Scott's Guide to DW2 available to download (version 3.2)

[Cyclopsslayerr]

Exactly what I have been talking about in your YT comments. You might guess who I am lol

Yup - good questions so I thought some charts like these would be useful. Putting them in the next video!

One thing that is terribly awkwardly worded is that some weapons like this list Interception range, energy, fire rate, but not what it works against. This is t3,

[frankycl]

Wow, that's really an extraordinary, seemingly professional piece of art/work (if formatting documents/texts can be seen as art - what they do in my opinion) - thank you a thousand times for this. (just discovered it, because of a link in a Steam-discussion. )

EDIT: They really should link this in their launcher, too, imho.

[Scott2933]

One thing that is terribly awkwardly worded is that some weapons like this list Interception range, energy, fire rate, but not what it works against. This is t3,

Yup.

I also noticed that the design screen has no information about Hull reactive rating (damage reduction to weapons that hit the hull). It's only in the research screens.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

One thing that is terribly awkwardly worded is that some weapons like this list Interception range, energy, fire rate, but not what it works against. This is t3,

Yup.

I also noticed that the design screen has no information about Hull reactive rating (damage reduction to weapons that hit the hull). It's only in the research screens.

Actually, if you go into the designer New > Hull right there it displays the Hull's innate Reactive and Ion defense. If you modify or examine an existing design you are right it doesn't display it. Only on New designs.
For completeness, you might want to add Fighters which at early levels have 1 reactive. I don't currently have a save with Mid and High tech fighters. It wouldn't surprise me that those had 2 or 3's

I currently assume that the total reactive isn't Armor + Hull, but rather Armor then Hull? As only a shot that penetrates the armor would reach the hull.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

New post as this is an entirely different subject.

Quantity vs. Quality

Take the Self-repairing Swarms fighter Missile. A fighter can carry 2 launchers, each launcher fires 12 missiles. So 24 potential hits on a shield. Each fighter missile does 8 damage, 2 get through the shields to be absorbed by the armor reactive. So effectively infinite missiles hitting would all be equally ignored.

While one 34 damage regular missile would bypass 8.5 damage and after resistance apply 14.5 damage to the shield with a stock shield repairing 4 per second. The bypass would splash harmlessly against the armor until the shields go down. No leaky shields anymore.

So, to some extent, the rationale that you were testing of Large versus Medium weapons applies to this.
In almost all cases a Single larger hit is more effective than multiple lesser hits. Two shots, you effectively double the defense reactive,Twelve shots, just looks sad...

[Scott2933]

Actually, if you go into the designer New > Hull right there it displays the Hull's innate Reactive and Ion defense. If you modify or examine an existing design you are right it doesn't display it. Only on New designs.
For completeness, you might want to add Fighters which at early levels have 1 reactive. I don't currently have a save with Mid and High tech fighters. It wouldn't surprise me that those had 2 or 3's

I currently assume that the total reactive isn't Armor + Hull, but rather Armor then Hull? As only a shot that penetrates the armor would reach the hull.

Wow - I so rarely use new - I see it now! Thanks.

Reactive is separate - Armor for armor hits and hull for hull hits. Not additive - separate.

As for your other points about size - yes, all good points. And the more advantage your enemy has in tech on you - the more important that you use (L) or larger weapons whenever you can.

[Scott2933]

For those who can't wait for my next version - here's a preview of some of the new charts:

ScannersCompared.jpg (183.21 KiB) Viewed 4281 times

[Cyclopsslayerr]

For those who can't wait for my next version - here's a preview of some of the new charts:

BTW, confirmed that Quantum Capacitors stack effects. The bonus Shield strength, and Shield regen display with each added Capacitor. I am either missing it or the shield's resistance isn't displayed anywhere. However, everything else stacks. Added 6 capacitors to a Dreadnought for a potential resistance of 41, negating many weapon systems.

[Scott2933]

For those who can't wait for my next version - here's a preview of some of the new charts:

BTW, confirmed that Quantum Capacitors stack effects. The bonus Shield strength, and Shield regen display with each added Capacitor. I am either missing it or the shield's resistance isn't displayed anywhere. However, everything else stacks. Added 6 capacitors to a Dreadnought for a potential resistance of 41, negating many weapon systems.

Good to know! Wow! Most things (like regular shields) do not stack. Thanks so much for sharing this.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

For those who can't wait for my next version - here's a preview of some of the new charts:

BTW, confirmed that Quantum Capacitors stack effects. The bonus Shield strength, and Shield regen display with each added Capacitor. I am either missing it or the shield's resistance isn't displayed anywhere. However, everything else stacks. Added 6 capacitors to a Dreadnought for a potential resistance of 41, negating many weapon systems.

Good to know! Wow! Most things (like regular shields) do not stack. Thanks so much for sharing this.

Good point, regular shields stack Shield value and regen/sec, but not resistance I may have been drunk on power, lol. The brief test I ran, far too late last night,

At my current techs the Shield bonus (+80) and Shield Regen bonus (+1/sec) stack simply, 4x QCaps = +320 Shields and +4/sec regen. The Shiels resistance bonus (+4) I'll try testing later today.

[Scott2933]

Good point, regular shields stack Shield value and regen/sec, but not resistance I may have been drunk on power, lol. The brief test I ran, far too late last night,

At my current techs the Shield bonus (+80) and Shield Regen bonus (+1/sec) stack simply, 4x QCaps = +320 Shields and +4/sec regen. The Shiels resistance bonus (+4) I'll try testing later today.

Yes - those stacks make sense (I expect them to stack). But I was talking about resistance. I do not think it stacks. But let me know if you find out differently.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

Good point, regular shields stack Shield value and regen/sec, but not resistance I may have been drunk on power, lol. The brief test I ran, far too late last night,

At my current techs the Shield bonus (+80) and Shield Regen bonus (+1/sec) stack simply, 4x QCaps = +320 Shields and +4/sec regen. The Shiels resistance bonus (+4) I'll try testing later today.

Yes - those stacks make sense (I expect them to stack). But I was talking about resistance. I do not think it stacks. But let me know if you find out differently.

I need to get OBS or something. The behavior was in no means what I was expecting.

Fleet Destroyer target. No weapons

3x Talassos v1 shields 77(1 resist) 10%/35% 0.66/sec
4x QCaps v1 40(2 resist) 0.5/sec
2x Enhanced Armor 125(5 reactive)

Shields: 391 (3 or 9 resist) 3.98/sec regen 10% of 35% bypass.

Versus -
t4 Lightning Missile 15dmg 25% shld bypass -10% armor bypass

Expected - 4 bypass to splash against armor. 80% one missile doing 5 to armor per volley also splashes.
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 3, 8 damage to the shield, 2 of which regens before the next hit
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 9, 2 damage to the shield, full regen before next missile

Observed - 5 of the 8 missiles hit. Of which 2 did no detectable damage. 2 did the 8 damage to the shield, 1 hit did 4 which might be a shield failure, but the value is odd.

However! The shield almost instantly regenned to full which might be why I saw 2 hits as doing no damage.

I want to redo this, but it will be a day or two until I get the time

[Scott2933]

Expected - 4 bypass to splash against armor. 80% one missile doing 5 to armor per volley also splashes.
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 3, 8 damage to the shield, 2 of which regens before the next hit
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 9, 2 damage to the shield, full regen before next missile

Observed - 5 of the 8 missiles hit. Of which 2 did no detectable damage. 2 did the 8 damage to the shield, 1 hit did 4 which might be a shield failure, but the value is odd.

However! The shield almost instantly regenned to full which might be why I saw 2 hits as doing no damage.

I want to redo this, but it will be a day or two until I get the time

So I did some testing too - it seems:

1) 2 Shields of different Shield resistances - it uses the lower of the 2 (makes sense)
2) 4 Quantum Capacitors - Shields strength of each added (makes sense), recharge of each added to total recharge rate (makes sense too), and only ONE of the 4 shield resistances get added to the total Shield resistance (the other 3 do not help in this category).

I think that matches your data well.

I've attached an example chart. Again, thanks for bringing this to my attention!! It's some good data. I'm going to add this to the next version:

Shields and Capacitors.jpg (67.59 KiB) Viewed 4023 times

[CarloTheCurious]

Do stealth cloaks affect resistances at all? They don't have a resistance listed, but they do take a defence slot.

(I've been putting one on most of my combat ships for the countermeasures bonus, but the thought occurs to me that I might be nerfing the ships' resistance)

[Scott2933]

Do stealth cloaks affect resistances at all? They don't have a resistance listed, but they do take a defence slot.

(I've been putting one on most of my combat ships for the countermeasures bonus, but the thought occurs to me that I might be nerfing the ships' resistance)

No.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

Expected - 4 bypass to splash against armor. 80% one missile doing 5 to armor per volley also splashes.
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 3, 8 damage to the shield, 2 of which regens before the next hit
..... Shield hits 11 damage, resist 9, 2 damage to the shield, full regen before next missile

Observed - 5 of the 8 missiles hit. Of which 2 did no detectable damage. 2 did the 8 damage to the shield, 1 hit did 4 which might be a shield failure, but the value is odd.

However! The shield almost instantly regenned to full which might be why I saw 2 hits as doing no damage.

I want to redo this, but it will be a day or two until I get the time

So I did some testing too - it seems:

1) 2 Shields of different Shield resistances - it uses the lower of the 2 (makes sense)
2) 4 Quantum Capacitors - Shields strength of each added (makes sense), recharge of each added to total recharge rate (makes sense too), and only ONE of the 4 shield resistances get added to the total Shield resistance (the other 3 do not help in this category).

I think that matches your data well.

I've attached an example chart. Again, thanks for bringing this to my attention!! It's some good data. I'm going to add this to the next version:

This does define a sharp line between Good and Inadequate endgame weapons. Missiles have a high volume of fire, but never do more than 34 each. *Using the same ships with Meridian shields and invulnerable armor, 8 bypass the shields to splash against the armor. Shield resistance 11 against the shield, leaves 15 damage per missile to strike the skields. BUT this 3 shields and 4 QCaps at max will regenerate 24 shields a second while taking 30 damage from 2 misilles in that second.
So, only 3 cumulative damage per missile. This simple Destroyer would need more than 1300 missile hits to penetrate its 4000 point shields from a single launcher. Taking regen out, if all the missiles hit in a single instance it would take ~280 missiles to get 1 point inside the armor... Against a Destroyer!!! QED, Missiles SUCK

Edit: Fighter missiles arrive in vast swarms, but at 8 damage each neither the shield nor armor will ever take a point of damage until something else take the shields and armor away.

Essentially, if your shield bypass doesn't exceed the armor's reactive rating, all shield bypass does is weaken your attack.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

Under the weather today, but this calls for a weapon breakdown. t4 and endgame t9. Super gears break all the rules so we'll skip those... Ship and fighter versions. Although I am beginning to think Fighters are more distractions and to destroy crippled ships than as a threat endgame.
Eyeballed endgame results"

Blasters - Ftr BIS, all other mounts good to great
Phasers -trash
Beams - decent to good
Ion (?)
Gravitic - No Ftr version, massive defense penetration, great
Torpedo - decent in all mounts but not great
Missile -trash
Railguns -Ftr trash, Medium very low damage but does shleld and armor
Electromagnetic(?)

[Omena]

Some nice testing. I've also stayed away from missiles due to too low max damage values.

However, there should be a chance that damage bypassing shields can also damage hull/components. This should missiles some more usability by potentially taking out components. Have you noticed this happening?

Blaster have by far the best dps values, but they also have short range (not really an issue atm.) and they drain a ton of energy (need more reactors and re-fueling).

Fighters are mostly just for taking out bombers, since their max damage values are way too low to actually damage larger targets. Bombers should be able to, but I'm not sure if they are really worth it (take time to reach targets, can be shot down, can take a lot of space, slow to rebuild and bad at long engagements etc.).

Ion weapons are very good if ion defences are low (immediately take out shields for instance). But, if Ion defences are sufficient, they do pretty much nothing.

[Cyclopsslayerr]

Blaster have by far the best dps values, but they also have short range (not really an issue atm.) and they drain a ton of energy (need more reactors and re-fueling).

High individual damage and not wasting damage with ineffectual bypasses leaves Blasters the kings of direct fire.
The most dangerous weapons so far are the Gravitic. Short ranged, yes, but even the t8 Small beam will punch 6 Internals through any shields and armor at max range. The t9 'Transient Singularity' is AOE and inclose punches 180 internals, and still 99 internals through any shields and armors at max range.

Fighters are mostly just for taking out bombers, since their max damage values are way too low to actually damage larger targets. Bombers should be able to, but I'm not sure if they are really worth it (take time to reach targets, can be shot down, can take a lot of space, slow to rebuild and bad at long engagements etc.).

A Fighter armed with 3x Blasters gets six shots per second and while each does only 14 damage that becomes 84 per fighter. Enmasse they will strip shields and armor very quickly.

Ion weapons are very good if ion defences are low (immediately take out shields for instance). But, if Ion defences are sufficient, they do pretty much nothing.

Top-of-the-line Ion defenses aren't even that hard to achieve. 60+ Ion defense neutralizes almost every attack.

[Scott2933]

New version (V2.8) because of major changes to Ship and Fleet tactics in latest Game version (1.0.4.1) uploaded. Here is one of the updated Charts:

NewFleetvShipInteractionGuide.jpg (449.29 KiB) Viewed 3474 times