I’ve created 2 charts regarding weapon balancing. I’ve done this because I want to balance weapons for my mod but anyhow, I thought all of you would like to discuss about my approach and maybe these charts will help someone during the game.
Of course all formulas used for creating these charts are highly experimental, if not wrong
Ok, here my formula for the destructive potential:
Cost = (Cost(ingame)/10 + Crew + Energy + Weight/10)/2
And at least the efficiency
efficiency = 1,5 - Cost / destructive potential
I just added the -1,5 because it looks better Of course only the ratio is interessting.
Like I said before, all charts are highly experimental because they doesn’t consider any type of game mechanic. So maybe the tracking speed is far more crucial and should count more. But well, I tried to evaluate the data the best I could.
To my question, does these charts apply to the “game reality” or are they totaly useless to balance my own weapons?
PS: I’ve just packed cost and potential into one chart because I was too lazy to make more charts, DON’T compare the cost and potential of a single weapon, just the proportion between several weapons is meaningful!
Rather than
destructive potential = Max Range/100 + ArmorPenetration/10 + ShieldPenetration/10 + DPS + Trackingspeed
It would be a little closer to meaningful if you made it something like:
destructive potential = (Max Range/100) * (ArmorPenetration/10 + ShieldPenetration/10) * DPS * Trackingspeed
Going further… If you wanted to consider the game mechanic, you would probably do some of the following:
Break this into three values (vs fast, vs medium, vs slow) instead of using the tracking speed directly.
You wouldn’t use the raw value of shield penetration, probably just x for stuff that can’t break frigate shields, y for stuff that can’t break cruiser shields, z for everything else. Since the exact value seems to either have no, or very small, effect on the damage dealt (simply put: either you hurt the shield, or you don’t.)
Yes I think you are right with your point concerning the shield penetration… I will give it a thought but well in the end it’s not that important for me to spend another hour or more with this calculation. I just altered the formula as you advised and this is my result:
I will use these two formulas for the calculation of my weapons balance and this should do the job. Best balancing is anyhow a good ol battle
Don’t forget minimum range, and potential counters. Missiles can be scrambedl and shot down, but plasma cannot. missiles can even be outrun,m but beam lasers cannot…
Plus there is the opportunity cost of each weapon, in terms of power cost and crew requirements.
We need a number of charts. And TBH point cost of a weapon might be its least interesting statistic.
How about a bubble plot of dps vs range, with 2 bubbles for each data point: shield penetration and armor penetration?
Alternately, a bubble plot of dps vs range, with the size of the bubble representing armor penetration, and the shape of the bubble indicated whether the SP is <20, between 20 and 24, between 24 and 27, or >27.
I would think it would be better to have several more specific charts rather than a formula that tries to weigh in each element and then come up with some indication of which is “best”.
e.g.
Best Raw DPS
Best DPS vs Shields (perhaps assuming reflective shields)
Best DPS vs Armor (perhaps assuming a typical cruiser with 3-4 heavy plates)
Could probably plot a chart of DPS vs Range. Raw DPS on the Y axis, max range on the X axis… Actually maybe it could show the min and max range (so each weapon graphed would be a line rather than a dot).
Ideally, you would use these various graphs and charts to say “I want a weapon that does ____, which one do I want?”
For balance purposes we’d then look at which weapons end up sucking on every single chart and we’d know that one needs some work.
Like, I’m still trying to figure out the point of cruiser rockets. They look neat and they’re fast but the fact that they don’t launch decoys makes them seem a bit useless. Maybe they could have their min range set to something like 20, though, which would make them unique as a missile weapon.
