Two articles in my guide.

[Zarel]

Weapon usage guide - http://celerisdrive.com/wz/weapons.php

Damage calculation - http://celerisdrive.com/wz/damage.php

Before I add links to these two guides, I want you all to tell me places that could be improved or changed, and what you think.

This is very important - PLEASE tell me what you think, what could be improved, all that stuff.

[Dr_Frodo]

Unable to access either of them, just getting a network timeout. : /

[whippersnapper]

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same here.

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[Jimmbob]

Works for me Guessing you fixed the links Great work to very comprehensive id say!, don't know what more you could really add though.

[themousemaster]

Very nice.. though that note about direct-fire missiles being useless in 2.1 isn't exactly what I find in my games

[Zarel]

Very nice.. though that note about direct-fire missiles being useless in 2.1 isn't exactly what I find in my games

(I'm going to say "Scourge" since that's the only direct-fire missile) In 2.1, Scourge does less damage than Heavy Cannon. Sure, it's lighter and longer-range, so better for hit-and-run, but considering the vastly greater amount of research, you're better off using HPV or Tank Killer for hit-and-run. Or do what people playing 1.10 did - put Heavy Cannons on hovers and use that for hit-and-run instead.

[stiv]

Nice work, Zarel. Useful stuff!

I'm a little confused by this paragraph in the Special Weapons section:

fire damage – Weapons with fire damage (not to be confused with flamers or thermal weapons) will cause things they hit to catch fire and take damage over a certain amount of time.
Examples: flamers, incendiary artillery, firebombs

I understand the bit about setting things on fire. It is the "not to be confused with flamers" part that confuses me when it goes on to mention flamers as an example of this type.

Thanks for your work on the guides. They are very helpful for deciding on strategies.

[Zarel]

I'm a little confused by this paragraph in the Special Weapons section:

fire damage – Weapons with fire damage (not to be confused with flamers or thermal weapons) will cause things they hit to catch fire and take damage over a certain amount of time.
Examples: flamers, incendiary artillery, firebombs

I understand the bit about setting things on fire. It is the "not to be confused with flamers" part that confuses me when it goes on to mention flamers as an example of this type.

I've clarified it.

[themousemaster]

Very nice.. though that note about direct-fire missiles being useless in 2.1 isn't exactly what I find in my games

(I'm going to say "Scourge" since that's the only direct-fire missile) In 2.1, Scourge does less damage than Heavy Cannon. Sure, it's lighter and longer-range, so better for hit-and-run, but considering the vastly greater amount of research, you're better off using HPV or Tank Killer for hit-and-run. Or do what people playing 1.10 did - put Heavy Cannons on hovers and use that for hit-and-run instead.

You sure?

I know that it "starts" by doing less, but by the end of the research, it was doing more than my TKs were (barely, but surely). Unless a HC does more than a TK, but I don't think that's the case.

[Skrim]

The Damage Calculation article is good.

In the Weapon Guide article, there are a few issues:

-You list 'firebombs' as Thermal damage weapons, when your Turrets page shows the Phosphor, Thermite and Plasmite Bombs all doing Kinetic damage.

-The anti-air weapons and most bombs are missing in the SubClass classification. I always thought Cluster and Phosphor bombs were T1, HEAP and Thermite were T2, and Plasmite was T3.

-I've found artillery-type weapons to be exceedingly effective against all non-bunker structures, but maybe that's just because they don't get shot back at.

I just generally dislike the vocabulary(Rail Guns referred to as 'rails', Phosphor/Thermite bombs called 'firebombs'.

[Zarel]

You sure?

I know that it "starts" by doing less, but by the end of the research, it was doing more than my TKs were (barely, but surely). Unless a HC does more than a TK, but I don't think that's the case.

Sorry, I keep on forgetting rocket damage upgrades are 1/3 as effective as any other damage upgrade. You're right, TK isn't ever a good weapon.
"Upgrade price" is the amount of money spent on weapon upgrades; it's equal to the amount of time spent on weapon upgrades.

You'll notice Heavy Cannon is always better than Scourge, and less than half the price. Scourge is better only in terms of range.

Beginning of T3:

Heavy Cannon DPS: 72
Upgrade price: 69.6 K

Tank Killer DPS: 61
Upgrade price: 96 K

Scourge DPS: 22
Upgrade price: 110.4 K

After all upgrades:

Heavy Cannon DPS: 213
Upgrade price: 138 K

Tank Killer DPS: 61
Upgrade price: 96 K

Scourge DPS: 126.5
Upgrade price: 340.8 K

Gauss Cannon DPS: 128
Upgrade price: 360.8 K

[themousemaster]

Beginning of T3:

Heavy Cannon DPS: 72
Upgrade price: 69.6 K

Tank Killer DPS: 61
Upgrade price: 96 K

Scourge DPS: 22
Upgrade price: 110.4 K

After all upgrades:

Heavy Cannon DPS: 213
Upgrade price: 138 K

Tank Killer DPS: 61
Upgrade price: 96 K

Scourge DPS: 126.5
Upgrade price: 340.8 K

Gauss Cannon DPS: 128
Upgrade price: 360.8 K

Those numbers may be true, but they are missing a bit of meta-strategy.

The HC may have more raw DPS in a controlled environment, but this game is far from that.

For example, the reason the AG falters heavily is because it's damage per shot is so low that most units armor upgrades reduce it to minimum damage (30%) per shot.

This is the case with the HC and the assorted rockets; armor will end up reducing a HC's damage per shot by a much higher % than it will the rocket/missile shots. That is the point behind the rockets and missiles in fact; they are designed to frontload a heap of damage, specifically to deal with the high-armored targets (they aren't called "Tank Killer" for nothing). Sure, I wouldn't use them against cobras, hovers, or cyborgs. I'll still take HCs for those (or AG in the case of the 'borgs, for a while anyway).


Also, don't forget: the research for Missiles not only affects the Scourge, but also the various SAMs, which are definitely a good investment. so that "340K upgrade" price is likely to be researched anyway, whether the plan is to use Scourges or not.



Long story short, while numerically the HC is the raw DPS champion, saying that all other weapons are useless (save flamers) is kind of... misleading.

[Zarel]

For example, the reason the AG falters heavily is because it's damage per shot is so low that most units armor upgrades reduce it to minimum damage (30%) per shot.

This is the case with the HC and the assorted rockets; armor will end up reducing a HC's damage per shot by a much higher % than it will the rocket/missile shots. That is the point behind the rockets and missiles in fact; they are designed to frontload a heap of damage, specifically to deal with the high-armored targets (they aren't called "Tank Killer" for nothing). Sure, I wouldn't use them against cobras, hovers, or cyborgs. I'll still take HCs for those (or AG in the case of the 'borgs, for a while anyway).

No, it's not. Armor will reduce an HC's damage per shot by a much lower percentage.

Fully upgraded HC damage: 444 - armor [min 133]
Fully upgraded TK damage: 192 - armor [min 58]
Fully upgraded Scourge damage: 237 - armor [min 71]
Fully upgraded HC rof: 40
Fully upgraded TK rof: 24
Fully upgraded Scourge rof: 38

So not only does HC have higher DPS before armor, but armor reduces its DPS by less than it reduces the TK/Scourge's DPS.

You're right that they aren't called "Tank Killer" for nothing in 1.10, but they definitely don't deserve the title in 2.1. They're a ridiculous amount stronger than lancers, but that says more about how weak lancers are than how strong TKs are.

As for the other stats, HC has higher HP, and HPV is better for sniping and hit-and-run. HPV also has range 10, higher than TK's 9, and not that much less than Scourge's 11. (Scourge's claimed range is 16, but because no internal sensor reaches that far, it can't shoot outside of 11 except on Nexus structures)

And yes, even before fully upgraded, at about the point where you'd get TK, HC still does more damage and has a higher ROF than TK, and always does. This is what I call weapon homogenization - in 2.1, not only have some weapons been strengthened too far and other weapons nerfed too far, but many have also lost their specialties. TK and Scourge used to be special in that they had high damage and low HP, but their damage has been decreased and their HP has been increased.

Anything else? Keep in mind that I'm a balancer, so I've analyzed the balance between cannons and rockets in 1.10 and 2.1 a lot.

Long story short, while numerically the HC is the raw DPS champion, saying that all other weapons are useless (save flamers) is kind of... misleading.

Saying all other weapons are useless is an exaggeration, but they are indeed at a significant disadvantage to cannons and flamers, enough so that a cannon/flamer strategy would beat any other strategy, so it's useless to strategize about the others.

You want to take Assault guns to the cyborgs? AP does a little less than twice as much damage as AT. But HC has around a 3x advantage, more like 6x if you consider armor, so my HC army will probably kill an equivalent cyborg army faster than an AG army.

[themousemaster]

Fully upgraded Scourge damage: 237 - armor [min 71]

I uninstalled the game 48 hours ago to try and get 2.1.rc1, only to find i couldn't download it, so I cannot check this, but...

Maybe I'm smoking something powerful, but I could have sworn that when I put a Scourge loadout on a body at the final mission, it showed a damage of 1028. where on earth did 237 come from...?

[Zarel]

I uninstalled the game 48 hours ago to try and get 2.1.rc1, only to find i couldn't download it, so I cannot check this, but...

Maybe I'm smoking something powerful, but I could have sworn that when I put a Scourge loadout on a body at the final mission, it showed a damage of 1028. where on earth did 237 come from...?

Well, it's 237 in 2.1 and 337 in my rebalance, I just checked. Even in 1.10 and 2.0, it only goes up to 570. Maybe you accidentally looked at the range, 2048? Damage is the second one.