Weapon Damage Splits Unraveled

[Maligno]

The partition of the different types of damage (i.e. thermal, kinetic, absolute) has been determined for Railguns, Incendiary Multi-Cannons, and Plasma Accelerators.

The community has long suspected that Railguns have a damage partition of roughly 60% thermal and 40% kinetic, with different institutions within the Pilot’s Federation quoting different numbers in that ballpark. In the case of Plasma Accelerators, the community has had good reason to think that the damage partition is 60% absolute, 20% thermal, and 20% kinetic. Weapons that have been modified to include the Incendiary experimental effect presumably have a “large fraction converted to thermal damage”, with no clear number given.

In this analysis we definitively put the these questions to rest by bringing mathematical rigour and careful experimentation. We have found that the damage partition of Railguns is 2/3 thermal and 1/3 kinetic; Plasma Accelerators are indeed 60% absolute, 20% thermal, and 20% kinetic; and Incendiary weapons convert 90% of the damage to thermal and the remaining 10% stays as kinetic.

For the full analysis, please visit:

Weapon Damage Partition Analysis | Canonn Research Group

1. Executive Summary The partition of the different types of damage (i.e. thermal, kinetic, absolute) has been determined for Railguns, Incendiary Multi-Cannons, High Yield Shell Cannons, Overload Munitions Seeker Missiles, Inertial Impact Burst Lasers, and Plasma Accelerators. The results are...

canonn.science

 

[Bigmaec]

I sincerely hope no CMDRs were harmed in the making of this useful test of weapon damage splits

IF CMDRs were harmed, I blame Canonn and Tj.

 

[Morbad]

Incendiary weapons convert 90% of the damage to thermal and the remaining 10% stays as kinetic.

This is the most interesting revelation. Rails and PAs are pretty easy to figure out with cursory testing, but I had always assumed incendiary was converting all of the damage to thermal...that 10% left as kinetic is easy to miss.

 

[Sebastian Rooks]

Nice! Good info and thanks for your research. I've often wondered how much thermal damage was applied to incendiary rounds. I may have to retune a couple of MC builds.

Rooks o7

 

[Maligno]

Glad you guys enjoyed the article.

Yeah, the 10% residual kinetic damage from Incendiary rounds is hard to catch. It can easily get lost if you don't have a strong theoretical foundation and careful measurement.

I've been told by some folks that apparently the damage split in Incendiary weapons has changed from patch to patch. Sometimes it's 100% thermal, and other times (like now) it's 90% thermal.

Now that we have the methodology and software infrastructure in place it'll be relatively straightforward to keep tabs on weapon damage splits after each patch is released.