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Possible to have too much weapon power?
zanthe25
Member Posts: 207 Arc User
I was curious is it possible to have too much weapon power...
Ie... If I have 125 weapon power, will increasing it further give any benefit to counter the energy drain of energy weapons, or will it have no effect as its not increase energy recovery time?
Ie... If I have 125 weapon power, will increasing it further give any benefit to counter the energy drain of energy weapons, or will it have no effect as its not increase energy recovery time?
Post edited by zanthe25 on
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EDIT: I am not thinking about the old system did some testing today.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdHFKbmdpZjlEMHk3YUhfNGRTbllNY0E&output=html
This is right.
not with regard to weapons power. i posted test results that prove it, and i can watch there not be a cap every time i fire weapons and my energy doesn't drain as low as it should, if there was a hard cap
125 is the max that will display. if you fire a bunch of weapons and your power doesn't drop as low as if you set your power to exactly 125, you know your getting a benefit.
ok i'll try to be more clear
your exact weapons power at the time a shot is fired is a modifier to how much damage a shot will deal
125 is the damage modifier cap. same for aux being the effectiveness modifier cap for some abilities
125 used to be the weapons power cap, no theoretical power over 125 registered.
over caping your weapons power wont increase the damage of your best shot, but you will be able to fire many shots at the 125 damage modifier, and the rest of the shots at a higher damage modifier then you would if you set your power to max at 125.
in that link i posted it showed test results from fireing at will at various max power settings
in the 125 test, damage numbers ranged from 428-189, and in the 164 test damage numbers were between 428-247. your best shot wont be better, but your worst shot is higher, and every thing in between is higher too.
This is all correct and easy to observe ingame using emergency power to weapons. You can't increase your maximum power past 125, but you CAN increase your minimum power observed mid-firing-cycle. If you sit at 125 and see your power level out at 80 while firing, adding another 20 will give you 100 power while firing and better overall damage.
It's not perfect however. The initial power drain doesn't take into account the extra over 125, so in that scenario it will still initially drain down to 80 for the first second, and THEN the extra power will kick in and it will climb back up to 100 for the rest of the salvo. You still end up with quite a lot more damage for going over 125, and you can take advantage of this to run some astoundingly powerful all-beam boats.
No.
.
what a convincing argument. with all this evidence you provided how could we not all agree with you?
Your failure to understand burden of proof is poor basis for sarcasm.
Did you go to the "he who shouts loudest is always right" school of reasoning?
You ran a test, yes.
Too bad the premise was flawed and the test proved nothing but your inadequacies. I'll whisper a second "no"; you can shout and stomp to your heart's content in response, it still won't prove a thing.
apparently anything you don't agree with must have the burden of proof attached to it, wile what ever you say doesnt. sorry, this is an established fact, common knowledge, that has been proven time and again for a year. the burden of proof is on the person saying that it is wrong, now.
for the second time, heres the proof, the documented numbers on the subject. the parced log numbers don't lie, the test is not flawed. the average damage your shots deal will improve the higher your energy level, its clear as day. theres even a clear difference between 135 and 125, without any power buffing abilities of any kind that could in some way effecting the numbers.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdHFKbmdpZjlEMHk3YUhfNGRTbllNY0E&output=html
so, yes. be in denial all you want about it, its your loss.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here, but yes, the bonus power applies to drained power levels... giving you higher power after weapons have drained it... making you more powerful for the remainder of your shots. That's kind of the entire point we're trying to get across. The extra power will work this way regardless of where it comes from, and EPtW happens to be one of the best ways to get said extra power.
Reason: I don't bother parsing my data; I do, however, keep an eye on the damage I'm dealing. When I run higher weapon power (I don't actually have any EPtW abilities on my main cruiser most of the time), my beam damage strikes don't dip below 270. When I lower my power slightly to max my shield power when tank is more important, I still have 120 static power, but my damage dips down to the lower 180's for the last shots of each salvo. Upper end of the damage doesn't change.
So, yeah...it does make a rather big difference in sustainable damage. It won't change your Beam Overload 3, but it *will* increase your dps, especially if you're broadsiding with Beam: Fire at Will repeatedly, with 6 or more beams. It also helps a bit when running 1 quad/3 dual cannons, and 4 turrets, with Rapid Fire, but not as much as with 6 beams, much less 8. Due to additional power drain, it might help a lot with 4 dual heavies, though I have yet to try that.
As a side note, I'm running a purple Mk XII EPS console; I have found it to tighten the damage spread considerably vs. the Mk XI blue.
(i) Quis: Dontdrunk didn't run the test he linked, I did. (He ran other tests, and I agree with his interpretation of my results, but he's the wrong person to complain to about the test being inadequate)
There's even a link on the bottom of the spreadsheet to the thread that prompted me to create it.
The premise was that Beam weaponry was using any weapons power above 125 as a "buffer". The test proved that this was the case, and provided a rough breakdown of the expected DPS increase at different energy settings.
In a nutshell: Beams use overcapped weapons energy to buffer/offset the energy reserved during weapons cycles. This is only in effect when you would otherwise dip below 125 weapons power. However Beams do not get more damaging when you go over the cap (a beam fired at 130 weapons energy will not grant more damage than at 125) - the "hard cap" is still at 125, you just end up firing more shots at 125 than you otherwise would be able to.
The same is not true for cannons, as proved in other tests, probably most visibly in this one, complete with screenshots. (a reply to a long thread where someone was claiming this stuff was all "misinformation", despite proof to the contrary)
(ii) Jeff: EPTW was not used, because of the short Energy Weapons Skill Bonus potentially skewing the results. EPTW has two components: a short skill boost and a long weapons power bonus.
The additional weapons power over 125 in the test was calculated from two sources: Firstly from raising the ship's raw power slider setting (I was using an Escort skilled into Power Bonuses, meaning it could hit 125 at a raw power setting of 90). And secondly, once that capped out, by using the Engineering ability "EPS Power Transfer" (since it grants no other bonuses which would affect power levels or damage - the "power transfer rate" bonus it grants is only relevant when changing power level settings, not when firing weapons).
You should see all the details of the test (including numbers for EPS) on the first page of the linked spreadsheet.
I clicked no link. I have a memory, and I remembered his EpTW tests and pre-established conclusions.
EPS Power Transfer is flawed as well, if less than EpTW. All it demonstrates is that abilities add their Power bonuses to current Power; which quite frankly was predictable.
Passive boosts, on the other hand, won't go over 125 or make one's power consumption any lower.
Eyeballing is terrible, only parses matter. My parses show no statistically significant difference between 135 (125)/90 and 125/100.
Edit: no surprise, the arrogant idiot's link comes after the quoted post of mine, I couldn't have clicked it...
posted in post #5 of this thread genius, it was there to click long before you showed up
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=5584861&postcount=5
eyeballing is terrible, but if you cant notice your weapons not draining as low when you run ~160 compared to 125, your blind.
the link is parsed results, it shows anything that boosts your power level over 125 works, works the same even. EPtW buffs damage for 5 seconds, test fireing can be run after those 5 seconds with no skewed results, EPS only buffs energy levels and power transfer rate that by design doesn't effect the damage you deal, the devs have stated that it doesn't. it did, and then they fixed it so it doesn't long ago.
And, no, it is your blind man! Do not try to dump him on me, I own no blind man!
The power caps at 125, and any extra above 125 is used as a buffer (for beams only). Passive boosts and "Ability boosts" make no difference to the mechanic, weapons power can be pushed "higher than 125" from passive boosts alone.
(For proof of this, see the thread here (the second "Cannon test" I linked above). In this thread, a guy called flekh argued that there was a difference between "passive bonuses" and "temporary bonuses". There is no such difference, proof is in the post linked, complete with screenshots. Weapons power is weapons power is weapons power...)
Concerning Parses, the first page of the spreadsheet contains a good breakdown of this:
Energy - Average DPS (over 924 shots)
115 - 218.444431746757
120 - 232.05279290163
125 - 249.147212676282
130 - 260.600900356714
135 - 270.905021073626
That power range (115 to 135) is from passive bonuses alone, not EPS.
The difference between running at 125 and 135 isn't mind blowing, but it's certainly "statistically significant": the ship gains ~21.76 DPS, or an extra 8.73% damage output.
No worries. (Darn those pesky Borg!)
Yeah, my early testing showed something strange was going on, but it took a more detailed + impartial test (no buffs/consoles/etc and much more accurate measurements) to actually work out what was really happening.
I was quite surprised at the results, so I can understand people being sceptical. But all my subsequent testing has just confirmed those findings. Basically Beams are Broke! :P
i need to look into cannons not benefiting, it looks like they do from just eye balling. even with 4 DHC and 4 turrets i can get my power to not drop much below 80 when i have between 140-160 power. on my excelsior i didn't think my single cannons dropped anymore power then my beam arrays did. the 4 turrets would reduce the total drain by 8 though, comparably.
i don't fault your tests in any way, but i need to make sure my cannon builds truly arent benefiting, or if they are once you start firing all of them, vs just those 2. DHCs are at least more power efficient, i don't think they reduce your power as long as other weapons do, and their down time between cycles is built into the cooldown between cycles, not as part of the shot cycle.
Thats because in shields, weapons and aux the 'roof' is raised by base power setting (not boosted). This was changed from pre-f2p ...and it was a really stupid change.
What you're seeing is two things:
1- the raised 'ceiling' coming from the base power setting
and
2- The extra power not lowering the weapon power under 125 when firing. Aka if you have 70 base and 125 boosted the power consumption dips the wep power under 125 ... if you have 100 base and 150 boosted and fire the weapon consumption will be taken from 150 ..even though you dont really get damage boost from the extra 25 power points over the 125 cap, you do prevent the power from dipping below 125. In essence, just like using EPS power transfer from engineer in a sort of way.
Easy way to check: Equip two cannons, and note the level they drop to when firing simultaneously.
The problem with adding more cannons is that they never "settle" - they don't hog energy for as long as beams, so it's constantly being reserved and released and reserved and released. This makes it very easy to eyeball the wrong values since there will be slight timing differences in each salvo.
With just two equipped, it can take a few attempts, but you'll eventually see the full amount of drain kick in momentarilly like in this test (Part #2).
I've heard that theory before (that certain types of power buffs ignore the "cap"/"roof" at 125 but not others)
It's false.
The bug as-observed only affects beams, and any extra power source - beit from Passive buffs (such as an Escort's power bonus or the Borg Console) or temporary boosts (such as EPTW or EPS) appears to behave the same. See above link for screenshotted proof. If the problem lay with the sources of power, beams and cannons would both be affected. So the problem isn't with the power bonuses themselves, it's with beams.
Weapons reserve weapons energy from an available pool of weapons power during their firing cycle. What appears to be happening is that Beams are drawing their energy from the wrong pool - the power they consume is being deducted from the "uncapped" power value (this means that if you have greater than 125 weapons power, your UI weapons power setting can stay at 125 - and will affect your DPS accordingly). Cannons are behaving properly and are drawing from the "capped" power value (meaning that your weapons power setting will always drop below 125 - regardless of the "type" of buffs you might use to raise it further). Again, see above link for screenshotted proof.