Cannons bugged?

blackcat · December 2013

I've noticed recently (since S8 launched) that all of my cannon built ships are doing next to no damage. Now, before I continue there are two things I should say;

1: Before S8 my Romulan (flying an Ar'kif Warbird) and my Human Fed (flying a Mirror Prometheus) where both doing very decent damage. While I'm not smart enough to properly crunch the numbers, I guestimate at between 12 and 14k dps with my Ar'kif and 10-11k with the Prometheus.

2: The cannons seem to do normal damage at closer than 5km, and nearly nothing beyond that.

A google search (worded several different ways) yeilded no results and nobody I ask ingame seems to know what I'm on about. Is it just me or is this an issue that somehow people have overlooked?

~K

timezarg · December 2013

Well, cannons are far from optimal at longer ranges beyond 5km. Damage drops off considerably after that mark. Maybe you're just noticing that aspect now?

rylanadionysis · December 2013

Hi.

I use three cannon escorts, all of them are running the same as before S8. My AP one is stronger due to the AP360 beam.

Thanks.

dahminus · December 2013

I reported the same thing and no one knew what I was talking about

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=933471

Maybe now that someone else is noticing the issue it will be investigated

blackcat · December 2013

rylanadionysis wrote: »

Hi.

I use three cannon escorts, all of them are running the same as before S8. My AP one is stronger due to the AP360 beam.

Thanks.

Are you sure? Perhaps your always within 5km of your targets?

dahminus wrote: »

I reported the same thing and no one knew what I was talking about

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=933471

Maybe now that someone else is noticing the issue it will be investigated

You seem to know what I'm on about. I don't usually fly escorts, but I would love to be able to use cannons on my Avenger. I tested it today with my Ar'kif, there is definitely some kind of shenanigan going on. At .blank range I was hitting for between 2k and 3500 dmg per bolt on a single Borg Sphere, with CRF3 active & full weapons power. At 5.1km I was hitting the same Sphere for between 55 and 200 damage per bolt, with the same buffs.

age03 · December 2013

What type of cannons are you using just DC or DHC.I really haven't noticed much using DC phaser cannons.DHC AP,Tetryon do usequite a bit of energy.

dahminus · December 2013

ryan0davis wrote: »

Are you sure? Perhaps your always within 5km of your targets?

You seem to know what I'm on about. I don't usually fly escorts, but I would love to be able to use cannons on my Avenger. I tested it today with my Ar'kif, there is definitely some kind of shenanigan going on. At .blank range I was hitting for between 2k and 3500 dmg per bolt on a single Borg Sphere, with CRF3 active & full weapons power. At 5.1km I was hitting the same Sphere for between 55 and 200 damage per bolt, with the same buffs.

This is exactly what I was getting at. Hopefully with another person confirming, this will get looked at. Branflakes, any chance for confirmation?

@age try hitting a target at 4.5km, taking note of the damage and then shooting the same target at 5.5km and taking note of the damage.

The difference will be painstakingly obvious.

Now check you damage at 10km, it will be the same as if at 5.5km

The drop off is suppose to be a slope, not a cliff.

Cmon Bran, throw us a bone

macronius · December 2013

dahminus wrote: »

This is exactly what I was getting at. Hopefully with another person confirming, this will get looked at. Branflakes, any chance for confirmation?

@age try hitting a target at 4.5km, taking note of the damage and then shooting the same target at 5.5km and taking note of the damage.

The difference will be painstakingly obvious.

Now check you damage at 10km, it will be the same as if at 5.5km

The drop off is suppose to be a slope, not a cliff.

Cmon Bran, throw us a bone

+1 here. Something has changed with cannon recently though I can't peg it to Season 8. There is a huge drop off after 5KM and it just feels broken. The right way to implement it would be an exponential decay curve where the drop off increases dramatically as you go from 5KM -> 10KM.

Devs see this little math wiki for help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay

blackcat · December 2013

I use both DC and DHC, my Federation character having Phasers, Roumlan with Plasma. Though I have seen in PvE mission the same pattern apply to players of all factions and weapon energy type. I'm not one to cry wolf, but this time it simply isn't me.

dahminus · December 2013

ryan0davis wrote: »

I use both DC and DHC, my Federation character having Phasers, Roumlan with Plasma. Though I have seen in PvE mission the same pattern apply to players of all factions and weapon energy type. I'm not one to cry wolf, but this time it simply isn't me.

Well, as you saw from my thread...that's the treatment I got...with 3 players confirming the issue. hopefully issuea dev can jump in or more people will test and confirm

macronius · December 2013

You would think there would be more crying from players ... especially since most don't "Kirk" and get in the face of mobs and bosses. I almost always seem they at 7+KM pew pewing away ... or should I say tickling away the NPCs.

lan451 · December 2013

Hmm. Right now all my ships have DHCs on them and I did notice that I've been doing less damage and killing things slower than normal. I thought it was just that my builds were bad against Voth ships since I've been doing STFs for so long, so I never bothered saying anything. I'll have to take a look later and really look at my numbers and see what's up.

blackcat · December 2013

macronius wrote: »

You would think there would be more crying from players ... especially since most don't "Kirk" and get in the face of mobs and bosses. I almost always seem they at 7+KM pew pewing away ... or should I say tickling away the NPCs.

I'm glad you brought that up actually, because it goes to show how unobservant some people seem to be. I saw a Scimitar cannon ship doing this, ~6.5km from a cube, plinking away all alone. I noted to him that he seemed to be doing less damage to said cube than I was, though I am using a 5 beam, 2 torp "destroyer" build on a Mirror Prometheus.

He stopped shooting for a moment then responded via PM this:
"[REDACTED]: o.o your right! that is odd.. i normally do alot more dmg than that!"

I noticed the moment S8 dropped that something was amiss, though I figured I would let it slide for the time being since I was running the afore mentioned "destroyer' build. I thought something so profound would have been noticed by now, and fixed.

It's been long enough, and it seems most are ignorant to the issue.. so I spoke up.

sunfrancks · December 2013

Hmmm I had noticed I was doing less damage. I put it down to the Voth uber defensiveness!

It would be interesting to get a dev on this, it could be wad for all we know. It would not be the first time a silent nerf was added....

rezking · December 2013

dahminus wrote: »

This is exactly what I was getting at. Hopefully with another person confirming, this will get looked at. Branflakes, any chance for confirmation?

@age try hitting a target at 4.5km, taking note of the damage and then shooting the same target at 5.5km and taking note of the damage.

The difference will be painstakingly obvious.

Now check you damage at 10km, it will be the same as if at 5.5km

The drop off is suppose to be a slope, not a cliff.

Cmon Bran, throw us a bone

I've noticed a nerf, if it can be called that, recently.
I've also noticed beam boats doing very well in the same time.
At max range, I find my PD-DHC's aren't doing the same damage.

I was under the impression there was always a power drop off at max range, but it seems that drop off is greater now than before.

erei1 · December 2013

I honestly haven't noticed a big change, but I was finding weird to drop Voths faster with my beam boat, than my escort, at range >5km, as it is really difficult to stay close at all time in an adventure zone, especially when you have to move to stay behind the Voth ship shield ability. I just thought it was because I'm not used to be at longer range with cannons, and it was just the normal drop off.

If you guys think there is something fishy going on, I suggest running a parser, and make several test on a friend (duel). No buffs/debuffs, single weapon, and several range.

ztstrike · December 2013

To be honest I think they got stronger... least AI cannons anyway.

yudhistiro · December 2013

ryan0davis wrote: »

2: The cannons seem to do normal damage at closer than 5km, and nearly nothing beyond that.

Hmm... this is easily overlooked since cannon ship - probably almost all of them - will close in to 4km range, buff and start firing. I never experience this because of my standard attack pattern : close in, full buff and shoot. But it doesnt mean that the issue doesnt exist.

This issue is worth investigating - I will test (hopefully with aux-dhc as well) and post here the result. Hopefully with more positive confirmation the issue will be investigated by the dev team.

simplysimon · December 2013

Hmmmm... Can't say that i have noticed any change in the damage i do with my Nanite Disruptor DHCs, but i rarely pay attention to such things so i'll run some tests this evening and report back.

z3ndor99 · December 2013

Now that you mention it I have been getting closer than usual to do the same damage i done at further distances, never really looked at it. My omni beam is packing quite a punch.

anazonda · December 2013

The issue seems to be so "random", that I am starting to think it may be related to a skill or a trait, that the ones noticing the drop have, but others don't.

Obviously it's rather hard to draw up the similarities... Maybe people could make their builds and save them on STOacademy, and then compare... see if there are somethings that are unique to the ones who expirience the drop?

rylanadionysis · December 2013

Testing time. Brb.

rylanadionysis · December 2013

Testing Parameters: Starbase 234, autoattack 4 DHCs. No specials. Removed all back weapons for test of DHCs only.

Results:

At 9.5km: 2800 DPS
At 6km: 3750 DPS
At 4km: 3950 DPS
At 2km: 4955 DPS

No unusual power fluctuations noticed. Other than having more power from taking back weapons off.

capnshadow27 · December 2013

I think it is kind of priceless.

Think about it, all this time Beam user complaing about the drain, and the firing range and being told to shut our whiny mouths they are working as intended.

The second something happens to cannons to force you to get up close and shoot the enemies, not to mention the drain mechanic actually hitting you harder. You become the saddest little pandas in town.

Maybe now you will all ask for a parity between the two!

/BitterBeamUser

rylanadionysis · December 2013

My results, see test above, are conclusive that damage does not drop off a cliff at 6k, but rather does drop normally as it did in the past (the biggest drop off point is around 3.5k as it has always been).

It also shows the reason why many escort pilots get right up in the face of the enemy, it maximizes your damage, this is not a new concept at all, in fact our fleet recommends a DPS escort be within 2.9k of their target at all times.

blackcat · December 2013

Hmm, your results point to a more specific problem than a "simple" drop off bug. Perhaps the other person was on to something with the skills/abilities/some other factors being the bugged area. Next time I'm online I will look into it, and see if I can generate a reasonable answer. At exactly 5.1km for me, I am averaging about 100 damage per pulse. The way I see it, that is a cliff. :P

As for cptnshadow77..
Sir or maam, I'm afraid we may be talking about two different issues. Power drain is not the problem, of that I am sure. I'm also not overly upset about cannons being broken, as my current setup uses beams, but I would like to use my Romulan effectively and right now that seems a mite impossible. (Unless I want to be leg-humping Cubes and Voth Capital ships from now on. :P)

Side note:
I do a very decent amount of damage (1,500-3,600 at full power) with beams, at pretty much all ranges. Granted, at 9.8km Im doing much less damage. But that's to be expected.
Edit to Side note:
I'm not using an Aux2Bat build or any such "pro" build.

grazyc2 · December 2013

Cannons has dropped in doing damage I use 2 plasma dual Cannons and one Dual Heavy.
3x Damage 1x Critical Damage those are Fleet cannons the best off the best you would say, and keeping my distance in the BORG STF's what is necessary. They don't do any damage after season 8.
I have to come in pretty close about 4 km to do some good damage to the cube or a structure.

I'm not a nerd myself but I do believe with all the powers I'm doing a 2200 DPS so it says but I don't even make a dent in the shields while plasma ignores shields so doing a direct attack on the hull it should do something. think gonna thinker a bit more to find out.

Because normal NPC's I nail down faster than Cubes maybe the build has changed...
I will find out but it would be nice if a dev took some time to study it because I don't like it if I have to change my build every time a new season comes out :P

Unknown · December 2013

This content has been removed.

shadowwraith77 · December 2013

I haven't noticed nay huge sluff from cannons, other than if enemies use dr buffs. The only pew pew weakened weapons comes from the turrets which actually lose dps when fired with CRF!!!

Cannons bugged?

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