[morris13]

Okay. Slash beams: they look cool, but we hate them because they do sucky damage. I've been doing a lot of testing and I find that a slash beam will usually only do between 40% and 60% of its maximum damage potential per shot, the rest being lost to empty space.

Oddly, I find that the damage a slash beam does depends largely on its target. A slasher's damage is usually very consistant on a particular ship class, but can vary wildly between ships. Deimos Corvettes, for example, seem to take considerably less damage from slash beams that most ships, (as much as 25% to 30% less in my tests) since the beams seem to spend a lot more time 'out in space'. I'm not sure why this is although it may have something to do with the size of the bounding box.

At any rate, I had an idea that would make slash beams better for their intended purpose - damaging subsystems and turrets. Instead of merely increasing the damage value of the slash beam to make it comparable with direct-fire beams, increase the subsystem factor instead. The slash beam won't kill as fast as regular one, but it'll be doing more subsystem damage and is far more likely to disarm and disable a target.

[Snipes]

Yes, I have thought about this too...  The slash beams should have the damage that the BFGreens have, since they are not focussed on the ship directly... whereas the steady beams should do less damage... My thought atleast...

[Snipes]

hehe, my thoughts contradict yours... lol

[morris13]

Well, if you consider that the damage is base d on the amount of energy that a weapon is capable of pushing through its aperture, there isn't any particular reason why either one should do more or less BASE damage than another, with the possible exception that the bigger a beam cannon gets the harder it would probably be to gimbal it so it can 'slash'
Either way, if you have two identical beam cannons, one slashing, one not, the slasher will always do less ACTUAL damage to the target because its not delivering 100% of its energy to the target.
That said, the idea of increasing subystem factor on slash beams represents the much higher liklihood that it will damage unarmored or lightly armored structures on the hull such as sensor arrays that are nessecary for proper functioning of the ship without nessecarily causing damage that would destroy it.

[Snipes]

That makes of sense...

[phreak]

yea have a slasher that does like 500 and have a subsystem damage of about 2500 (5x mult).  I've noticed that when firing at ships head-on like a rakshasa, the slasher doesnt tend to move all that much.

[morris13]

Ive been testing that. With a subsystem damage multiplier of 5 a slash beam will tend to destroy turrets and cripple subsystems well before it actually destroys the ship, especially on cruisers and corvettes.

[Sandwich]

 

Originally posted by morris13:
I'm not sure why this is although it may have something to do with the size of the bounding box.

I'm pretty sure this is correct. For the Deimos, consider that the "bottom" of the box would be extended downwards by the middle engine housing, therefore generating a bunch of "valid" target coordinates that aren't part of that actual ship hull.

But it also depends or the orientation of the target to the beam emitter. For example, the Deimos again - if the attacking ship is located on the side of the Deimos you get the scenario we discussed above. But if the attacker is above or below the Deimos, then the bounding box doesn't have much enclosed area - if at all - that isn't also occupied by the hull.

Along these lines of thought, I would think that the worst ships to attack with slashers would be the Sathanas (especially from the sides, top or bottom), Ravana, Hades and Hatshepsut.

But the main question is this: Why? Why use the slashers at all? (asides from "They look cool") From a logical, GTVA standpoint, as opposed to a Volition standpoint, there is no reason to that I can think of.


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"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar, the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)

[morris13]

Thats exactly something I'm trying to remedy here. My though is that the primary function of slash beams is to cause more damage to ship function rather than catastrophic hull damage. Thus a slash beam should, if properly balanced, be destroying turrets and crippling subsystems BEFORE it has done enough hull damage to destroy the ship. This way you have the tactical benifit of possibly being able to destroy key weapons and subsystems that the cap could be using against you more quickly than you can destroy the ship completely with a comparable direct fire beam. This would make slash beams useful in a completely different way than direct fire beams, and make it worthwhile for larger ships to mount both kinds, which almost all GTVA corvettes and destroyers do.

[Daedalus]

Hmm... I really like the idea of that, morris. Good thinking.  

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Distortion
http://www.3dactionplanet.com/redfaction/mf/
The Perfect Storm
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/tps/

[Sandwich]

I see... basically taking advantage of the fact that the slashers hit a large part of the hull compared to regulars... I like it a lot!  

------------------
"He who laughs last thinks slowest."
"Just becase you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
"To err is human; to really screw up you need a computer."
Creator of the Sandvich Bar, the CapShip Turret Upgrade, the Complete FS2 Ship List and the System Backgrounds List (all available from the site)

[This message has been edited by sandwich (edited 06-28-2001).]

[morris13]

Well folks, if you're interested in doing this, its a really easy modification to make. Go into the .tbl file and change the $Subsystem Factor on each slash beam from 1.0 to somewhere between 3.5 and 5.5
I would reccomend a higher number for the terran weapons and lower one for the Vasudan, since the Vslash does more damage already.
I should make that modification and go through the main campaign again and see what kind of effects it has.

[GrandAdmiralAbaht]

The thing is that Slash beams recharge in less time than the other beams.  This makes the beam's damage almost equal to that of a normal beam firing.

In a mission I played, it took 10 seconds for a Terslash to recharge.  But it usually takes a BGreen 2minutes to recharge.

[morris13]

You haven't done your research. Go here to see exactly how much damage all the beams do. Keep in  mind that slash beams in practice only do HALF of the numbers shown here on average. http://home.att.net/~clay.h/fs2/beamfaq.htm

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by GrandAdmiralAbaht
But it usually takes a BGreen 2minutes to recharge.

Wrong. It takes 30 seconds, IIRC.

[Knight Templar]

Can we temporarily ban you for this?

[Woolie Wool]

Uh-oh. The last post here before mine was in, September '01?! I can't delete the post!

Memo to self: Never post on a forum just after drinking five shots of tequila.

[Galemp]

WHY, WOOLIE?! WHY?!

There is more to life than tables.

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool

Memo to self: Never post on a forum just after drinking five shots of tequila.

Why the hell would you be here if you are in access to tequila?

And didn't having to search 100 pages back or so give the date away?

[LtNarol]

I knew something was wrong when all the smilies were broken up there, then I saw the date