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).
ya i understand what you did, but i could swear my power doesn't drop nearly low enough for always starting at 125 with my 4DHC/4 turret fleet vorcha and 4 single cannons/4 turret excelsior.
i need to watch how low weapons power drops with 8 weapons before i will be convinced. with and without EPtW on in a fairly settled environment, or if i can get someone to be my target dummy. that would be too bad if it didn't effect cannons, wonder if thats somehow all by design to keep escorts from 'exploiting' it. they would never dare document something like this :rolleyes:
From what I've seen of the game mechanics, 125 appears to be all the game will display in power, but you can still have over 125 energy. The game will not give your weapons over 125 energy in damage calculations.
I run 8 beam arrays on a mirror assault cruiser. (lets not criticize. I know its unpopular, but I find torpedoes annoying.)
My weapon power is 134 when my ship is idle, and when I fire all 8 beams, my power plummets to 64.
My calculations suggest the following:
First beam doesn't take any energy, and so fires at 125
Second beam fires at 125 as well, but drains 10 energy.
Third beam fires at 124, having suffered #2s drain. (134-10)
Fourth beam fires at 114, getting 10 less energy than #3.
5 - 104 6 - 94 7 - 84 8 - 74 and finally #8 would drain 10 to bring energy down to 64.
When I set my power so that weapons is only 90, my max weapons is 124, and when all 8 beams are fired, it goes down to 54.
So the first beam wouldn't drain energy, and fire at 124. The second would fire at 124, but drain 10 energy. Third would fire at 115, and so on and so forth.
The level of power that there is when a weapon fires before it drains energy is what calculates its DPS. So there is no difference in DPS between my first and second beam. Between the second and third is a small (1 point) difference, but third and fourth is a big difference, and so on and so forth. After a weapon (aside from the first) has finished its firing cycle, you get the 10 energy back that it drained.
125 energy total means 8 weapons would bring you down to 55, but 145 energy would bring you down to 75, making the third weapon on have significantly more energy, and thus DPS.
I hope that wasn't too confusing. Or wrong. I'd to have written all that and be wrong. I think I'm right though.
"That was not Mozart laughing, Father... that was God. That was God laughing at me, through that... through that obscene giggle."
The level of power that there is when a weapon fires before it drains energy is what calculates its DPS. So there is no difference in DPS between my first and second beam. Between the second and third is a small (1 point) difference, but third and fourth is a big difference, and so on and so forth. After a weapon (aside from the first) has finished its firing cycle, you get the 10 energy back that it drained.
125 energy total means 8 weapons would bring you down to 55, but 145 energy would bring you down to 75, making the third weapon on have significantly more energy, and thus DPS.
I hope that wasn't too confusing. Or wrong. I'd to have written all that and be wrong. I think I'm right though.
also, when over caped, the last 5 or so beams fire at a power level 10-20 higher then they would have if you hadn't over caped, in addition to having your first 3 shot fire at the ~125 damage modifier. theres bonus dps from that too.
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.
First beam doesn't take any energy, and so fires at 125
Second beam fires at 125 as well, but drains 10 energy.
Third beam fires at 124, having suffered #2s drain. (134-10)
Fourth beam fires at 114, getting 10 less energy than #3.
5 - 104 6 - 94 7 - 84 8 - 74 and finally #8 would drain 10 to bring energy down to 64.
When I set my power so that weapons is only 90, my max weapons is 124, and when all 8 beams are fired, it goes down to 54.
So the first beam wouldn't drain energy, and fire at 124. The second would fire at 124, but drain 10 energy. Third would fire at 115, and so on and so forth.
The level of power that there is when a weapon fires before it drains energy is what calculates its DPS. So there is no difference in DPS between my first and second beam. Between the second and third is a small (1 point) difference, but third and fourth is a big difference, and so on and so forth. After a weapon (aside from the first) has finished its firing cycle, you get the 10 energy back that it drained.
125 energy total means 8 weapons would bring you down to 55, but 145 energy would bring you down to 75, making the third weapon on have significantly more energy, and thus DPS.
I hope that wasn't too confusing. Or wrong. I'd to have written all that and be wrong. I think I'm right though.
You are absolutely right. That's how all weapons work. Fire a weapon by itself, it drains no energy. Fire it with other weapons it starts to drain energy. I run a 6 beam 2 torp Assault Cruiser (yeah, yeah, standard build). I find that when I do salvos my average damage is between 500-800 per shot with 125 power. First and second shots don't drain energy because of my skills make the cap around 135 or so, invisible of course. 3rd shot brings it down to 115. And so on and so forth. But something interesting always happens when my 4th beam array fires. My power level doesn't drop past 115, because it recharges some power.
Basically your power calculations are correct though, but for me, when I fire all 6, my power doesn't drop by 50, it actually only drops by about 45, due to much faster recharge and transfer rates due to skills. So my power never drops below 75-80 depending on how I time my salvos.
Not sure if this is OP, but if you want, you can actually angle your ship to time your salvos so that you only have at most 4 firing at the same time, and the other 2 or 3 on cd, so your total power drain is much lower, and you keep higher damage per shot and still keep consistent fire on your target.
But from what I have seen, most of the posters, including the two that are arguing all bring up legitimate points. In the end, weapon power doesn't appear to be hard capped, and it seems that only beam arrays benefit, cuz I have a raptor on my klingon side, and it's damage isn't affected past 120 or so and I fun full cannons. My cruiser goes from 650-800 per shot when I just fire straight, no buffs, nothing. And I usually get at least three beam arrays firing before I see my power start to drop.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
i did a watch my powerlevels while i shoot i giant hunk of hitpoints test on my 4 DHC/4 turret fleet vorcha, and found that energy +125 helped. wile alone, shooting a KA transformer for several minutes i noted how low my power would drop wile auto fireing with no tactical or energy abilities activated. for a split second it wold drop down to about 60 each cycle. then i put my leach back on and cycled eptw1 and my power wouldn't drop below 100. watching how 2 single cannons work wile fired is not necessarily accurate to how 8 cannon weapons fire. some time later i will do that same test on my single canon excelsior too.
Comments
ya i understand what you did, but i could swear my power doesn't drop nearly low enough for always starting at 125 with my 4DHC/4 turret fleet vorcha and 4 single cannons/4 turret excelsior.
i need to watch how low weapons power drops with 8 weapons before i will be convinced. with and without EPtW on in a fairly settled environment, or if i can get someone to be my target dummy. that would be too bad if it didn't effect cannons, wonder if thats somehow all by design to keep escorts from 'exploiting' it. they would never dare document something like this :rolleyes:
From what I've seen of the game mechanics, 125 appears to be all the game will display in power, but you can still have over 125 energy. The game will not give your weapons over 125 energy in damage calculations.
I run 8 beam arrays on a mirror assault cruiser. (lets not criticize. I know its unpopular, but I find torpedoes annoying.)
My weapon power is 134 when my ship is idle, and when I fire all 8 beams, my power plummets to 64.
My calculations suggest the following:
First beam doesn't take any energy, and so fires at 125
Second beam fires at 125 as well, but drains 10 energy.
Third beam fires at 124, having suffered #2s drain. (134-10)
Fourth beam fires at 114, getting 10 less energy than #3.
5 - 104 6 - 94 7 - 84 8 - 74 and finally #8 would drain 10 to bring energy down to 64.
When I set my power so that weapons is only 90, my max weapons is 124, and when all 8 beams are fired, it goes down to 54.
So the first beam wouldn't drain energy, and fire at 124. The second would fire at 124, but drain 10 energy. Third would fire at 115, and so on and so forth.
The level of power that there is when a weapon fires before it drains energy is what calculates its DPS. So there is no difference in DPS between my first and second beam. Between the second and third is a small (1 point) difference, but third and fourth is a big difference, and so on and so forth. After a weapon (aside from the first) has finished its firing cycle, you get the 10 energy back that it drained.
125 energy total means 8 weapons would bring you down to 55, but 145 energy would bring you down to 75, making the third weapon on have significantly more energy, and thus DPS.
I hope that wasn't too confusing. Or wrong. I'd to have written all that and be wrong. I think I'm right though.
also, when over caped, the last 5 or so beams fire at a power level 10-20 higher then they would have if you hadn't over caped, in addition to having your first 3 shot fire at the ~125 damage modifier. theres bonus dps from that too.
What combat parser do you use? Is it STOIC?
You are absolutely right. That's how all weapons work. Fire a weapon by itself, it drains no energy. Fire it with other weapons it starts to drain energy. I run a 6 beam 2 torp Assault Cruiser (yeah, yeah, standard build). I find that when I do salvos my average damage is between 500-800 per shot with 125 power. First and second shots don't drain energy because of my skills make the cap around 135 or so, invisible of course. 3rd shot brings it down to 115. And so on and so forth. But something interesting always happens when my 4th beam array fires. My power level doesn't drop past 115, because it recharges some power.
Basically your power calculations are correct though, but for me, when I fire all 6, my power doesn't drop by 50, it actually only drops by about 45, due to much faster recharge and transfer rates due to skills. So my power never drops below 75-80 depending on how I time my salvos.
Not sure if this is OP, but if you want, you can actually angle your ship to time your salvos so that you only have at most 4 firing at the same time, and the other 2 or 3 on cd, so your total power drain is much lower, and you keep higher damage per shot and still keep consistent fire on your target.
But from what I have seen, most of the posters, including the two that are arguing all bring up legitimate points. In the end, weapon power doesn't appear to be hard capped, and it seems that only beam arrays benefit, cuz I have a raptor on my klingon side, and it's damage isn't affected past 120 or so and I fun full cannons. My cruiser goes from 650-800 per shot when I just fire straight, no buffs, nothing. And I usually get at least three beam arrays firing before I see my power start to drop.