I think you're oversimplifying things when it comes to disparate weapon setups. I've put a lot of thought into trying to calculate more complex weapon setups and it's really tricky to do.
When you have a full WEP cap, there's no problem. The problem comes once the WEP cap is drained.
This is partly due to a lack of knowledge of the mechanics behind the scenes and partly because we only have averaged ("per unit of time") figures for the weapons, not "per shot". If we had "per shot" figures (i.e. someone counted precisely how many pulse laser shots it took to drain the cap) then we could get closer, but that's a HELL of a lot of counting... and it still doesn't answer many important details of mechanics of drained-cap firing.
If you're running two weapons of the same type, you know how much energy per second they're using, you know how much damage per energy they're using, and you can multiply up the amount of energy available from the weapon system for a given interval. Calculating the theoretical damage for that total available power at that point is relatively simple as you just divide it down.
Even when the capacitor is drained, because the two weapons are the same you can assume that at least ONE of them will be taking the available energy, and it's just a pool of energy at the end of the day so the same maths works.
Now let's say you've got different weapons - one pulse laser and one beam laser. Whilst there's capacitor power to run both, it's an easy win to calculate what's going on as we know how much damage they do per-second.
Unfortunately, once the cap is drained, you need to know lots of things that we really can't establish in order to work out what will happen because you can't ignore the fact that one of the weapons does different damage levels to the other one - so you have to know which one will actually fire at any given point - the duty cycle (as a ratio) for the two weapons.
To know what that duty cycle is you have to know stuff that I don't think we can work out.
What's the charging interval for the capacitor? Seconds? Milliseconds? What's the step charge per interval? What's the minimum cap charge level for a beam laser to turn on and fire a single "pulse"? How long does a single beam-laser "pulse" at drained-capacitor-level last (i.e. how much damage does it do)? Presumably the pulse laser might trigger at a lower level, stealing all the power and the beam laser might never turn on.
You basically have to build a complete firing simulator. And to build that you'd need FDev input. With the figures, it's not tricky. Without them, it's nigh-on impossible.
In my opinion anyway.
I'm happy to be convinced otherwise
Good thoughts - and I agree. I was simplifying it somewhat. We will have to, in order to rank 'relative effectiveness'.
You're right in that if there is any kind of hidden or not-easily-measured variable, we're buggered. Like the range falloff, we would have to test independently of that variable.
However, I think the actual mechanics of the capacitor/weapon draining etc would be very simple.
Simple means there's more horsepower available for the 3D scene setup work before hand-off to the 3D card.
Simple means its easier to tweak as well.
I would be amazed if there is more to it than;
Damage vs shield
Damage vs hull
Falloff due to range (negated by using same range for all tests, excepting the poor frag cannon), and could be tested independently (a lot of time)
Energy cap use per shot (is energy available? as I think WEP is charging independently of weapon firing rate tickers)
Heat value per shot (could be a limiting factor - do some weapons over heat while firing slowly on a drained WEP capacitor? If not, good, ignore)
All engine setups like ED, SC etc will all have a 'ticker' - when each tick comes around, certain things will have to be done (like applying damage, checking if a weapon is still on target, replenishing the WEP capacitor)
Therefore beam weapons must have a discrete firing rate - they look like a continuous beam, but that is only the visual effect. Its effectively a hit-scan weapon like the pulses and bursts, but a beam will check its still on target (firing rate) before the engine allows damage to be applied to a shield/hull. You can apply an extrapolated beam firing rate by looking at the pulse->burst->beam progression (I don't have the number but a simple progression is likely, in keeping with the keeping it simple strategy). FD can also vary this actual ticker-based refire rate without actually making it visible to us too; possibly an attractive option for balancing...
I think the drained WEP cap mechanics are simple first come-first-served basis;
My Python uses 2x C2G med Beam lasers and 3x C3G large Pulse Lasers
When my WEP runs dry (not long), the beams continue 'burst firing' but the pulses never fire again.
It just so happen that the beams reach their "I can fire" energy/MJ first, and fire first. There's no power going to the pulses - they don't 'slowly gain enough energy to fire'.
Thus, I don't think each weapon draws independently (or I would see my pulses fire occasinally, and they don't, ever.)
So the fire rate ticker comes around, finds there's not enough energy to fire a pulse, and moves to the next weapon. If enough, fire the beam.
If I switched to a 2pulse, 1 beam setup (and dropped the med lasers), I bet the pulses would cycle slowly (possibly even just one pulse), and beam would b left dry. Need to test that.
Once we understand the behaviour, we can devise simplified tests.
SLB and PK's work goes a long way towards that, (props to them both BTW)
I would also be surprised if FD didn't have a simple Excel sheet with graphs such as Starlightbreaker's.
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