Weapon DPS, Quick Question

[h3.]

How are you to compare weapons? Is the DPS [weapon output*rate of fire], or just the weapon output? I've been using the latter but feel like I might be mistaken

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Damage Per Second

The clue is in the name, however, you also need to consider the rate of fire which varies greatly. compare the Asgard main battery DPS will be enormous but rate of fire is very low due to cool down periods.

You can tweak the full impact of a weapon in the ship mods by changing any aspects. ie increasing rate of fire; reducing cool down time; increasing range.

In some cases the cool down allows you to get a couple of shots with high DPS providing you keep as far away from your target as possible. if you can keep outside the enemies max range you can sometimes take them down with high DPS weapons despite their low recharge [or cool down]

[Takichi]

Well tbh you only need look up Max.DMG and Consistent Dmg(i believe it is)... One Tells you your First DMG with the First Shoot.... they other your Damage over the course of several Hours shooting a Target.

[Valhalla Awaits]

There are also completely hidden values. Like plasma cannons and flak cannons are the best weapons in the game because they lie about the stats. Plasma cannons are actually 2x as powerful as listed, as the numbers only account for ONE projectile, but they fire 2 with each shot. Flak counts as 4 shots if I recall correctly. (might be 3)

[Johnsonn]

Ok, so here´s a lot of half truths going around.

1.

Originally posted by mmmcheesywaffles:

Damage Per Second
however, you also need to consider the rate of fire which varies greatly.

There are two dps stats: Burst dps and sustained dps. The former refers to the damage output (dmg/sec) before accounting for heat build up, the latter refers to to the same damage output with regards to heat management.
Both stats do however account for rate of fire as long as it´s not linked to heat build up.

2.

Originally posted by Valhalla Awaits:

There are also completely hidden values. Like plasma cannons and flak cannons are the best weapons in the game...
Plasma cannons are actually 2x as powerful as listed...
Flak counts as 4 shots if I recall correctly

This is completely wrong and I´ve seen it mentioned several times on the steam forums.
While there are indeed some unclear parts about weapon dps, the listed dps numbers are actually quite accurate.
They do not account for individual projectile damage, but are factual calculations of the weapon´s dps.
This misconception is rooted in 2 things:

a) There´s a "barrel count" within the turrets data which determines how many shots are fired from the turret´s barrels. This stat does have consequences on dps, but the listed dps numbers already take this into account. This whole discussion was raised during the earlier times of the game when modders tweaked with turret stats and there were alot of assumptions being made.
Again, number of projectiles is accounted in the dps stats.

b) With the introduction of Flak turrets and Blast Mortars people quickly realized that those weapons were more powerful despite having similar or even worse stats than other weapons. It was quickly found out, that explosion-type projectiles (not missiles though) applied double their listed damage in IS combat, once for a direct hit and a second time as explosion damage. This fact has been known for a long time and was "fixed" with 4.0 as then the dps numbers of those weapons were adjusted to reflect this and to cancel out IS OOS discrepencies.

So no, as of now even those weapon´s dps are listed correctly.
The fact that Plasma and Flak weapons are amid the best though is true, not because of some hidden stats, but simply because their dps is actually that high, even being comparable to actual forward hardpoints:
(M Plasma turrets even competing directly for damage with frontal facing M Plasma weaponry).

Heat management however can be regarded as a "hidden value", not because it´s not accounted for, but because it´s not static. Each additional weapon decreases the heat degradation of every other weapon installed meaning dps becomes a non-linear scaling function.
I did do some testing and posted my findings on reddit half a year ago, check this out if you´re interested, most of it is still relevant:

https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/comments/iowh5j/x4_damage_spreadsheet_scaling_weapon_dps_and_ship/

[h3.]

What confuses the sh*t out of me is the prices are all over the place. I was essentially looking at possible turrets for my katana & currently had terran bolt turrets. What makes no sense is it seems;
-Argon bolt turrets are objectively better because they have identical stats except much better rotation speed thus much improved tracking
-Flak turrets have more dps
Yet both of these are significantly cheaper than the terran bolt turret. Which had me thinking "well, why?". & that had me look at rate of fire & see that flak was 1.5 rounds per second vs the bolt 6.
Also beam turrets are consistently the most expensive, despite having relatively tiny output. I get that perhaps they are much more accurate I guess but bolt turrets don't have to land shots that often to perform better it seems.
For context, my terran rep is higher than argon rep.

Seems like the price of these turrets are all over the place & don't align particularly well with actual output? Which is the only reason I was questioning if just looking at the raw output & sustained output when deciding what to use was incorrect.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Keep in mind also how you're going to be using these weapons. It's not a matter of which weapon is mathematically the best. A ship's fitting is also its battle plan.

For instance, I ended up replacing the flak turrets on my Falx with plasma because it's better sustained damage against capital ships and decent against pirate gunboats. Against fighters, I get in close with my tau accelerators. I just replaced my two bolters with ion blasters, which hopefully will shred shields and let me attack hull health that much faster.