Weaponsmith Archive

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Ipseck wrote:

I haven't really had any time to do any hard testing on accuracy, I just know what the tendancies are - those being the higher the accuracy, the higher the damage. There's a direct correlation.

And with reguards to weaponsmithing - The short answer is: you shouldn't be looking at any one thing in particular. You should be looking at the big picture. If you ignore any one aspect of your weapon it'll relegate it to a 2nd rate piece of equipment. Accurcay, Speed, Damage and Special Action Cost are all extremely important, and the art is finding how to maximize weapon use through higher damage with a longer use potential.

Message Edited by Ipseck on 05-23-2005 04:17 PM

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I think most WS know that. It's just that as far as customers are concerned the DPS statis a good indicator when it comes to buying factory produced weapons. It's therefor marketing purposes. And due to most factory run weapons being crafted by maxing speed on components and damage on the final weapon it's a pretty good guide for them.

I think we'll see Accuracy being requested more when crafting custom orders after respec has finished and people are settled (or stuck) in the prof they ended up with and they get to know the intricacies.

Pre-cu Advanced scopes ftw!!! +16 accuracy So far for my own personal weapons and most custom orders its been Damage for 8/9 points to cap (gotta love+25 experiment and +20 fs ) and then rest in SAC. Made a 355 dps (cant remember max) Featherweight FWG5, +15 pistol accuracy with a +16 bonus 91 SAC, no speed experimentation for my MBH/MPistoleer alt

Also, don't forget with the gates out the window I was actually able to experiment my Featherweight FWG5s higher than my normal FWG5s

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Ipseck wrote:

And with reguards to weaponsmithing - The short answer is: you shouldn't be looking at any one thing in particular. You should be looking at the big picture. If you ignore any one aspect of your weapon it'll relegate it to a 2nd rate piece of equipment. Accurcay, Speed, Damage and Special Action Cost are all extremely important, and the art is finding how to maximize weapon use through higher damage with a longer use potential.

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Agreed.

The problem is that each customer is different and has different needs. When I make a custom weapon, I rely on their input to make what they want. In the absence of that input, I make the best balanced weapon that I can. While one customer might view my balancing as second-rate, another might disagree due to his character template.

In any case, experimentation is a lot more challanging now than it was before the CU.

Ok using that Bloodfin.org template builder, I have come to a conclusion. Everything that we have been talking about matters. How it affects weaponsmiths is dependant on how our customers template is built. It all depends on their skill mods/tapes/clothing as to how they may want a weapon built.

I think the biggest thing that we need to know is when those diminishing returns kick in as to avoid sticking points in there. I was messing around with a MBH/MPistols/MMarksman/Accuracy Tree for Carbines and came out with general ranged accuracy of 215. Not including mods or weapons.

I think the big old deal here is that it is beneficial to get two Elite melee or ranged professions with the corrensponding basic profession to max out skills. This stacking is how it works. So, depending on what you want to stack, or may be deficient in, you get the weapon for what you need. So if you don't need general ranged accuracy but need speed, put points into speed. This is how weapons benefit the customer.

Vade and Shug ty for your responses it has been a great help to me. I have been making weapons for about 9 months but the whole CU thing has made this pro much more challenging than in the past. I can't complain I honestly like learning something new. Keep up the great info for your fellow weaponsmiths.


Ballzonya
-Flurry-

I don't have any hard data to share right now, but I've noticed that trying to experiment over 90% on any stat (except maybe SAC) has limited gains.

Exactly my point. If we can find out when these diminishing returns begin tooccur we can save our precious exp. points for other aspects of the weapons we are building. Then we can create a more efficient weapon or alter them depending on templates players have.

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GhostInAShell wrote:

[quote]there is no hard speed cap - its a diminishing returns formula - meaning the more you get, the less you'll notice the change. Take a look at one of my first posts - 1.86 speed pistol mbh/msmugg template (1.3 modified speed w/o skillmod clothes/1.1 speed w/ skill mod clothes). There was a real difference in how often I was attacking, but it didn't become evident till analyzing samples of around 10 or more.[/quote]

Try it with some combat speed foods some time, and throw on a speed Pup for good measure. You'll see what I'm talking about. No matter how fast your recharge timer on your specials goes, they WILL NOT fire faster than a certain speed. I don't know how to timestamp it yet, but I've noticed that at that point, creatures always hit at a set rate vs. my attacks in the combat damage report. Furthermore, there is a very noticable delay between the Special Action timer and it actually firing of the next command when you hit that speed.

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That is interesting. This will save at least 1 point to experiment elsewhere. Someone said that 2.0 speed is the metric and you cannot fire any quicker? Well, what if you experimented your subs to make a weapon that hit 2.0taking all of yourskill mods into effect? Then if you are at the point of diminishing returns, you can put your points elsewhere. And ultimately choose your foods/spices/buffs based upon your weapon and be more efficient.

Hard data on this would be good.

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Vade_WS wrote:
I don't have any hard data to share right now, but I've noticed that trying to experiment over 90% on any stat (except maybe SAC) has limited gains.

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Apologies for beating a dead horse (though I’m just following the lead) if you all haven’t already please take time to carefully read the link below then re-evaluate all that you have been discussing. Accuracy Does modify damage done, min does always get taken into account and there is a max and min damage capbefore multipliers based on your weapon – ie vs layers – hitting max damage

After the excel sheet by staveeno lays all your issues to rest about the labelling issue of DPS I think all you need look at for checking if a weapon is good or notis the predicted damage from a basic ranged or melee hit. that then can be used along with your weapons estimated modified speed (whether its a problem itsbelow 2s or not is now the only issue)

The only issue still to resolve is the problem of warm-up and cooldown with relation to your modified speed of your weapon. So far through this post there has been no sign of testing of speed (from lack of info – that this excel sheet now fills). All we can do is devise a way to test the speed of each attack in terms of warm up/cooldown. We still may find that below 2s mod weapon speed is no help but in all the data and testing I’ve seen the numbers have rarely if ever just “capped”. I feel its all in terms of investment – 3 pts of exp in crafting put to speed might lower the warmup and cooldowns by a few second ever 20 shots? But this extra shot evey 20 might be the one that pushes your action use over the limit (but gives you the extra 2000pts to finish off your target

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=295071

Message Edited by Puttley on 07-13-2005 05:04 PM

just to follow up my last post i tested speed on ranged/placed shot while attacking for about 60 sec ata time (mostly so the kimo would regen). i alternated from ranged to placed as soon as the last had finished and queued the next attack. then logged all the time stamps of my shots (i ran so there was no healing, need for other shots etc for a clean log).

i had 3 speeds from different powerups:
1) 0.93 modified weapon speed
hit 38 times in 61 sec
= 1.61 seconds/shot

2) 1.37 modified weapon speed
hit 35 times in 61 sec
= 1.74 seconds/shot

3) 1.52 modified weapon speed
hit 32 times iun 62 sec
= 1.94 seconds/shot


these figures are an avarage of several runs for each different speed. the only difference beween each different speed was the powerup used (or lack of).

note also that there was a noticable difference between cooldown timers with test 1) compaired to test 3) in ALL attacks.

conclusion:
DPS does matter. (as tests above show, but not in a direct way to the DPS listed on the weapon)

action does matter. (the fun one here is wheather shots like advanced critical do more damage/sec than ranged. adv. crit high dam but long cooldown. ranged shot low damage but short cooldown....ps tested ranged & placed VS adv crit & headshot and ranged/placed is better to use for damage output overtime!!!!)

max damage does matter. (Check the guide linked above)

min damage does matter. (Check the guide linked above)

accuracy does matter. (Check the guide linked above)

sac does matter (this test was difficult to do for high sac draining attacks)

Base DPS means everything in the only category that counts for me ... sales. I have tried different combos of high damage, low SAC weapons. I have used pre CU and post CU weapons. I have priced low SAC weapons lower than high DPS weapons. DPSwins the majority of thetime. There are people who come looking for custom weapons, but they are a small percentage of the population. Personally, I want my guns to have as low a SAC as I can get. But I will stock what sells. And 300+ DPS sells.

When I was fighting Level 289 DJM's with my rifle, the only stat I cared about was minimum damage because of the MIN-MAX caps in relations to accuracy and CL levels.

Speed really didn't matter much, My rifle speed is +182, (MRifle, MPistol, MMarksman, FS General Ranged Speed)

ok, little bit of testing with some attacks - timing lenght of combat and then the number of attacks done in that time - i have a rough forumula for a "real - time" dps.

it is all a little rough i know and my tests were only for ranged shot over a period of 60 seconds (re-tested afew times for each different weapon speed) but i hopeit gives some perspective on dps.

Message Edited by Puttley on 07-15-2005 01:52 PM