Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Lorric on December 19, 2013, 06:22:33 pm
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Hey. Can anyone help me with this little question please?
I'm looking at beams in the wiki.
It seems simple enough to understand. Like this one, the infamous and dreaded Sathanas-mounted BFRed:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/BFRed
Damage per second is 11,550
Damage per pulse is 80,850.
The beam lasts 7 seconds. 11,550 X7 = 80,850.
So what is damage per second (sustained)? It varies beam to beam. This one it's a 10th of the damage of a pulse. For the BFGreen:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/BFGreen
It's only a tiny amount.
So what does it mean please?
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There is that whole weapon cycle, lifetime AND recharge. BFRed starts firing once every 10 seconds, therefore you could say it does 8k damage a second. BFGreen fires once every 35 seconds, therefore it statistically does 1194 damage a second. DPS is damage/firing time, DPS sustained is damage/cycle time.
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There is that whole weapon cycle, lifetime AND recharge. BFRed starts firing once every 10 seconds, therefore you could say it does 8k damage a second. BFGreen fires once every 35 seconds, therefore it statistically does 1194 damage a second. DPS is damage/firing time, DPS sustained is damage/cycle time.
Ah, I see. Thank you. :yes:
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Really DPS should be removed from the infobox entirely, DPS (sustained) should be renamed to DPS, and firing time should be added so you can still calculate the old DPS parameter if you for some reason want to.
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DPS is, by definition, a "sustained" parameter that can easily be a rather poor indicator of actual combat performance.
Maybe not quite so poor on direct-fire beams, but there are several weapon types for which a DPS stat is a weak indicator of usefulness. Fighter cannons (outside of strafing runs), dogfighting missiles, slash beams (at any sort of range), and slow-charge beams (like the SGreen) would have poor damage over time but impressive "burst" damage.
Cliche of the day: you've got lies, damned lies, and statistics. Numbers are numbers, it takes a little thinking to parse them properly.
Really DPS should be removed from the infobox entirely, DPS (sustained) should be renamed to DPS, and firing time should be added so you can still calculate the old DPS parameter if you for some reason want to.
I agree with this on principle, but I see why the current "DPS" number exists: as an already-converted value of the beam's $damage entry. That said, I think the current "DPS" value isn't particularly useful. Per-pulse and long-term "sustained" DPS values are far more valuable.
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thing with beam weapons in FS is that damage is done per second the beam is in contact with its target.
so a weapon with a damage score of 10 does 10 points of damage per second it is in contact with a target so a weapon with a 3 second duration will do a maximum 30 points of damage. thus doing 10 dps
but beams are also subject to fire wait, so if said beam has a fire wait of 10 seconds then it does a combined damage of 3 per second.
so both stats are correct depending on what information you need
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I would say keep all stats listed. Now I understand what it means, I think it's all useful information.
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Really DPS should be removed from the infobox entirely, DPS (sustained) should be renamed to DPS, and firing time should be added so you can still calculate the old DPS parameter if you for some reason want to.
Seconded.
At the very least, the existing DPS should be renamed since it's not actually what anyone familiar with with term would expect.
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Keep 'em both, they're really useful for forum jerkoff fights about beams and for FREDders.
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so a weapon with a damage score of 10 does 10 points of damage per second it is in contact with a target so a weapon with a 3 second duration will do a maximum 30 points of damage. thus doing 10 dps
I was under the impression a beam with a damage score of 10 would deal 55 damage per second contact time on average as it hits 5.5 times per second.
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Actually, I think it's closer to 5.88 times per second. Let me check my sources ...
EDIT - Found it : http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80789.msg1610498#msg1610498
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also frame rate dependent which is why BP's massive battle was so unreliable