as guns are either long range or close range.

Also we should note that when your extensions grow up your damage with ballistic missiles grows a marginally more since they have more damage and RoF. I'd like to see some all 5lvl/10lvl extension stats *wink wink zoom wink* with missiles, although I would guess they still would seem poor compared to long ranged gun based weapons.

What I find fishy is that small guns all have more numerical paper DPS than ballistic missiles. While all long range guns have around 20% more numerical paper DPS than their small counter parts, so yeah as you stated ballistic missiles don't really seem that great when compared to other weapon types.

Also ballistic sonic missile has explo size of 7 and all others have 8 seems like there is some bug reporting to do

Ps. Would new topic for this be any good since this topic was initially about laser AP usage?

Yes but that's only because you don't get ballistic light missiles. Compact light missiles are already as far reaching as the longest range gun.

what this thread got to do with missiles?

This is abaut lasers.

To be more precise: Lasers taking ~120% more cap than EM guns without anything that justify that energy drain.

Making them obsoleat, useless piece of disco prop.

[img]http://www.strictlyfx.com/whats_new/david_gilmour_lasers/david_gilmour_lasers_01.jpg[/img]

and for your information

the effect you see is called "bloom"

It happens only in precense of athmosphere.

Real aplication military pulse lasers and AMS lasers dont cause visual spctre bloom.
As they use, in most cases IR wave lenghts.

And the bloom is avoidet by short, hig pulses for the reason that bloom decreses the pover over distance.

Last edited by Siddy (2010-01-22 23:58:53)

in vacum?

no

in athmosphere?

powerful enought laser hitting surface can create significant shockwave.

Lasers can do all sort freaky stuffs in athmosphere. Difrent wavelenght lasers can do diferent things.

Last edited by Siddy (2010-01-23 12:27:23)

Light lasers seem ok now, but from how it looks, some medium lasers may still use too much AP.

Last edited by Sinister (2010-01-31 00:06:16)