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

All Weapon Stats in Actual Values Test Results (Stage 1.5 – Shield DPS DPE) (Added Single Shot Damage)

New (2015-04-27): Weapon Single Shot Shield Damage added. See below.

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Greetings Commanders,

Welcome to the SLBPN Laboratory! Here you will find everything you want to know about weapons. We spent days and weeks thoroughly tested every single weapon in the galaxy and spent even more time analyzing the data we’ve recorded. We hope you will enjoy our findings and join us in the discussion of everything about weapons in E: D.

First let’s start with Weapon against Shield Damage.

1 – Shield DPS DPE SSD in Actual Shield Values

a. Thermic Weapons against Shield DPS (Damage per Second) and EPS (Energy per Second) in MJ/s




b. Non-Thermic Weapons against Shield DPS (Damage per Second) in MJ/s (incl. Reload Time)




c. (Combined) All Weapons against Shield DPS (Damage per Second) in MJ/s (Non-Thermic weapons incl. Reload Time)

d. Weapon against Shield DPE (Damage per Energy)




e. Weapon Single Shot Shield Damage in MJ (SSD - Single Shot Damage)





[Testing]

We have 2 Anacondas, one equipped with 7A Shield and 8 Class A Shield Boosters, providing a maximum Shield value of 1,547 MJ (from EDShipyard); the other equipped with 8 different weapons at a time and fired at the other’s shield from 500m. The receiving side cleared the SYS capacitor and set 0 PIP to SYS. The firing side start with full WEP capacitor and set 0 PIP to WEP. The firing side used Contacts panel to check opponent’s shield percentage and record at each start and end %. We also recorded the energy used to fire and recorded video to analyze the time used to fire.

The DPS (Damage per Second) was calculated from the total Shield Value multiplied by the Shield damage %, then divided by the time used to fire in each test. For Non-Thermic weapons like Cannon, we recorded the ammo count for shield damage and then recorded how long it took to fire a whole round + reload. We believe including the reloading time will be more accurate to determine the DPS of the non-Thermic weapons.

The EPS (Energy per Second) of Thermic weapons was calculated from the energy used in WEP Capacitor and the time fired.

As always, the test result is not 100% accurate due to rounding of the % values and other factors. But it should be pretty close. Of course, the numbers may change in future updates.


[How to use]

These numbers have all kinds of potential usages. Besides of helping you choose weapons, with the actual Shield values of damage per second, you can now estimate how long you will need to damage enemy shields. For example, a Vulture with 2xC3G Pulse Laser and 5A Power Distributor, against another Vulture with 5A Shield and 0 Shield Boosters, how long does it need to take down the shield? From EDShipyard we can get Vulture 5A Shield value is 548.74 MJ. From the DPS chart we get 1xC3G Pulse DPS is 18.28 MJ/s, and 2 of them will be 36.56 MJ/s.

548.73 MJ / (18.28 MJ/s * 2) = 15 s

It will take about 15 second to take down a 5A vulture shield with 2xC3G Pulse, assuming the receiver has 0 PIP SYS. You can refer to my previous thread of SYS PIP Shield Damage Resistance for calculating more than 1 PIP SYS situations.

Now can Vulture fire 2xC3G Pulse for 15 seconds non-stop with 4 PIP WEP? You can use this formula:
[Fire Time] = [WEP Capacity] / ( [EPS] – [Capacitor Recharge Rate] )

We know the vulture 5A Power Distributor provides 41 MJ WEP capacitor with 4.3 MJ/s recharge rate. From the EPS chart we know EPS of 1xC3G Pulse is 2.98 MJ/s and 2x will be 5.96 MJ/s.
41 MJ / (2 * 2.98 MJ/s – 4.3 MJ/s) = 24.7 s

With 4 PIP WEP, a vulture 5A Power Distributor can handle 2 C3 Pulse for 24.7 seconds of continuous fire. With my previous thread of All Shield Cell Banks Tested in Actual Shield Values, you will also be able to estimate the effect of SCB when used in combats.


[Notes]

1. We have verified with different size ships and different shield/weapon combinations, and confirmed that smaller weapons or hardpoints will NOT have penalty against any ship’s shields. The class of weapons will affect the Hull damage, but not Shields. The number in the charts here can be universally applied.

2. As previously tested by other commanders, most weapons had same damage between 0-500m, and reduced damage with distance 500m-3km, finally become out-of-range after 3km. We tested our most of weapons at 500m except for Fragment Cannons, which was closer at 150m to ensure 100% hit.

3. We did not test Mine Launchers, but we did test Torpedo Pylon and Mining Lasers. Torpedos had very similar shield damage to missiles (basically useless against shields). Mine lasers can indeed damage shield and hull, but their range is very short (a few hundred meters).

4. Missile weapons could use some love from FD – They already been countered badly by point defense, and now they don’t have any effective shield damage at all, which doesn't make sense – you will think an explosion of a missile could carry more damage than a few shots of multi-cannon!


To be continued...


Fly Safe, Commanders!


CMDR StarLightBreaker
(Test with CMDR Pale Night)


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Update 2015-04-25:
Added Weapon Shield DPE chart.

Update 2015-04-27:
Added Weapon Shield Single Shot Damage chart.

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All test results were collected using in-game methods and stop watches.

Previous Tests:
SYS PIP Shield Damage Resistance
All Shield Cell Banks Tested in Actual Shield Values
 
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So, guided missiles have ~60x less DPS in the test than a Fixed class 3 beam laser? Wow! And, as with everything in Elite, everything seems to be exponential, rather than linear.
 

wolverine2710

Tutorial & Guide Writer
Would have thought a size 4 plasma accelerator would do more damage than a size 3 beam, its certainly harder to hit with, but I suppose the hull damage is very different, this is only looking at the shield damage.

+1 rep :)
 
Thanks a lot for doing all these tests!

I'm really surprised about the damage of the fixed beam lasers. I thought beam vs. pulse would've been mostly on par, with maybe a slight advantage to the beam...but not this much. Good to know, maybe I will switch to beams on my Python then :)
 
Salute Commanders,

Thank you Commander StarLightBreaker for your time in making this study. I know it will be used a lot in making weapon decisions by a lot of people.
 
Would have thought a size 4 plasma accelerator would do more damage than a size 3 beam, its certainly harder to hit with, but I suppose the hull damage is very different, this is only looking at the shield damage.

+1 rep :)

Well it does say it's DPS including reload time. It's not counting a single hit for both.
 
So, guided missiles have ~60x less DPS in the test than a Fixed class 3 beam laser? Wow! And, as with everything in Elite, everything seems to be exponential, rather than linear.

Don't forget missiles were heavily nerfed for shield damage.... so this doesn't represent missiles well since its a shield test...some weapons are better at shield depletion, some are better at hull damage ... hence why most ships run a hybrid of both types of weapons
 
Wow another fantastic post! Thank you very much Cmdr StarLightBreaker.

Another interesting metric I've thought about is "damage per energy". What does high dps help if you're constantly out of weapon energy? :) If a weapon does 10% more damage but uses 30% more energy, you're mostly better off with the lower energy weapon. This might be more important if you're in a ship with lots of hardpoints vs a ship with only two. And it might be more relevant for hunting NPC anacondas than for regular bounty hunting / PVP.

Anyways, I simply divided DPS by EPS so you can gauge this:

DPSEPSDPEDPE vs F Beam
C3 F Beam Laser30.335.655.37100.00%
C3 F Burst Laser24.973.527.09132.15%
C3 G Beam Laser24.005.594.2979.98%
C3 F Pulse Laser21.622.867.56140.82%
C2 F Beam Laser19.383.425.67105.56%
C3 G Burst Laser18.563.275.68105.73%
C3 G Pulse Laser18.282.986.13114.27%
C3 T Beam Laser14.443.544.0875.99%
C2 F Pulse Laser14.291.897.56133.43%
C2 G Beam Laser13.853.264.25
C2 G Pulse Laser11.621.896.15108.50%


Turns out C3 F pulse lasers can dish out 40% and a C3 F burst laser 32% more damage per second than a C3 F beam laser. And a C3 G pulse laser is still 14% more efficient than a fixed beam laser.
 
Wow, another great post. Thank you so much! (This information really should be in the game!)

Edit: added comments/clarifications from Derath

A few quick observations from looking at the plots (in no particular order):


  • Pulse Lasers seem superior to other types of lasers. They might do 30% less damage than a Beam, but they use 50% less energy, which effectively lets you fire twice as long. Overall the Pulse Laser will do more damage and missing a shot will be less dramatic than missing with the beam. No wonder the Pulses are so popular at the moment.
    (beams have instantaneous on/off so missing is very similar to pulses, you could also replace 3 pulses with 2 beams and retain the same dps with an additional weapon slot, general points about pulses doing the most sustained dps remain as thats what they are good at!)

  • The C2 Railgun has almost the same DPS as the C4 Plasma Accelerator. And the Railgun it is an intstant hit weapon. I guess there really is not much point in running a PA at the moment..
    (they included reload times, C4 PA has a considerable reload time & gap between shots even with energy, but its instantaneous damage is considerably higher than rails, this also applys to frags to a degree which fire x3 extremely quickly, then have a relatively long reload - rails reload is about 1s its really not long at all.)

  • The damage of the C4 cannon against shields is about the same as the damage of a C1 Fixed Beam Laser.
    (hull damage specialist, performs as well as PA vs hulls without energy cost)
  • So in general, the currently available C4 weapons are not good against shields and thus pretty much unsuited for PvP.
    (this is completely true and always has been just about, you can go risky and try to instantly take engines out after shields drop, hard to pull off though)
  • Missiles are useless against shields (no surprise there)
  • The C3 Pulse Turret does pathetic damage and is more or less equivalent to a Gimballed C1 Pulse Laser
  • The damage difference between Gimballed and Fixed Multicannons is practically non-existant against shields.
    (I suspect this is because the difference in dps between these two is actually tiny)
 
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Wow another fantastic post! Thank you very much Cmdr StarLightBreaker.

Another interesting metric I've thought about is "damage per energy". What does high dps help if you're constantly out of weapon energy? :) If a weapon does 10% more damage but uses 30% more energy, you're mostly better off with the lower energy weapon. This might be more important if you're in a ship with lots of hardpoints vs a ship with only two. And it might be more relevant for hunting NPC anacondas than for regular bounty hunting / PVP.

Anyways, I simply divided DPS by EPS so you can gauge this:

DPSEPSDPEDPE vs F Beam
C3 F Beam Laser30.335.655.37100.00%
C3 F Burst Laser24.973.527.09132.15%
C3 G Beam Laser24.005.594.2979.98%
C3 F Pulse Laser21.622.867.56140.82%
C2 F Beam Laser19.383.425.67105.56%
C3 G Burst Laser18.563.275.68105.73%
C3 G Pulse Laser18.282.986.13114.27%
C3 T Beam Laser14.443.544.0875.99%
C2 F Pulse Laser14.291.897.56133.43%
C2 G Beam Laser13.853.264.25
C2 G Pulse Laser11.621.896.15108.50%


Turns out C3 F pulse lasers can dish out 40% and a C3 F burst laser 32% more damage per second than a C3 F beam laser. And a C3 G pulse laser is still 14% more efficient than a fixed beam laser.

Actually they deal 40% and 32% more damage per energy than a beam, thats not the same as damage per second. Its nice to get some concrete numbers on this though, previously I just went with my gut and the numbers line up fairly well with that, except bursts are actually more efficient than I suspected. Always wondered why i liked them so much :p
 
Wow, another great post. Thank you so much! (This information really should be in the game!)

A few quick observations from looking at the plots (in no particular order):

Repped for the rundown! Just gonna add some statistical clarification on these otherwise it makes some weapons look too good.

Removed my rundown as soma has very helpfully added it in, in a way that was presented properly lol 10/10 sir.
 
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