Rifleman Archive

Armor Piercing in this game only works against armor...

So if you shoot a Republic Blaster at a gorg, it does max dmg possible

If you shoot a laser rifle at a gorg it does max dmg possible

If you shoot a T21 at a gorg it does max dmg possible

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Against an AR2 target

Laser does max dmg possible

Republic does 1/2 dmg

T21 does max dmg possible

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Against AR3 target

Laser does 75% dmg

T21 does 100%

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Basically, T21 is better IF you are fighting armored opponents, its lame how unless you have armor armor piercing doesn't work , but hitting a krayt for the most dmg possible of all weapons is really cool... as a master riflemen, with a novice riflemen helping, we beat a group of 3 commandos using flamers and 2 pistoleers who were grouped to a loot on a krayt on 5 consecutive dragons...

Armor piercing makes a huge difference on big game... if you don't intend on becoming a big game hunter, you don't need one... if you do plan on ever going into the Eastern Dune Sea or venturing into the North West of Dath against Rancor... you need your T21... there is no question as to its power... it has the best bleeding ability and the best dmg potential on specials because of its wound percentage of 40% vs 25% of a laser rifle...

That's just me though... I like killing rancor in 3 shots, and personally I just go with my guilds newbie members so they can shoot at them while my pet tanks... if things get hairy, I drop 5 rancor in 4 shots with strafe2, my laser would take 7-8 and honestly, I don't have time to do that because my group usually does something stupid and the rancor are running at me... , so I have to save us all

Reena

Bloodfin

I use the T-21 on large mobs and in PvP against people not wearing composite.

I use the Jawa Ion Rifle in PvP against people wearing composite.

I use an SG82 for Krayt hunts (as it does cold based damage)

I use the Laser Rifle the rest of the time (the T-21 is just too expensive a gun to use to kill stuff it is not needed to kill, imo).

I also carry a spraystick, because I think it is really neat, though I have not quite found its niche use yet.

I tested the armor Piercing part yesterday, and about the AP rating not working on unarmored I found that its partly right

IF themob has armor rating none, BUT have ex 20% energy resist, THEN they do count as having armor so then you do 1,25x1,25 -20% resist with a Laser Rifle (and x1,25 more with a T21)

the numbers in the combat window are without the AP +/- but its the numbers over the head of the mob that must be checked, but i guess most know this)

BUT if you use a weapon that the samemob is vulnerable against (ex ion) then it only gives "normal" damage. meaning that the damage in the combat chat and the damage over the head is the same.

This stinks, but this still means that against no armored mobs with a little energy resist then the T21 and the laser rifle are VERY good rifles.

look at this calculation :

ion rifle gives 400 damage against a vuln no armoredmob = 400 dam to the mob

laser rifle gives 400 dam against the same mob with 20% energy resist (x1,25x1,25x0.8) = 500 dam to to mob

same with T21 (x1,25x1,25x1,25x0.8) = 625 dama

so the T21/laser are a lot better against these types still

hope this helps

On the AP issue, Ispent some timeover the weekend testing this as I had heard varying information on how it worked. My findings were as follows: -

For every level of armour piercing that the weapon has above the armour rating of the target then the actual damage was boosted by 25% over what the combat message stated. i.e. AP3 vs AR1 resulted in 56.25% more damage, AP2 vs AR1 resulted in 25% more damage.

For every level of armour piercing that the weapon was below the armour rating og the target then the actual damage was reduced by 50%. i.e. AP0 vs AR1 did half damage, AP0 vs AR2 did quarter damage.

Resistances are factored in at some point to further reduce damage done. Resistances reduce the damage by the percentage they state, i.e. 10% resist will reduce the damage by 10%.

I wont run through all the numbers but what this essentially means is that a crafted T21 is the best choice unless the target is armoured and has a high energy resist, in this case it is sometimes better to use a Jawa Ion Rifle or SG82. Of course if your server is like mine and doesnt have good crafted T21s yet then a laser rifle is best for general use.

Well Shilak - That is exactly the same conclusions i came to, and it follows the "advanced guide to armor" part on the SWG main page.

But as I wrote : when and if you attack a none armored mob with vulnerability to the rifles attack type (i cant recall a mob with no resistance to energy though) - BUT if you ever found a mob armor:none and with vulnerability to energy the T21 would NOT give its 95,3% extra damage against this mob

It is this part I think stinks, as a AP3 rifle is better against an "armored" mob than against a vulnerable mob

I did test with my dropped T21 (cant make T21s on my server yet ) versusunarmoured targets with no energy resist, and it did do approximately twice the damage. I will try again later tho on a mob that specifically states that it is energy vulnerable to see if that yields a different result.

Ignoring resistences for a moment, for every level of armor piercing (AP)the weapon has over the target's armor rating (AR), you get a bonus of 25% more damage (1 level = 1.25x the damage, 2 levels = 1.25^2 or 1.56x the damage, 3 levels = 1.25 ^ 3 or 1.95 times x the damage). For every level of target AR over the weapon AP, you loose 50% of the damage (1 level = .50x the damage, 2 levels = .50 ^ 2or .25 x the damage, and 3 levels = .50 ^ 3 or .125 x the damage). When AP = AR, then there is no armor piercing bonus or penalty.

The Laser is medium armor piercing (AP2) and the T21 is heavy armor piercing (AP3). The table below shows the damage multipiers forAP vs ARused for each type of armor against each weapon.

Laser T21
Unarmored (AR0)1.56x 1.95x
Light (AR1) 1.25x 1.56x
Medium(AR2) 1.00x1.25x
Heavy(AR3) 0.50x 1.00x

So against unarmored to medium armored targets, to do the same averge damage as the T21, the Laser's base damage would have to be approximately 25% higher. Against a heavy armored opponent, it would have to do twice the average damage. Thus, so it is possible to get Lasers that will out perform an average T21, but realistically only if the target is AR2 or less. And against a good T21 with the best damage slice available, it would be hard to find a Laser that could match it.

However, there are two cases where you may be better off with a Laser. When a target has a vulnerability to the damage type (energy in both cases), it goes though a set of calculations which ignore the armor and resistence factors. So in that case, the AP differences are irrelevant, and a Laser that is doing 25% more average base damage will actuallyaverage 25% more damage than the T21 rather than just matching it. The same will be true of bleeds. Bleed also ignore armor and resistences, so for a bleed shot, on average a Laser will outperform a T21 if the Laser does higher averge damage.

Of course, the typical T21 does do two or three times the minimum damage. so it will be more consistent and will be affected less by damage mitigation since the wider the spread between the minimum and maximum damage, the more damage mitigtion affects the weapon. So, again, the T21 will be affected less by damage mitigation than the Laser.

Sotaudi, respectfully, youa re missing the fact that a majority of opponents in PVP do NOT in fact use armor. Thus it counts as a vulnerability. When dealing with mitigation, I showed in my above post that a High end laser will in fact outpreform a high end T-21.(for my server at least. I assume that the difference is pretty close on most of the other servers, with Lasers being near double a T-21's max damage).

Against unarmored PVP opponents of any mitigation, this makes the Laser the ideal weapon for PVP. With armor, you should be using a Jawa Ion for the Stun anyhow. For composite at least. Haven't seen a suit of anything else that really slows my laser down enough for me to notice. Not to mention if you get caught fighting without food or buffs, the lower HAM of a laser will allow you more shots in the long run if it turns to a pitched battle, thus making it more likely of a victory.

Not only multiplication, but averages

A T21 with say 296-696 damage will average 496

A Laser with say 120-750 damage will average 435

The T21 will still hit for 14% more damage on average, even ignoring AP. Its even more critical in PvP where Mitigation 3 will reduce the T21 to 336, but the laser to 183, so now the T21 is doing almost double damage.

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DangerousToSociety wrote:
Laser rifles until you reach Master Sharpshooter then go with T21

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I used a Speed Sliced T21 from Novice to Master, in fact I still have it.. It's max condition is currently only 325 and is hanging on a wall in my Hunting Lodge hehe!

I just prefered using it because of the AP bonuses against what I was hunting.