Gartel Reiman
Civis Romanus Sum
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Posted - 2008.04.16 12:32:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Gartel Reiman on 16/04/2008 12:32:30
EFT probably is the best bet (and it's useful for seeing what fits, as well, without having to try in-game. I'm really not sure how people get by without it, to be honest). But if you want to do it by hand, it's not that hard. Just look at the damage your drones do per shot, divide this by their 'activation/duration' and you have the damage a single drone does per second (on average). Now multiply this by 5 to get total drone DPS; and then work out the gun DPS in the same way and add these together to get the overall total. It's a few steps, granted, but I wouldn't say it's hard or complex.
Whichever way you do it, bear in mind that raw DPS is a very theoretical number that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. It effectively gives you the (average) amount of damage you will do over time against a target that is stationary, within your optimal range and has no resistances. As any of these factors changes, your ability to apply this theoretical DPS changes too. For example,
1) A Megathron with blasters does much more DPS than a Megathron with rails - but if the target is >40km away, the blaster Mega is doing zero damage while the rail Mega is doing definitely more than that.
2) Let's compare an Apocalypse using (large) pulse lasers w/multifrequency, with a Harbinger using (medium) pulse lasers w/scorch crystals. The Apoc will have a larger on-paper DPS, and both will have an optimum range of something like 20km. So against a webbed battleship at that range, the Apoc will definitely outdamage the Harbinger. Now let's have a nano-Ishtar orbit both ships at 20km. The harbinger will likely be able to track the Ishtar without too many problems, so will do a decent proportion of his on-paper DPS. The Apoc on the other hand will miss the Ishtar with almost every shot, bring his actual DPS down to nearly zero.
3) Finally, resistances matter too. While thermal drones have the highest raw damage, explosive drones actually do the most damage on armour that doesn't have a specific explosive hardener fitted.
So you see, nominal DPS is well and good - and can be useful when comparing like with like - but when comparing two things that are fundamentally different (i.e. range, tracking, damage type etc) it can break down a bit. Be aware that you need the ability to actually deal that damage for it to be of any use.
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