strange beam behavior

[Haalon]

Never actually used beams against armor before, but recently, while making laser-cutter ship, I faced with strange diffirence between damage numbers I calculated and the real damage numbers.

So, for example, we have simple beam system consisting of 100 blocks. Against hull, while target has armorHP, it must deal (100*5*10/5) / 2 = 500 damage per tick. Instead it deals 198 damage per tick.
If target has no armorHP left, it must deal 1000 dmg per tick, obviously. But it deals 203 dmg per tick.
The last number is actually the damage that will be dealt to the FIRST block penetrated, according to the weapon system stats. But we cant say that beam apply only first-penetrated block damage to armor, because of the first number which is 198 but not 203/2. Adding effects like punch-through will result in even more strange numbers. I think its broken, since beams weren't that OP to have such waste of damage. If I am mistaken, explain me how do they actually work

 

[MrFURB]

Beams are currently bugged due to their non-projectile nature. Normally an attack of sufficient strength will split up it's damage into multiple instances, with the first having the most damage and the last usually only having a single digit of damage. That is how non-explosive weapons destroy more than one block.

Weeeeell... Beams only deal their first instance of damage to any armor block. That means that as soon as you reach 200 damage per tick, your actual raw damage done to armor will be reduced to 147. As you gain more damage and your damage is further split up into multiple instances that difference between what your damage should be and what it actually is will get wider.

 

[Panpiper]

In other words, beams are completely gimped, so bugged that they are completely useless. This bug has existed for a full year and is apparently of utterly no concern. Really quite amazing.

 

[godmars]

well that explains why my overdrive beams seem so pitifully weak compared to a smaller cannon array

anyoen know what the ticket number is on the phabricator?

 

[Calhoun]

I wouldn't call beams useless, they're still very effective against shields.