The base line damage of an omni and a single array is identical.
I'm not sure how many other ways you want me to say it. You are incorrect. Having potentially one extra [dmg] mod is irrelevant.
Turret boats don't top the DPS charts because... they do 34% reduced damage vs a single cannon. Single cannons don't top the charge because they do a lot less damage vs Dual cannons, (AND CSV nullifies some of the arc penalty DHC pay.)
As far as who does it hurt if we unlocked omnis. It would hurt the game>.<
You know why no one uses single cannons ? I know you know. It's because they suck. Why do people not run 8 turrets on a ship.... again you know its cause they suck.
Unlocking omnis would make single arrays suck. It would make DBB mostly suck. DBB would still be able to do slighly more DPS in a perfectly piloted situation, but 9 times out of 10 a ship with 7- 8 360 degree single arrays is going to do a lot more dps.
There would be no reason to run anything but omnis. In fact running any other beam would be a DPS loss. I'm not talking about a DAMAGE number here I'm talking about damage per second. DPS wise having 360 degrees of fire makes for more DPS. Yes in the case of a turret the massive difference between turret and DHC dmg means that isn't the case. But with omnis again omni and single arrays are =. They don't trade any base damage... they give up one extra mod, which isn't much.
The only way to unlock them and not have them make Single arrays a stupid weapon to slot... would be if they got a damage reduction. I don't think anyone actually wants a damage reduction. I'm fine with only being able to slot a couple as they do single array damage. The only ships I would fly that have a 3rd or 4th rear slot I can use for other things. KCB, or a cannon to use with Mixed Arm Synergies, or collected armaments. Also hey broadside builds are still an option on the few 4/4 modern ships.
Ok I'm gonna have to add my 2 ECs on this.
They're not equal because of the Arc mod. In effect, a purple quality Omni is mostly equivalent to maybe a blue quality beam array because of trading one of the mods for the arc mod. While it does balance out in the fact it has a 360 degree firing arc, and thus will always be able to fire, it is still not quite able to match a standard beam array. The balancing factor is its ability to always be on target, thus always able to deal damage. Most beam builds get the most damage out of broadside attacks. Integrating Omni Beams into a build means that the effective firing arc for all weapons (Lets use a 5/3 here, and assume 4 forward beams and 2 rear Omnis with a torp forward and aft) is now pretty much 3/4 of the firing arcs for the ships. The only weak area is the rear that would only benefit from the Omni Beams. On the side or to the front, all beams firing.
Base damage is affected by mods. So unless you're talking something that has all CrtH or CrtD mods, any Dmg mods is going to alter the base damage output of the weapon. So... lets look at two mk XII purples here.
Omni Beam [crtD][crtH][Arc]
Beam Array [crtD]x2[crtH]
Based damage would probably be similar, especially as the omni will always be able to fire unlike the beam array.
Omni Beam [Dmg]x2[Arc]
Beam Array [Dmg]x3
Nope. Not as close. That extra Dmg mod bumps the standard beam array up higher.
Effectively an Omni is equivelant to a beam array of one quality level lower because of the locked Arc mod. That is not to say it is useless. It is still able to dish it out, but it is not quite on par with an equivalent beam array. And it is more noticable with people reengineering for maximum damage output for min/max building. But for the average player that doesn't care about min/max building, its fine as is.
I am honestly stunned that more then one person believes such an odd argument.
BASE damage is =.
ARC is not a damage free mod... it is 110 degrees of extra firing arc. Real world use a Omni is going to out damage a 5 damage mod single array every single run. That is just fact. The only debate really is how much more damage.... and that would depend on piloting skill. I know single arrays already have a very wide angle of fire as is... still if you take a ship with 3 omnis in the rear, and we assume it is only on target 5% longer. If every beam was an omni that is going to result in a lot more actual attacks on a target. If you only have 3 rear omnis its going to be 40-50 more attacks... if 8 omnis are slotted that is going to ramp up even higher. Overfly a target... who cares. It would be game breaking.
One Damage mod is not enough of a trade for a omni arc. Which ever dev added omnis to the game is of the same mind on that one as I am. They CHOOSE to release omnis at FULL damage... but limit how many could be slotted. IMO that was a good development move... with the caveat that the complication confuses players. As is clear now that I see two people I know understand the game somehow believing one [dmg] mod is enough of a trade.
I mean heck lets just unlock omnis... and lets buff Turrets up to Dual cannon damage as well so we can all just load Omni and turret builds and stop pretending anyone enjoys having to choose weapon setups.
Except the math says I'm correct and no amount of wishful thinking changes that. Funny how you've gone from "you only base your argument on mods and they're only different because of one damage mod" to now saying "having one extra [dmg] mod is irrelevant". Convenient how the goal posts keep getting moved.
I'm going to be upfront... I read nothing else in your response and have no intention to do so.
From the wiki.
Base dps of a turret White MK 15. 462
Base dps of a single cannon white MK15. 739
Difference 37% damage reduction for the turret.
base dps of a single array White MK 15 616
base dps of a white MK 15 omni if we could roll one. 616
Difference in damage ZERO %.
[DMG] = 3% cat1damage
SO even if I accept your argument which I do not. You are arguing that a 3% damage reduction for omnis is sufficient. I mean cannons drop 37% of their base damage to go 360. Your suggesting beams dropping only 3% makes sense?? Ok
Again cryptic has a balance solution for this... they limited omnis to 1 per ship + 1 set version (which do have reduced damage). They wanted people to use their new crafting system and though lets give everyone the ability to craft one actual powerful weapon they will want. I think they made the right call. I am not looking for a 37% damage reduction for omnis. Its just that is the pattern they laid out with weapons. You have to trade something for 360. They choose a limit which imo works well.
As phoenixc pointed out. Reducing omni damage to unlock them would actually punish people running Dual beam banks. Most DBB builds are 5/2 or even 5/1 ships. Having a full damage omni in the back helps make it worth the trouble of piloting a ship with a 90 degree forward arc. The game is geared to reward good piloting with escorts ships... or loading turn gear/traits on a 5/3 type cruiser. No one flying those types of ships with DBB wants an omni beam damage reduction so they can slot one more. To be fair... if Cryptic said 1 crafted and 2 set omnis; I guess that isn't game breaking but it does lead to a major issue in that not every weapon type has more then one set omni.
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I'm not as concerned about max fits as other people I guess, so the max damage calculations or the fact that you might end up having to put one omni on that doesn't match your main damage type isn't a big deal to me. (I know it is to others and respect that, just saying.)
For me the primary nuisance with the limitation is how often I have 2 omnis in my inventory, go to put the 2nd on, and find I can't. Particularly since Cryptic has gone out of their way the past year or two to create event set rewards with an omni in it.
Having people work for rewards and then tell them they can't use them seems sub-optimal to me. And I suspect that cannon builders feel quite left out on reward set after reward set that has no turret or cannon option. Yes, 2 set omnis + 1 crafted would be nice to have, I wouldn't mind a DPS cut on a base omni if that was the case.
But even just removing the set/non-set restriction with the limit of 2, and/or including turrets in the sets would also go a long way towards reducing the frustration.
ARC is not a damage free mod... it is 110 degrees of extra firing arc. Real world use a Omni is going to out damage a 5 damage mod single array every single run. That is just fact. The only debate really is how much more damage.... and that would depend on piloting skill. I know single arrays already have a very wide angle of fire as is... still if you take a ship with 3 omnis in the rear, and we assume it is only on target 5% longer. If every beam was an omni that is going to result in a lot more actual attacks on a target. If you only have 3 rear omnis its going to be 40-50 more attacks... if 8 omnis are slotted that is going to ramp up even higher. Overfly a target... who cares. It would be game breaking.
What I find stunning is you keep ignoring basic math to argue crafted omnis are equal to beam arrays or even stronger even though math says they're not.
Now you say in the bolded section that the arc mod is not a damage mod, in which case you are correct. However you then go on to say having arc means an omni will do more damage than an array in every single run, which is objectively and verifiably false. So I have to ask, if arc is not a free damage mod as you say, why are you trying to sit here and say that omnis will always outdo an array? There are plenty of parses I could post or others could post who use omnis where it's absolutely not the top damaging weapon at all. As I said in another post we can sit here and play "what if" all day long but I'm not doing that. Original point still stands, if an omni and an array are both firing and hitting a target the omni will NEVER outdo the array.
As for damage ramp up you claim would happen, again this is verifiably false. If omnis were unlocked and nerfed as proposed, you're still doing 15%-25% less damage than you would have with dedicated arrays. Again that's basic math. Furthermore we've gotten away from the key part of the debate which was why they need to be unlocked, and that's because it's foolish to allow turrets to have access to every set bonus under the sun, but deny beam users the same thing.
One Damage mod is not enough of a trade for a omni arc. Which ever dev added omnis to the game is of the same mind on that one as I am. They CHOOSE to release omnis at FULL damage... but limit how many could be slotted. IMO that was a good development move... with the caveat that the complication confuses players. As is clear now that I see two people I know understand the game somehow believing one [dmg] mod is enough of a trade.
Regarding the line in bold YOU DON'T KNOW THAT unless they specifically tell you. Your argument there is an equivocation fallacy. It's the same thing as someone seeing me buy a cake at a bakery and then automatically concluding I must be buying it for someone's birthday, when in reality I just wanted a cake because I like cake. That is why I prefaced what I said previously about what I was told years ago with "this may not be true anymore". As to the rest of this paragraph of yours, that is purely your opinion.
SO even if I accept your argument which I do not. You are arguing that a 3% damage reduction for omnis is sufficient. I mean cannons drop 37% of their base damage to go 360. Your suggesting beams dropping only 3% makes sense?? Ok
Quote the exact line where you believe I said something like that, because that's not what I said at all. Now you're straight up strawmaning.
What I have said from the start is if power creep is a concern, then nerf the crafted omnis into line with the set omnis so the crafted omnis will also fall within that 15%-25% less damage than an array and 36% less damage than a dual bank. If you want cannons and beams to be somewhat equal in their percentages, that's your solution since set omnis already do 36% less than dual banks. Nerfing crafted arrays into that range as I suggested before puts them on equal ground. THAT is what I said.
If you want things more equalized, the precedent already established for set omnis to do 36% less than dual banks and 15%-25% less than an array. Crafted omnis fall outside of this range therefore need to be nerfed into those ranges. Yet you complain about it because you want your cake and to eat it too.
As phoenixc pointed out. Reducing omni damage to unlock them would actually punish people running Dual beam banks. Most DBB builds are 5/2 or even 5/1 ships. Having a full damage omni in the back helps make it worth the trouble of piloting a ship with a 90 degree forward arc. The game is geared to reward good piloting with escorts ships... or loading turn gear/traits on a 5/3 type cruiser. No one flying those types of ships with DBB wants an omni beam damage reduction so they can slot one more. To be fair... if Cryptic said 1 crafted and 2 set omnis; I guess that isn't game breaking but it does lead to a major issue in that not every weapon type has more then one set omni.
The point in bold is objectively false and I've already explained it above in my previous post. There are alot of 5/2 and 5/1 dual bank builds. However you can't simply ignore the 5/3 and 4/3 dual bank builds which are just as valid and seen just as often as the 5/2 and 5/1 types. See the Vaadwaur jugg which can do cannons or dual banks effectively and is a 5/3 as just one example of this.
As explained before, assuming an x/3 layout on the ship your most common combos of weapons in the back will be either:
-A: 1 crafted omni, 1 set omni, and kinetic cutting beam
-B: 1 crafted omni, 1 set omni, and a torpedo or turret
So at best you're talking 1 weapon that gets a little weaker. in the instance of Group A, they can pick up extra damage by replacing the KCB with either another set omni or another crafted omni. For this matter they could run 3 set omnis if they wished. At worst it evens out, at best it increases damage. For Group B, similar situation in which they could replace the crafted omni with another set omni with the set evening out the damage or increasing damage overall.
If a build is a x/2 then you're looking at a crafted omni and a set omni being the most common combo. See again this allows for an increase by slotting the second set omni. I didn't bother with any of the x/1 layouts as they're probably already running a set omni to begin with so no change would take place on their damage. A damage reduction to a single weapon should NOT be crippling your entire build and if it is then you have bigger problems to worry about.
Again cryptic has a balance solution for this... they limited omnis to 1 per ship + 1 set version (which do have reduced damage). They wanted people to use their new crafting system and though lets give everyone the ability to craft one actual powerful weapon they will want. I think they made the right call. I am not looking for a 37% damage reduction for omnis. Its just that is the pattern they laid out with weapons. You have to trade something for 360. They choose a limit which imo works well.
I saved this part for last because it gets back to the original debate. You call the thing in bold a solution, I call it arbitrary and foolish and is the actual thing punishing beam users as a whole. It locks beam users out of set bonuses when cannon users can use any sets they please with little to no issues.
I'm a polaron fanatic because I'm weird like that. As is right now if I wanted to use the chronometric, inhibiting, and morphogenic sets on a polaron cannon build I have to use the morphogenic omni/turret, the chronometric turret and inhibiting turret. Thus I can use all 3 sets. However if I wanted to run dual banks and pure damage is my goal, I don't get to use the chronometric and inhibiting omnis at all. I'm forced to use turrets which works against the build since I have 2 weapons that won't benefit from my beam enhancements or firing modes. Thus I have to waste a boff slot I may not have on scatter volley. In other words I can't make a true beam build, I'm forced to make a hybrid.
In other words, a cannon polaron build could use the inhibiting, chronometric and morphogenic sets without issue. yet the dual bank build can't. THAT is the problem I have. It's an arbitrary restriction that has no business existing in today's game. You say dual bank users are punished, but in actuality it's beam users as a whole that are punished. If I want to use dual banks and call on all of those sets, or even a broad side array build, I can't do that. I'm forced to slot the turret variants. THAT is the issue. Why should I as a beam user be locked out of set bonuses because of some dumb arbitrary restriction when cannon users are not? Why should I have to create a hybrid of beams/cannons when cannon users don't have to do that? There is a punishment going on, but it's been against beam users for nearly a decade now.
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ARC is not a damage free mod... it is 110 degrees of extra firing arc. Real world use a Omni is going to out damage a 5 damage mod single array every single run. That is just fact. The only debate really is how much more damage.... and that would depend on piloting skill. I know single arrays already have a very wide angle of fire as is... still if you take a ship with 3 omnis in the rear, and we assume it is only on target 5% longer. If every beam was an omni that is going to result in a lot more actual attacks on a target. If you only have 3 rear omnis its going to be 40-50 more attacks... if 8 omnis are slotted that is going to ramp up even higher. Overfly a target... who cares. It would be game breaking.
I was going to stay out of this, but this, I have to disagree with. I regularly fly a fleet bozeman intel heavy frigate, with 4 arrays + 1 torp up front, and 2 omnis + 1 torp in the back. The torps are there for set bonuses. 250 is a massive firing arc, it would take effort to not keep those weapons on target with my build. Even if omnis were unlocked, I'd have no reason to change it, and yes, the omnis would ultimately do less damage. In fact...
I have Combat Log Analyzer, and can do some patrols, to compare numbers. So I did. In Ruins of Doom, Running a Delphic antiproton array with [CritD/Dm] and [CritDx4] in ruins of doom, it did a total of 17,833.56 dps. A crafted Antiproton Omni in the same run, with [CritD/Dm] [Arc] [CritDx3] did 8450.85. This, honestly, was bad data. The Omni was still in a rear slot, and was firing last of all my weapons, leading it to only getting 100 hits vs the Delphics 142. Still, we can average out the damage per shot. The Delphic gets 19,729.95, and the Omni gets 13,276.3. However, again, the Delphic in this case had about 10% higher crit rate, because rng. Max one hit for Delphic was 113,250, Omni was 58,338.2.
I decided to give the Omni a better chance, and moved it to the front so it could fire before the Delphic array, and moved on to the Sentinels patrol, where the Elachi love to teleport behind you. Things went much better for the Omni here, moving up front so it could fire first gave it quite the edge, with 76 hits vs the Delphics 54. The critical hits worked out to only a 4% difference under surgical strikes as well, again in the Omni's favor, with it also enjoying a 60% vs 7% crit advantage outside of surgical strikes. The Omni achieved a total dps of 6671.49, with an average damage of 13,808.24, and max one hit of 55,825.8. The Delphic managed 5,787.72 dps, but here's kicker. the Delphics average hit, even with critical hit% disadvantage, was 16,859.4, with a max one hit of 85,809.9.
The biggest difference between the runs was which of the two was firing first in my weapon order, but the Delphic, at least with [CritD], is my clear winner, with a higher average damage, if it's in front where it should be and all else being equal, it will do more damage, with the Omni playing serious catch up.
Now, I doubt 1 [CritD] is enough to explain that level of difference between the two weapons, but there's only so much I can do to control the outcomes, and 2 sets of data is hardly enough to draw a real conclusion. However, even if the Omni had performed better, I doubt I'd be inclined to change to an all omni build if they unlocked them. Crafting Omnis, or buying them off the exchange, is expensive in time, money, or both, and wouldn't be worth it to me. If you want to keep arguing about how broken Omnis would be, then start coercing some other people to do more testing, so we can put this to bed.
Actually, it gets worse, because base Antiproton has a built in CritD mod, so they were both technically [CritD/Dm] [CritDx4], with +100% crit severity for both. Delphic weapons instead have a proc to give you 10% extra crit chance and severity for 5 seconds. Regardless, much more testing would be required for a real conclusion.
Being a silly gee-wiz build does not mean an 8 omni scheme couldn't go mainstream or semi-mainstream if it proved to be effective enough, especially since it would not require any skill at maneuvering beyond just keeping it in range, and it would allow concentrating on stuff like science dirty tricks more. If the devs didn't massively nerf all of the omni's that 8 omni build could even have a good shot at being the new meta.
These lines in italics when paired with the ones from earlier tell me that the resistance to unlocking omnis has nothing to do with actual balance, but that it might disrupt someone's precious meta. And as I said before, heaven forbid people be afforded another option that isn't meta or that might shake up the meta as is because someone considers it to "not require any skill".
Respectfully, if you're opposed to unlocking omnis because you don't like the idea of them potentially becoming meta (even though it wouldn't) then have the fortitude to say that and don't beat around the bush. There is no need to hide behind a bunch of contradictory arguments that I'm not even convinced you really believe yourself. No one is going to be forced to use 8 omnis, and you won't if you care about pure raw damage output.
As I said before it's ridiculous to me that if I wanted to stack up enough set turrets to run 8 set turrets I can do it, but if I wanted to do the same thing with omnis I'm told I can't do it. I HATE double standards like that because they serve no valid purpose. If the concern is power of the set bonuses you're not stopping me from getting those set bonuses, you're just making it more annoying. If the concern is crafted omnis being too strong then nerf them into line with the set omnis. I really don't understand the obsession some people have with making this more complicated than that or it has to be.
Lastly I will ask for a final time, aside from not liking the build, so long as said hypothetical player is pulling their weight and you're clearing content, why do you care if they choose to run 8 omnis where you don't? How are you personally hurt by it? Who is the victim here?
There seems to be some kind of communications failure here, so I am not going to try and answer the whole long post point by point this time around, and the section I quote here seems to be the crux of the communication problem. Also I am a bit ADHD and tend to think in a sort of weighted node and tree fashion where a mindmap or hypertext notation would be more fitting, and I sometimes have a bit of trouble serializing it with the right tone, especially on long posts when I start getting distracted by the need to move on to something else for a while, so shorter is better in this case.
I have answered your "final question" several times since the relevant parts are just a reiteration of things further up in your posts that I had addressed already, but the way you put it it looked more like the kind of questions to spur on thinking about the issue rather than ones that were supposed to be answered.
First off, I don't dislike the idea of the 8-omni build for itself, I would actually run one or two myself if it was available, for reasons I will get to shortly, but it is not available, and I understand the dev's reasoning for that (up to a point, the 1+1 thing is unnecessarily nit-picking and confusing, not to mention that trying to run multiple sets containing omnis is impossible with it).
What you apparently took to be distain at it not taking much piloting skill was simply an observation, not a condemnation. It even has some appeal in some less weapons-oriented setups because more attention can go to firing off sometimes complicated sequences of abilities and less to maneuver without resorting to keybind files, and it would make a good look for some themes as well.
My concern about it is entirely due to the devs having said in the past that the only way they would allow unrestricted omnis is if they were massively nerfed to be more in line with turrets (or words to that effect). Majorly nerfing omnis like that would negatively impact the viability of DBBs (which I tend to use quite a lot of since they are affordable and usually the best choice for forward oriented beam builds, which is something I tend to do a lot of).
Contrary to your (to me at least) rather strange interpretations of what I said, I don't care about the meta myself (which is just as well since I would not be able to afford most of them anyway).
Most of my builds are non-meta and quite a few of them are rather niche or otherwise unusual, including an all-turret Vo'Quv years ago, some experiments with dual-energy combinations where the synergies of the particular pieces seem to complement, beam/cannon mixes, several "armed merchantman" tractor builds, etc, in pursuit of themes or just curiosity.
I don't have any problem with others running niche builds either and I don't jump on the hate bandwagons over things like the jellyfish (it is just a specialized form of aura tank) that so many others seem to do, and I tend to actively defend concepts like the jellyfish and other attempts to widen the field away from the current obsession with DPS-above-all.
Some of the themes I try to do even come from outside of Trek (I was doing crossover stories long before they became popular in the mainstream, and I carry some of that mindset into the game) and if 8 omnis were allowed I would run it on a few of those themes where that mass of beams that can either fire all around or concentrate on one target would fit the theme a lot better.
So, just how many missed shots do you think it would take for omnis to catch up? From figures I have found on the web it only takes 1.11 misses for the omni to catch up with the array. That means that if the enemy slips out of arc for two shots (or two arrays for one shot) you are better off (at least until the next shot hits) with the omnis since they never go out of arc. And yes, it does not sound like much but depending on the situation and who the enemy is (Elachi jump around like fleas for instance so that happens a lot) and 0.89 of an array shot might be just enough extra burst to kill it.
I even run a few DBB/array builds as a semi-forward-oriented FAW boat where that fits the theme (and those figures above feel about right compared to DBB/omni builds I run). Functionally the DBB/array builds I have tried are more like science/tac hybrid and the idea is to use lance and other consoles and abilities (ideally with forward-firing beam SFX) to damage the main target to help compensate for the fact that the DBBs are not getting any support from the rear mounts (or not very much in the case of DoT arrays in the rear and a ship that can spin fast enough to make the DoT effect relevant for the DBB). Not great for the most part, but it is something to tinker with, though it does drive home how dependent DBBs are on omnis to support them properly.
That said, while I try to make my builds at least viable with what I can afford and whatnot, DPS is not my main concern (I do not compete for top spot on the charts or go to great lengths to squeeze out every possible point of damage or any of that), the character concepts/ship concepts are the main things I like to explore in the game, I find it refreshing to get into character and out of the mundane viewpoint for a while.
As for "who is the victim", it depends on the devs and exactly how the game system works behind the scenes.
If they don't nerf all omnis and they are not actually OP (or only the crafted is OP and limited) then it is all good and no one is "the victim"
If on the other hand the devs do a massive nerf of all omnis (and the nerf stick tends to be a VERY blunt and imprecise instrument, which would make a nerf almost certain to hit both, especially since whenever they mentioned that requirement to nerf omnis to unrestrict them they never singled out crafted omnis, they just said omnis) the victims would be a lot of people, especially the DBB fans
On the third hand (need an Edoan to do the hands for this one...), if the devs are right and they are OP but they still remove all restrictions then arrays would be the victim because while a difference is apparent on paper it would not be enough in practice to bother with and people would tend to just mount omnis.
I like polaron too, and would also like to mount all three polaron set omnis instead of the omni/turret nonsense. And it has been proven that at least two set omnis are safe balance-wise, I doubt even three of any type would upset things to a noticeable degree. Many more than that and I get the feeling power creep would rear its ugly head though (I admit that it is a feeling however, I have not had the time to try and do a deep dive into the numbers and theory, so I might be wrong, but considering what (little) the devs have said about it I don't think so).
Darkblade, look up "time on target". Spike damage isn't the only thing that matters.
I know what "time on target" is as I would define it, and I wager how you would define it too. However that's not how it was used in the context of dude's post. In one point he says I need to consider "time on target" which by necessity meant some of his weapons weren't able to be on target due to piloting etc. Then in the next paragraph he says piloting doesn't matter. In the context he used it is also arbitrary as he did not define how much of a time difference we're talking. Did the arrays fire 10% less than the omni, 25% or so on. It was arbitrary as written with no clear definition to debate which was the first part of the issue. I'm not going to define his terms for him because I'm not a mind reader. That's on him to define. If he wishes to define his terms and give a clear definition we can debate from, then we can get somewhere.
Second part of the issue is that it's ultimately irrelevant to the original debate which was damage of omnis vs arrays and which one hits harder. In that context by default it assumes both firing and hitting the target, in which case an omni will always lose to an array. If he wishes to introduce additional factors it's on him to list said factors and then define them so a debate can be had. I can't go chasing down what amounts to ghosts in the form of undefined terms.
Also I have to ask, where did the spike damage thing come from? Because I've not mentioned that in any of my stuff. The only assumptions I've worked with are the original debate of omni vs array. In that instance it assumes both firing under identical conditions and hitting the target.
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Ok, these walls of text are getting a bit out of hand, folks. Can we pair down these thesis papers some, please? Thanks.
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I had a little more time, so I turned the difficulty up to Elite for bigger hp pools so that weapon order wouldn't matter as much, and did another run of the Sentinels patrol. Here are the results.
In as close as I can do to an apples to apples comparison, The Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array is clearly underperforming compared to the single arrays, even with significantly more hits. It's max one hit in this run was ~30k lower than the next lowest, while it's average hit under Surgical Strikes 3 was ~ 12k lower. When I have time, I'll take a look at some of my other builds to look at some other damage type Omnis, but the damage output seems to be out of line from where it should be, if it really is as close in dps as it claims. It should be handily beating the Temporal Defense arrary, but only did ~70.9% as much damage, with 108.333% the hits. And to be clear, I put the Omni in the first weapon slot, and played against Elachi that teleport behind the player, to give it the biggest real world advantage I could think of. I would be very interested in seeing some other peoples results.
Thank you for your time and doing this test. It's quite clear, that the omni is far inferior to a standard beam array and they're not even close performance wise (not that that's any news to people, who are interested and competent in doing solid DPS). Would be interesting to see a comparison between omni and DBB, as the gap will drasticaly widen, even from what it's at now.
Darkblade, look up "time on target". Spike damage isn't the only thing that matters.
I know what "time on target" is as I would define it, and I wager how you would define it too. However that's not how it was used in the context of dude's post. In one point he says I need to consider "time on target" which by necessity meant some of his weapons weren't able to be on target due to piloting etc. Then in the next paragraph he says piloting doesn't matter. In the context he used it is also arbitrary as he did not define how much of a time difference we're talking. Did the arrays fire 10% less than the omni, 25% or so on. It was arbitrary as written with no clear definition to debate which was the first part of the issue. I'm not going to define his terms for him because I'm not a mind reader. That's on him to define. If he wishes to define his terms and give a clear definition we can debate from, then we can get somewhere.
I don't know what your definition of "time on target" is, but the usage I was using is how much of the firing cycle the target is in range and in arc (which I know is not quite the artillery usage of the term, but it is one of the ways gamers use the term more or less, though in this case the pulses are slower than the term is usually used for (which is things that hose down the target in a more continuous manner like tachyon beams in STO). For omnis, unless the target slips out of range 100% of the damage of each cycle is applied to the target, for arrays it is usually less than 100%, sometimes considerably less.
And if you go back and read what I said instead of inaccurately paraphrasing it you will find that what I said was that skill in maneuvering does not always help, not that it didn't matter at all the way you imply. As I said further down, maneuver is not a magic wand, arrays will almost always have at least some time out of arc no matter how good you might be at maneuvering and (supposedly anyway) the damage gap between the two weapons is narrow enough that even one or two misses is significant.
Of course, the practical tests parmeggido ran are interesting and seem to indicate the analysis I found on the web may not have been as accurate as they seemed with all the math proofs and whatnot, and omnis might actually be closer to turrets than arrays despite what the tooltips and whatnot indicate. If that is the case, then the limits may indeed be nothing but arbitrary.
In as close as I can do to an apples to apples comparison, The Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array is clearly underperforming compared to the single arrays, even with significantly more hits. It's max one hit in this run was ~30k lower than the next lowest, while it's average hit under Surgical Strikes 3 was ~ 12k lower.
Thank you for this research. It'll be pretty significant if this holds true for other omnis. The difference is far greater than should be for just the (effective) loss of one mod. It's a roughly 30% drop from the normal arrays which means it's already in "turret reduction" territory.
Does that particular omni show a significantly lower base damage than the others, or is there some hidden reduction to Omni damage in the damage formula?
I had a little more time, so I turned the difficulty up to Elite for bigger hp pools so that weapon order wouldn't matter as much, and did another run of the Sentinels patrol. Here are the results.
In as close as I can do to an apples to apples comparison, The Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array is clearly underperforming compared to the single arrays, even with significantly more hits. It's max one hit in this run was ~30k lower than the next lowest, while it's average hit under Surgical Strikes 3 was ~ 12k lower. When I have time, I'll take a look at some of my other builds to look at some other damage type Omnis, but the damage output seems to be out of line from where it should be, if it really is as close in dps as it claims. It should be handily beating the Temporal Defense arrary, but only did ~70.9% as much damage, with 108.333% the hits. And to be clear, I put the Omni in the first weapon slot, and played against Elachi that teleport behind the player, to give it the biggest real world advantage I could think of. I would be very interested in seeing some other peoples results.
The only way to reliably test weapon vs weapon dps is to run one weapon at a time. Which I know sounds silly. However its the only way to account for power draw.
Most people put their omnis in their aft slots which in general fire after the fore slots. So in your test most likely the omni beam is firing with 32 less weapon power then the Delphic. Also keep in mind the advance reputation beams get a bonus dmg buff if you have the reputations completed.
For what its worth... I just ran the most annoying Patrol ever.
Romulan Experimental [crtd/dmg] [crtd]x4
Disruptor Omni directional [crtd/dmg] [crtd]x2 [Arc] [Pen]
I don't have a romulan and omni without pen on this toon. But this will be close enough. I only fired these 2 weapons disabled all other weapons... didn't use any Sci or debuffs, just a copy of reroute so I wouldn't be there all day. I used the Romulan experimental as it has zero weapon power draw.... it does however have the small dmg buff from having a T6 rep done. Still this will serve.
Wanted advance patrol
Romulan Disruptor = 9,081.78 Max hit 31,189 315 attacks
Disruptor Omni = 8722.70 Max hit 29,841.40 317 attacks
I did my best to ensure they were both in arc... still somehow got a couple extra attacks out of the omni but I don't think that changes my point. In a real world scenario of course the omni would get a lot more extra attacks then just 0.7%.
Expected results on the single array thanks to a 2% cat2 buff from the rep. (I actually thought that would offset with pen but I guess I wasn't doing any extra debuffing or anything... had more debuff been in play I think the omni with pen probably would have pulled ahead, that is outside the scope of this test though)
Bottom line essentially identical damage when power draw is removed from the math.
In other words, a cannon polaron build could use the inhibiting, chronometric and morphogenic sets without issue. yet the dual bank build can't. THAT is the problem I have. It's an arbitrary restriction that has no business existing in today's game. You say dual bank users are punished, but in actuality it's beam users as a whole that are punished. If I want to use dual banks and call on all of those sets, or even a broad side array build, I can't do that. I'm forced to slot the turret variants. THAT is the issue. Why should I as a beam user be locked out of set bonuses because of some dumb arbitrary restriction when cannon users are not? Why should I have to create a hybrid of beams/cannons when cannon users don't have to do that? There is a punishment going on, but it's been against beam users for nearly a decade now.
And that's the issue. I personally really don't care about the math or if people "play lazy" I couldn't care less about that. But this right here is just ridiculous.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
For example, according to Gene Coon, who was the one who actually invented the Federation (up until then Roddenberry just used the term "the interstellar community"), it was based on the UN but a little tighter knit, somewhat similar to the very early US system with strong states and a relatively weak central government, which is why they used ambassadors instead of senators and whatnot)
Starfleet and the Federation as a whole wouldn't be fleshed out until the movies and later TNG.
And there's STILL the myth that every starship in TOS had unique assignment patches despite the existence of a document declaring that Starfleet personnel wore the same arrowhead as the Enterprise crew. In a way this was mitigated by the existence of Discovery showing that everyone used the arrowhead before TOS, but then we have outliers like the Mirror Universe episodes of Enterprise, which had a different badge for the Defiant uniforms. Even STO has made up badges for TOS era Starships. The only time we really have absolute confirmed assignment patches is in Enterprise.
So what source are you citing that says every ship used the same badge? Because these two images from the TOS say otherwise.
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I know that it is off-topic, but I have nothing to say about omnis.
Want to make them rear-slot only? Fine. Keep them as they are? Okay. I am not crunching numbers so I don't know how much balance would be impacted.
But there is always the option to add the kinetic cutting beam, so we can have three 360 degree weapons if we want.
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I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
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For example, according to Gene Coon, who was the one who actually invented the Federation (up until then Roddenberry just used the term "the interstellar community"), it was based on the UN but a little tighter knit, somewhat similar to the very early US system with strong states and a relatively weak central government, which is why they used ambassadors instead of senators and whatnot)
Starfleet and the Federation as a whole wouldn't be fleshed out until the movies and later TNG.
And there's STILL the myth that every starship in TOS had unique assignment patches despite the existence of a document declaring that Starfleet personnel wore the same arrowhead as the Enterprise crew. In a way this was mitigated by the existence of Discovery showing that everyone used the arrowhead before TOS, but then we have outliers like the Mirror Universe episodes of Enterprise, which had a different badge for the Defiant uniforms. Even STO has made up badges for TOS era Starships. The only time we really have absolute confirmed assignment patches is in Enterprise.
So what source are you citing that says every ship used the same badge? Because these two images from the TOS say otherwise.
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I know that it is off-topic, but I have nothing to say about omnis.
Want to make them rear-slot only? Fine. Keep them as they are? Okay. I am not crunching numbers so I don't know how much balance would be impacted.
But there is always the option to add the kinetic cutting beam, so we can have three 360 degree weapons if we want.
The source was from behind the scenes documentation, but Justman wrote a funny memo chewing Theiss out about the insignia blunder with Tracy's uniform that has persisted on the web longer than other TOS production memos. There is a copy of it reprinted here along with an accurate explanation of how the various Starfleet branches were actually organized:
Commodore Decker wears the Starflower Petal insignia because he is a commodore assigned to field duty. The regular crew of the Constellation, if any were left, would have worn the Delta like everyone else.
Captain Tracy's insignia was a mistake, the very blunder that incited Justman to write that memo reminding everyone that they had an official list of Starfleet branches (six branches, btw) and their insignia and to make sure to use them going forward. Note that Tracy's crew wore the delta, as shown in sickbay and elsewhere.
Bottom line essentially identical damage when power draw is removed from the math.
I guess you missed the end of my post where I clearly stated I put the Omni in the first weapon slot, giving it a best case scenario. I didn't mean first rear slot.
Regardless, I've reached the limits of what I can reasonably test within my resources. I don't have the extender for Beam Overload, and most of those builds are work in progress, so best I can say is that the Omnis provided relatively expected results, and I'll have to ask others to properly handle that.
Under Fire at Will, with Entwined Tactical Matrices, the Phaser Omni did about 10% better than an array that wasn't quite as optimized (Epic omni vs VR array) which, for me, under the circumstances, falls within run to run variance.
On a disruptor build running Surgical Strikes 3, with Omni and Array both running max [Dmg] mods, the Omni pulled ahead by ~9%, but also had ~12% higher crit rate for that run.
Which brings us back to the Antiproton, rigged for [CritD]. Something is definitely off here. If I run the build without Surgical Strikes, the weapons are within ~10% of each other, apart from the Advanced Radiant which has built in Haste, but does not benefit from other sources of Haste, so gets fewer hits. However, under Surgical Strikes, the Omni's average damage and max damage both drop well below the others, making it worse than even the Advanced Radiant. My best guess, it that for some reason either the weapon CritD or the boost from Surgical are not being counted, most likely the CritD on the Omni as the Disruptor one seemed fine with it's Dmg mods. If someone else out there has the Dilithium to burn reengineering and testing this, please please do.
Omnis were always placed in either the first or second front weapon slot, to try to minimize impact from energy depletion, or variance from power activation.
I don't have appropriate equipment for Tetryon, and the Polaron run I did, the morphegenic apparently appears as a regular Polaron under Overload, so I had to throw out the results, and didn't redo it as I'm feeling lazy today.
That is what makes them annoying to really properly test. As you say its not just firing first... its ending up out of cycle cause of the extra arc. Even in the first firing slot, first the engine is silly and will fire out of sequence just cause. And then if you end up with mismatched cycles, it makes it near impossible and really doesn't matter which slot it goes in.
That is why I did a run with nothing but the Romulan experimental and an omni... as I knew it didn't matter the romulan doesn't draw power at all, so can't interfere fire order doesn't matter.
You make a good point on weapon fire modes. I have no idea if firing modes treat the omnis differently in anyway.
As I say I did run reroute in my test... and thinking about it now I could have run I guess any weapon with it as Reroute drops weapon power draw to zero anyway. As for overload... or surgical... or faw. Yes I guess you could run a bunch of different tests with nothing but the romulan experimental and an omni and see if any firing mode differs greatly. I think if you involve any other weapon however you nullify the test due to cycle miss matches.
I'll provide you with some extra context, as you seem so focused on weapon power. Unlike Beam Overload, Surgical Strikes does not increase power draw. I'm also using Emergency Weapon Cycle and the weapon cost reducing cruiser command. Doing the patrols on Elite reduces any weapon cycle shenanigans, as the enemies have enough HP to survive several volleys each. I have several runs now showing that Omni unexpectedly dropping 25-30% below where it should be, specifically when using Surgical Strikes, while 4 other weapons are unaffected. However, without outside corroboration, I can't rule out some quirk of my own piloting. One of the points of my testing is to try and test the weapons in real in game scenarios, which means testing them with firing modes and other enhancements. A Disruptor Omni tested with Surgical Strikes didn't show the same behavior, but it's mods were rolled to maximize [Dmg] instead of [CritD]. Was that because it was a disruptor, or because of the mods? Or some other difference in build? I'm not in a position to answer that question right now.
I'll provide you with some extra context, as you seem so focused on weapon power. Unlike Beam Overload, Surgical Strikes does not increase power draw. I'm also using Emergency Weapon Cycle and the weapon cost reducing cruiser command. Doing the patrols on Elite reduces any weapon cycle shenanigans, as the enemies have enough HP to survive several volleys each. I have several runs now showing that Omni unexpectedly dropping 25-30% below where it should be, specifically when using Surgical Strikes, while 4 other weapons are unaffected. However, without outside corroboration, I can't rule out some quirk of my own piloting. One of the points of my testing is to try and test the weapons in real in game scenarios, which means testing them with firing modes and other enhancements. A Disruptor Omni tested with Surgical Strikes didn't show the same behavior, but it's mods were rolled to maximize [Dmg] instead of [CritD]. Was that because it was a disruptor, or because of the mods? Or some other difference in build? I'm not in a position to answer that question right now.
You may have found a bug with that firing mode possible. I can't say as I have tested surgical all that close.
All I know is bottom line is if I sit in space and look at my weapon tool tips...
[Targeting-Linked Disruptor Beam Array Mk XV [CrtD/Dm] [CrtD]x4] Damage 3530.3
[Omni-Directional Disruptor Beam Array Mk XV [Arc] [CrtD/Dm] [CrtD]x3] Damage 3517.5
That is 0.4% difference. Which is within the Cryptic margin of error. lol Anything parsed beyond that is build... piloting skills. OR some Cryptic style bug making something like surgical not perform as it should. (and again I haven't extensively tested to see if surgical or any other weapon type is doing something funny) I did run one annoying a patrol with only 2 weapons slotted to completely remove weapon power from the math... and like the tool tip it showed that crafted omnis and single arrays are identical. Maybe if I am bored tomorrow... I'll run a 2 weapon test with the romulan beam and surgical and overload just to see if the results are still = or not.
Well, it is best not to over complicate things, so here's a picture worth a thousand words.
I'm not sure which part of that Omni is bugged, but it's definitely getting a report. The Disruptor Omni, by contrast, appears fine. Surgical should be boosting the damage on the AP by 330%, but its a weird amount, ~213.66%.
Checking on a second character that has an Antiproton Omni, same thing, and specifically with Surgical Strikes. Beam Overload 3 was giving correct damage on tooltip. So, I'm off to make a bug report. Wheeeeeeee.
At any rate, while I would prefer Omnis be unlocked, I'll say again that, outside of apparently oddly specific bugs, it really wouldn't affect or change many if any of my builds. The benefit just isn't there for me vs the cost of outfitting an entire ship with them. I get why people think it would be bad, but I ask you to remember what makes something like the Jelly work as a lazy boat. You claim it, and that's pretty much it. You don't spend months building R&D, or millions on the exchange. And if someone needs 360 degrees of fire to do their part in a TFO, I would prefer they have it. Piloting will still be important to maximize target opportunity and flanking bonuses.
Which AP omni is it? Because if it's the one from the Solanae Obelisk mission...that thing is a decade old and pretty sure literally the FIRST omni ever introduced - I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's broken beyond belief.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
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Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
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The Force is united within me.
Which AP omni is it? Because if it's the one from the Solanae Obelisk mission...that thing is a decade old and pretty sure literally the FIRST omni ever introduced - I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's broken beyond belief.
That's by design. It is, after all, 'ancient'
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Which AP omni is it? Because if it's the one from the Solanae Obelisk mission...that thing is a decade old and pretty sure literally the FIRST omni ever introduced - I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's broken beyond belief.
I've kind of skimmed over most of the walls-o-text as some of them are reiterations of other WoT. My opinion on this is that if they won't unrestrict omnis for all-omni builds, then restricting them to rear-only and no restriction on type (crafted/set).
Restricting it to one set and one crafted seems a bit too restrictive.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Comments
I am honestly stunned that more then one person believes such an odd argument.
BASE damage is =.
ARC is not a damage free mod... it is 110 degrees of extra firing arc. Real world use a Omni is going to out damage a 5 damage mod single array every single run. That is just fact. The only debate really is how much more damage.... and that would depend on piloting skill. I know single arrays already have a very wide angle of fire as is... still if you take a ship with 3 omnis in the rear, and we assume it is only on target 5% longer. If every beam was an omni that is going to result in a lot more actual attacks on a target. If you only have 3 rear omnis its going to be 40-50 more attacks... if 8 omnis are slotted that is going to ramp up even higher. Overfly a target... who cares. It would be game breaking.
One Damage mod is not enough of a trade for a omni arc. Which ever dev added omnis to the game is of the same mind on that one as I am. They CHOOSE to release omnis at FULL damage... but limit how many could be slotted. IMO that was a good development move... with the caveat that the complication confuses players. As is clear now that I see two people I know understand the game somehow believing one [dmg] mod is enough of a trade.
I mean heck lets just unlock omnis... and lets buff Turrets up to Dual cannon damage as well so we can all just load Omni and turret builds and stop pretending anyone enjoys having to choose weapon setups.
I'm going to be upfront... I read nothing else in your response and have no intention to do so.
From the wiki.
Base dps of a turret White MK 15. 462
Base dps of a single cannon white MK15. 739
Difference 37% damage reduction for the turret.
base dps of a single array White MK 15 616
base dps of a white MK 15 omni if we could roll one. 616
Difference in damage ZERO %.
[DMG] = 3% cat1damage
SO even if I accept your argument which I do not. You are arguing that a 3% damage reduction for omnis is sufficient. I mean cannons drop 37% of their base damage to go 360. Your suggesting beams dropping only 3% makes sense?? Ok
Again cryptic has a balance solution for this... they limited omnis to 1 per ship + 1 set version (which do have reduced damage). They wanted people to use their new crafting system and though lets give everyone the ability to craft one actual powerful weapon they will want. I think they made the right call. I am not looking for a 37% damage reduction for omnis. Its just that is the pattern they laid out with weapons. You have to trade something for 360. They choose a limit which imo works well.
As phoenixc pointed out. Reducing omni damage to unlock them would actually punish people running Dual beam banks. Most DBB builds are 5/2 or even 5/1 ships. Having a full damage omni in the back helps make it worth the trouble of piloting a ship with a 90 degree forward arc. The game is geared to reward good piloting with escorts ships... or loading turn gear/traits on a 5/3 type cruiser. No one flying those types of ships with DBB wants an omni beam damage reduction so they can slot one more. To be fair... if Cryptic said 1 crafted and 2 set omnis; I guess that isn't game breaking but it does lead to a major issue in that not every weapon type has more then one set omni.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
For me the primary nuisance with the limitation is how often I have 2 omnis in my inventory, go to put the 2nd on, and find I can't. Particularly since Cryptic has gone out of their way the past year or two to create event set rewards with an omni in it.
Having people work for rewards and then tell them they can't use them seems sub-optimal to me. And I suspect that cannon builders feel quite left out on reward set after reward set that has no turret or cannon option. Yes, 2 set omnis + 1 crafted would be nice to have, I wouldn't mind a DPS cut on a base omni if that was the case.
But even just removing the set/non-set restriction with the limit of 2, and/or including turrets in the sets would also go a long way towards reducing the frustration.
Now you say in the bolded section that the arc mod is not a damage mod, in which case you are correct. However you then go on to say having arc means an omni will do more damage than an array in every single run, which is objectively and verifiably false. So I have to ask, if arc is not a free damage mod as you say, why are you trying to sit here and say that omnis will always outdo an array? There are plenty of parses I could post or others could post who use omnis where it's absolutely not the top damaging weapon at all. As I said in another post we can sit here and play "what if" all day long but I'm not doing that. Original point still stands, if an omni and an array are both firing and hitting a target the omni will NEVER outdo the array.
As for damage ramp up you claim would happen, again this is verifiably false. If omnis were unlocked and nerfed as proposed, you're still doing 15%-25% less damage than you would have with dedicated arrays. Again that's basic math. Furthermore we've gotten away from the key part of the debate which was why they need to be unlocked, and that's because it's foolish to allow turrets to have access to every set bonus under the sun, but deny beam users the same thing.
Regarding the line in bold YOU DON'T KNOW THAT unless they specifically tell you. Your argument there is an equivocation fallacy. It's the same thing as someone seeing me buy a cake at a bakery and then automatically concluding I must be buying it for someone's birthday, when in reality I just wanted a cake because I like cake. That is why I prefaced what I said previously about what I was told years ago with "this may not be true anymore". As to the rest of this paragraph of yours, that is purely your opinion.
Quote the exact line where you believe I said something like that, because that's not what I said at all. Now you're straight up strawmaning.
What I have said from the start is if power creep is a concern, then nerf the crafted omnis into line with the set omnis so the crafted omnis will also fall within that 15%-25% less damage than an array and 36% less damage than a dual bank. If you want cannons and beams to be somewhat equal in their percentages, that's your solution since set omnis already do 36% less than dual banks. Nerfing crafted arrays into that range as I suggested before puts them on equal ground. THAT is what I said.
If you want things more equalized, the precedent already established for set omnis to do 36% less than dual banks and 15%-25% less than an array. Crafted omnis fall outside of this range therefore need to be nerfed into those ranges. Yet you complain about it because you want your cake and to eat it too.
The point in bold is objectively false and I've already explained it above in my previous post. There are alot of 5/2 and 5/1 dual bank builds. However you can't simply ignore the 5/3 and 4/3 dual bank builds which are just as valid and seen just as often as the 5/2 and 5/1 types. See the Vaadwaur jugg which can do cannons or dual banks effectively and is a 5/3 as just one example of this.
As explained before, assuming an x/3 layout on the ship your most common combos of weapons in the back will be either:
-A: 1 crafted omni, 1 set omni, and kinetic cutting beam
-B: 1 crafted omni, 1 set omni, and a torpedo or turret
So at best you're talking 1 weapon that gets a little weaker. in the instance of Group A, they can pick up extra damage by replacing the KCB with either another set omni or another crafted omni. For this matter they could run 3 set omnis if they wished. At worst it evens out, at best it increases damage. For Group B, similar situation in which they could replace the crafted omni with another set omni with the set evening out the damage or increasing damage overall.
If a build is a x/2 then you're looking at a crafted omni and a set omni being the most common combo. See again this allows for an increase by slotting the second set omni. I didn't bother with any of the x/1 layouts as they're probably already running a set omni to begin with so no change would take place on their damage. A damage reduction to a single weapon should NOT be crippling your entire build and if it is then you have bigger problems to worry about.
I saved this part for last because it gets back to the original debate. You call the thing in bold a solution, I call it arbitrary and foolish and is the actual thing punishing beam users as a whole. It locks beam users out of set bonuses when cannon users can use any sets they please with little to no issues.
I'm a polaron fanatic because I'm weird like that. As is right now if I wanted to use the chronometric, inhibiting, and morphogenic sets on a polaron cannon build I have to use the morphogenic omni/turret, the chronometric turret and inhibiting turret. Thus I can use all 3 sets. However if I wanted to run dual banks and pure damage is my goal, I don't get to use the chronometric and inhibiting omnis at all. I'm forced to use turrets which works against the build since I have 2 weapons that won't benefit from my beam enhancements or firing modes. Thus I have to waste a boff slot I may not have on scatter volley. In other words I can't make a true beam build, I'm forced to make a hybrid.
In other words, a cannon polaron build could use the inhibiting, chronometric and morphogenic sets without issue. yet the dual bank build can't. THAT is the problem I have. It's an arbitrary restriction that has no business existing in today's game. You say dual bank users are punished, but in actuality it's beam users as a whole that are punished. If I want to use dual banks and call on all of those sets, or even a broad side array build, I can't do that. I'm forced to slot the turret variants. THAT is the issue. Why should I as a beam user be locked out of set bonuses because of some dumb arbitrary restriction when cannon users are not? Why should I have to create a hybrid of beams/cannons when cannon users don't have to do that? There is a punishment going on, but it's been against beam users for nearly a decade now.
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I was going to stay out of this, but this, I have to disagree with. I regularly fly a fleet bozeman intel heavy frigate, with 4 arrays + 1 torp up front, and 2 omnis + 1 torp in the back. The torps are there for set bonuses. 250 is a massive firing arc, it would take effort to not keep those weapons on target with my build. Even if omnis were unlocked, I'd have no reason to change it, and yes, the omnis would ultimately do less damage. In fact...
I have Combat Log Analyzer, and can do some patrols, to compare numbers. So I did. In Ruins of Doom, Running a Delphic antiproton array with [CritD/Dm] and [CritDx4] in ruins of doom, it did a total of 17,833.56 dps. A crafted Antiproton Omni in the same run, with [CritD/Dm] [Arc] [CritDx3] did 8450.85. This, honestly, was bad data. The Omni was still in a rear slot, and was firing last of all my weapons, leading it to only getting 100 hits vs the Delphics 142. Still, we can average out the damage per shot. The Delphic gets 19,729.95, and the Omni gets 13,276.3. However, again, the Delphic in this case had about 10% higher crit rate, because rng. Max one hit for Delphic was 113,250, Omni was 58,338.2.
I decided to give the Omni a better chance, and moved it to the front so it could fire before the Delphic array, and moved on to the Sentinels patrol, where the Elachi love to teleport behind you. Things went much better for the Omni here, moving up front so it could fire first gave it quite the edge, with 76 hits vs the Delphics 54. The critical hits worked out to only a 4% difference under surgical strikes as well, again in the Omni's favor, with it also enjoying a 60% vs 7% crit advantage outside of surgical strikes. The Omni achieved a total dps of 6671.49, with an average damage of 13,808.24, and max one hit of 55,825.8. The Delphic managed 5,787.72 dps, but here's kicker. the Delphics average hit, even with critical hit% disadvantage, was 16,859.4, with a max one hit of 85,809.9.
The biggest difference between the runs was which of the two was firing first in my weapon order, but the Delphic, at least with [CritD], is my clear winner, with a higher average damage, if it's in front where it should be and all else being equal, it will do more damage, with the Omni playing serious catch up.
Now, I doubt 1 [CritD] is enough to explain that level of difference between the two weapons, but there's only so much I can do to control the outcomes, and 2 sets of data is hardly enough to draw a real conclusion. However, even if the Omni had performed better, I doubt I'd be inclined to change to an all omni build if they unlocked them. Crafting Omnis, or buying them off the exchange, is expensive in time, money, or both, and wouldn't be worth it to me. If you want to keep arguing about how broken Omnis would be, then start coercing some other people to do more testing, so we can put this to bed.
Actually, it gets worse, because base Antiproton has a built in CritD mod, so they were both technically [CritD/Dm] [CritDx4], with +100% crit severity for both. Delphic weapons instead have a proc to give you 10% extra crit chance and severity for 5 seconds. Regardless, much more testing would be required for a real conclusion.
There seems to be some kind of communications failure here, so I am not going to try and answer the whole long post point by point this time around, and the section I quote here seems to be the crux of the communication problem. Also I am a bit ADHD and tend to think in a sort of weighted node and tree fashion where a mindmap or hypertext notation would be more fitting, and I sometimes have a bit of trouble serializing it with the right tone, especially on long posts when I start getting distracted by the need to move on to something else for a while, so shorter is better in this case.
I have answered your "final question" several times since the relevant parts are just a reiteration of things further up in your posts that I had addressed already, but the way you put it it looked more like the kind of questions to spur on thinking about the issue rather than ones that were supposed to be answered.
First off, I don't dislike the idea of the 8-omni build for itself, I would actually run one or two myself if it was available, for reasons I will get to shortly, but it is not available, and I understand the dev's reasoning for that (up to a point, the 1+1 thing is unnecessarily nit-picking and confusing, not to mention that trying to run multiple sets containing omnis is impossible with it).
What you apparently took to be distain at it not taking much piloting skill was simply an observation, not a condemnation. It even has some appeal in some less weapons-oriented setups because more attention can go to firing off sometimes complicated sequences of abilities and less to maneuver without resorting to keybind files, and it would make a good look for some themes as well.
My concern about it is entirely due to the devs having said in the past that the only way they would allow unrestricted omnis is if they were massively nerfed to be more in line with turrets (or words to that effect). Majorly nerfing omnis like that would negatively impact the viability of DBBs (which I tend to use quite a lot of since they are affordable and usually the best choice for forward oriented beam builds, which is something I tend to do a lot of).
Contrary to your (to me at least) rather strange interpretations of what I said, I don't care about the meta myself (which is just as well since I would not be able to afford most of them anyway).
Most of my builds are non-meta and quite a few of them are rather niche or otherwise unusual, including an all-turret Vo'Quv years ago, some experiments with dual-energy combinations where the synergies of the particular pieces seem to complement, beam/cannon mixes, several "armed merchantman" tractor builds, etc, in pursuit of themes or just curiosity.
I don't have any problem with others running niche builds either and I don't jump on the hate bandwagons over things like the jellyfish (it is just a specialized form of aura tank) that so many others seem to do, and I tend to actively defend concepts like the jellyfish and other attempts to widen the field away from the current obsession with DPS-above-all.
Some of the themes I try to do even come from outside of Trek (I was doing crossover stories long before they became popular in the mainstream, and I carry some of that mindset into the game) and if 8 omnis were allowed I would run it on a few of those themes where that mass of beams that can either fire all around or concentrate on one target would fit the theme a lot better.
So, just how many missed shots do you think it would take for omnis to catch up? From figures I have found on the web it only takes 1.11 misses for the omni to catch up with the array. That means that if the enemy slips out of arc for two shots (or two arrays for one shot) you are better off (at least until the next shot hits) with the omnis since they never go out of arc. And yes, it does not sound like much but depending on the situation and who the enemy is (Elachi jump around like fleas for instance so that happens a lot) and 0.89 of an array shot might be just enough extra burst to kill it.
I even run a few DBB/array builds as a semi-forward-oriented FAW boat where that fits the theme (and those figures above feel about right compared to DBB/omni builds I run). Functionally the DBB/array builds I have tried are more like science/tac hybrid and the idea is to use lance and other consoles and abilities (ideally with forward-firing beam SFX) to damage the main target to help compensate for the fact that the DBBs are not getting any support from the rear mounts (or not very much in the case of DoT arrays in the rear and a ship that can spin fast enough to make the DoT effect relevant for the DBB). Not great for the most part, but it is something to tinker with, though it does drive home how dependent DBBs are on omnis to support them properly.
That said, while I try to make my builds at least viable with what I can afford and whatnot, DPS is not my main concern (I do not compete for top spot on the charts or go to great lengths to squeeze out every possible point of damage or any of that), the character concepts/ship concepts are the main things I like to explore in the game, I find it refreshing to get into character and out of the mundane viewpoint for a while.
As for "who is the victim", it depends on the devs and exactly how the game system works behind the scenes.
I like polaron too, and would also like to mount all three polaron set omnis instead of the omni/turret nonsense. And it has been proven that at least two set omnis are safe balance-wise, I doubt even three of any type would upset things to a noticeable degree. Many more than that and I get the feeling power creep would rear its ugly head though (I admit that it is a feeling however, I have not had the time to try and do a deep dive into the numbers and theory, so I might be wrong, but considering what (little) the devs have said about it I don't think so).
Second part of the issue is that it's ultimately irrelevant to the original debate which was damage of omnis vs arrays and which one hits harder. In that context by default it assumes both firing and hitting the target, in which case an omni will always lose to an array. If he wishes to introduce additional factors it's on him to list said factors and then define them so a debate can be had. I can't go chasing down what amounts to ghosts in the form of undefined terms.
Also I have to ask, where did the spike damage thing come from? Because I've not mentioned that in any of my stuff. The only assumptions I've worked with are the original debate of omni vs array. In that instance it assumes both firing under identical conditions and hitting the target.
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1st Place: Delphic Antiproton Beam Array, MkXV, Epic, [CritD/Dm], [CritDx4], 231 hits, 21,150 dps
2nd Place: Herald Antiproton Beam Array, MkXV, Ultra Rare, [CritDx4], 232 hits, 19,987 dps
3rd Place: Advanced Temporal Defense Antiproton Beam Array, MkXV, Ultra rare, [Acc] [CritDx2] [Dmg], 240 hits, 19,724 dps
4th Place: Advanced Radiant Antiproton Beam Array, MkXV, Epic, [CritD/Dm] [CritDx3] [Proc], 188 hits, 17,272 dps
5th Place: Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array, MkXV, Epic, [CritD/Dm] [CritDx3] [Arc], 260 hits, 13,984 dps
In as close as I can do to an apples to apples comparison, The Omni-Directional Antiproton Beam Array is clearly underperforming compared to the single arrays, even with significantly more hits. It's max one hit in this run was ~30k lower than the next lowest, while it's average hit under Surgical Strikes 3 was ~ 12k lower. When I have time, I'll take a look at some of my other builds to look at some other damage type Omnis, but the damage output seems to be out of line from where it should be, if it really is as close in dps as it claims. It should be handily beating the Temporal Defense arrary, but only did ~70.9% as much damage, with 108.333% the hits. And to be clear, I put the Omni in the first weapon slot, and played against Elachi that teleport behind the player, to give it the biggest real world advantage I could think of. I would be very interested in seeing some other peoples results.
I don't know what your definition of "time on target" is, but the usage I was using is how much of the firing cycle the target is in range and in arc (which I know is not quite the artillery usage of the term, but it is one of the ways gamers use the term more or less, though in this case the pulses are slower than the term is usually used for (which is things that hose down the target in a more continuous manner like tachyon beams in STO). For omnis, unless the target slips out of range 100% of the damage of each cycle is applied to the target, for arrays it is usually less than 100%, sometimes considerably less.
And if you go back and read what I said instead of inaccurately paraphrasing it you will find that what I said was that skill in maneuvering does not always help, not that it didn't matter at all the way you imply. As I said further down, maneuver is not a magic wand, arrays will almost always have at least some time out of arc no matter how good you might be at maneuvering and (supposedly anyway) the damage gap between the two weapons is narrow enough that even one or two misses is significant.
Of course, the practical tests parmeggido ran are interesting and seem to indicate the analysis I found on the web may not have been as accurate as they seemed with all the math proofs and whatnot, and omnis might actually be closer to turrets than arrays despite what the tooltips and whatnot indicate. If that is the case, then the limits may indeed be nothing but arbitrary.
Thank you for this research. It'll be pretty significant if this holds true for other omnis. The difference is far greater than should be for just the (effective) loss of one mod. It's a roughly 30% drop from the normal arrays which means it's already in "turret reduction" territory.
Does that particular omni show a significantly lower base damage than the others, or is there some hidden reduction to Omni damage in the damage formula?
The only way to reliably test weapon vs weapon dps is to run one weapon at a time. Which I know sounds silly. However its the only way to account for power draw.
Most people put their omnis in their aft slots which in general fire after the fore slots. So in your test most likely the omni beam is firing with 32 less weapon power then the Delphic. Also keep in mind the advance reputation beams get a bonus dmg buff if you have the reputations completed.
Romulan Experimental [crtd/dmg] [crtd]x4
Disruptor Omni directional [crtd/dmg] [crtd]x2 [Arc] [Pen]
I don't have a romulan and omni without pen on this toon. But this will be close enough. I only fired these 2 weapons disabled all other weapons... didn't use any Sci or debuffs, just a copy of reroute so I wouldn't be there all day. I used the Romulan experimental as it has zero weapon power draw.... it does however have the small dmg buff from having a T6 rep done. Still this will serve.
Wanted advance patrol
Romulan Disruptor = 9,081.78 Max hit 31,189 315 attacks
Disruptor Omni = 8722.70 Max hit 29,841.40 317 attacks
I did my best to ensure they were both in arc... still somehow got a couple extra attacks out of the omni but I don't think that changes my point. In a real world scenario of course the omni would get a lot more extra attacks then just 0.7%.
Expected results on the single array thanks to a 2% cat2 buff from the rep. (I actually thought that would offset with pen but I guess I wasn't doing any extra debuffing or anything... had more debuff been in play I think the omni with pen probably would have pulled ahead, that is outside the scope of this test though)
Bottom line essentially identical damage when power draw is removed from the math.
And that's the issue. I personally really don't care about the math or if people "play lazy" I couldn't care less about that. But this right here is just ridiculous.
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Did you see Commodore Decker's badge? He was the CO of the Constellation.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/a/aa/Matt_Decker_on_the_Bridge.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20230315065233&path-prefix=en
That is not the insignia used by the Enterprise.
How about Captain Tracey from the Exeter?
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/f/f0/Tracey_and_Wu.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110327221511&path-prefix=en
That is not the Enterprise insignia.
So what source are you citing that says every ship used the same badge? Because these two images from the TOS say otherwise.
=============
I know that it is off-topic, but I have nothing to say about omnis.
Want to make them rear-slot only? Fine. Keep them as they are? Okay. I am not crunching numbers so I don't know how much balance would be impacted.
But there is always the option to add the kinetic cutting beam, so we can have three 360 degree weapons if we want.
Signed by Justman himself.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
The source was from behind the scenes documentation, but Justman wrote a funny memo chewing Theiss out about the insignia blunder with Tracy's uniform that has persisted on the web longer than other TOS production memos. There is a copy of it reprinted here along with an accurate explanation of how the various Starfleet branches were actually organized:
https://startrek.com/news/starfleet-insignia-explained
The short answers to your questions are
I guess you missed the end of my post where I clearly stated I put the Omni in the first weapon slot, giving it a best case scenario. I didn't mean first rear slot.
Regardless, I've reached the limits of what I can reasonably test within my resources. I don't have the extender for Beam Overload, and most of those builds are work in progress, so best I can say is that the Omnis provided relatively expected results, and I'll have to ask others to properly handle that.
Under Fire at Will, with Entwined Tactical Matrices, the Phaser Omni did about 10% better than an array that wasn't quite as optimized (Epic omni vs VR array) which, for me, under the circumstances, falls within run to run variance.
On a disruptor build running Surgical Strikes 3, with Omni and Array both running max [Dmg] mods, the Omni pulled ahead by ~9%, but also had ~12% higher crit rate for that run.
Which brings us back to the Antiproton, rigged for [CritD]. Something is definitely off here. If I run the build without Surgical Strikes, the weapons are within ~10% of each other, apart from the Advanced Radiant which has built in Haste, but does not benefit from other sources of Haste, so gets fewer hits. However, under Surgical Strikes, the Omni's average damage and max damage both drop well below the others, making it worse than even the Advanced Radiant. My best guess, it that for some reason either the weapon CritD or the boost from Surgical are not being counted, most likely the CritD on the Omni as the Disruptor one seemed fine with it's Dmg mods. If someone else out there has the Dilithium to burn reengineering and testing this, please please do.
Omnis were always placed in either the first or second front weapon slot, to try to minimize impact from energy depletion, or variance from power activation.
I don't have appropriate equipment for Tetryon, and the Polaron run I did, the morphegenic apparently appears as a regular Polaron under Overload, so I had to throw out the results, and didn't redo it as I'm feeling lazy today.
That is why I did a run with nothing but the Romulan experimental and an omni... as I knew it didn't matter the romulan doesn't draw power at all, so can't interfere fire order doesn't matter.
You make a good point on weapon fire modes. I have no idea if firing modes treat the omnis differently in anyway.
As I say I did run reroute in my test... and thinking about it now I could have run I guess any weapon with it as Reroute drops weapon power draw to zero anyway. As for overload... or surgical... or faw. Yes I guess you could run a bunch of different tests with nothing but the romulan experimental and an omni and see if any firing mode differs greatly. I think if you involve any other weapon however you nullify the test due to cycle miss matches.
You may have found a bug with that firing mode possible. I can't say as I have tested surgical all that close.
All I know is bottom line is if I sit in space and look at my weapon tool tips...
[Targeting-Linked Disruptor Beam Array Mk XV [CrtD/Dm] [CrtD]x4] Damage 3530.3
[Omni-Directional Disruptor Beam Array Mk XV [Arc] [CrtD/Dm] [CrtD]x3] Damage 3517.5
That is 0.4% difference. Which is within the Cryptic margin of error. lol Anything parsed beyond that is build... piloting skills. OR some Cryptic style bug making something like surgical not perform as it should. (and again I haven't extensively tested to see if surgical or any other weapon type is doing something funny) I did run one annoying a patrol with only 2 weapons slotted to completely remove weapon power from the math... and like the tool tip it showed that crafted omnis and single arrays are identical. Maybe if I am bored tomorrow... I'll run a 2 weapon test with the romulan beam and surgical and overload just to see if the results are still = or not.
I'm not sure which part of that Omni is bugged, but it's definitely getting a report. The Disruptor Omni, by contrast, appears fine. Surgical should be boosting the damage on the AP by 330%, but its a weird amount, ~213.66%.
Checking on a second character that has an Antiproton Omni, same thing, and specifically with Surgical Strikes. Beam Overload 3 was giving correct damage on tooltip. So, I'm off to make a bug report. Wheeeeeeee.
At any rate, while I would prefer Omnis be unlocked, I'll say again that, outside of apparently oddly specific bugs, it really wouldn't affect or change many if any of my builds. The benefit just isn't there for me vs the cost of outfitting an entire ship with them. I get why people think it would be bad, but I ask you to remember what makes something like the Jelly work as a lazy boat. You claim it, and that's pretty much it. You don't spend months building R&D, or millions on the exchange. And if someone needs 360 degrees of fire to do their part in a TFO, I would prefer they have it. Piloting will still be important to maximize target opportunity and flanking bonuses.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
That's by design. It is, after all, 'ancient'
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It's the R&D Crafted AP Omni.
Restricting it to one set and one crafted seems a bit too restrictive.