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Need Better Controls for Starship Power Settings

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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    alcaatraz wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.

    Just a bit of nitpick on my part, [Amp] says "+% All Damage", which is what we call a Cat1/SetA buff, not +% Bonus All Damage, which would be a Cat2/SetB buff. The implications of it being a Cat1 means its not really worth trying to adjust power levels to always try and get 4 stacks, as apposed to having a maxed system with the rest dumped into Aux / Engines / Weapons.


    By max "system" power you mean weapon power. I didn't have to sacrifice max weapon power to get all power settings to 75+.

    Issue of Cat1 and Cat2 only matter if you can find a replacement for AMP that is Cat2. Damage bonus is still damage bonus, however small or large.

    Instead of juggling with power levels and trying to get 4-stacked AMP, in 99% of the cases you'd get bigger damage numbers out of having weapon power maxed at 100, and auxiliary power at 70, due to Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara T4 reputation trait) giving good cat2 dmg buff that scales off aux.
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    alcaatraz wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.

    Just a bit of nitpick on my part, [Amp] says "+% All Damage", which is what we call a Cat1/SetA buff, not +% Bonus All Damage, which would be a Cat2/SetB buff. The implications of it being a Cat1 means its not really worth trying to adjust power levels to always try and get 4 stacks, as apposed to having a maxed system with the rest dumped into Aux / Engines / Weapons.


    By max "system" power you mean weapon power. I didn't have to sacrifice max weapon power to get all power settings to 75+.

    Issue of Cat1 and Cat2 only matter if you can find a replacement for AMP that is Cat2. Damage bonus is still damage bonus, however small or large.

    Instead of juggling with power levels and trying to get 4-stacked AMP, in 99% of the cases you'd get bigger damage numbers out of having weapon power maxed at 100, and auxiliary power at 70, due to Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara T4 reputation trait) giving good cat2 dmg buff that scales off aux.


    Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense also says All Damage same as Amp, not Bonus All Damage.

    Nevertheless, the trait is confirmed cat2. I suspect Cryptic hasn't had the time to update all tooltips yet.
    Check this for more information: https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/wiki/math/damage_categories
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    alcaatraz wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.

    Just a bit of nitpick on my part, [Amp] says "+% All Damage", which is what we call a Cat1/SetA buff, not +% Bonus All Damage, which would be a Cat2/SetB buff. The implications of it being a Cat1 means its not really worth trying to adjust power levels to always try and get 4 stacks, as apposed to having a maxed system with the rest dumped into Aux / Engines / Weapons.


    By max "system" power you mean weapon power. I didn't have to sacrifice max weapon power to get all power settings to 75+.

    Issue of Cat1 and Cat2 only matter if you can find a replacement for AMP that is Cat2. Damage bonus is still damage bonus, however small or large.

    Instead of juggling with power levels and trying to get 4-stacked AMP, in 99% of the cases you'd get bigger damage numbers out of having weapon power maxed at 100, and auxiliary power at 70, due to Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara T4 reputation trait) giving good cat2 dmg buff that scales off aux.


    That is *precisely* what I do. :) I just have 1 single setting (different per ship only). It starts with 125 Weps power, ca 60 Shield, 75 Aux, and the rest for Engines. 75 Aux startup isn't always possible on my Rom Singularity ships, but still, I never switch power levels on a ship, once I initially set and tweaked them to my satisfaction.
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  • nikephorusnikephorus Member Posts: 2,744 Arc User
    I generally just adjust my power settings once per ship and forget about it. Only time I need to make further adjustments is if I radically change my gear. There is no real reason to need to adjust your power levels constantly...at least I have never been in a situation where I needed to do that.
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    alcaatraz wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.

    Just a bit of nitpick on my part, [Amp] says "+% All Damage", which is what we call a Cat1/SetA buff, not +% Bonus All Damage, which would be a Cat2/SetB buff. The implications of it being a Cat1 means its not really worth trying to adjust power levels to always try and get 4 stacks, as apposed to having a maxed system with the rest dumped into Aux / Engines / Weapons.


    By max "system" power you mean weapon power. I didn't have to sacrifice max weapon power to get all power settings to 75+.

    Issue of Cat1 and Cat2 only matter if you can find a replacement for AMP that is Cat2. Damage bonus is still damage bonus, however small or large.

    Instead of juggling with power levels and trying to get 4-stacked AMP, in 99% of the cases you'd get bigger damage numbers out of having weapon power maxed at 100, and auxiliary power at 70, due to Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara T4 reputation trait) giving good cat2 dmg buff that scales off aux.


    That is *precisely* what I do. :) I just have 1 single setting (different per ship only). It starts with 125 Weps power, ca 60 Shield, 75 Aux, and the rest for Engines. 75 Aux startup isn't always possible on my Rom Singularity ships, but still, I never switch power levels on a ship, once I initially set and tweaked them to my satisfaction.

    Even on your romulan ships, I would prioritize aux over shields. Yes, shield power increases shield hardness, but that increase is not very significant (0.2% per point, and it caps at 75% anyway), meanwhile, aside from the aforementioned Offensive trait, common heals like HE/aux2sif (including their damage resistance components) scale off aux power, as well as the Defensive T4 Nukara trait (should you choose to equip this).

    Basically what I'm trying to say is that on standard energy weapon builds, you can't go wrong with 100/15/15/70 (or 100/15/15/30 with singularity core) power level setup.
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »

    Good job, but it's not a definitive source.

    It looks like from reading it the guy had problems figuring out how Amp works. It might seem obvious now because the idea of how setting all power levels to 75+ to get 13.2% damage bonus from Amp was presented.
    But not everyone is conscious of Amp and how to maximize it.

    Nukara Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense is still NOT a replacement for Amp.

    You might be assuming I am not using Nukara Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense, but I am.

    Aux @ 75 gives 3.8% damage bonus
    Aux @ 93 gives 4.7% damage bonus

    Difference of 0.9%

    And you're going to say, 0.9% Cat 2 is greater than 13.2% Cat 1?

    So I have 3.8% damage bonus + 13.2% damage bonus, plus I don't have to sacrifice shield and engine power.

    Cat 1/Cat 2 damage bonus talk is really a lot of bull-****. It's reverse-calculated, based on damage output by players and there's stuff going on in the game that even the game developers don't know about. But that's another mystery for later.

    Damage bonus is damage bonus.

    Jay, Atem and Vel (who to my knowledge are main people behind this list) have got every ounce of math to prove those calculations, as well as "stamp of approval" from STO developers.

    Also, let's try to break down your claim how 0.9% cat2 is worse than 6.6% cat1 (because you'd still get your AMP bonus *at least* for weapons and aux).

    Let's say you have a MK XIV Beam Array [CtrD]x3 [Pen], and you're running 4 mk XIV tactical consoles, with Energy Weapons Training maxed in skilltree and Combat Performance Boost active. Quite bare-bones setup.

    Your beam array in that case will be doing...
    (200*((100+100)/200)*(1+(2.3+0.5+0.5+0.1+0.2+0.02+(4*0.375))=1224

    Formula goes like this: Beam array base damage*(Weapon power formula)*(1+(Cat1 dmg buff from Mk XIV+Starship Weapons Training+Energy Weapons training+Cat1 dmg buff from weapon modifiers+Combat Performance Boost+accolade bonus+4*Tactical Consoles))

    Now let's see what happens if we add 13.2% AMP buff here, with your 3.8% from trait.
    (200*((100+100)/200)*(1+(2.3+0.5+0.5+0.1+0.2+0.02+(4*0.375)+0.132))*(1+0.038))=1297.92

    Another scenario, with only 6.6% AMP buff, but 4.7% from trait (since you'd still have at least weapons and aux 75+)
    (200*((100+100)/200)*(1+(2.3+0.5+0.5+0.1+0.2+0.02+(4*0.375)+0.066))*(1+0.047))=1295.35

    So yes, with this kind of standard scenario, full-stack AMP gives you an immense bonus of TWO (2) damage points. With reduced effectiveness to your every heal (besides ET/ST), exotic damage powers and anything else from a pretty long list that scales off aux. Pop an Iconian 3pc buff, or add a +damage (universal) console there, and you'll see that small cat2 actually giving higher damage bonus than AMP.
  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    Omg math-bomb alert!

    Trust me guys @tunebreaker is right in saying Jay and the guys know their stuff. If they say max weapon & aux using the nukara T4 is best I'd be strongly inclined to believe them.

    Besides trying to jam all four power levels over 75 probably is more hassle than just having two at max and getting a similar benefit, at least for the average player.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »

    Damage bonus is damage bonus.


    Damage bonus is what the players call Cat2 (= a percentage of the sum total of your current dmg). When it's not 'bonus' dmg, it's just calculated off your base dmg, which is an entirely different thing.
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »


    Cat 2(= a percentage of the sum total of your current dmg).

    No, that's not cat2. :) What you're describing is what Redditors call "Final Bonus Multiplier".

    Basically, simplified way of describing weapon damage calculation would be...
    Base damage * Weapon Power * (Sum of all cat1 bonuses) * (Sum of all cat2 bonuses) * (Product of all final multipliers) = Your damage

    By sum I mean you add those up together (cat1+cat1+...) or (cat2+cat2+...), while with product, you multiply (final*final*...)
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    alcaatraz wrote: »
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.

    Just a bit of nitpick on my part, [Amp] says "+% All Damage", which is what we call a Cat1/SetA buff, not +% Bonus All Damage, which would be a Cat2/SetB buff. The implications of it being a Cat1 means its not really worth trying to adjust power levels to always try and get 4 stacks, as apposed to having a maxed system with the rest dumped into Aux / Engines / Weapons.


    By max "system" power you mean weapon power. I didn't have to sacrifice max weapon power to get all power settings to 75+.

    Issue of Cat1 and Cat2 only matter if you can find a replacement for AMP that is Cat2. Damage bonus is still damage bonus, however small or large.

    Instead of juggling with power levels and trying to get 4-stacked AMP, in 99% of the cases you'd get bigger damage numbers out of having weapon power maxed at 100, and auxiliary power at 70, due to Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense (Nukara T4 reputation trait) giving good cat2 dmg buff that scales off aux.


    That is *precisely* what I do. :) I just have 1 single setting (different per ship only). It starts with 125 Weps power, ca 60 Shield, 75 Aux, and the rest for Engines. 75 Aux startup isn't always possible on my Rom Singularity ships, but still, I never switch power levels on a ship, once I initially set and tweaked them to my satisfaction.

    Even on your romulan ships, I would prioritize aux over shields. Yes, shield power increases shield hardness, but that increase is not very significant (0.2% per point, and it caps at 75% anyway), meanwhile, aside from the aforementioned Offensive trait, common heals like HE/aux2sif (including their damage resistance components) scale off aux power, as well as the Defensive T4 Nukara trait (should you choose to equip this).

    Basically what I'm trying to say is that on standard energy weapon builds, you can't go wrong with 100/15/15/70 (or 100/15/15/30 with singularity core) power level setup.


    Like I said, most of what you say, I'm already doing. :) Weapon and Aux are always highest (when possible: for some reason my Rom pilot ship, for instance, has ridiculously low Aux, and likewise ridiculously high Engine power, contrary to its Fed counterpart, which highly favors Aux).

    I didn't know shield hardness capped out at 75. Thanks. So, is there any reason at all then to have shield power over 75?!

    I have both Nukara Offensive and Nukara Defensive Trait slotted permanently. And on my Rom ships, HE1/2 is really pretty much the only direct heal I have; so yeah, Aux must be prominently present, always.
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    Like I said, most of what you say, I'm already doing. :) Weapon and Aux are always highest (when possible: for some reason my Rom pilot ship, for instance, has ridiculously low Aux, and likewise ridiculously high Engine power, contrary to its Fed counterpart, which highly favors Aux).

    I apologize. I looked at your shield value and thought you had set the base value higher than 15 to get it to ~60. My bad. :D
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    I didn't know shield hardness capped out at 75. Thanks. So, is there any reason at all then to have shield power over 75?!

    Shield power at 75 would give you 15% shield hardness (as I said before, 0.2% per point), and the cap is 75%, not 75 shield power, so yes, if you won't be sacrificing anything more important (like... aux :D) it doesn't hurt to have it as high as possible.

  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »


    Cat 2(= a percentage of the sum total of your current dmg).

    No, that's not cat2. :) What you're describing is what Redditors call "Final Bonus Multiplier".

    Basically, simplified way of describing weapon damage calculation would be...
    Base damage * Weapon Power * (Sum of all cat1 bonuses) * (Sum of all cat2 bonuses) * (Product of all final multipliers) = Your damage

    By sum I mean you add those up together (cat1+cat1+...) or (cat2+cat2+...), while with product, you multiply (final*final*...)


    Hmm, it usually seems to work out pretty well. If a wep does, say, 1,200 DPS, then, with a 7% bonus dmg, it now does 1,284 DPS. Verified this many times (it isn't always 100% accurate, but close enough to hold true). If that's not Cat2, then what is?!
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    Like I said, most of what you say, I'm already doing. :) Weapon and Aux are always highest (when possible: for some reason my Rom pilot ship, for instance, has ridiculously low Aux, and likewise ridiculously high Engine power, contrary to its Fed counterpart, which highly favors Aux).

    I apologize. I looked at your shield value and thought you had set the base value higher than 15 to get it to ~60. My bad. :D

    No, *my* bad. :) I should have clarified I wasn't talking about slider numbers, but what Shield power usually tends to be at (after all bonuses for various gear and such). My sliders for Shield and Engines are usually at 15, yes.
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    I didn't know shield hardness capped out at 75. Thanks. So, is there any reason at all then to have shield power over 75?!

    Shield power at 75 would give you 15% shield hardness (as I said before, 0.2% per point), and the cap is 75%, not 75 shield power, so yes, if you won't be sacrificing anything more important (like... aux :D) it doesn't hurt to have it as high as possible.

    Thx for all the help. I'll keep that in mind.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    meimeitoo wrote: »


    Cat 2(= a percentage of the sum total of your current dmg).

    No, that's not cat2. :) What you're describing is what Redditors call "Final Bonus Multiplier".

    Basically, simplified way of describing weapon damage calculation would be...
    Base damage * Weapon Power * (Sum of all cat1 bonuses) * (Sum of all cat2 bonuses) * (Product of all final multipliers) = Your damage

    By sum I mean you add those up together (cat1+cat1+...) or (cat2+cat2+...), while with product, you multiply (final*final*...)


    Hmm, it usually seems to work out pretty well. If a wep does, say, 1,200 DPS, then, with a 7% bonus dmg, it now does 1,284 DPS. Verified this many times (it isn't always 100% accurate, but close enough to hold true). If that's not Cat2, then what is?!

    Without knowing specific examples, I can come up with 2 possibilities:

    1) Something you thought is cat2 is actually final multiplier (very doubtful, but just in case check here)
    2) You have low amount of cat2 damage buffs, while cat1 is heavily saturated, so you are mistaking "close enough to hold true" to be actually true. When making calculations like this, values that seem close enough might actually end up being pretty large errors. It's not uncommon for a cat2 buff to show up something like 6.3%, compared to your previous tooltip value.
  • ssbn655ssbn655 Member Posts: 1,894 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    I need more precise power setting control. I had to keep adjusting it for different ships till I could get it to near where I wanted it. I switch out ships a lot and change equipment which effect power settings (some items have power bonuses: aux, weapon, shield, engine) and you have to tweak it to get power settings to 75+. I used to be able to get all power settings to 75+ so I could get 13.2% All Damage Bonus from AMP mod on warp cores using the Plasmonic Leech. Now I have to fine tune the Power Settings to just get 9.9% All Damage Bonus.
    One word LOADOUT Menu. Saves your entire configuration so when you switch ships what you want for each ship is auto loaded.
  • ssbn655ssbn655 Member Posts: 1,894 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    I am in favor of +/- buttons on the power settings, too.

    Have you tried the different graphic layouts for the ships power menu? Some are easier to tweak then others due to the layout.
  • e30erneste30ernest Member Posts: 1,794 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    The equation is only an approximation to give you and idea of how it works or suppose to work.

    The damage equation is one of the really well understood things right now and is the result of multiple testing as well as back and forth consultation with the Devs.
    taehsong wrote: »
    How does popping in Iconian 3pc buff/+damage (univeral) console change the equation?

    It changes since any additional source of damage in each category dilutes that category further. So the more Cat 1 sources you get, the less "effective" it is to your overall damage. The same goes for Cat 2. The thing is, Cat 2 is not intrinsically better than Cat 1. It's just that there are so many sources of Cat 1 damage boosts that Cat 1 is easily more saturated than Cat 2 in most scenarios (weapon mark damage, Tac Consoles and skill trees are Cat 1 for example).
    taehsong wrote: »
    The fact that the players have to figure which items have Cat1/Cat2 Damage bonus should be another clue that it's bogus. If Cat1/Cat2 damage bonus (as players understand it) were real, the Developers would have been more careful about the text.

    You are right. The names "Cat 1" and "Cat 2" are made up by players since the Devs call them different things internally. It's semantics really. The fact that there are 2 groups of sources of additional damage is true though and the devs have stated so multiple times such as here, here and here (to name a few). The devs (especially Spartan) have been making an effort to change tooltips in game to make it easier for players to determine which ones are cat 1 and cat 2 by changing all cat 2 sources as "bonus damage" as seen in one of the links I have provided there.

  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »


    Possibly there might be some error in my calculations also.

    Yes, there are. Major ones. Getting rid of cat1/cat2 "nonsense" is one of the biggest. Cat1 and cat2 difference has been heavily documented. Not having weapon power at exactly 100 (most probably you didn't), yet using formula for 100 is another. Omitting so many hidden bonuses that you *think* are not in game or not confirmed, but actually have been *proven* to exist is yet another. Using tooltip damage displayed in ESD and mistaking it for base damage is yet another. And calling accolade bonus insignificant is yet another (small, but NOT insignificant).

    Study carefully these 3 pages, and try again. I'm sure you'll get a number that's *very* close to what your tooltip says.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/wiki/math/damage_math
    https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/wiki/math/damage_categories
    https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/wiki/math/damage_formulas
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    taehsong wrote: »
    If Cat1/Cat2 (as some people understand it) was real, Cryptic would/should label Aux Configuration - Offense as 100% + 4.7% (variable based on Aux).

    If Aux Configuration - Offense was actually Cat2 that would mean it is a 104.7% damage bonus and too high for it to be a trait. Vulnerability Locator is only 37.5% at Mark XIV epic.

    Yeah, no. Scroll up a bit to @e30ernest 's post. He links posts where actual Cryptic developer confirms existence of cat2 buffs. Also, you "100%+4.7%" comment shows how you didn't even make an effort to comprehend what I wrote. So go ahead and stay stupid if you wish, and continue to keep making forum posts displaying utter cluelessness. Your choice really.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    e30ernest wrote: »
    You are right. The names "Cat 1" and "Cat 2" are made up by players since the Devs call them different things internally. It's semantics really. The fact that there are 2 groups of sources of additional damage is true though and the devs have stated so multiple times such as here, here and here (to name a few). The devs (especially Spartan) have been making an effort to change tooltips in game to make it easier for players to determine which ones are cat 1 and cat 2 by changing all cat 2 sources as "bonus damage" as seen in one of the links I have provided there.


    Still a bit confused. :) In the posts you link, the Devs consistently equate 'bonus dmg' to Cat 2. I understood Cat 2 to be 'a percentage of the sum total of your current dmg.' Like I said, if a wep does, say, 1,200 DPS (on the tooltip), then, with a 7% bonus dmg, it now does 1,284 DPS. Tunebreaker said that isn't Cat2, though. So, I either don't understand what Cat 2 is then, or what 'bonus' dmg is. So, could someone give me an accurate description of what Cat 2 is, please?
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    @meimeitoo
    Ok, I'll try, even though it'd be much easier to talk through in-game, really.

    First of all, let's look at the phrase taken from stobuilds.
    "Modifiers stack additively within a category, and multiplicatively across categories."

    What it says is that if we have only one cat1 and one cat2 buff, your damage be represented as...
    Base damage * cat1 buff * cat2 buff

    With 2 of both cat buffs, your damage becomes...
    Base * (cat1+cat1) * (cat2+cat2)

    So you can see that essentially they act in the same way, except that they are in different brackets during calculation. Why cat2 is regarded so much more valuable though is since cat1 is so easily saturated. As I wrote before, just by having a weapon at mk XIV, you have already 230% cat1 dmg buff on it, so adding 10% cat1 would make much smaller difference than cat2 buff.

    Compare these 2 calculations (leaving out anything but mk bonus + assumed 10% for simplicity). First case we add 10% cat1, second 10% cat2.

    200*(1+2.3+0.1)=680
    200*(1+2.3)*(1+0.1)=726

    However, in actual situations, you get 50% cat1 just for being level 30+, up to 50% from skilltree, something from tac consoles etc. Meanwhile nothing innate really gives you cat2. So you can see how, even if ultimately cat2 adds up the same way as cat1, you simply won't have that big amount of cat2 buffs, so those 2 categories being in different brackets make, in huge majority of cases, cat2 more valuable.

    I hope this was understandable. :)
  • alcaatrazalcaatraz Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    @meimeitoo

    So, I'm in my phone so my normal methods of quoting equations and making it nice isn't going to be easy but I'm going to try.

    -------

    So, a bit on how we do the math, how math works, how things work and display. A weapon will rarely ever display its base damage. The only way to do so is to have it stripped of all buffs, which we would need to find the values for and removed them from the value through division.


    Another thing is that when an argument isn't found, it defaults to a value. For space weapons on ground I think this is 50 weapons power, but I've never actually found what it is; this may have changed during S13.

    None the less the only accurate way to see something is to check is during space.

    [b]How Math Works[/b] AKA calculus 1

    So, we might have all heard of the term "Derivative". This indicates the rate of change. We can use this to more or less approximate diffeances in numbers. We can also use this to measure the order of the equation. If the order is greater than 1, the second derivative will be 0.

    For this to hold in our equations, the second diffrances will have to also be 0.

    Let's say we have a beam which has a tooltip of 1,300. For each addition of 10% cat 1 (more on this later) we will have:

    200*(1+5.5) = 1300

    - 1300
    - 1320
    - 1340
    - 1360

    And so on. This gives us the first diffrances of:

    - 20 (1320-1300)
    - 20 (1340-1320)
    - 20 (1360-1340)

    Repeated we get 0's for all, since 20-20 is 0. This means that our equation is linear, or is of order 1 (as in x^1).

    So if we take a +4.7% as is the common place here, we would jump from 1300 to 1309.4 if and only if the system is based on only having buffs stack in a single linear multiplier.

    Instead we would see it change to 1361.1 (an actual 4.7% increase) because up untill now we have had no buffs into the second linear catagory, or catagory 2 (Cat2s, which we have developers use the term therefore confirming our model).


    We can do the same second derivative test (take regular intervals of the aux->off Trait at constant Cat1 and we get the same result, showing that we do in fact get another linear scale.

    So now we have a system where we can express it as:


    (Base)*(1+Sum(Cat1 modifiers))*(1+Sum(Cat2 modifiers))

    While not universally expressed, we can state generally that bonus indicates Cat2.

    So if we took out beam at 1300 damage and applied EPtW3 (with having no change in weapon power for ease of calculations) for a 16.6%, the Aux->Off trait at 4.7%, APA a total 50% and GDF at another 50% we would have:

    200*(1+5.5)*(1+0.047+0.0166+0.5+0.5)
    = 2876.9

    We can express the diffrance in a +% term by using

    (Post buff)/(Pre buff) = 1 + %

    In this case:

    2876.8/1300 = 2.213 = 1 + 1.213

    So we have increased our beams by a percentage of +106%. This fits with our buffs we applied of

    4.7%+16.6%+50%+50%=121.3%

    -------

    [b]Why we don't see a change of % when we apply the buff[/b]

    This mostly comes down to us having stuff within GE category already.

    Since we already have 50% after level 30 from Starship Weapons Training (look in your space skill based stats on your character for this), we will see smaller and smaller results from adding to a catagory.

    For instance, adding an epic tactical console to a Mk 0 (Standard Issue) Phaser, with the 50% starship weapons and 50% from Adv starship energy weapons, we would have:

    - no consoles to 1 console:

    (1+0.5+0.5+0.375)/(1+0.5+0.5) = 1.1875 = +18.75%

    - 1 consoles to 2 consoles:

    (1+0.5+0.5+0.375*2)/(1+0.5+0.5+0.375) = 1.1578 = +15.78%

    - 2 consoles to 3 consoles:

    (1+0.5+0.5+0.375*3)/(1+0.5+0.5+0.375*3) = 1.1363 = +13.63%

    And so on. The reason we see this is because we have more and more within our damage category already.

    The reason we don't see this as much with Cat2 is because there's strictly less of it avalible passively, not on the levels of consoles.

    The system is made so that you can't just stack an infinite amount of Cat1 buffs and have it have an equal % in increase each time.

    --------

    [b]How to figure out your current saturations[/b]

    We've know how to do his for some time. I evene wrote a Reddit post about it where you can read (post after, links seam to be keeping me from posting)

    It uses the ideas I've already expressed so far, and gives some equations.

    The general form I normally use is:

    (Post)/(pre) = (1+x+%)/(1+x)

    Where:

    - x is the amount already in the category
    - % is the amount added to test.

    (We can also use this method to test what catalogs a power/trait/skill something is, since we know that x for cat 1 will be much much larger than x for Cat2.)

    I encourage everyone to try it themselves!

    -------

    [b]Diffrance between Final modifiers and cat2[/b]

    @meimeitoo, what your describing by having "+7% yielding exactly +7%" is a result of o e of two things:

    1. You have nothing currently in the catagory you're adding too.
    2. The buff is what we commonly call a final multiplier.

    The space [Dmg] mod was changed a couple of years ago to be just such this, a final 1.03 mod. Having multiple gives multiple finals for 1.03*1.03*... which we can amend our above equationto have:


    (Base)*(1+Sum(Cat1 modifiers))*(1+Sum(Cat2 modifiers))*(1.03)^(#DmgMods)

    Another final mod is the space [Ac/Dm] mod which is exactly a 1.06 modifier.

    We an use the two methods we have for testing:

    - Added Bonus: (post)/(pre) = 1 + effective %
    - linear saturation values: (post)/(pre) = (1+x+%)(1+x)

    (Due to rounding errors the x in the linear saturation value finding should be very very very close if not exactly 0).

    -------

    Here's my final thing for now:

    [b]Finding bases[/b]

    Up untill now I've been using the assumption of a 200 beam base. Here I'm going to show you how to find it.

    We need 3 values:

    - Our measure: (lets use 3381)
    - After adding a known Cat1 (+10%, which moves us to 3432)
    - After adding a known Cat2 (+5% which moves us to 3510)

    For simplicity's sake, 1 Dmg mod, and 100 weapon power

    [i]finding Cat1[/i]

    (3432)/(3381) = (1+x+0.1)/(1+x)
    x = 5.5 = 550%

    [i]finding Cat2[/i]

    (3510)/(3381) = (1+y+0.05)/(1+y)
    y = 0.3 = 30%

    [i]finding base[/i]

    Base = (Damage)/((1+Cat1)(1+Cat2)(1.03^#Dmg)((100+WeaponPower)/(200))

    Gives us:

    Base = (3381)/((1+5.5)(1+0.3)(1.03)((100+100)/200)
    Base = 388.468

    Thus we now know our weapon has a base damage of 388.468, which we can then use to find other hypothetical situations, like which is better, to have a higher Aux power or more Amp stacks.

    -------

    Hopefully this is understandable!
    --- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
    "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
  • alcaatrazalcaatraz Member Posts: 113 Arc User
    edited August 2017
    --- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
    "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
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