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Weapon information and some mechanics
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Ok because forums got archived and can't be searched by the looks of it, heres some good weapons info from the beta:
Weapon Types
All energy weapons have a damage drop off at a distance, getting close will always do more damage, however bolt weapons (cannons and turrets) have a much greater damage drop off then beams, so at maximum range beams will do more damage than bolt weapons, though still less damage then if they were close range. Projectile weapons do not have this drop off, nor are they effected by weapon power settings.
Energy weapons:
Beam Arrays: 250' arc, low burst damage
Dual Beams: 90' arc, medium burst damage
Turret: 360' arc, low sustained DPS
Cannons: 180' arc, medium sustained damage
Dual Cannons: 45' arc, high sustained damage
Dual Heavy Cannons, 45' arc, high burst/sustained damage (same overall damage as dual cannon but in 2 big bursts rather than 4 little hits)
Projectile Weapons:
Torpedoes: 90' arc, very high burst damage (75% less against shields)
Mines: no arc... they're mines you put them down, things come near they go boom... Medium burst damage (75% less against shields)
Damage Types
Ships can have different resistances to different damage types. There also seems to be some other subtle side-effects to the different types:
Space energy types:
Phaser: Chance to disable a random subsystem
Disruptor: Chance to debuff damage resistance
Plasma: Chance to proc a fire based DoT
Tetryon: Chance to proc Shield damage
Polaron: Chance to drain power from all subsystems
Anti-Proton: Bonus Crit damage
Also Ground based damage types:
Phaser: Chance to stun
Disruptor: Chance to debuff damage resistances
Plasma: Chance to proc fire based DoT
Tetryon: Chance to proc Shield damage
Polaron: Chance to proc weapon disable
Anti-Proton: Bonus Crit damage
Projectile:
Photon: Less damage but faster fire rate. Regular boff effect.
Quantum: More damage but slow fire rate. Regular boff effect.
Plasma: medium damage with a chance to apply a DoT that ignores shields (decent against both unshielded and shielded targets). Plasma's version of High Yield fires a Plasma Ball that can be targetted and shot down.
Transphasic - low damage, but more of it penetrates shields (very good against shielded targets, mediocre against unshielded targets). Comes with standard Boff powers.
Chroniton - can slow down enemies. (nice for making enemies' weakened shields harder to protect, or as a rear launcher to use when running away). Comes with standard Boff powers.
Tricobalt - very high damage, and a short disable effect (stops target from using any powers for a moment). has a very long cooldown and doesn't get modified by Boff powers.
Shields:
Shield power: 25 setting gives 0 regen, 50 is 1x regen, 75 is 2x regen, 100 is 3x regen, 125 is 4x regen
Basic - Medium Amount/Regen
Resilient - Medium Amount/Regen
Reduced Bleedthrough, which means your hull is taking less damage while your shields hold.
Regenerative - Low amount, high regen
*PRO reduced downtime, and if you turn fast enough many mobs wont ever penetrate any of your shields specially if you use allocation.
*CON high burst damage such as heavy cannons or torp volleys quickly destroy your shield and begin damaging your hull.
- High amount, low regen
*PRO burst damage such as heavy cannon fire and torps will be absorbed by your shields without touching your hull (bar bleedthrough) allowing you enough time to take counter measures such as sensor scramble, evasive maneuvers or blowing them up before they shoot again.
*CON long downtime for shields to regen, making you vulnerable to sustained DPS
Weapon Types
All energy weapons have a damage drop off at a distance, getting close will always do more damage, however bolt weapons (cannons and turrets) have a much greater damage drop off then beams, so at maximum range beams will do more damage than bolt weapons, though still less damage then if they were close range. Projectile weapons do not have this drop off, nor are they effected by weapon power settings.
Energy weapons:
Beam Arrays: 250' arc, low burst damage
Dual Beams: 90' arc, medium burst damage
Turret: 360' arc, low sustained DPS
Cannons: 180' arc, medium sustained damage
Dual Cannons: 45' arc, high sustained damage
Dual Heavy Cannons, 45' arc, high burst/sustained damage (same overall damage as dual cannon but in 2 big bursts rather than 4 little hits)
Projectile Weapons:
Torpedoes: 90' arc, very high burst damage (75% less against shields)
Mines: no arc... they're mines you put them down, things come near they go boom... Medium burst damage (75% less against shields)
Damage Types
Ships can have different resistances to different damage types. There also seems to be some other subtle side-effects to the different types:
Space energy types:
Phaser: Chance to disable a random subsystem
Disruptor: Chance to debuff damage resistance
Plasma: Chance to proc a fire based DoT
Tetryon: Chance to proc Shield damage
Polaron: Chance to drain power from all subsystems
Anti-Proton: Bonus Crit damage
Also Ground based damage types:
Phaser: Chance to stun
Disruptor: Chance to debuff damage resistances
Plasma: Chance to proc fire based DoT
Tetryon: Chance to proc Shield damage
Polaron: Chance to proc weapon disable
Anti-Proton: Bonus Crit damage
Projectile:
Photon: Less damage but faster fire rate. Regular boff effect.
Quantum: More damage but slow fire rate. Regular boff effect.
Plasma: medium damage with a chance to apply a DoT that ignores shields (decent against both unshielded and shielded targets). Plasma's version of High Yield fires a Plasma Ball that can be targetted and shot down.
Transphasic - low damage, but more of it penetrates shields (very good against shielded targets, mediocre against unshielded targets). Comes with standard Boff powers.
Chroniton - can slow down enemies. (nice for making enemies' weakened shields harder to protect, or as a rear launcher to use when running away). Comes with standard Boff powers.
Tricobalt - very high damage, and a short disable effect (stops target from using any powers for a moment). has a very long cooldown and doesn't get modified by Boff powers.
Shields:
Shield power: 25 setting gives 0 regen, 50 is 1x regen, 75 is 2x regen, 100 is 3x regen, 125 is 4x regen
Basic - Medium Amount/Regen
Resilient - Medium Amount/Regen
Reduced Bleedthrough, which means your hull is taking less damage while your shields hold.
Regenerative - Low amount, high regen
*PRO reduced downtime, and if you turn fast enough many mobs wont ever penetrate any of your shields specially if you use allocation.
*CON high burst damage such as heavy cannons or torp volleys quickly destroy your shield and begin damaging your hull.
- High amount, low regen
*PRO burst damage such as heavy cannon fire and torps will be absorbed by your shields without touching your hull (bar bleedthrough) allowing you enough time to take counter measures such as sensor scramble, evasive maneuvers or blowing them up before they shoot again.
*CON long downtime for shields to regen, making you vulnerable to sustained DPS
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Cannons:
Cannons no longer have global cooldowns preventing them being fired together, they now work similiar to beams with accumulative power drains.
Torpedo Launchers:
All torpedo launchers have a 3 second global recharge time, meaning you have to fire them alternately every 3 seconds.
Firing any torpedo launcher will put any other torpedo launcher equipped into the 3 second global cooldown (WARNING: I have not tested aft/fore torpedo cooldown lock, each side may be seperate but I suspect it would take around 3 seconds for most ships to turn that far, but I am happy to hear any personal experiences with fore/aft torpedo set ups)
Each torpedo has its own personal cooldowns (Unlike cannons, the times listed on the weapons info pages are the actual times it takes for the torpedos to be ready to be fired again).
Photon torpedos are 6 seconds, 2 of them will give you a fire rate of 1 every 3 seconds, these are the highest DPS for slots used torpedos.
Note: A third torpedo of a different type can be used with 2 photons, if you fire it off in the place of one of the photons when its personal charge is ready you can add it in for a bonus spike of damage/special while maintaining the fire rate of 1 every 3 seconds.
Quantum and Plasma torpedos have 8 second personal cooldowns, 3 of them will give you a 1 shot every 3 seconds, quantums will give you a higher dps then photons when 3 are equiped and plasma will do more hull damage then photons if enemy has lots of shield/shield regen.
NOTE: The third quantum and plasma torpedo will not give as much gain as the second as it only cuts off 2 seconds rather than a full 3 from the cycle.
Transphasic and Chroniton have 10 seconds personal cooldowns, that means 4 of them will give you a rate of 1 shot every 3 seconds, transphasic will give you the highest DPS out of all the torpedos at that point due to its shield piercing bonus, Chroniton will slow the enemys movement.
NOTE: The 4th transphasic or chroniton launcher will not be as effective as the 2nd or 3rd, cutting only 1 second off the cycle time compared to the 3 seconds the other two will give.
Tricobolt are special in the fact that they are not effected by BOff skills and have a shared cooldown of 30 seconds, this means the fastest you will ever fire a tricobolt device is 1 every 30 seconds but the total cooldown is apparently 1 minute. This should not effect the other launchers though (beyond putting them into a 3 second global).
So in short:
Max fire rate of torpedos is 1 every 3 seconds.
2 photons will give you the max rate
3 quantum or plasma will give you the max rate
4 transphasic or chroniton will give you the max rate
2 tricobolt is the maximum you can use.
Mines:
Ok I have to come clean, I have done very little actual tests beyond cooldown tests on these, I cannot offer any wisdom as to what the effects/damage the mines are like or really the activation time. I would go along with the same effects as the torpedo variants (although probably of lesser strength). I will just state the facts of cooldown.
Mines have a 9 second global cooldown.
Photons have a 12 second personal, making 2 give you a 9 second deploy rate but only cutting off 3 seconds.
Quantums and Plasma have a 16 second cooldown, 2 will give you a 9 second deploy rate, with the second cutting off 7 seconds (much better!)
Chroniton and Transphasic have a 20 second cooldown rate, 3 will give you a 9 second deploy rate, but the third will only cut 2 seconds off the cycle.
I am not aware of any tricobolt mines, I have not seen anything stated about their existance, I assume there is but they will work on the same 30 second shared cooldown for tricobolt weapons.
In short:
Mines max rate of fire is a deployment every 9 seconds
Photons take 2 to hit this max, but with a high diminishing return for the second.
Quantums and Plasmas take 2 to hit this max, with a reasonable diminishing return for the second.
Chroniton and Transphasic take 3 to hit this max, with an extreme diminishing return for the 3rd one.
2 Tricobolt should be the max you can use.
Hope this helps.
Do disruptors resist debuff last for a few seconds when it works or does that debuff only affect the disruptor blast that caused the debuff?
Yes. When you rank up (lt. commander, commander, etc.) and depending on whether you go with an escort, cruiser, or science, you'll get more weapon slots. I believe you get 3 forward weapon slots with the first escort ship (tier 2). I'm pure science, but bought a tier 2 escort ship to just play with in fleet action during open beta, and I'm almost positive it had 3 fore, 1 aft weapon slots.
Pretty much every ship besides the Miranda has more than 3 weapons slots. See this link for details about the different ships: http://suricatasblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/stoshiptierchart1.png
The little circles with the arrows inside indicate a weapon mounting facing forward or aft (the direction of the arrow in regards to the ship).
mk 3 phaser beams will do the same as mk 3 disruptor beams and mk 8 polaron cannons will do the same as mk 8 phaser cannons.
course with each of the procs acting differently, enemys all having varied resists and skill points in damage type skills, things can change, but with no modification, yes they are the same.
Thanks OP!
There are Anti-proton beams as well as Chroniton and Tricobalt torpedoes/mines listed on your list as well as being high-level upgrades in the games skill tree - Does anyone know where these are obtained? I've seen MK 4 or 6 Chroniton Mine launchers, but nothing in the torpedo category. Also the highest level torpedo launchers obtainable at the PvP and exploration traders are Mk X Quantum and Mk X Transphasic.
Would these things be end-game rewards only? Or perhaps have they yet to be added? Either way it would seem a waste of skill points to upgrade their damage at the Admiral level since they would be so rare.
because there are ways to slip them in, like breaking shields at point blank, popping evasive and doing a quick 180 (firing the torp from the aft then) and then GTFO. I've done it, and killed people with it before
I suspect the earliest you'll see anti-proton or tri-cobolt would be mk 7, though if your lucky chroniton can be found at least at mk 6 (assume mk 5 as well) along with the transphasic just have to get some lucky drops.
vf1sveritech: I've heard that as well but I also heard they scrapped that idea at some point, granted the weapons may do more damage due to mob resistance or their procs (disruptors resistance debuff will be for hull damage, and phasers can disable a shield), I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to confirm nor deny whether they have or not...
ErinStarbuck: the high yield plasma can be lethal if used at close range so they havn't gotten a chance to shoot it down, it can be more effective then most other high yields when used right, the down side is that your normal shots are not going to be that much better then photon torpedoes.
Hunsi.Kanzo: According to the dev's this is a bug and they should still be on the weapons, even if they don't show up on the tooltip. hopefully they will fix that soon.