The Definitive "Beams+Weapons Buffer" Thread.

sdkraust

I have posted a video up on youtube that runs through 4 different situations of using "Weapons Buffer" with 8x Beam Arrays I have also tested how EPS Flow Regulators affect these (and yes, they affect them). The test mission I used I created just for this task. It's up on the Tribble Foundry at this moment - title "Kraust's DPS Test - tribble".

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp0pFh2sokU

You will notice that the video is separated in both parts, and they are shot completely out of order.

1. No EPS Flow Regulators + No Weapons Battery
2. EPS Flow Regulator (x4) + No Weapons Battery
3. No EPS Flow Regulators + Weapons Battery
4. EPS Flow Regulators + Weapons Battery

There are several things to note:

1. Maximum Damage inflicted ("per splat")
2. Minimum Damage inflicted ("per splat")
3. Weapons Drain (which is an anomaly)

There seems to be no difference between EPS consoles and not without a sufficient buffer.

The important thing to note is that in my video "minimum damages are roughly:

No/No: 420
Yes/No: 420
No/Yes: 500
Yes/Yes: 750 (!)


What i got out of this:

* Weapons buffer acts independently from Weapons Power.

* However, it is important to notice that excess weapons power is not wasted, it is converted into a buffer that is used to increase damage.

* This buffer is affected by Power Transfer Rate.

dontdrunkimshoot

but ya overcaping weapons power has for quite a wile now been a great way to increase DPS. 125 is the damage modifier cap, but the energy above 125 is still used before power below 125 is drain. this also makes your worst shot much higher then it would be otherwise, wile firing several shots at the 125 damage mod cap.

if you want to really test something like this, you should log this and parse it in ACT. its a bit more accurate then eyeballing it.

jadensecura

Yeah, you definitely want to redo this with a parser, and go from the DPS numbers rather than the min hit. This game does do some RNG stuff with weapon damage, and weapons don't fire with the same synchronization each time, so min hit is not a good indicator, you'll do much better looking at DPS over as long a period as possible.

sdkraust

dontdrunkimshoot wrote: »

but ya overcaping weapons power has for quite a wile now been a great way to increase DPS. 125 is the damage modifier cap, but the energy above 125 is still used before power below 125 is drain. this also makes your worst shot much higher then it would be otherwise, wile firing several shots at the 125 damage mod cap.

if you want to really test something like this, you should log this and parse it in ACT. its a bit more accurate then eyeballing it.

Except when my target time frame is around 10 seconds (The Duration of a Weapons Battery) . You can extrapolate the time I take to kill a target, as all 4 cubes should have the same amount of Hull (ignoring regeneration).

Duration:
1/4 ~18s
2/4 ~15s
3/4 ~12s
4/4 ~9s

I wanted to avoid a parse because this isn't supposed to count Crits, which skew the entire thing but focus on un-crit'd damage and the effects of each individual cycle, and each individual fire in the cycle as damage depends on weapons power and however the buffer transfers to the 125 base weapons power.

naevius

If you look at these two cases,

1. No EPS Flow Regulators + No Weapons Battery
2. EPS Flow Regulator (x4) + No Weapons Battery

you can see that EPS does nothing for you. Your wpn power drops to 56 in both cases at the end of the weapon cycle.

Now, the wpn battery cases are a bit odder. With no EPS, you drop to 65, so basically you are seeing the bonus. But I can't see anything below 70 when the EPS are there, so that is either a timing issue, or the EPS is somehow restoring your bonus power faster.

sdkraust

naevius wrote: »

If you look at these two cases,

1. No EPS Flow Regulators + No Weapons Battery
2. EPS Flow Regulator (x4) + No Weapons Battery

you can see that EPS does nothing for you. Your wpn power drops to 56 in both cases at the end of the weapon cycle.

Now, the wpn battery cases are a bit odder. With no EPS, you drop to 65, so basically you are seeing the bonus. But I can't see anything below 70 when the EPS are there, so that is either a timing issue, or the EPS is somehow restoring your bonus power faster.

You are 100% Correct, as per an observation made by another user a few months ago:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=9718431&postcount=4


Tribble is back up, so I am in the middle of ACT'ing all of them just to emphasize this more.

sdkraust

Nothing:
http://puu.sh/3jt3L.png
http://puu.sh/3jtai.png

EPS Consoles:
http://puu.sh/3jt4x.png
http://puu.sh/3jtbl.png

Weapons Battery:
http://puu.sh/3ju3Z.png
http://puu.sh/3ju4F.png

Both:
http://puu.sh/3jtkL.png
http://puu.sh/3jtlu.png

optional both with a lower Crit%
http://puu.sh/3jub3.png
http://puu.sh/3jubo.png

Note: NONE OF THIS COUNTS DISRUPTOR BEACHES. All parses with Disruptor breaches are scraped.

dontdrunkimshoot

thats interesting that the eps consoles boosts DPS. given how energy is drawn and instantly refunded at the end of a cycle, it should not do anything.

sdkraust

dontdrunkimshoot wrote: »

thats interesting that the eps consoles boosts DPS. given how energy is drawn and instantly refunded at the end of a cycle, it should not do anything.

This is only when you have excess base Weapons Power over 125 however.
If you have Weapons power below 125, there will be 0 impact.

Base would be defined as what you have before firing your cycle. I figure it like this:

Lets say that you happen to start with 130 weapons power including your gear and stuff (like Warp Cores, Assimilated Module, ect).

You pop a Weapons battery, that gets sent to a reserve for when you start shooting (Along with the 5 left over power from your base(?).) You now have 125 Weapons Power / 80 "buffer" power.

You start to fire, both your weapons power (visual) drains, and you get some weapons power transferred from your buffer. This buffer power recharges your weapons power while you're firing (but doesn't interfere with the fixed recharge time of the cycle as this was turned into an action independent from EPS years ago).

After the cycle ends, your weapons power (visual and buffer) recharges and the next cycle begins.


But I could be completely wrong.


To Summarize: Excess Weapons Power recharges weapons power faster depending upon your power transfer rate. Power Transfer Rate is modified by [EPS Flow Regulator] Consoles among other things

redricky

First of all, thanks for your time on this. It's something I've been wondering about lately.

sdkraust wrote: »

Nothing:
http://puu.sh/3jt3L.png
http://puu.sh/3jtai.png

EPS Consoles:
http://puu.sh/3jt4x.png
http://puu.sh/3jtbl.png

The number of crits on the eps console test is 5% higher than the test without. Is that accounting for the dps bump? Because the min damage is what should really be telling, right? And that's only 3 higher.

Another mostly unrelated question I have is whether X->W on warp cores is being counted towards overcap. Did you ever test that? Just wondering.

sdkraust

redricky wrote: »

First of all, thanks for your time on this. It's something I've been wondering about lately.


The number crits on the eps console test is 5% higher than the test without. Is that accounting for the dps bump? Because the min damage is what should really be telling, right? and that's only 3 higher.

Another mostly unrelated question I have is whether X->W on warp cores is being counted towards overcap. Did you ever test that? Just wondering.

It should be added to the overcap because I don't know what would make it any different from anything else.

The problem with overcap is that you don't deplete directly from it, however you deplete from weapons power and use it to recharge your weapons power as it depletes, kinda like reducing weapons drain from -10 per fire to -5 per fire.

I will re-run the no Weapons battery once again:

None:
http://puu.sh/3jw5d.png
http://puu.sh/3jw6j.png

EPS:
http://puu.sh/3jwj5.png
http://puu.sh/3jwkf.png

So yes, well within the margin of error. I am as close to 125 Weapons power as I can get. Without the warp core I would be 118, and I am at 96 (or 106 shield with EPtW) Shield. That would put me at ~125.2 for these two experiments (I assume Cryptic floors the value I would be at 125 exactly).

naevius

I think the sample size needs to be huge before I would really believe EPS does anything, even if you start over 125. (That looks like 1 or 2 volleys in your test.)

I mean, it's hard to see how it could be helping you unless it reduces the drain amount, which we know isn't true from the video - you dropped to 56 in both cases. Even with the buffer, it can't help you unless the game is doing some extra calcs in between weapon shots - which seems unlikely.