Particle Laser Vs Mining Laser: The Math

[Skully]

This was done mostly out of pure curiosity to see who the two actually compare. I'm not knocking the developers. They shipped a very well made and above all else fun product, however I noticed that some weapon types do make other's nearly completely obsolete and I'd like to see a future game patch, or the developer's next game not go down this exact same path.

Testing is done with mk6 weapons and assume that the weapons fire each time until they overheat.

TL;DR and Findings

Over the course of 90 seconds, a particle laser will deal 30,000 hull damage and 12,000 shield damage. Switch that out for the mining laser and you will deal roughly 24,928 hull damage and 31160 damage over the same time period.

The firing range reduction is also slightly redundant as well. Using the Minotaur with mk6 engines it takes 5 seconds to close that gap and 1.5 seconds if you're moving top speed against stationary targets. That's without using your boost at all.

In short, for sacrificing a small portion of your hull damage and a very small amount of range, you can effectively tear through the shields of enemy craft roughly 2.6 times faster to actually start causing permanent damage to the enemy craft.

This makes me beg the question of why does the particle laser cost nearly 1 million credits more while it's clearly the inferior weapon of the two?

Firing Rate

It's worth noting that each turret fires for 4 seconds and has a 4 second cool down before it can charge up to fire again.

Particle Laser
Charge Up Time: 1 second
Firing and Cool Down Time: 8 seconds
Full time for one firing cycle: 9 seconds

Mining Laser
Charge Up TIme: .75 seconds
Firing and Cool Down Time: 8 seconds
Full time for one firing cycle: 8.75 seconds

Damage Values

Particle Laser

750 DPS
100% Hull Penetration
40% Shield Penetration

Hull Damage Per Second: 750
Shield Damage Per Second: 300

Mining Laser

608 DPS
100% Hull Penetration
125% Shield Penetration

Hull Damage Per Second: 608
Shield Penetration Per Second: 760

Damage Over 90 Seconds

Both weapons fire fully 10 times during this period. The mining laser actually fires 10.28 times during this time period but for making the math simple we will say it is a quarter of the way through it's next firing cycle, giving it one more second of firing (608 hull damage and 760 shield damage).

Particle Laser

Hull Damage: 30,000
Shield Damage: 12000

Mining Laser

Hull Damage: 24,928
Shield Damage: 31,160

[Turnspit]

Old thread, but my thoughts exactly - Mining Lasers should have reduced hull damage to make both weapons in combination viable.

[Geek]

The stats of these weapons have changed since 3 years ago.
Mining lasers are still more powerful overall, but at a reduced range.

[WillieSea]

Now that I have a mod that allows me to buy the Viriax weapons, I go for them. But I used to always purchase the mining lasers, they have always been the best weapon in the game.

It's my personal opinion, but the mining lasers should deal little to no shield damage and massive amounts of hull damage. After all, they are made to rip rocks apart, not energy shields. That would have solved that problem.

[Turnspit]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

It's my personal opinion, but the mining lasers should deal little to no shield damage and massive amounts of hull damage. After all, they are made to rip rocks apart, not energy shields. That would have solved that problem.

My thoughts exactly. Mining Lasers should be anti-hull, whereas Particle Lasers should complement them and be an anti-shield weapon.

I guess I'll have to dig into modding to solve this... :D

[Turnspit]

Should anyone still be interested in this, I dug myself into modding of this game and started with some slight rebalancing of the first few Turrets, trying to make them more worthwhile and none of them overpowered:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/290300/discussions/2/3335371283878171199/

[WillieSea]

Originally posted by Turnspit:

Should anyone still be interested in this, I dug myself into modding of this game...

I tried to figure out how to mod the game as well, but never found a useful document to help me with it. The one thing I found, the 'scripts' link was dead, so no help there.

If you don't mind, do you have any links, or list of what programs you use to open the PAK files?

[Turnspit]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

I tried to figure out how to mod the game as well, but never found a useful document to help me with it. The one thing I found, the 'scripts' link was dead, so no help there.

If you don't mind, do you have any links, or list of what programs you use to open the PAK files?

Sure thing! :-)

Here's the basic guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=551447922

Even with the guide it took me some time and stupid questions on the forums to figure out everything, but it pretty much covers it all if reading carefully.

One link to the files was indeed dead, but Darphnix was so kind to post a link in the comments of the guide, containing all the files and scripts prepared and ready to go:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PYzjjaoIJH5cWJRzTBrOwhFU0bI3JDLA

[WillieSea]

Thank you @Turnspit :)

I work as a Project Lead, guiding developers at a major credit card company, and my brain is dead by the time I get home. So reading the document is taxing, but perhaps this weekend, if I get a break I will look at it again. With the missing scripts (thank you for the link) it was hard to get done what was being asked. ;)