All Weapon Stats in Actual Values Test Results (Stage 1 – Shield DPS)

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

it seems even worse than that. FD provided incorrect information in the game.


If we look at the Thermic Weapon DPS / EPS, we see the order is for large weapons


C Fixed Beam
D Fixed Burst
C Gimballed Beam
D Fixed Pulse
E Gimballed Burst
E Gimballed Pulse
D Turreted Beam
E Turreted Burst
F Turreted Pulse


However, looking at the weapon rating Gimballed and Fixed Beams are rated C, while the fixed burst is rated D, even though it's equal to a gimballed beam in terms of dps.

I think this is equivalent to a spelling error - they re-balanced weapons and forgot/couldn't be bothered/deprioritised a change in the damage class.

The actual balance feels good - its just missiles and mines that need some love.

 

[Quineloe]

I believe, rating did not explain dps only - it also takes into account difficulty of aiming. That's why gimballed and turret weapons are rated higher than fixed ones, despite dealing less damage/second.

Nah, Sandro clearly stated once that the ratings are meant to be DPS comparisons.

It wouldn't make sense, Size 4 Plasma accelerator is A-rated. Size 2 railgun is B rated. Those weapons are hard to aim.

 

[Joe-one]

Thanks, your charts has helped me a lot choosing ship load-outs.

Just hoping that I'm understanding this correctly, looking at the 7A distributor on a Python from ED Shipyard it says it has 61 capacity and recharges 6.1 each second so does that match up with the power output on the chart so any weapon or combination of weapons that use less power than that according to your chart would fire continuously?

Your chart says 2 x C3 G Beams use 11.18 mj/s and do 48 mj damage. It would use 5.08 more power than the distributor produces draining the capacitor of 61 in 12 seconds and charge back up in 10 seconds. A full cycle of fire and recharge yields 576mj/22s. Two C3 T Beams use 7.08mj and does 28.88 damage. It would use 0.98mj more than the capacitor fills each second so I could shoot for roughly 60 seconds doing 1732 damage. Assuming my logic for charge times is accurate without actually having tested anything these two setups would do roughly the same amount of damage each miniute (or 20 seconds or so) of continuous fire. Advantage only goes to the gimbals on targets that can withstand less than 572, but considering damage loss on distance and maneuverability the turrets seem like an all around better choice for me.

Thanks again for helping me make these choices.

 

[Erik Marcaigh]

Great job, StarLightBreaker! I still have the occasional person ask me if I'm going to update my old Weapons Damage charts my friends and I put together back during Alpha & Beta testing. I wasn't planning on it, and now I definitely don't need to! I'll point them your way!

+Rep. I know putting this together is a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of credits, and a lot of patience. Congrats!

EDIT: I just noticed the thread started back in April! Looks like I should pay more attention to the forums!

 

[scbfromnc]

Great job, StarLightBreaker! I still have the occasional person ask me if I'm going to update my old Weapons Damage charts my friends and I put together back during Alpha & Beta testing. I wasn't planning on it, and now I definitely don't need to! I'll point them your way!

+Rep. I know putting this together is a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of credits, and a lot of patience. Congrats!

EDIT: I just noticed the thread started back in April! Looks like I should pay more attention to the forums!

One reason for more work is that this post only provides data on shield damage. StarLightBreaker says they have hull damage data, but haven't made it public because they had difficulty interpreting it. With more recent information from Mark Allen at FD about how damage works (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170205&p=2600885&viewfull=1#post2600885), it would be useful if someone could make sense of StarLightBreaker's data and publish hull damage data for each weapon as well as weapon penetration and ship hardness.

 

[Joe-one]

Just hoping that I'm understanding this correctly, looking at the 7A distributor on a Python from ED Shipyard it says it has 61 capacity and recharges 6.1 each second so does that match up with the power output on the chart so any weapon or combination of weapons that use less power than that according to your chart would fire continuously?

Your chart says 2 x C3 G Beams use 11.18 mj/s and do 48 mj damage. It would use 5.08 more power than the distributor produces draining the capacitor of 61 in 12 seconds and charge back up in 10 seconds. A full cycle of fire and recharge yields 576mj/22s. Two C3 T Beams use 7.08mj and does 28.88 damage. It would use 0.98mj more than the capacitor fills each second so I could shoot for roughly 60 seconds doing 1732 damage. Assuming my logic for charge times is accurate without actually having tested anything these two setups would do roughly the same amount of damage each miniute (or 20 seconds or so) of continuous fire. Advantage only goes to the gimbals on targets that can withstand less than 572, but considering damage loss on distance and maneuverability the turrets seem like an all around better choice for me.

On 2nd thought I think it may be a bad idea to have turrets that use more energy than the capacitor. If the capacitor is drained the turrets may take priority and if that happens I won't be able to use any of my other weapons. I think I'm going to try one C3T, one C2T and one C3G beam to replace the two C3Gs (i have fixed cannons in the bottom large and two medium spots). One large and one medium turret have roughly the same DPS as a single large gimbal. With this config I'd gain flexibility at the cost of one medium cannon and a downgrade from 6A shield cells to 6Bs to cover the increased powerplant use.

Edit: This setup did help on the smaller targets but runs into heat trouble on the bigger ones. It heats up about the same as with the two gimbals but you can't cool it off as the turrets keep firing all the time. I found that on anything I can't destroy in one go i.e. type 9 or Python, it's best to only fire the C3G until you heat up to 70% or so then just use the turrets and cannons until it cools off. If I let it heat up to more than 80% it wouldn't cool down at all while the turrets were firing and it just kept getting hotter until the target was destroyed.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/python/07...022f.AwRj4yoo.CwBhwRhKN2GY4QEzNKMQ?bn=Joe-one

 

[Ceekay]

I'm flying this Python and after testing a lot of different energy weapon combinations (pulse, burst and beam) settled on the build below, the 7A dist (4 pips) will run all weapons for 10 + seconds, I did have class 1 beam turrets in place of the class 2 pulse (same DPS half the mass) but I did run into overheating on several occasions.

Turrets are a good thing! the Python with a 6A thruster is fairly agile but it wont turn with an Eagle/Sidey and several of them will wear away the shields eventually so having a turret or two landing hits balances that out, generally if a weapon hasn't enough power it'll overheat and stop firing until it cools off.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/python/05...2242h.AwRj4yoo.CwBj4yrUg===?bn=Python current

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Just hoping that I'm understanding this correctly, looking at the 7A distributor on a Python from ED Shipyard it says it has 61 capacity and recharges 6.1 each second so any weapon that uses less than 6.1mj on your chart should fire continuously.

Your chart says 2 x C3 G Beams use 11.18 mj/s and do 48 mj damage. It would use 5.08 more power than the distributor produces draining the capacitor of 61 in 12 seconds and charge back up in 10 seconds. A full cycle of fire and recharge yields 576mj/22s. Two C3 T Beams use 7.08mj and does 28.88 damage. It would use 0.98mj more than the capacitor fills each second so I could shoot for roughly 60 seconds doing 1732 damage. Assuming my logic for charge times is accurate without actually having tested anything these two setups would do roughly the same amount of damage each miniute (or 20 seconds or so) of continuous fire. Advantage only goes to the gimbals on targets that can withstand less than 572, but considering damage loss on distance and maneuverability the turrets seem like an all around better choice for me.

On 2nd thought I think it may be a bad idea to have turrets that use more energy than the capacitor. If the capacitor is drained the turrets may take priority and if that happens I won't be able to use any of my other weapons. I think I'm going to try one C3T, one C2T and one C3G beam to replace the two C3Gs (i have fixed cannons in the bottom large and two medium spots). One large and one medium turret have roughly the same DPS as a single large gimbal. With this config I'd gain flexibility at the cost of one medium cannon and a downgrade from 6A shield cells to 6Bs to cover the increased powerplant use.

Edit: This setup did help on the smaller targets but runs into heat trouble on the bigger ones. It heats up about the same as with the two gimbals but you can't cool it off as the turrets keep firing all the time. I found that on anything I can't destroy in one go i.e. type 9 or Python, it's best to only fire the C3G until you heat up to 70% or so then just use the turrets and cannons until it cools off. If I let it heat up to more than 80% it wouldn't cool down at all while the turrets were firing and it just kept getting hotter until the target was destroyed.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/python/07...5o12382d6n02022f.Iw18eQ==.Aw18eQ==?bn=Joe-one

I have 3 3C gimbaled beams on my Python. I was told that I didn't even need gimbaled weapons on a Python since the hard points are nicely placed and that fixed would be better. Problem is, I tried it and I was missing more than half my salvos. So, I went back to gimbaled. I think they're fine, you don't really need a turret on a Python. Use to fly a bit with flight assist off. It helps a lot turning the Python when facing smaller, more agile ships.

 

[Joe-one]

Playing with just the keyboard and mouse I've yet to figure out how to fly with flight assist off. There's pitch up, down, yaw left, right, thrust left, right, up, down, throttle up, and down and I don't have any fingers left to shoot. I should just set it up to use one of my old PS3 controllers again but I'm so used to flying this way I think it'll hurt my brain to have to re-learn so turrets on the python it is.

I tested it in a conflict zone yesterday and made about 5 mil in 40 mins (my faction gives me double payout on combat bonds/bounties) before I ran out of shield cell bank ammo. I switched it up to have two 6A and two 3B shield cells with only one of each powered on at a time so I now have 10 charges of half my shield strength instead of five at 2/3s so I should be able to last nearly twice as long.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Playing with just the keyboard and mouse I've yet to figure out how to fly with flight assist off. There's pitch up, down, yaw left, right, thrust left, right, up, down, throttle up, and down and I don't have any fingers left to shoot. I should just set it up to use one of my old PS3 controllers again but I'm so used to flying this way I think it'll hurt my brain to have to re-learn so turrets on the python it is.

I tested it in a conflict zone yesterday and made about 5 mil in 40 mins (my faction gives me double payout on combat bonds/bounties) before I ran out of shield cell bank ammo. I switched it up to have two 6A and two 3B shield cells with only one of each powered on at a time so I now have 10 charges of half my shield strength instead of five at 2/3s so I should be able to last nearly twice as long.

Flight assist off is pretty much like flight assist on when it gets to control. Just think that if you're moving in one direction, activate flight assist off and then turn 180 degrees, you are still moving in the same direction but now your ship is kinda traveling backward. A little rudimentary and rough explanation but that's how I get it. Works well in fight, when facing more maneuverable ships.

 

[Rexoplex]

I'd be very curious to see the damage per second values of plasma accelerators without reload time included, as people who use them tend to make firing runs rather than sitting and waiting to reload once they're out. Also, does anyone know if the outfitting screen's dps stat bar thing includes reload time on plasmas as well? It rates the dps of a class 3 plasma acc below that of even a class 3 burst laser, which would make the plasma completely garbage if it didn't include reload time.

 

[wolverine2710]

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[clinton]

Are the class 1 gimballed multicannons really that bad? Whereas the class 2 versions seem to be on par with cannons, as are the class 1 fixed, the class 1 gimballed multicannons seem to stand out as particularly poor.

 

[Noddie]

So, if I understand this right, Missiles (whilst enormous fun to shoot!) are - frankly - completely pointless?

Not only are they highly likely to be brought down with point defence, even if they do hit the target they won't trouble the shields, and the hull isn't likely to be damaged much, either?

Do they actually have any function at all? - do they, for example, reliably smack sub-systems?

About the only thing I can say for them is that they're good fun to use. And it's satisfying watching the target run like hell to try to outrun it (yeah, right), before the missile smacks into them. Doesn't sound like it has much practical application, though?

 

[soma]

So, if I understand this right, Missiles (whilst enormous fun to shoot!) are - frankly - completely pointless?

Not only are they highly likely to be brought down with point defence, even if they do hit the target they won't trouble the shields, and the hull isn't likely to be damaged much, either?

Do they actually have any function at all? - do they, for example, reliably smack sub-systems?

About the only thing I can say for them is that they're good fun to use. And it's satisfying watching the target run like hell to try to outrun it (yeah, right), before the missile smacks into them. Doesn't sound like it has much practical application, though?

Since missiles were nerfed (I think around Februrary 2015) they are indeed useless against shields. They should however still do very good hull damage. The problem is that the shield damage currently makes them completely useless for PvP and the limited ammo makes them more or less pointless for farming RES or CZ. So.. yeah.. the only possible use I can currently see for missiles / torpedos are assassination missions. And even there it is debatable if cannons / frag cannons wouldnt work just as well..

 

[CMDR Endincite]

Since missiles were nerfed (I think around Februrary 2015) they are indeed useless against shields. They should however still do very good hull damage. The problem is that the shield damage currently makes them completely useless for PvP and the limited ammo makes them more or less pointless for farming RES or CZ. So.. yeah.. the only possible use I can currently see for missiles / torpedos are assassination missions. And even there it is debatable if cannons / frag cannons wouldnt work just as well..

Watched a great demonstration of their use in PvP. Used Bursts for rapid shield stripping, and then salvos of missiles targeted at modules to bring it down. Divide the task, and conquer, it seems.

 

[soma]

Watched a great demonstration of their use in PvP. Used Bursts for rapid shield stripping, and then salvos of missiles targeted at modules to bring it down. Divide the task, and conquer, it seems.

Maybe the balance has shifted a bit with the changes to penetration rates that the 1.4 Patch introduced.

Before 1.4, battles were usually over when one opponent lost shields. Missiles might enable the winner to actually get the kill before the loser escapes. But at that stage the outcome of the fight is already decided.

But, as I said.. with 1.4 that might have changed (and it would be a welcome change IMHO).

 

[Mr_Blastman]

Wow thanks for this.

 

[Cruis.In]

I've played alot with outfits on the python. For pve, I go with 3 Gimballed Large Pulse and 2x Multi canons also gimballed. That's pretty standard.

I switch it up sometimes and put in 2 medium turrets in the medium hardpoints in place of the cannons. This helps with pesky, low armor targets such as nimble fighters, vipers, eagles, couriers, whatever.

I know that beam lasers strip shields faster, but the power drain, rate of drain on the capacitor outweighs that for me. Because once you're into the NPC's hull if they are heavily armored, beams suck, you'll find yourself draining a full capacitor, only for 10% damage maybe on a large target, then having to wait for recharge, rinse repeat, all while getting hammered. This means more scb use for you or chaff. While the pulse arent as good against shields as you see in the chart and as we know, when it gets to the hull, it outweights the disadvantage of their lesser shield stripping capability, it really burns through the hull.

For PVP, its beams all the way. The faster you strip people's shields they tend to bug out, and this puts less guns on the field for your enemy. Spike damage or alpha striking is better for pvp, and you and 2-3 of your mates in pythos or whatever, can strip shields together fast carrying 3 beams each, no need to worry about power drain here. You've got 12 large beams stripping a target.

And 12 beams will strip any hull anyway. But like I said, people tend to be like, oh noes time to retract and go when the shields are going down. And the pulse just wont be equal to the task when your in group pvp. Whether you use fixed/gimballed for PVP is up to you. But again in groups, having both is ideal, use the fixed when their chaff is on, and the gimballed when its off.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I've played alot with outfits on the python. For pve, I go with 3 Gimballed Large Pulse and 2x Multi canons also gimballed. That's pretty standard.

I switch it up sometimes and put in 2 medium turrets in the medium hardpoints in place of the cannons. This helps with pesky, low armor targets such as nimble fighters, vipers, eagles, couriers, whatever.

I know that beam lasers strip shields faster, but the power drain, rate of drain on the capacitor outweighs that for me. Because once you're into the NPC's hull if they are heavily armored, beams suck, you'll find yourself draining a full capacitor, only for 10% damage maybe on a large target, then having to wait for recharge, rinse repeat, all while getting hammered. This means more scb use for you or chaff. While the pulse arent as good against shields as you see in the chart and as we know, when it gets to the hull, it outweights the disadvantage of their lesser shield stripping capability, it really burns through the hull.

For PVP, its beams all the way. The faster you strip people's shields they tend to bug out, and this puts less guns on the field for your enemy. Spike damage or alpha striking is better for pvp, and you and 2-3 of your mates in pythos or whatever, can strip shields together fast carrying 3 beams each, no need to worry about power drain here. You've got 12 large beams stripping a target.

And 12 beams will strip any hull anyway. But like I said, people tend to be like, oh noes time to retract and go when the shields are going down. And the pulse just wont be equal to the task when your in group pvp. Whether you use fixed/gimballed for PVP is up to you. But again in groups, having both is ideal, use the fixed when their chaff is on, and the gimballed when its off.

That's not been my experience on my Python. I have the 7A power plant, along with the 7A power distributor. 4 pips to WEP, 2 to SYS when fighting. 3 3C beam lasers and 2 2F pulse. I can fire pretty much continuously. At some point, I have to reduce pips to WEP so that I don't overheat but, still, it's amazing to see the hull going down on my target with those. I tried small fragment cannon turrets on my Anaconda because I already have 4 large beam lasers. They run out of ammo pretty quickly and they have a shorter range than the beams. So, to me, the beams are well worth it. They don't fire continuously but they're pretty close and they do awesome damage to shields and hulls in my own observations.