Weaponsmith Archive

Yes. I understand that. DPA over time is still worthless without accuracy. And it is relative. The more of that damage you can get through to your opponent (ie Accuracy) the better your weapon reflects itsDPA and DPS. And this is even more important with different CL's. But hey everyone will figure it out sooner or later. All of these factors work together.

PS If we know what the regen rate is you won't be wasting your points! So if for instance IE at 80 plus toon bonuses your action regens fully, what is the point of wasting more points into SAC? These laws of diminishing returns are equally viable for crafting too. We need to figure them out. This is where the testing should be occurring. Then thein the field testingwill be more valid.

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Curby wrote:

The point about the powerups is very good. Has anyonetested +dmg pups on a lowdmg/lowSAC weapon and -SAC pups on a highdmg/highSAC weapon? When I get another hammer from my smith I'll be testing this myself.

The points of the original postare still valid, though the Conclusions sectionis misleading. The main point, namely thatresulting Damage per unit Action should be maximized, still holds. However you get there, whether via slicing, powerup, or bare weapon, is up to you. The other point, namely that DPS is just about meaningless in a fight, also holds. Whether you use DPS for marketing or not is up to you.

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samijx wrote:

Just remeber, the key isn't "SAC/Damage" or"Lowest SAC possible" You need to find the SAC that works well with your character, then maximize thedamage on your weapon

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I totally agree. I said that Damage per Action should be maximized, and see no evidence that this is incorrect. Again, I do admit that my conclusions were misleading. For example, we know there are diminishing returns in almost all aspects of combat. It is clearthat in some situations, lowering SAC will not improve DPA as much as increasing damage. If you have a weapon that has between 80-85 SAC, a +dmg pup will likely increase DPA more than a -SAC pup (I will be trying to test this soon).

To tell the truth, I very seldomly use pups, and didn't even consider them in my first round of testing. For those like me, SAC will almost always be the primary concern during the crafting of the weapon. If you do use pups, the extra variables introduced by their use must be considered, and there is a chance that -SAC on a high damage weapon will be more effective than a +dmg on a low SAC weapon.

Only if you're so lucky that spamming your most damaging/effective specials continuously does NOT drop your action would youthinkyou "wasted" experimentation points on SAC. If you really cannot realistically drop your action bar, then you should have put more points into damage. For extended fights, your damage output over time will almost always be gated by Action, and DPA is important in that case.

Regarding accuracy, defense, relative CLs: that is derailing the original intent of this thread. The only reason I posted weapon performance vs a CL54 and a CL80 is to show that DPA is similar and similarly effectivefor enemies of varying CLs (see the damage factor paragraph above).

Conclusions in original post have been edited.

Message Edited by Curby on 06-13-2005 10:51 PM

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Message Edited by Blackmoore on 06-14-2005 10:21 AM

I totally agree. I take a DPM (Damage per minute) approach to my weapon experimentation and sales, this is what I now do:

You can max out damage and SAC on any Rifle or Carbine, however, the Advanced Laser Rifle and Elite Carbine are REALLY the only two weapons you need to stock. Why? Both use the least amount of tissues for carbines, both are LVL 54 weapons with no master cert needed.

Also the Adv. Laser can benefit from a weapon scope, which boosts the accuracy of the weapon, while the T21 cannot. Some customers are picky about how the weapon "looks" but in all honestly, the no master cert for the adv. laser and elite make them very appealing weapons.

I sell 991 max damage (unenhanced) Adv Laser rifles with capped SAC at 82. I sell 886 max damage (unenhanced) Elite Carbs with capped SAC at 73. I also sell FWG5's and DL44XT with maxxed damage and 77 or 78 SAC, which is as good as you can get with a pistol because they can't benefit from a weapon stock.

Next, I offer -28% SAC powerups. These powerups drop the SAC of the rifles to 59, Carbines to 52, Pistols to 55 & 56 SAC. Granted the powerups hit the weapons with -10 accuracy, but all these weapons still have +13 Accuracy (because they all accept scopes), so with the PU my customers still benefit from +3 Accuracy.

I had to do some grinding on my master ranger after her respec, needed a bunch of scout experience. I used a damage capped Krayt Adv. Laser Rifle with 59 SAC, only took Blob Candy for the action regen and 50+ minute duration and my action pool NEVER dropped below 70% ever. This allows you to do insane damage and constantly attack creatures and I mean constantly. Once you kill one, you snare it, to slow it down, then alternate between two good hitting specials and stuff drops really really quick. Unless you miss a few shots, firing from 64m the creatures usually are killed before they even hit you once.

So if players wanna brag about DPS, I say let them. I'd rather kill stuff fast, get great yields on hide, use less stims and really limit the decay on my quad primus layered padded armor suit. In about 6 hours of killing, I only lost 2k off the condition of my chest piece. Thats how good a low SAC/DPM weapon can be...

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Curby wrote:

First point: DPS is worthless

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Message Edited by RadiantResources on 06-15-2005 09:04 AM

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MasterSheep wrote:

ok chucking in some other info..

Firstly COMBAT LEVEL itself is ignored for PvP... (only direct effect is the health level of the toons)

I regularly PvP with my level 54 WS/carbineer and win about 85% of the time vs CL 80 toons ( and then mail them a wpt to my shop - its a real good way to advertise

the damage done formula is something like this..

with ranged/melee hit.. (same principle applies for ANY other special - but has an additional multiplier)

if your acc is significantly lower than opponents defence (not exactly sure on this value but i think its around 250-300ish)

then you do the minimum damage on your weapon x the damage mod of the attack

the inverse is also true - 250-300 points greater acc than your opponents defence = you do the weapons max dam x the damage mod of the attack.

there is a sliding non linear scale between these two extremes

So weapons with a very tight min/max damage range will do simular damages vs any target regardless of defence/acc/cl

A'ru

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Starcloud wrote:

So that's how the damage calculation works when you hit...

(maximum damage - minimum damage) = damage range

(Accuracy - defense)/(accuracy) = percentage difference on hit

(Minimum damage+ (damage range*percentage difference)) * special attack modifier= damage done to target before armor.

or something like that, anyway. There's diminishing returns involved and I never was good with logarithms.

So basically there's no random number generator working on damage anymore. Pity. It makes things too predictable.

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sammerz wrote:
This thread is far too perfect to be lost in the tides of time.

I think every combatant in SWG...except for my oponents, of course should have this knowledge.

Sticky?

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fabkins wrote:

"by my findings this thread is misleading."

Yeah ? In what way. Not disputing your statement as I have no idea what you are thinking but please share your thoughts and "findings".

A statement like this is akin to someone saying "You're all wrong" and walking out of the room, which is obviously completely unconstructive!

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I created a thread about it.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=weaponsmith&message.id=87258

First, this is very good info....will help me a lot.

Second, does anyone know the impact of accuracy vs defense? Like how much of a damage bonus do you get for having higher accuracy than your targets defense.

Also, has anyone figured out the adjusted speed formula yet? What I need to know is for each point of speed gained from skill mods, how much does that decrease the weapons speed.I've found that the amount of decrease is different forweapons with different base speeds.

For example, a weapon with 2.5 base speed will decrease to 2.48 (roughly .0178 deduction using unrounded numbers)when you add 1 of speed from skill mods .....but a weapon with 2.75 base speed will decrease to only 2.74 (roughly .0196)when adding 1 point of speed from skill mods.

I've been trying to figure out the formula for about 3 days now. So far I've found out how to calculate the hidden decimals points (not sure how accurate they are though because, well, they're hidden...lol) however, points from skill mods don't seem to reduce the speed by a set percentage like the old system. I know about the diminishing returns and I'm pretty sure I have figured out the points at which the diminishing returns takes effect....but what I can't seem to find is what determines exactly how much 1 skill point reduces the speed when dealing with different base speeds, if that makes sense to anyone.

Anyone know something that I don't? Please share if you do

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Lycantha wrote:

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Alristico wrote:

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sammerz wrote:
This thread is far too perfect to be lost in the tides of time.

I think every combatant in SWG...except for my oponents, of course should have this knowledge.

Sticky?

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by my findings this thread is misleading.

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I read your thread. The original poster here has it right, and backs it up. My testing came to the same conclusions as the original poster.. I could post them but his info and testing is right on the mark.

Speed generated DPS is false at Double Combat mastery, period. SAC/Damage and Damage Per Action is the real measure of a weapon.

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another person posting statements without backing them up.

the original poster is wrong. The cooldown timer is affected by the modified speed listed on the weapon. Maybe this was patched after his test or maybe his test was poor. Either way he's wrong.

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HardwiredXMan wrote:

First, this is very good info....will help me a lot.

Second, does anyone know the impact of accuracy vs defense? Like how much of a damage bonus do you get for having higher accuracy than your targets defense.

Also, has anyone figured out the adjusted speed formula yet? What I need to know is for each point of speed gained from skill mods, how much does that decrease the weapons speed.I've found that the amount of decrease is different forweapons with different base speeds.

For example, a weapon with 2.5 base speed will decrease to 2.48 (roughly .0178 deduction using unrounded numbers)when you add 1 of speed from skill mods .....but a weapon with 2.75 base speed will decrease to only 2.74 (roughly .0196)when adding 1 point of speed from skill mods.

did your character have the same amount of speed prior to adding the +1 in both cases?

I've been trying to figure out the formula for about 3 days now. So far I've found out how to calculate the hidden decimals points (not sure how accurate they are though because, well, they're hidden...lol) however, points from skill mods don't seem to reduce the speed by a set percentage like the old system. I know about the diminishing returns and I'm pretty sure I have figured out the points at which the diminishing returns takes effect....but what I can't seem to find is what determines exactly how much 1 skill point reduces the speed when dealing with different base speeds, if that makes sense to anyone.

Anyone know something that I don't? Please share if you do

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Alristico wrote:

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sammerz wrote:
This thread is far too perfect to be lost in the tides of time.

I think every combatant in SWG...except for my oponents, of course should have this knowledge.

Sticky?

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by my findings this thread is misleading.

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