[Spoilers] Can Someone Check My Math Here? Guardian PA Damage Seems Wrong...

[CMDR The Riz]

WARNING: THE INFO BELOW DISCUSSES ONE OF THE NEW GUARDIAN MODULES. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL IT FOR YOURSELF, DO NOT READ!

With that out of the way, I have been playing around with the Guardian Plasma Charger as of late. Very fun and satisfying to use, stats seem very good; below is a picture from the Modules tab (same stats as in Outfitting - this outpost didn't have it).

Spoiler

I'd like to draw your attention to the bit about the "Damage Multiplier at Full Charge" field. Base uncharged damage is 5 MJs; fully charged the damage is 5x17 = 85 MJs. That's slightly more damage than a large PA - which is awesome!

... But during live-fire testing in both a HighRes and a High-CZ, something felt off - as if the fully charged shot was doing less damage than it should be (after accounting for pips and resistances). So I set up a test with a friend in a Viper using an unmodified shield. The test was simple: I charge up a full shot from the Plasma Charger and shot it at him, while he would have no pips in Systems. His shield stats are listed in the following image:

Spoiler

Note: He does have 4 pips in systems here, but he confirmed his pip configuration was 4 to Weapons and 2 to engines.

So, running the numbers using Truesilver's Plasma Damage calculations found here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/246086-Official-FDev-Damage-Stats-for-Every-Weapon ,

85 MJs * 96% damage against shields = 81.6 MJs
147 MJs - 81.6 MJs = 65.4 MJs remaining
65.4 MJs remaining / 147 MJs * 100% = 44.5% expected to remain.

After the test?

Spoiler

His shield went down to 69%.
Now, on the assumption that my friend had no pips into Systems, there appears to be an issue with the damage of the fully charged up shot - it's not hitting that 85 MJs (raw damage). Running the numbers again (yay more math!),

100% - 69% = 31% removed from shields
147 MJs * 31% = 45.57 MJs of damage from the Plasma Charger

which is nowhere near the expected damage of a fully charged shot for a shield with no pips in systems. It would appear as though some pips were accidentally left in Systems, but my friend stated that he had none there; in addition, my gut feeling from the HighRes and CZ tests is that something is off here... 81.6 MJs worth of damage is a ton, even with pips into Systems (4 Pips is somewhere around 40% weapon effectiveness, which would put the damage around 32 MJs - can't find the most recent curve for the pip damage resistances at the moment).

I'd run additional and more comprehensive tests to really see what's up but I'm a tad short on time at the moment - can someone try to replicate this test and see if I ran the numbers right?

 

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

I don't have the same level of empirical evidence that you do, but I too am scratching my head at guardian weapon damage. It took me a dozen fully-charged shots to take down the shields on a Dangerous NPC Cobra III. I had dual chargers, and those six double-shots came in pretty rapid succession. Something seems off, to say the least.

 

[CMDR The Riz]

I don't have the same level of empirical evidence that you do, but I too am scratching my head at guardian weapon damage. It took me a dozen fully-charged shots to take down the shields on a Dangerous NPC Cobra III. I had dual chargers, and those six double-shots came in pretty rapid succession. Something seems off, to say the least.

Oddly enough, I just had an impromptu testing session with multiple PVP combatants over at Oxley Keep in 35 Leonis Minoris. Several of those combatants were flying lightly equipped Vipers... Fully-charged shots from the Plasma Charger seemed to be inadequate even against low-leveled Commanders (Master and below). Good to see that it might not be just my imagination

 

[SYN_Mars]

The damage sounds about right to me due to plasma doing 60% absolute and the remainder thermal/kinetic damage. Even stock shields have some resistance. I don't think the Truesilver calculations have been updated since the plasmas were given absolute damage.

 

[Zenith]

I like them for planetary assault though.
You can one-shot most base turrets with the GPC. They're not very effective against skimmers, but that's different conversation.

Anyone else impressed with the OTT explosion cloud effect?

Spoiler

 

[CMDR The Riz]

The damage sounds about right to me due to plasma doing 60% absolute and the remainder thermal/kinetic damage. Even stock shields have some resistance. I don't think the Truesilver calculations have been updated since the plasmas were given absolute damage.

The values Truesilver supplied in that thread do take the recent Absolute damage adjustments with plasma weapons into account. That's where the 96% damage to shields figure came from. I ran the numbers by splitting the damage across the Absolute, Thermal and Kinetic damage types and arrived at roughly the same answer - the damage I'm seeing here is too low.

If you're curious to see how they worked in my recent PVP "test," the thread is over here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/411554-Learning-to-Fly-in-PVP?p=6473092#post6473092 . They felt... lackluster for the explosion they generate.

I like them for planetary assault though.
You can one-shot most base turrets with the GPC. They're not very effective against skimmers, but that's different conversation.

Anyone else impressed with the OTT explosion cloud effect?

Spoiler

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/179712945536761856/419268249855852564/Screenshot_1095.png

ooooo pretty

 

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

Oddly enough, I just had an impromptu testing session with multiple PVP combatants over at Oxley Keep in 35 Leonis Minoris. Several of those combatants were flying lightly equipped Vipers... Fully-charged shots from the Plasma Charger seemed to be inadequate even against low-leveled Commanders (Master and below). Good to see that it might not be just my imagination

So what's going on? A poster in this thread is reporting taking down half of a conda's shields in one salvo While also saying that there was no discernable effect on an asp.

... something's not quite right.

 

[CMDR The Riz]

So what's going on? A poster in this thread is reporting taking down half of a conda's shields in one salvo While also saying that there was no discernable effect on an asp.

... something's not quite right.

That's EXACTLY what I've been experiencing - very inconsistent damage. Sometimes it's ok, other times it's not. The numbers I have suggest that either the full charge multiplier is off, the different portions of the damage is missing entirely, or some combination of the two. Something is amiss here; I will repeat my call for more testing: moar tests plz! The more data we collect, the better we can understand what's happening here.

I'll try to get a bug report on this out soon. Got that and another bug involving subterranean Packhounds to fill out [noob]

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

maybe they take somehow target size into account?

and something we can't see, is the xeno damage part.
these plasmas can damage thargoids, so there may be a very good chance, that its 50% absolute and 50% anti xeno damage

 

[Deareim]

So wait and see before unlocking it i suppose..

 

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

maybe they take somehow target size into account?

and something we can't see, is the xeno damage part.
these plasmas can damage thargoids, so there may be a very good chance, that its 50% absolute and 50% anti xeno damage

It's not taking size into account as far as I can see. here's some clips from a test stream I ran about an hour ago: (I'd been thinking plasma charger beluga for fun... ) And the draw of these was that they were supposed to do comparable damage to human and xeno ships.

Triple Plasma Chargers vs Deadly Viper III: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/235323186

Single Plasma Charger vs Competent Asp Scout: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/235323985 (I thought maybe the triple shots were all drawing from one charge pool, so I'd get full damage with one instead of three)

Gauss Cannon vs Master Cobra IV - Shields and Hull testing: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/235324787

Gauss Cannon vs Anaconda Hull: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/235328457

 

[sedilbur]

Hi cmdr The Riz,

I am glad to find your message here.

I had the same feeling about the Plasma Guardian that seem to be inconsistent. I can't put math as you did but more a feeling and situation perspective.

here I go.

Again Thargoid scout I tried a 4 Plasma guardian config (yeah I am madness ^^). I charged them all each time to 100%.

Here is what happend from time to time.

1) VS scout. Sometimes I hit and the hull go down from 100% to 80%.
2) VS scout. Sometimes I hit and the hull go down from 10%.
3) VS scout. Sometimes I hit and the hull go down from 75% to 0%.

Of course, you can probably argue that I didn't hit with all the weapon or charged them to 100%. I think it was not my case. I really felt that when I hit, the hull go down either by 10% or I just One shot the scout =)

I didn't try them on regular FOE ships but sure I will try.

But I am glad of this topic. You are not alone here.

 

[Deareim]

Could there be some rng also incorporated in weapon damages ?

 

[Arguendo]

Are you guys shooting from the same range every single time? The Plasma Charger has a Damage Falloff that starts at 1000m. To accurately test it, you'd need to make all shots at a range closer than 1000m and see if things change between shots. After that, it should be time to experiment with other ranges to find what the Damage Falloff is like further out.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

for those testing - maybe you should test 1 GPC vs a ship with crew.
i think the gunner has access to shield hitpoint display (not 100% sure)

 

[CMDR The Riz]

Could there be some rng also incorporated in weapon damages ?

[haha]

Are you guys shooting from the same range every single time? The Plasma Charger has a Damage Falloff that starts at 1000m. To accurately test it, you'd need to make all shots at a range closer than 1000m and see if things change between shots. After that, it should be time to experiment with other ranges to find what the Damage Falloff is like further out.

Yes. I redid the test from ~350 meters from my target, well below the beginning of the damage falloff range (which, if I recall correctly from outfitting, is somewhere around 1.5 km). I've since made a bug report about it with the relevant test video. That thread is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...harger-Damage-Inconsistent-with-Stated-Values

QA is looking into it, so we hopefully will have an answer soon.

I'd also like to know why the module damage from this thing is so low (even with the charge it looks like it's around 20 MJs)... yet the Minimum Breach Chance is 50% [wacky]
For reference a standard PA's Minimum Breach Chance is 40% and the Breach Damage is somewhere around 45 MJs. More things to test I guess.

 

[CMDR Minion Blob]

I've read the thread and spoiled myself. Please help!

 

[Bryan K]

I've read the thread and spoiled myself. Please help!

*waves hand* These aren’t the spoilers you’re looking for.

 

[Mrat13]

The Guardian weapons are anti-thargoid weapons, and according to others using them as such, they do really well. My guess is that the damage done to thargoids is actually much higher than stated (which would be impressive), and the damage stated is just an average of the damage to different targets.

Also, NPCs have stupidly good pip control, I wouldn't be surprised if evertime you hit them, they had 4 pips to shields, reducing your damage to them.