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	Archive through August 10, 2004	25		08/10 03:42pm
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We have come here today, to say our last respects to Ed, who was beaten to death on 8/10/04. Ed was a horse, of course, of course...

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 12:21 am: Edit

Power to damage over 7 turns of output is the metric I used for LMC weapons, and discussed in the CL19 article I wrote.

In general, for phaser weapons, power to expected damage runs between 2:1 to 4:1 through most of their effective ranges.

For heavy weapons, the golden ratio is between 1.5:1 and 2:1. Weapons that beat this ratio tend to be considered very powerful (PPD, hellbore), weapons that are under this ratio (fusion beams) tend to be seen as weak.

Roughly triple the damage:power ratio for seekers as a starting point.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 03:24 am: Edit

I read the artical in CL19 when I got CL19 lo these many years past...good artical BTW.
But Damage to Power ratio is not the be all and end all of weapon design, it's not even the most critical aspect...it's the damage generated over 7 turns that counts.

Since a Photon has slightly less damage to power ratio than a Disruptor, lets look at a Fed CA.
If we said, ARMING POWER UNLIMITED for each Photon, we could expect 7.5 points of warp power into each ( or at least something near that ) for two turns and the ships would be throwing out 30 point Photons ( holding them once armed for 3.75 points of power each )...top speed whilst holding and using BTTYs would be 19...it's a pitty about the EW.

Now if Damage to Power ratio were the be all and end all of the capability of a weapon, then such a vessel would still only be 125 BPV.

OUTPUT is the key and damage to power ratio is just an adjustment divice.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:06 am: Edit

KenB, What made you pick seven turns? I went with six as my benchmark.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:51 am: Edit

It's both. Actually, in some ways, it's even more. But I did what Ken Jones did and went with six turns, comparing the average damage over all range bands for six turns by the total power used for arming. For the three weapons involved (light, medium and heavy plasma cannon) the results were 1.21, 1.20, and 1.35. That technically makes them a bit weak. But to compensate, they use a 2D6 chart for EW resistance, and have big, big crunch at short ranges (not so short as a fusion beam, but if you want your money's worth, you need to get within five or less). So it's really all about total balance of efficiency and output, countered by any special considerations you might have (like front loading of photons, or UIM burnout, suicide overload fusions, etc.) In the end, playtesting decides it...and I can't imagine that playtesting shows Phaser-G's to be broken. Maybe if they were as widely used as P3's, but they aren't...most ships that get them (and that's pretty darned few) only get a couple.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 12:53 pm: Edit

I set throughput for 7 turns, because in 7 turns, plasmas can launch three times, photons and other two turn weapons can fire 4 times, and single turn arming weapons can go 7 times (but usually won't due to the tactical environment).

MJC: The first place most people go wrong in designing weapons (as someone who's seen and crunched the numbers on all the weapons currently in the game, and seen several dozen that havn't made the cut) is the damage:power ratio.

A photon gets 2 damage points per point of power put into it. A disruptor ranges from 1:1 at extreme range to 2.5:1 at close range, and is usually at 1.5:1 or 2:1 through most of its range bracket. The disruptor's accuracy tends to cancel out the higher "efficiency" of the photon at ranges 5+.

Throughput is the cap on how much power you can feed in per firing.

Both are ways to make a broken weapon, though most people sort of implicitly follow the baseline of "no more than 4 points of power into a weapon per turn without Very Good Reasons".

Where most people goof up is setting, oh, a weapon up that fires every turn for 3 power, and does 9 points per shot, then try to make it "balanced" by giving it a 2d6 to-hit number with slightly lower numbers than a hellbore, but range breaks at 3 and 5 and 8 rather than 2, 4 and 8.

You get a weapon that's slightly less accurate than the disruptor, more EW resistant, has a range break the disruptor doesn't get (range 5, where the phaser-1s become auto-hits), and does roughly twice to 50% more damage per firing.

However, this is a weapon the designer will say is "balanced".

damage:power is the most important variable, but it is not the only one.

Repeat after me: damage:power ratios over 2.5:1 on heavy weapons are strongly suspect, and should be balanced with througput caps of some sort, whether the throughput caps are A) limited numbers on the ship, B) limited numbers in a fleet, C) myopic zones, D) short maximum ranges, or E) a sliding efficiency where the damage:power drops off over distance.

If you can replace the disruptors of a D7 with your new heavy weapons and crush all that flies before you, it might be time to tone them down or give them other limits.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 02:37 pm: Edit

I tend to balance my Shield Galaxy weapons by power/damage/accuracy producing my power to damage ratio over 6 turns. (Or six firings of ROE weapons like phasers.)

Plus there is almost always some form of catch to the higher ratios.

For Example: The Warp Gauss Rifle is most accurate at R8 and does decent damage when coompared to Photon torpedoes. The damage goes up as the range closes, but the accuracy goes down. Also it's a two turn weapon that requires warp,(kinda implied by it's name). It requires a seeking weapon control channel. Until refitted a cruiser couldn't fire all four of them in a single impulse. (Not to mention other balancing factors.)

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Wouldn't 6 be better than 7 anyways, since 6 is divisible by 1, 2 and 3. If you figure a photon over 7 turns, you've got three firing sequences, and half of a fourth...

By Frank Di Vincenzo (Lordsnotrag) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 03:15 pm: Edit

You have whole firing sequences for all weapons with a 7 turn view, not a six.

One turn load firing sequence: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Two turn load firing sequence: 1,3,5,7
Three turn load firing sequence: 1,4,7

The important thing to remember is, in WS III [the most common starting WS] all your ship's weapons will be available to fire on the first turn, regardless of loading times. So, assuming all weapons fire every time they can [and aren't fast-loaded, like with plasmas or X-weapons] the next turn after the first where they can all fire again would be turn 7.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Makes sense. But wouldn't chane much of my stuff since a lot of it is already hit or miss. (For DF weapons.)

Four of the races use a different flavored plasma each. The one thats closest to a standard plasma in most respects is the plasma(ised) hellbore

<EDIT> PS. I do my calculations based on WS I.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 05:08 pm: Edit

Kludge: Your Shield Galaxies sounds intriguing. How soon before it's published?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 05:16 pm: Edit

I used six turns for the simple reason that what I worked on was a two-turn arming DF weapon. By comparing it to other DF weapons like Fusions, Hellbores, Photons and Disruptors, I had plenty to go on. The sliding damage scale was a critical part of it, as I said before; not only to balance the efficiency of the damage/power ratio, but also to give the weapon its intended flavor. Short answer...it isn't as easy to design a weapon as you might first think. It has to be balanced against existing weapons, AND balanced against the whole ship design. The holitstic view of the ship can greatly impact the effectiveness of the weapon. Take a D7K, and swap the disruptors for photons; change the APR to AWR. See if it doesn't just rock the house. Conversely, change the photons on a Fed CA to disruptors, and see how much it sucks. In any case, it sounds as though both Kens and myself followed a similar approach, which certainly makes me feel better about my own stuff.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Peter,

SPP has cleared the Ventu for playtesting. they use a two turn plasma with a warhead the size of a plasma F. But with a range equal (roughly) to the plasma S, (not to mention a couple of other interesting things about it). Steve has had the Lorkesh (the race that uses the Warp Gauss Rifle) for months. But everything has been so busy that there just hasn't been time to get to them. I want to get at least two more released, before active playtesting is done. (There's a total of eight new races, plus Andromedans, Seltorians, and Tholians.)

So it looks like it will be end of the year or even early next year before even the second race is released for playtesting.

I may try to get approval to begin active playtesting of the Ventu before that though. It will be after I get done writing everything though. Which should be in the next couple of weeks.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:29 pm: Edit

Hmmm, so is there any way for people to get in on the playtesting?

After the Hydrans, the ISC and Gorn are my most played races, I know plasma well. It would be fun to try out new plasma weapons. So if you're looking for someone to playtest, slip me in on the list. ;)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 07:50 pm: Edit

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Quote:

MJC: The first place most people go wrong in designing weapons (as someone who's seen and crunched the numbers on all the weapons currently in the game, and seen several dozen that havn't made the cut) is the damage:power ratio.

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Quote:

You get a weapon that's slightly less accurate than the disruptor, more EW resistant, has a range break the disruptor doesn't get (range 5, where the phaser-1s become auto-hits), and does roughly twice to 50% more damage per firing.

However, this is a weapon the designer will say is "balanced".

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Quote:

Repeat after me: damage:power ratios over 2.5:1 on heavy weapons are strongly suspect, and should be balanced with througput caps of some sort, whether the throughput caps are A) limited numbers on the ship, B) limited numbers in a fleet, C) myopic zones, D) short maximum ranges, or E) a sliding efficiency where the damage:power drops off over distance.

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Quote:

I tend to balance my Shield Galaxy weapons by power/damage/accuracy producing my power to damage ratio over 6 turns. (Or six firings of ROE weapons like phasers.)

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By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Peter,

In a couple of weeks I'll ask SPP IF I can release the Ventu for some playtesting. Obviously I've spent to much time and effort to blow it by premature release. I want to get all of the remaining stuff done before doing anything more.

You could only playtest the Ventu against established races and not against the races they would normally face. (Since they haven't been released yet.)

By Les LeBlanc (Lessss) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 12:48 am: Edit

Actually there is a new rule that could be brought out of this.
Fed escorts may only use 2 Ph-G in a turn against size class 2,3,4 units.

By Frank Di Vincenzo (Lordsnotrag) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 07:21 am: Edit

This way lies madness. I...

...

I...

...

You know, that's not a bad idea.

By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 08:09 pm: Edit

I have a friend who always insists on playing Fed Escorts, Orions with all Pl-F, and Hydran Escorts.

I think he is hooked on zero energy weapons and charging and tractoring.

Yes, I realise he shouldnt be taking Escorts without Carriers, but as far as I can tell, a BR with all Pl-F is perfectly legitimate... but totally broken.