Laser Rifle Charging Mechanics

[Intalus]

I'm guessing it's linear, but I didn't bother to test it out because of how unpractical it is. I don't really see a reason to prematurely release a charge for a weapon after 33% unless you're out of energy, and in that case, I would cancel it and wait until I had more energy to charge at full. Edited July 5, 2014 by Intalus

[Breaking Point]

I'm guessing it's linear, but I didn't bother to test it out because of how unpractical it is. I don't really see a reason to prematurely release a charge for a weapon after 33% unless you're out of energy, and in that case, I would cancel it and wait until I had more energy to charge at full.

 

I want to optimize every aspect of my team, that's reason enough to at least experiment with it.

 

I set up a UNAC experiment using LRA-229 with the UNAC programmed to fire at various charge levels, and to maintain 50m away from the target. The target was an AC with a TE defense of 501. I can already tell you, at least in my tests, that might not be correct and my suspicions (that the starting rate is actually very high, and that the longer you charge the less marginal return you get, exponentially) looks like it's true. I haven't tested multiple weapons, ranges, or defense levels yet, but it looks like you can get 40% of the damage immediately, up to 65% of the weapon's damage at 30% charge, but with lower and lower gains for more and more charge time.

 

Already, 30% charge has a 25% lower dps than no charge at all (which did surprise me, I was expecting a little bit of a benefit from some charging). However, for rifles with longer reload times (and/or shorter charge times) this might mean something very different. Adjusting the reload time and charge time to be the same shows an only 20% lower dps. So, theoretically, if the reload time is longer than the charge time, at some point it will be better to charge it.

 

Likewise, ineffective damage might work very differently because of its different damage curve, but I haven't tested that yet.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Breaking Point

[Py687]

I'll be honest, this sounds like good stuff you've found.

 

Except reading part of your latest post sounds like you might be going about it inefficiently, or maybe I'm presuming.

 

You should find a general equation for a weapon with no tunes, perhaps from graphing it, and then retest everything for a weapon with some tunes to check it. Then you repeat those two steps against an enemy whom LRs do ineffective damage. Don't change weapons the whole time you're doing these four steps, or haven't you learned about controlling variables?

 

After you have an equation that works for Weapon A, then predict the curve for Weapon B, test it in any of the four categories, and if it works then you'll have saved tens of hours. If it doesn't, you won't be worse off what you've been doing, you'll just be more efficient.

 

(Idk if stats increase/decrease by the same percentage for every tune, or whether ineffective works the same way, but someone out there probably does.)

 

Then there's also the question of how applicable your work is, when you consider the dps of the laser rifles best suited for dps to the dps of BRs or rifles. But then I guess your work is sort of finding that out, isn't it.

 

My final question to you is how helpful to the community and how self-gratifying the final product of all your work will be. You've got people who make it sound like they couldn't care less (like Disso, and I doubt he'll be trading his howies for LRs any time soon), and then you have yourself, who's wasting so much time for something that may end up making very little difference in the face of the meta (for whichever server you're playing on; shut up, Disso). But, I mean, if you think this sciency experimentation is fun shit, funner than the actual game, well, don't let me stop you. It's just that if you burn out by the end of compiling your results, and see that no one gives much of a shit, you might be the only one ending up disappointed.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Siri

[SUMERIAN BLOOD GOD]

Nah stay here. It's cool that people are actually talking about VD even though I don't care about it in the slightest. Y'all might want to drop the heat down though and talk a little more chill.

[Breaking Point]

I'll be honest, this sounds like good stuff you've found.

 

Except reading part of your latest post sounds like you might be going about it inefficiently, or maybe I'm presuming.

 

You should find a general equation for a weapon with no tunes, perhaps from graphing it, and then retest everything for a weapon with some tunes to check it. Then you repeat those two steps against an enemy whom LRs do ineffective damage. Don't change weapons the whole time you're doing these four steps, or haven't you learned about controlling variables?

 

After you have an equation that works for Weapon A, then predict the curve for Weapon B, test it in any of the four categories, and if it works then you'll have saved tens of hours. If it doesn't, you won't be worse off what you've been doing, you'll just be more efficient.

 

(Idk if stats increase/decrease by the same percentage for every tune, or whether ineffective works the same way, but someone out there probably does.)

 

Then there's also the question of how applicable your work is, when you consider the dps of the laser rifles best suited for dps to the dps of BRs or rifles. But then I guess your work is sort of finding that out, isn't it.

 

My final question to you is how helpful to the community and how self-gratifying the final product of all your work will be. You've got people who make it sound like they couldn't care less (like Disso, and I doubt he'll be trading his howies for LRs any time soon), and then you have yourself, who's wasting so much time for something that may end up making very little difference in the face of the meta (for whichever server you're playing on; shut up, Disso). But, I mean, if you think this sciency experimentation is fun shit, funner than the actual game, well, don't let me stop you. It's just that if you burn out by the end of compiling your results, and see that no one gives much of a shit, you might be the only one ending up disappointed.

 

I started testing the most common weapons first to look for particularly high damage calculations because that's what I want to find first, then I'll broaden outward. I've already got general damage formulas, but here's what I've basically found so far, from 141 shot trials over 6 weapons:

 

All rifles, at 0% charge, start between 30 and 40% damage. Rapid-firing tuning increases the starting damage. The damage increases linearly until they reach 100% damage, after which any more charging is pointless. LRA-229, when fully tuned, can reach full power at 80%. This means there's no reason to charge that weapon beyond 80%, as it doesn't do any more damage. They all increase at the same basic rate however.

 

Rapid fire tuning, which also decreases charge time, increases the % of power at 0% charge also. As a general rule, to maximize your DPS, you want to take the ratio between the reload time and the charge time. If the charge time / reload time is greater than ~1.2, then charging up is worse. If the charge time / reload time is less than 1.2, then you want to charge it. How much you charge it both depends on its starting charge level (~30% means you should charge all the way, ~40% means you should stop around 75% or 80% charge). None of the 6 weapons I've tested so far were worth charging beyond 90%, they all either had lower DPS, or the same DPS.

 

There's also a few secrets about which weapons are astoundingly powerful at certain charge levels, but I'll leave that alone for now, but there are some weapons that can actually do more DPS than a pulse machine gun and at further ranges if they are charged exactly right each time. They blow battle rifles out of the water, especially if you're dealing against someone with <1500 TE def.

 

 

However, base stats such as starting % at 0 and when they reach full damage (if its before 100% charge) seem to be unique to each weapon, as either unlisted stats or perhaps derivative of some other stat I'm not seeing. Basically, there's no way (yet) of knowing which rifles start at 40%+ damage, and which ones start at under 30% damage without testing them yourself first.

 

The trick here is that the high damage charge levels I've figured out would require very careful fingerwork and cautious use to not under/overcharge (sometimes 10% longer charge can mean halving your damage output because of how long charge times are!), but since UNACs can be programmed to charge to a specific level, they don't have to worry about that.

 

EDIT: Also, one curiosity? If you don't fully power tune it, K29 is pretty much flat DPS no matter how much you charge it. It does the same damage per second at 10% as it does at 80%. It's right on that 1.2 (112 charge time, 80 reload time) 'breaking point'.

 

EDIT2: EN amplifiers seem to speed up the charge rate too. They don't affect the starting charge level, but they allow rifles to reach 100% damage with less charge time.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Breaking Point

[Lygophilia]

Once you reach 136% completion on other AC games, all you can do is just replay the same stories in a different way for nostalgia's sake.

 

I wouldn’t say that. In those times, I had some people to play multiplayer as a replay value to have more of an understanding of the game, which the same can be said about the fighting game genre in the early 90s, before online functionality. The AC community use to have offline gatherings as well. I didn't see a point to redo the story again, when I had all the parts. Multiplayer was there for a reason.

 

I'll put it this way: If you're a fan of old-school armored core, but not a fan of highly customizable strategic robot combat with beautiful aesthetics and gritty apocalyptic political stories, then yeah, you won't like anything after LR.

 

From my preferences, the newer games didn't have as much customization as the older ones, if you are talking about specific weapons/parts with built-in weapons, if I’m reading this wrong. FS had a habit of keeping certain weapons in certain games and mechanics out of certain games, which I didn’t agree with. From their development decisions, it gradually became divided and more simplified.

 

As for as strategy differences in mechanics in newer games, the design was team based challenge intended in ACV series, which didn't appeal to me, because I preferred it's design based on solo multiplayer. Innovation isn’t something I’m against, but I’m not really a team person. A storyline can't really be interesting for me either, because it will end up cliché everytime.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Lygophilia