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-10 dmg when firing other weapons?

rickdankorickdanko Member Posts: 470 Arc User
edited May 2014 in The Academy
I always thought that if you mixed 2 kinds of beams, your damage decreases by 10; 3 different kinds of beams, decreased by 20 and so on. This was why "skittle boats" are ridiculed. I noticed on the forum this week that damage is decreased by 10 by firing additional beams of any kind. So if I'm using all phasers and I fire 4 of them in a broadside, then damage would decreased by 30?

I'm still not understanding. Can someone explain the whole -10 thing?
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Post edited by rickdanko on

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  • dahminusdahminus Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Say your at 100 weapons energy.
    Each shot drains -10 energy

    First shot fires at 100...now your at 90
    Second shot fires at 90...now your at 80
    And so on and so forth.
    After the cycle ends, all energy is returned

    The drain takes place per pulse and not per cycle.

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    Skittles and rainbows are ridiculed do to not focusing on a type and thus losing power when not using specific energy tactical consoles
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  • lan451lan451 Member Posts: 3,386 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Alright it goes like this.

    Skittle boats are looked down upon because using different energy types means that your weapons won't benefit from type specific consoles. This is why people load out with, let's say AP weapons, and then go with all AP tac consoles. This means that all of your AP weapons benefit from your AP consoles. All of your AP weapons are now getting maximum damage boost.

    Now let's say you have a phaser in there. That phaser gets no benefit at all from your AP consoles, so it is now weaker than your other AP weapons. Now let's say you have all kinds of weapons and only 1 tac console for each kind. This means that all of your weapons are now all weaker since none of the other weapons will benefit from the other tac consoles.

    What you're seeing on the weapons isn't -10 damage directly, it's -10 weapons power. That means when you fire your first weapons, it has no energy drain. Any weapon you fire after that drains -10 from your weapons power pool. Your weapons power pool does dictate how much damage each of your energy weapons (but not kinetic weapons like torps or mines) does per shot. So the more power you drain, the less damage you do. So if you have 4 weapons firing, you will drain 30 energy from your weapons power pool, which in turn lowers the damage each additional gun firing does.

    This is why power drain resists are so important these days. By resisting the drain on your weapons power, you do more damage. This is also why DHCs are valued over DCs. DHCs fire slower which allows your weapons power pool to refund itself in between shots better than DCs. That and they also have an innate crit mod. DCs fire faster which does not allow as much time for your weapons power to refund itself and therefore does less damage overall than a DHC. This is also why everyone goes bananas over the Weapons Efficiency cruiser command and DEM+Marion. Mitigating that drain makes you do more damage.

    I hope that makes sense.
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  • breadandcircusesbreadandcircuses Member Posts: 2,355 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    rickdanko wrote: »
    I always thought that if you mixed 2 kinds of beams, your damage decreases by 10; 3 different kinds of beams, decreased by 20 and so on. This was why "skittle boats" are ridiculed. I noticed on the forum this week that damage is decreased by 10 by firing additional beams of any kind. So if I'm using all phasers and I fire 4 of them in a broadside, then damage would decreased by 30?

    I'm still not understanding. Can someone explain the whole -10 thing?

    The whole -10, +10, whatnot... ignore the beams themselves. The reason "skittle boats" (multiple damage type cannon builds) and "rainboats" (multiple damage type beam builds) do less damage is more related to the consoles rather than directly to the weapons themselves. I have also heard that mixing damage types created more drain, caused less damage, etc... but I haven't confirmed that.

    What I have confirmed is that the damage type consoles are vastly superior to the weapon type consoles... basically, if you mix damage types and use the Prefire Chamber or Directed Energy Distribution Manifold (and the Fleet CrtH/CrtD equivalents) you will do less damage with the same weapons compared to someone using the same damage type and the consoles that increase that damage type. The weapons might be exactly the same in both instances, but the consoles that increase their damage are not.

    In addition to the consoles, there are also several set bonuses that improve the damage of a specific damage type. The Honor Guard (Adapted MACO for those of you that haven't tried the other factions out :P) set has a bonus to torpedoes, but I honestly can't think of a set that improves damage with all beams or all cannons. This means that, in addition to getting less of a bonus from your consoles, you miss out on potential bonuses from your various ship equipment sets as well.

    The other reason folks tend to regard "skittle boats" and "rainboats" with scorn is simply that new players are more likely to run them than veterans. If you have a couple level 50 captains and are leveling a third, you will probably have the ECs, crafting skills, or simply Bound to Account weapons to outfit your ships with a specific damage type and the related consoles... a person leveling a their captain for the first time is more likely to need to run with the random drops and mission rewards along the way, which means it's more likely that they end up with a hodgepodge of gear. Since every game has a learning curve, a new player will, simply by being new, likely use and set up their powers and equipment in a less... skillful... manner than a veteran. Thus, "skittle boats" and "rainboats" have a higher likelihood of being flown poorly as well as geared poorly, since the player may or may not have gotten the hang of the game yet.

    TL;DR: I can't confirm the extra power drain or directly diminished damage from mixing damage types, but even without some form of stealth debuff for mixing damage types there is a reduction in damage output simply because the bonuses available to damage types outweigh those for weapon types.
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  • rickdankorickdanko Member Posts: 470 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    It does indeed! Thanks for setting me straight!
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  • ovinspaceovinspace Member Posts: 310
    edited May 2014
    Weapon subsytem power really matters, for example on one ship I get about 1500 damage at 125 weapon power and at 58 about 700 from the same DBB. On the same ship at full power a DHC does 500 more than a DBB, before weapon power and other modifiers the difference is 100.

    Removing the 4 tac consoles but leaving the power at 125 I get 1060ish. So whilst rainbow boats aren't useless they are significantly worse in terms of dps and also lack the team role that a single proc provides, with a 2.5% chance of activation you need multiples of a single type to have a decent of chance of it activating for a given proc. You might then choose boff abilities and doffs that complements the energy proc, like using the shield stripping tractor beam doff AND tetryon weapons, or polaron weapons AND energy siphon etc.

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  • venkouvenkou Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    rickdanko wrote: »
    I always thought that if you mixed 2 kinds of beams, your damage decreases by 10; 3 different kinds of beams, decreased by 20 and so on. This was why "skittle boats" are ridiculed. I noticed on the forum this week that damage is decreased by 10 by firing additional beams of any kind. So if I'm using all phasers and I fire 4 of them in a broadside, then damage would decreased by 30?

    I'm still not understanding. Can someone explain the whole -10 thing?
    When it comes to rainbow ships, they lose out on the ability to stack 'specific types' of tactical consoles. Instead of installing four mag regulators, consoles that stack antiptroton damage, rainbow ships would need four generic sets of tactical consoles.

    Example: Antiproton Mag Regulators MK XII (Very Rare) = +30% * 4 is lost in a rainbow ship type of setup. +30% gets spread across four different types. Rainbow ships will have: +30% for type one, +30% for type two, +30% for type three, and +30% for type four.

    You might get away with stacking consoles that focus on 'energy damage' versus 'specific type of damage'.

    I consider 'energy damage' as a generic term, which could be applied to a wide verity of weapon types.
  • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    Ship and character builds, along with the rest of STO's mechanics, are very complex and thanks to the knowledgeable and openly helpful people in these forums, like those above, we all have fun participating in the forums and in the game!

    Thanks and cheers! :)
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  • theraven2378theraven2378 Member Posts: 6,102 Arc User
    edited May 2014
    It's basic mathematics, the more different energy types on 1 ship, the less effective it gets
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    • sirokksirokk Member Posts: 990 Arc User
      edited May 2014
      It's basic mathematics, the more different energy types on 1 ship, the less effective it gets

      That's not entirely accurate. All the different energy types fire at their base damage rating, unless something like a certain combination of equipment or other consoles, like tactical ones, happen to be installed that will increase the damage output of some or all the energy weapons. Power is generally consumed at the same amount for all the same type (beams, cannons or turrets, etc.) of weapon.
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    • lordfuzunlordfuzun Member Posts: 54 Arc User
      edited May 2014
      Another things that everyone gets wrong or forgets. You get one free weapon from the weapon power drain mechanic. Firing one energy weapon will never drain any weapon power. A second and each additional weapon will drain weapon power. That is why "-10 dmg when firing other weapons" is phrase that way.

      That means firing one beam array weapon will not drain any power. Firing two beam weapons will drain -10 weapon power. Firing three beam arrays will drain -20 power. And so forth... And if anyone doesn't believe me, test it out for yourself. It's easy enough to do. I'll let it as an exercise for the naysayers.
    • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
      edited May 2014
      Never understood why people thought that weapon type mattered on the whole -10 when firing other weapons.

      Any weapon you fire after the first one drains 10 energy (assuming it drains 10). Just try it! Fire 1 weapon at 100 energy, no drain. Fire 2, 10 drain, etc.

      Another example is the Vesta. It has 1 aux cannon (unless you get the bundle and put multiple on). It drains no Aux because it's the only Aux draining weapon you have. So the Vesta gets TWO weapons that effectively drain no energy. The first weapon powered one and the first aux powered one.
    • theraven2378theraven2378 Member Posts: 6,102 Arc User
      edited May 2014
      sirokk wrote: »
      That's not entirely accurate. All the different energy types fire at their base damage rating, unless something like a certain combination of equipment or other consoles, like tactical ones, happen to be installed that will increase the damage output of some or all the energy weapons. Power is generally consumed at the same amount for all the same type (beams, cannons or turrets, etc.) of weapon.

      It still is advisable to stick with one energy type with the relevant tactical consoles
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      • shadowwraith77shadowwraith77 Member Posts: 6,395 Arc User
        edited May 2014
        You would think that the listed -10 energy when firing other weapons, would in fact drain -20, but it seems to not work as it advertises.

        Why should it -20 you ask?

        Well think about the description for a minute, -10 energy when firing with other weapons.

        So by itself it shouldn't drain anything, but if you are using 2 energy weapons, than they should in fact effect each other, and both should suffer an energy drain, since they are being used with another weapon.

        example as follows

        Weapon 1: -10 if fired with another weapon, by itself no drain.

        Now add another weapon

        Weapon 2: -10 if fired with another weapon, weapon 1 is paired so a -10 is applied.
        weapon 1: -10 if fired with another weapon, weapon 2 is paired so a -10 is applied.

        If both weapons are being fired together, they should equally suffer a -10 each, but it seems that isn't the case, so the description is misleading.
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      • sonnikkusonnikku Member Posts: 77 Arc User
        edited May 2014
        They need to let us equip 8 experimental beam arrays.


        Then it will be enough.
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