Bounty Hunter Archive

A weapon with a higher Effectiveness Rating will outperform a weapon with a lower Effectiveness Rating, provided:

1) The Armor Rating of the target critter is equal to or lower than the Armor Piercing Rating for both weapons.
2) The target critter is not vulnerable to the damage type of either weapon.
3) The Weapon Skill Speed is the same for both weapons.
4) The 1.0 second speed cap is not in effect for either weapon.

I believe that the bolded caveat needs to be strengthened. The first should be: the difference between the armor rating and the armor piercing are identical. A weapon with AP2 will perform 1.25^2 times better than a weapon with AP0 vs. a target with AR0. Correct? The second should be: the target critter has identical resists/vulnerabilities to either weapon.

In general, I think that your rating system is not very effective for considerations of different armor piercing levels and armor rating levels. At least so long as you attempt to generate a single effectiveness rating. There is no good answer for this except to compute and compare 3 values for each weapon -- it's effectiveness against each Armor Rating. Then you can make judgements like: this weapon is better than this other one specifically against creatures of AR0.

Also, a lot of this overshadowed by the effect of the speed cap. Given that Center of Being apparently drops when you use a special, specials are going to be used less often by melees and damage is going to become even more important over dps. Also, this will decrease the impact of things like HAM usage and the Volsted rating.

--- Flynn and Gaffyn + The Brothers McDonnell ---

Great post! I just thought that I started to play games in order to AVOID math!

Another thing unmentioned by the volstead rating...

Why are you using that true damage per second/ HAM per shot?

It is really quite irrelevant ratio, perhaps what would be wiser would be true Damage per Second/HAM per second? (or Damage Per Shot/ HAM per shot) That would tell alot more about how quick your bars drain... Because to be 100% honest, I break down my action bar firing off my FWG alot quicker than I break down my bar with my T21...(But have no points to the soldier line, so my speed is horrible)

Or am I reading the HAM costs wrong and they really are per second naturally?

If I'm right and the specials cost for HAM is per shot, as seen in-game, the T21 is the most effecient gun for HAM right now...This of course, also assumes that Headshot2 and 3 have the same multipliers that Bodyshot 2 and 3 have...

With rifles, everything in combat behaves jerky for low level riflemen, you effect the enemy's mind bar in a jerky fashion, your mind bar goes down jerkily. This is due to the high weapon speed of the T21...

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This post has shown me one thing, if nothing else: If you can get the soldier line, its GREAT to be a rifleman right now. Pistoleers honestly get nerfed high end for their advantage around the novice levels by the damage cap that Master Riflemen and Soldier approach with their 7.5 speed natural T21s.

Thanks again Volsted, I am glad someone is actually taking the time to figure out the combat system and not just complaining about something they have little, if any, knowledge about.

I don't think anyone is going to base any balance solutions on these calculations. Damage has been done this way since the game launched, so someone explaining it to everyone isn't going to change anything. What this post doesn't mention is the better special attacks have higher multipliers, and most have longer delays. Example Bodyshot1 might have a multiplier of 1.5 and a delay of 2 where Bodyshot2 might have a multiplier of 2.5 but a delay of 2.5. These numbers and not accurate but just used as an example, for TKAs their high lvl specials near multipliers of 4+ but still have fairly low delays meaning they can deal out alot of damage in a small amount of time, even if a VK's "effectiveness" is alot lower than other melee weapons.

It would be nice to see how a spraystick stacks up

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StGabriel wrote:
The first should be: the difference between the armor rating and the armor piercing are identical. A weapon with AP2 will perform 1.25^2 times better than a weapon with AP0 vs. a target with AR0. Correct?

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Not necessarily. It's pretty trivial to construct a hypothetical weapon with lower AP that will outperform a weapon with higher AP against all armor levels equal to or lower than the AP rating of the lower AP weapon.

Consider the following two weapons (these are a couple of my own weapons):
Sliced DLT20a: 141-249 dmg, 3.6 speed, AP0
Unsliced E11 Rifle: 79-174 dmg, 4.4 speed, AP2

DLT20a average damage per hit vs. AR0 critter: 292.5
Average shots per minute: 16.7
Damage Per Minute vs. AR0 critter, assuming 100% accuracy: 16.7 * 292.5 = 4875

E11 average damage per hit vs. AR0 critter: 296.5
Average shots per minute: 13.6
Damage Per Minute vs. AR0 critter, assuming 100% accuracy: 13.6 * 296.5 = 4043

So, when fighting against AR0 critters, my AP0 DLT20a actually outperforms my AP2 E11 Rifle. I would have to get a 21% damage slice or a 21% speed slice to the E11 to make it peform as well as the DLT20a. If I got a 19% slice, for example, the E11 would still be outperformed by the DLT20a vs. AR0 critters.

Many of you will be scratching your heads saying "But we're not 100% accurate!" And that's correct. However, in general, ranged combat classes will be equally accurate (or equally inaccurate) across weapon types. In general, I'm about as accurate with my DLT20a as I am with my E11. So since I'm equally accurate with both weapons, the actual accuracy percentage I use to calculate this stuff doesn't matter, as long as I use the same percentage for both cases. 100% accuracy makes the math easier, but I could just as easily assume 75% accuracy or 58% accuracy or whatever. Wouldn't matter. The DLT20a would still outperform the E11 against AR0 critters.

Obviously, things are different for some of the melee classes with significant accuracy penalties. I'm trying to figure out a way to take that into account when I get around to updating the Effectiveness Rating stuff, to give you guys numbers more reflective of (virtual) reality.

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StGabriel wrote:
There is no good answer for this except to compute and compare 3 values for each weapon -- it's effectiveness against each Armor Rating.

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Unnecessary, as demonstrated above. If an AP2 weapon outperforms an AP3 weapon against AR0 critters, then the AP2 weapon will also outperform the AP3 weapon vs. AR1 and AR2 critters. This is true for any situation where a lower AP weapon outperforms a higher AP weapon vs. AR0 critters. The lower AP weapon will continue to outperform the higher AP weapon up until the AR of the critter is higher than the AP of the lower AP weapon. (Even then, the lower AP weapon could possibly still outperform the higher AP weapon. But it's pretty unlikely.)

Also, a lot of this overshadowed by the effect of the speed cap. Given that Center of Being apparently drops when you use a special, specials are going to be used less often by melees and damage is going to become even more important over dps. Also, this will decrease the impact of things like HAM usage and the Volsted rating.

This seems to be incorrect. I took someone else's word without having tried this myself. I was able to keep Center of Being up while using specials with no problem. Sorry for the confusion.

--- Flynn and Gaffyn + The Brothers McDonnell ---

Your original statement of these conditions was:

A weapon with a higher Effectiveness Rating will outperform a weapon with a lower Effectiveness Rating, provided:
blah, blah, blah . . .


I responded that these are not strong enough. I see now that your effectiveness rating, can in limited circumstances still work with the AR condition you give (although this needlessly limits the usefulness of the results). The resistance condition should still be restated.

Not necessarily. It's pretty trivial to construct a hypothetical weapon with lower AP that will outperform a weapon with higher AP against all armor levels equal to or lower than the AP rating of the lower AP weapon.

You were giving sufficient conditions for stating that higher effectiveness would mean better damage over time. Your conditions were not strong enough as I pointed out. The fact that a lower AP weapon can outperform a higher AP weapon is irrelevant to these conditions and is often dependent on the AR of the target. Many AP0 weapons will outperform AP1 weapons against AR0 targets and will not do so against AR1 or greater targets.

Unnecessary, as demonstrated above. If an AP2 weapon outperforms an AP3 weapon against AR0 critters, then the AP2 weapon will also outperform the AP3 weapon vs. AR1 and AR2 critters.

Two points:

• it will not necessarily outperform an AP3 weapon against AR3 targets which is exactly the problem
  
• as weapons have many different strengths and weaknesses, it is important to give a relevant rating for each weapon against each AR and not simply be able to make yes/no judgements for certain very specific scenarios.
  

In general, calculating these values for each AR will be much more useful. Instead of attempting a wholesale judgement of all qualities of the weapon at once you can say: this weapon is my best weapon against AR0, this one for AR1 and this third one for AR2 or AR3. You have to pick the best tool for the job in question, not simply a best tool for a given arbitrary job. You have the machinery here to do this, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch. If you check out Lyahpar's tables (buried in the Fencer forum under some title like, "Anatomy of SWG Weapons") where she does similar stuff to what you are doing you will find that she ended up with some very nice results by considering such a comparison.

And of course the speed cap is just huge. As is front-loading of damage.

--- Flynn and Gaffyn + The Brothers McDonnell ---

..... math is hard.

I'm gonna post this on the Teras Kasi board... Should go on all the other boards too, it's good stuff. I can't figure out how to get the spreadsheets to work, but I'm trying to add the vibroknuckler, so it'd be a lot more effort than I want to put into it (Now I just sound lazy and ungrateful). I'll let one of my fellow Teras Kasi's do that.. Thanks for the info Valsted =)

I have a quick question:

I have BH Pistols IV (Expert)

I was using a sliced scatter with 2.2 speed rating, then upgraded to a Krayt speed sliced to 1.1 for PvP.

I getabout three or four shotsper second now. And the Krayt is about twice as fast as my standard scatter.

With a special cost of 2.0 for eyshot (a guess) that would be a speed rating of 0.22, which is about four shots per second.

(Note that my roommate is a master doc. I alwaysneed my quickness buffed to use this gun on more than one target without shooting myself to near death.)

I have several comments/questions to this. First off, what happens when your skill speed bonus is at or over 100? I think mine isinthe high 80's right now, but it will go over 100once i finish up bh pistol and the last pistol stance. According to the math, it would go negative, which obviously can't happen in the real world. The other comment is the speed cap. I am pretty sure they removed it. I have a .8 speed scatter pistol, and with my skill mod, it sure looks like I am getting 3-4 shots of a second. Also, I have seen I-Make's infamous 0.1 speed scatter pistols, and they appear to shoot that fast. Just something to ponder. Also, people have to take into consideration what damage type these weapons are. The acid of the scatter pistol is generally better than energy, and so forth. Otherwise really great guide. You spend a lot of time thinking about this. Props to you.

nice job man. Thanks for your efforts.