Cyclone/Whirlwind

[3drts]

Yay for Airsplash,
It would be awesome if cyclone was to air units, what HEAP bombs is to cyborgs... or a Ground shaker shell.
When the massive incendiary vtol raids come, if the cyclones are splashing 2x as many targets at the whirlwinds, then cyclones could be quite useful, even late game (not to mention, effective DPS against groups would be quite high).

BTW, currently stormbringer has a lower DPS than Whirlwind..... why use Storm at all?
How much armor does it take before storm is better than whirl?
Or is it only meant as an effective AA defense for those that earlier skipped the AA gun research?
If so... getting to T-3 with no AA defenses.... wow, thats way too late to put up an AA defense while avoiding a research path.
Plus whirl does small splash... storm does not, storm needs to be more powerful, or whirl needs some nerfing.

[Zarel]

Your average enemy in the late endgame has an armor of like 81/27 (Retribution with a few upgrades).

So the Whirlwind ends up with a DPS of 587.

And the Stormy ends up with a DPS of 768.

Also note that this is a fully upgraded Whirlwind. AA weapons are notoriously difficult to upgrade, since their upgrades require HVAPFSDS Cannon Shells, Cannon Rapid Loader, Thermal Imaging Rockets, Target Acquisition Artillery Shells...

[3drts]

Also note that this is a fully upgraded Whirlwind. AA weapons are notoriously difficult to upgrade, since their upgrades require HVAPFSDS Cannon Shells, Cannon Rapid Loader, Thermal Imaging Rockets, Target Acquisition Artillery Shells...

Hence the appeal of stopping upgrades some time around cyclone, and then later putting out storm alongside the pulse you were teching anyway.

How does it work out when the enemy is using scorpion medium bodies, with a lot of thermal upgrades?

[Zarel]

How does it work out when the enemy is using scorpion medium bodies, with a lot of thermal upgrades?

afaik, Retaliation has more thermal armor than Scorpion (20 vs 12).

Also, thermal upgrades are more powerful than kinetic upgrades, so the Stormy would be a lot less effective. Fortunately, pretty much no one goes for thermal upgrades.

(see http://guide.wz2100.net/bp/retribution )

[3drts]

I wasn't saying scorpion had more thermal armor than Retribution.

Scorpions are one of the most common VTOL bombers, often carrying plasmites or thermites(though these often are on mantis bodies) .

They have much less kinetic armor than Retribution, and their base kinetic is equal to their base thermal armor.

Thus the armor adjusted Kinetic DPS of a whirlwind should be much closer, if not more than the armor adjusted thermal damage of a stormbringer.

Thermal vs Kinetic aside, the Storm also has higher damage per shot, and a lower ROF, so if Kinetic and thermal armor were equal, it would still in theory have an advantage against heavily armored targets.

Your example of a retribution with no thermal armor upgrades, makes the stormy look more effective relative to the whirlwind, than I think one is likely to see in game.

BTW, by the time one has storm, or even flash, I've typically got at least the mk1&2 thermal armor upgrades, they are cheap and don't take that long relative to T-3 techs, the cost vs benefit is quite good on most mk1 techs.
The mk2 techs always cost more, take longer, and have a lower % improvement over the previous iteration (going from 1-> 1.3 is proportionately better than going from 1.3->1.6, it would need to go to 1.69 to give the same benefit).
Its just a little diversion incase I come across pulse, flamers... etc
Thermite's high damage makes armor values relatively meaningless, armor is most effective against high ROF weapons, or weapons whose damage isn't much greater than the armor value.

So my only (off topic) question is if thermal armor does anything to shield against the "burn" damage of incendiary weapons.
If so, how is it calculated?

[Zarel]

Your example of a retribution with no thermal armor upgrades, makes the stormy look more effective relative to the whirlwind, than I think one is likely to see in game.

Actually, my example was of a Retrib with one Thermal upgrade. With two, its DPS is still about the same.

So my only (off topic) question is if thermal armor does anything to shield against the "burn" damage of incendiary weapons.

Technically, yes. In practice, no. In practice, burn damage is nearly always base damage divided by 3, no matter how low or high thermal armor is.

If so, how is it calculated?

Horribly. So horribly I refuse to explain it. I'm planning to fix it, anyway.

[3drts]

Your example of a retribution with no thermal armor upgrades, makes the stormy look more effective relative to the whirlwind, than I think one is likely to see in game.

Actually, my example was of a Retrib with one Thermal upgrade. With two, its DPS is still about the same.

Geez, will you get off the retribution LOL.
At 315 damage, armor doesn't have much effect, 1 or two armor upgrades won't change the damage done that much (which is why composites are more popular, they increase K Armor *and* hitpoints)

Rather than looking at how much thermal armor it needs to be raised on the retribution to get whirlwind and storm equal, look at a body with less armor: ie a scorpion.
You're example had armor for retribution at 81, fully upgraded it is 88.
So lets just use full upgrades:
Whirl: 175 damage
Scorpion KA: 44
Effective damage: 131 per shot
Retribution KA: 88
Effective damage: 87 damage per shot.
The whirlwind should be doing 50% more damage to a scorpion body in the late game, than to a retribution.
The change in Storm damage is negligible 315-27=288 vs 315-16 = 299. 299/288 = 1.038

So, skipping some math and doing an approximation with the not-quite-maxed Kinetic armor stats,
whirlwind DPS of ~580 * ~1.5 = 870
Storm DPS of 768 * 1.04 = 797.

Whirlwinds win as AA guns over storms when against medium(and below) non-nexus bodies it seems.
And lets not forget the lack of splash, and the fact storms cost 2x a whirl emplacement.
I think I'll be keeping Whirlies if the enemy isn't using Retribution or better, and free up a research facility by ignoring those long storm laser/aa site techs

[Zarel]

Would require you to spend more research on those AA upgrades, which are pretty difficult to get, though...