Damage Pulse, the forgotten weapon

    AtraUnam

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    C/P is a poor choice for DPS. It simply isn't meant for that.
    Did the C/P weapon in your test over-penetrate at any point?
    It did not, I was firing at a 1000m thick plate of standard armor in order to maximize efficiency for both weapons by making sure there would be no overpenetration. And while its true that an alpha weapon is meant for 'massive upfront damage' rather than DPS it fails at even that because despite a 16 seconds reload the C/P is only doing as much block damage as 2.3 seconds of fire from a C/C array of the same size.
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    It did not, I was firing at a 1000m thick plate of standard armor in order to maximize efficiency for both weapons by making sure there would be no overpenetration. And while its true that an alpha weapon is meant for 'massive upfront damage' rather than DPS it fails at even that because despite a 16 seconds reload the C/P is only doing as much block damage as 2.3 seconds of fire from a C/C array of the same size.
    Do you think it has to do with the armor HP mechanic? If so, that thing may have screwed up the damage on things even more than I thought.

    Edit: It doesn't help that the wiki articles for effects like Armor HP, pierce, punch-through, and armor strength aren't fully clear.

    I'll do some more testing on my end as well. If Schine has in fact inadvertently debuffed certain things further, then I'll start from scratch to find out the what's really going on.
     
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    AtraUnam

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    Do you think it has to do with the armor HP mechanic? If so, that thing may have screwed up the damage on things even more than I thought.
    No its a mechanic schema added shortly after the weapon update to prevent cannons causing massive amounts of block calculations. Essentially the amount of damage left in the projectile is automatically decreased for every block hit, the more blocks hit by a single projectile the more of its damage is wasted in this way, thus all cannons and beams are on a decreasing curve where higher damage weapons are increasingly inefficient. This is why metaguns are so ungodly in power at large scales, they split up the projectile into multiple small projectiles thus circumventing the increasingly massive damage penalty applied to single projectiles.
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    No its a mechanic schema added shortly after the weapon update to prevent cannons causing massive amounts of block calculations. Essentially the amount of damage left in the projectile is automatically decreased for every block hit, the more blocks hit by a single projectile the more of its damage is wasted in this way, thus all cannons and beams are on a decreasing curve where higher damage weapons are increasingly inefficient. This is why metaguns are so ungodly in power at large scales, they split up the projectile into multiple small projectiles thus circumventing the increasingly massive damage penalty applied to single projectiles.
    So that's what happened? I had thought about the calculation issue before but didn't want to assume. So if I understand correctly, what you're saying is that Schine used a mathematical shortcut to reduce lag and this automatic damage reduction is the side effect? If this is true, then virtually all bigger guns are at a disadvantage not only in DPS but in overall damage output as well. That would explain the numbers Napther provided earlier.

    Thanks for clearing that up.

    I guess I'll wait for the power update then. Hopefully combat will evolve into something that focuses more on skill and strategy than just DPS.
     

    AtraUnam

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    No schine deliberately reduced the damage of big guns in order to cut lag by reducing the number of blocks killed, it should be noted that big guns still do full shield damage.

    And yes this puts all big guns at a disadvantage and is why metaguns that make use of multuple small projectiles are so good. Big guns gain effectiveness on an decreasing curve while meta guns scale linearly. At titan scales a metagun can be hundreds of times as efficienct as an equivelent regular gun.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    No schine deliberately reduced the damage of big guns in order to cut lag by reducing the number of blocks killed, it should be noted that big guns still do full shield damage.

    And yes this puts all big guns at a disadvantage and is why metaguns that make use of multuple small projectiles are so good. Big guns gain effectiveness on an decreasing curve while meta guns scale linearly. At titan scales a metagun can be hundreds of times as efficienct as an equivelent regular gun.
    DAMMIT SCHINE!!!

    First missiles. Now this. Way to promote creativity guys. :mad:

    So in theory, would you say a good combat loadout would be an alpha weapon to kill shields and a machine gun to keep the pressure on and cut through the hull? Are missiles even worth while anymore?
     

    AtraUnam

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    DAMMIT SCHINE!!!

    First missiles. Now this. Way to promote creativity guys. :mad:

    So in theory, would you say a good combat loadout would be an alpha weapon to kill shields and a machine gun to keep the pressure on and cut through the hull? Are missiles even worth while anymore?
    Missiles are optimal at around 400k damage apiece and do not suffer from the same decreasing curve penalty as cannons and beams. Additionally waffled alpha weapons fired by AI or logic (to circumvent the power penalty) can avoid the damage penalty by splitting that big inneficient projectile into many small ones.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    Missiles are optimal at around 400k damage apiece and do not suffer from the same decreasing curve penalty as cannons and beams. Additionally waffled alpha weapons fired by AI or logic (to circumvent the power penalty) can avoid the damage penalty by splitting that big inneficient projectile into many small ones.
    That sounds very promising.

    I agree with 400K for missile size. I stopped doing Uber-missiles when I fired a 10M damage missile at a 6,000 mass frigate with standard armor and didn't one-shot it. ...That and AMS.

    It's good to know that they didn't mess with waffling. I had some nice turret prototypes using C/B and C/P that could punch wide holes in targets. I find that there is a threshold where a C/B or C/P with explosive damage acts like a giant shape charge that can gut a ship's systems without wasting too much damage. Finding a sweet spot in the threshold, then waffling/multi-barreling your weapon can result in some beastly AI turrets.

    I'm curious; How would you change damage pulse as a primary?
     

    AtraUnam

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    I'm curious; How would you change damage pules as a primary?
    On topic!? Herresy!

    I would simply make it how it used to be where radius was determined by group dimensions and damage by total block count. At the time with the poor explosion calculations and lack of weapon effects it was kinda crappy but these days with our nice shiny tertiary effects I could see some definete uses for a 200m radius EMP, Ion or Motion pulse on a corvette. It would also keep pulse as pulse rather than making it just another ranged weapon.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    What can I say? I'm a blasphemous heathen! :sneaky:

    There are some things that benefit from "dimensional" building. I strongly agree that pulse is one of them. Personally, I'd also prefer that a pulse's blast naturally bypasses the armor HP system and directly damages whatever the radius touches.

    I've been trying to make a melee weapon for my mini-mechs but the AP system makes small explosions unusable. I remember when a small 11m fighter could leave a hole 5m wide and 2m deep in adv armor with an M/P Missile. Now it barely does that to basic hull. Meanwhile, it takes over 30 direct missile hits to kill another fighter the same size.

    Schine sure does like nerfing things don't they?
     

    Napther

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    Missiles are technically in the god-tier of block DPS along with an efficient cannon-cannon-punch. There is no reason to not use these for block removal. Beam/cannon makes a close second to that tier, but only ticks 5x a second. Specific set ups of beam/cannon can be as deadly as the cannons.

    The way to instantly make CP and CB systems viable is projectile scaling. A titan firing a slug the size of most fighters is something I want to see (Think: Warhammer 40K Nova Cannons)
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    Missiles are technically in the god-tier of block DPS along with an efficient cannon-cannon-punch. There is no reason to not use these for block removal. Beam/cannon makes a close second to that tier, but only ticks 5x a second. Specific set ups of beam/cannon can be as deadly as the cannons.
    Missiles are funny. I LOVE missiles but their inter-sector performance is questionable and their damage is never consistent. Tactics-wise (Not raw DPS) I've had far better results with either C/C or C/B.

    The way to instantly make CP and CB systems viable is projectile scaling. A titan firing a slug the size of most fighters is something I want to see (Think: Warhammer 40K Nova Cannons)
    So you mean a 3+ meter-wide hole instead of a 1 meter-wide hole? It would be like the current explosion effect only potentially wider.
    I'd totally be on board with that.
     
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    Missiles are funny. I LOVE missiles but their inter-sector performance is questionable and their damage is never consistent. Tactics-wise (Not raw DPS) I've had far better results with either C/C or C/B.


    So you mean a 3+ meter-wide hole instead of a 1 meter-wide hole? It would be like the current explosion effect only potentially wider.
    I'd totally be on board with that.
    Actually, a properly scaling explosive effect might be better (more flexible, anyway) than directly scaling projectiles based on damage or group size. This way we could still engineer gauss cannon style weapons that rip holes right through a ship even several hundred meters long, or take the same weapon, add 75% explosive and see a larger projectile that hits with a 5 or 10 meter radius of damage in exchange for reduced penetration. Basically what it seems like Schine wants to do with explosive anyway. Some very small degree of scaling from size/dmg could be OK too, but they'd have to keep it super small otherwise people will go put 100,000 cannon modules on their ship for a projectile with a radius of like 50m or something.

    Which I guess would be fine as well if projectile speed scaled inversely with size. Otherwise it (further) nerfs maneuver as defense and (further) pushes the playable meta towards the extreme size end of the scale. Because dodging a bunch of 100M wide cannon rounds flying around at normal cannon speed would be impossible. They'd be like projectile flyswatters.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    Actually, a properly scaling explosive effect might be better (more flexible, anyway) than directly scaling projectiles based on damage or group size. This way we could still engineer gauss cannon style weapons that rip holes right through a ship even several hundred meters long, or take the same weapon, add 75% explosive and see a larger projectile that hits with a 5 or 10 meter radius of damage in exchange for reduced penetration. Basically what it seems like Schine wants to do with explosive anyway. Some very small degree of scaling from size/dmg could be OK too, but they'd have to keep it super small otherwise people will go put 100,000 cannon modules on their ship for a projectile with a radius of like 50m or something.

    Which I guess would be fine as well if projectile speed scaled inversely with size. Otherwise it (further) nerfs maneuver as defense and (further) pushes the playable meta towards the extreme size end of the scale. Because dodging a bunch of 100M wide cannon rounds flying around at normal cannon speed would be impossible. They'd be like projectile flyswatters.
    50 meters is too extreme for my tastes. Damage pulse secondaries may need a buff but there's no need to get crazy. I was thinking of something more like this...
    projectile scaling.jpg

    Visually, the projectile would look like one big solid bullet/beam but it would punch a hole in the one of the shapes shown above. The true "buff" to the weapon could be that it spreads its stated damage across ALL blocks struck by the "face" of the weapon. Example, a 100,000 damage C/P with 50% Pulse would do 100,000 damage to shields but because of its size class, could strike 9 blocks at a time for 11,111 damage - (Schine's scaling debuff) Spreading the damage over multiple blocks laterally would cause the weapon to function like an unfocused waffle and thus, be subject to less of the scaling debuff due to the technically weaker projectile. If I understand the armor mechanic correctly, (please correct me if I'm wrong) you're looking at destroying roughly 45 blocks of Adv. armor in a single shot (without passive effects). You still lose the range game and you can still lose the DPS game if you miss but if you can contend with (or exceed) other weapons if you consistently score solid hits.

    Your thoughts?
     
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    I know this is a necro of this post and most don't play anymore... but pulse set with a cannon slave was a great anti-rocket system.. sure its not long range and depending on the some time lag spike some missiles would hit but for the most part if you had them all over your ship it don't take but a 1:1 ratio to destroy a rocket.. basically making a pulse shield for rocket defence.