Matthew
BloodStar Technologies
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Posted - 2008.03.15 19:32:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Shemaul
Tired to be the only race that tells foes "don't forget your kin hardener when u fight me!".
If your opponent has tanked hard on kin, then they will be weak to one of the other damage types. Switching to use one of those other damage types takes just 10 seconds to reload ammo - something turrets cannot do (while projectiles can change their damage mix, they can't do a pure damage switch in the same way, and have to deal with changes to range and volume of ammo when switching damage mix (which affects frequency of reloads, and thus long-term DPS)).
Yes, you lose the damage bonus if you switch to another damage type, but you also get to put your entire damage output through their weak resistance. The trick is knowing whether that weak resist is weak enough to make up for the loss of the damage bonus.
So lets bring some numbers into it. I'm going to take my own standard mission-fit Drake as an example (both as attacker and defender), simply because it's the closest ship I have to hand. It has shield resists of (EM/Kin/Exp/Ther) 67/80/63/73, so is already biased towards kin in it's tank.
With my skills I get a 25% damage bonus to kin, giving damages for the 4 damage types of: 202.5/253.125/202.5/202.5
Putting these through the resists (calculation: (1-resist_decimal)*rawdamage ) means that actual damage done for each damage type is 66.825/50.625/74.925/54.675
Therefore, even with a 25% damage bonus to kinetic, shooting this drake with kinetic missiles is actually the worst thing you can do.
With my skills, that drake has a rof of 7.83 seconds. Reloading takes 10 seconds, so I lose the equivalent of 1.28 shots by switching damage types. Even the smallest gain switch, from kin to term gains me 4.05 damage per shot, so the switch is worth making if the fight is expected to last more than 16 shots (i.e. over 2 minutes). If I make the most beneficial switch (kin to exp), I gain 24.3 damage per shot, and it's worth doing if the fight is expected to last more than 2 shots.
While it may feel like the bonus is now not helping you, in reality it is, just not in the direct and obvious way. Remember, it's the existence of the kinetic bonus that led your opponent to skew his tank towards kinetic, and open up the resistance hole you're now using against him. So while it's his resistance hole that's directly improving your damage, it's your damage bonus that made him open up that hole in the first place.
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