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This is going to get long winded, I know that.. not even sure this is the right place to post this. And yes, I did search around the forums and on the bug tracker for related reports.. none found. Sorry if this has been dealt with elsewhere already.
To put it simply, heat seekers have a quirky feature that has the potential to make it ridiculously OP. Damage decreases steadily toward the proper damage per block that is expected at 100% effect for 20 missiles per weapon output. As more effect is added, the more missiles per volley... thus applying more of said damage value.. and it kinda rolls downhill from there. In between 0% and 100% the damage rate follows a raised curve due to the nature that each new missile added to the number of shots also applies the similar damage for the given effect ratio.
I found this after a couple hours of tinkering with 1,000 block weapons supported by varying effects and plenty of mashed buttons on a calculator while shooting some random shield block ship for verification. I discovered the heat seekers follow a strange pattern damage-wise compared to other weapons. I further investigated the heat seeker group out of interest, eventually finding the magic number where the peak damage is done... Around 63.2% secondary effect, or right when the number of missiles fired per output hits 13. The DPS per block in the weapon group hits its' maximum at that point. Beyond the peak found at 13 missiles per "shot" the DPS diminishes and eventually falls back to what it should be when it reaches 100% effect, firing 20 missiles for the properly reduced damage that equates to 5 DPS.
... I then put this newfound knowledge to work and came up with the following Paint-drawn graph approximation thingy.
--Forgot to label the right side of the graph is 100% effect.
The Blue line indicates what should have been observed, a steady increase in damage that holds to 5 DPS per block added to the group. The red line shows the approximate curve the damage followed due to each additional missile added per volley. (the actual data plots would be quite... spikey, mountainous-looking, with the peak of each spike being when another missile was added to the "shots" per group followed by a decreasing curve till the next missile "shot" count was hit. Curve is simplified to account for maximum damage potential per missile fired)
.... then went a step further and implemented it on a huge ship.. which proceeded to be deemed too powerful. (I play on Red-Shift.org 's server, and this weapon system type is seemingly well known there.)
Screenshots: Pay attention to the heat seeker group.
85296 blocks overall in the heat seeker group, with the main weapon split into 4 identical 10K block groups.
This is where it goes places.
Note that damage and number of shots.. and there's 4 equal groups doing that damage.
638,472.6 damage multiplied by 13 missiles per group and multiplied by 4 groups.
Result: A whopping 33,200,575.2 damage per volley if all of those missiles hit one target.
Now divide that big damage number by 15 seconds to get damage per second. Then divide by 85,296 blocks to end up at DPS per block. That is a whopping 25.949 damage to shields per block in that entire weapon group. Compare that to what, 5 DPS per block for the other weapons? I will also mention energy per damage falls just below 2 for this large weapon group.
In any case, a solution would be simple. Take all of the blocks in a given heat seeker group, multiply by 5 DPS per block. multiply by the reload time (15 seconds in the current case). Then divide by the number of missiles. This would bring this weapon's damage back inline with the others.
That is the entire concern of why I wrote this post.
Is this intended, brokenly OP, or just me?
Any thoughts? Further testing needed?
To put it simply, heat seekers have a quirky feature that has the potential to make it ridiculously OP. Damage decreases steadily toward the proper damage per block that is expected at 100% effect for 20 missiles per weapon output. As more effect is added, the more missiles per volley... thus applying more of said damage value.. and it kinda rolls downhill from there. In between 0% and 100% the damage rate follows a raised curve due to the nature that each new missile added to the number of shots also applies the similar damage for the given effect ratio.
I found this after a couple hours of tinkering with 1,000 block weapons supported by varying effects and plenty of mashed buttons on a calculator while shooting some random shield block ship for verification. I discovered the heat seekers follow a strange pattern damage-wise compared to other weapons. I further investigated the heat seeker group out of interest, eventually finding the magic number where the peak damage is done... Around 63.2% secondary effect, or right when the number of missiles fired per output hits 13. The DPS per block in the weapon group hits its' maximum at that point. Beyond the peak found at 13 missiles per "shot" the DPS diminishes and eventually falls back to what it should be when it reaches 100% effect, firing 20 missiles for the properly reduced damage that equates to 5 DPS.
... I then put this newfound knowledge to work and came up with the following Paint-drawn graph approximation thingy.
--Forgot to label the right side of the graph is 100% effect.
The Blue line indicates what should have been observed, a steady increase in damage that holds to 5 DPS per block added to the group. The red line shows the approximate curve the damage followed due to each additional missile added per volley. (the actual data plots would be quite... spikey, mountainous-looking, with the peak of each spike being when another missile was added to the "shots" per group followed by a decreasing curve till the next missile "shot" count was hit. Curve is simplified to account for maximum damage potential per missile fired)
.... then went a step further and implemented it on a huge ship.. which proceeded to be deemed too powerful. (I play on Red-Shift.org 's server, and this weapon system type is seemingly well known there.)
Screenshots: Pay attention to the heat seeker group.
85296 blocks overall in the heat seeker group, with the main weapon split into 4 identical 10K block groups.
This is where it goes places.
Note that damage and number of shots.. and there's 4 equal groups doing that damage.
638,472.6 damage multiplied by 13 missiles per group and multiplied by 4 groups.
Result: A whopping 33,200,575.2 damage per volley if all of those missiles hit one target.
Now divide that big damage number by 15 seconds to get damage per second. Then divide by 85,296 blocks to end up at DPS per block. That is a whopping 25.949 damage to shields per block in that entire weapon group. Compare that to what, 5 DPS per block for the other weapons? I will also mention energy per damage falls just below 2 for this large weapon group.
In any case, a solution would be simple. Take all of the blocks in a given heat seeker group, multiply by 5 DPS per block. multiply by the reload time (15 seconds in the current case). Then divide by the number of missiles. This would bring this weapon's damage back inline with the others.
That is the entire concern of why I wrote this post.
Is this intended, brokenly OP, or just me?
Any thoughts? Further testing needed?
