[TC] [Info] Manually overcharging lasers

[Gazz]

When I bought a Shrike today I saw that the front IBL were chargeable.
So I thought... lets's see what happens!

1. I tested a Shrike with 8 IBL firing for 17-18.4 seconds (until laser energy ran out)
2. The constant energy recharging was substracted from the results so I would get the "laser only".
3. 1 fully charged IBL does 41500 DPS while using 445 EPS.
   (damage, energy per second)
4. 1 regular IBL does 47000 DPS while using 482 EPS.
5. The regular IBL does 13 % more damage while using 10 % more energy.
   These are close together so my guess is that the values are actually equal. Small differences like that are clearly within the margin of error.
   That regular IBL do noticably more damage than charged ones is not within the MOE.
   So IBL can be... undercharged?
6. The burn damage was not extracted from the results. It hits for 2000-4000 per second for about 3 seconds and is not cumulative with multiple lasers of this type.
   For (8) lasers with a high base damage like IBL it's trival.

For general use, overcharging IBL is not only pointless, it's detrimental.

However, there certainly are uses. If you have a blue assassination target in front of you, you can hit it with a fully charged IBL salvo, often annihilating it before it starts any evasive maneuvers.
Or maybe you want to bring the target's shields down for capping before it turns hostile - trick shots like that.


Ahhhh!
So I repeated that test for PPC / PSP and it looks... somewhat different!

1. 1 regular PPC does 44300 DPS and uses 413 EPS
2. 1 charged PPC does 64600 DPS and uses 610 EPS
3. = 146 %, 147 %
4. 1 regular PSP does 24000 DPS and uses 238 EPS
5. 1 charged PSP does 50000 DPS and uses 530 EPS
6. = 208 %, 223 %
   Given the massive laser generators on terran ships that slightly lower efficiency is trivial.

Using overcharging, the crummy PSP can even do 12 % more shield damage than regularly fired PPC/IBL.
Granted, that's only for 1 battery and you give up ship control for that.
When both ships can fire 16 lasers each, it's back to PPC 44300 vs PSP 37000 DPS since you can only boost one PSP battery.

Luckily terran ships have massive shields so despite their vastly inferior weapons they still stand a chance against the other races' ships.

Be afraid of AGI! Right. Because their lasers are twice as good as ours...


A completely unrelated item I learned, too: Laser groups

Every turret has a unique laser group setting. It is not one setting for the whole ship!
That you have your main guns on setting 1 means nothing.
At the same time Turret 1 can be on setting 3 and turret5 on setting 2.

The fun part is: turret scripts are also bound by this.

If you set your left turret to only fire one laser in it's current group, that's what it will do. Until you personally switch to that turret and manually change the laser setting.

So if your turrets just won't fire, maybe you should check their laser groups.

[dalin80]

the only advantage i have found from charging my osakas PSP's is that on occasion* i can kill a target in a single volley rather then two, but i agree its faster just to let the turrets fire themselves and more efficient for the player to be guiding the ship and controlling the angle of attack from the bridge.

the time it takes to charge and the increased hits you will be taking just isnt worth it.

*rare, very rare.

[TiGGs]

Charging is good as a first strike firing mode. You can start charging while still being out of range and fire when getting into range.

[Gazz]

Scratch all previous assumptions. =)

Charged PSP actually do more than double their regular damage.

For PPC it's barely 150 % so giving up ship control for that is of questionable value.
The exception would be the Thresher. It's the only ship where you can perfectly use this to empty your laser bay 50% faster.
After that you can break and evade while the energy recharges.

[NeverSnake]

Are Gauss and Ion Cannons chargable?

[Mugenjin]

one cannot charge gauss cannons, and i guess ion's cant be charged too, not too sure bout the latter though.

[PaulP]

I just did a quick test with IBLs, the charged ones took 32 seconds to eat all the energy, and did 100% shield and 3% hull damage to my Boreas. The uncharged took 31 seconds, and did 100% shield and no hull damage.

So they appear to be pretty much the same, except for the fact that IBLs are a pain in the ass to rapid fire (have to click click click click click). Is there a way to turn off charging on something? I'd rather be able to hold it down and fire without charging.

Oh, and you can definitely charge Ion Cannons. I haven't checked what charging does for them, though. I know they are awesome at stripping shields, though - you can strip a Boreas with a few charged volleys and the ship won't even warn you to stop firing.

[Geek]

A completely unrelated item I learned, too:
Laser groups work differently from Reunion.

Every turret has a unique laser group setting. It is no longer one setting for the whole ship!
That you have your main guns on setting 1 means nothing.
At the same time Turret 1 can be on setting 3 and turret5 on setting 2.

I am sorry to disappoint you, but nothing new here. I still play X3R, and the various turrets can have separate weapon groups, and might be different from main guns as well.

IE i generally use this setup on my Hyperion to clean Xenon sectors :
- main guns group 3, 4 BHEPT (against hulls)
- front turrets group 1, 2*2 GPSG (against shields)
- rear turrets group 2, 2*1 BPAC (so they waste less energy).

[Wolf-R1]

Luckily terran ships have massive shields so despite their vastly inferior weapons they still stand a chance against the other races' ships.

Be afraid of AGI! Right. Because their lasers are twice as good as ours...

I seriously wonder about this. Egosoft went entirely in the "Badass Terrans" direction at the end of X3R but somehow decided it was all a joke and they're actually cripples in space.

If you stop and truly consider the potential of the technology (sure this is entirely speculative since we're talking about a fantasy world) a projected "point singularity" should do vastly more damage than a concentrated collection of photons. Specifically when the singularity collapses and explodes (ala striking a target).

[Geek]

PSP do a lot more damage per shot than PPC, they do half DPS because of their terrible fire rate.

[Gazz]

And DPS is what wins battles. =)
Huge damage is nice but only if the battle consists of no more than 1 salvo being fired. Then PSP would rule.

I still consider terran ships balanced, though.
Their good speed, massive shields, and laser generator makes them play different from other ships.
That they are stuck with inferior cap ship lasers is the balancing factor...
If they could use PPC that would be as game breakingly overpowered as the Reunion Hyperion.

So on the whole there's nothing wrong with "terrans" per se. (although I know a few, that...)
It's just fun to ridicule their antiquated PSP. =)

[Seathal]

Still Terran capital ships are the best when it comes to personal piloting. At 7km you cna jump onto the front gun turrets and charge a load, if it hits, you jsut need one more normal hit to exterminate the rest of its hull down. Works with Xenon/KHaak/Pirate and Yaki capitals at least.

PD: I know! I'm an Osaka fan and gruppie.

What about SSC's? I've seen many compairsons between PSP and PPC's but none with Commonwealth flak guns and SSC's.

And. I know they are worse than PPC's but I love the slow fire rate of PSP's and theyr HUGE bullets. It's like really shooting froma WWII destroyer following their trajectory and going "Yohooo!" When they hit and "Damn!" when they miss

[mr_laurie]

Are Gauss and Ion Cannons chargable?

Ions Cannons certainly are chargable. I use them on the Thresher for bringing down shields for capping - 1 salvo will leave the target blue, ready for your second salvo to bring the shields down

[Coruskane]

mixing 4 IonCs with 4 PPCs provides the (subjectively) best dps possible. Nicely IonC s[eed is higher than PPC, and though the range is lower this will more than make up for the 1km difference at max range. It also looks pretty having mixed blue and white capital fire. Try it...you will be a convert to Titans with three batteries of 4+4.