Weapons Damage per Second over Range (Chart!)

[slamo]

I got frustrated with the wiki's list of damage by range so I made my own chart in Google Docs.

Dunno how to make it more pretty here in the forums, it appears as either tiny or huge in my browser.

Happy to share the Google Doc. It imports the chart from the Wiki page so should auto-update when the Wiki pages does.

(EDIT: this post now has the latest chart)

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[KingKnee]

Pretty sweet. I thought bows hit much harder.

[slamo]

Per shot, the bows hit hard. But the huge warmup time makes them low hitters over time.

What surprised the heck out of me was the charge rifle. It's twice the DPS of almost all the other weapons within its range.

My chart's relying on the Wiki page's DPS (optimal) calculation which might be wrong. I'm going to refactor this with my own DPS (max) calculations.

[Sola]

I'm surprised minigun is as low as it is, and also surprised that charge rifle is as high as it is.

[Sinosauropteryx]

Nice graph. Most interesting to me is how closely the survival rifle matches the sniper rifle. If you're not using the sniper at max range, survival is almost strictly better. From a pure DPS per cost standpoint anyway.

On the subject, I found this video very informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brFG-N2bpyo

[slamo]

Edited Chart.

I calculated my own DPS maximums and got slightly different results from the Wikipage. Charge rifle was slightly lowered and Assault Rifle significantly raised.

http://i.imgur.com/EaZXwAs.png

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[slamo]

I'm surprised minigun is as low as it is, and also surprised that charge rifle is as high as it is.

The minigun is top of this chart. Sorry the colors resemble the Heavy SMG.

[Sola]

I'm surprised minigun is as low as it is, and also surprised that charge rifle is as high as it is.

The minigun is top of this chart. Sorry the colors resemble the Heavy SMG.

Indeed it is at the top of the chart.  The concern is that it's only marginally better than a charge rifle.  I imagined that a point blank spinning barrel would unload much more damage than the energy cannon.

[slamo]

Third version, improved line styles and added labels.

X = tribal
▲ = modern single-shot
● = modern burst-shot
◆ = energy weapons

Heavy charge blaster is off the top of the chart around 30 DPS at most distances.



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[slamo]

Indeed it is at the top of the chart.  The concern is that it's only marginally better than a charge rifle.  I imagined that a point blank spinning barrel would unload much more damage than the energy cannon.

Burst for burst, the Minigun theoretically does tons more damage than the Charge Rifle. If every burst of each weapon were to hit, the Minigun would be over 8x as powerful.

The problem is that the Minigun takes over twice as long to fire off a second burst and each shot is wildly inaccurate, so over time it's only 1.6x as damaging as the Charge Rifle at very close range.

[slamo]

Some other interesting take-aways:

The pump shotgun, assault rifle, and LMG are all essentially the same performance except for differences in range.

The survival rifle and sniper rifle are essentially the same performance except for range.

Tribal weapons are all crap.

An improvised turret gun is essentially a machine pistol on a stick and generally suck at targets unless they are under 10 range.

The heavy machine gun is a surprisingly good short range weapon when under 15 range.

The charge rifle is pretty awesome across its entire range.

There's no point in picking an assault rifle over a charge rifle unless you need to outrange an enemy.

The charge lance looks wimpy on this chart because of its really low fire rate. But when it finally does fire it can take off a limb or single-shot kill a colonist. But overall it performs exactly like a survival rifle over time. 

[Thyme]

Of course the charge rifle is so high. It's the most modern weapon a human can carry and its range sucks. The sniper and survival rifles performing equally in terms of DPS makes the survival rifle better not only in terms of cost. High fire rate, low damage is generally better. If a shot downs a pawn, you get a second shot off before the sniper rifle is reloaded. Also helps with recruiting pawns, because sniper victims often lack limbs. I usually go with a mix, because range.

@slamo: Might want to change your last sentence. The charge lance has insane damage per hit, like the sniper rifle ;)

[slamo]

@slamo: Might want to change your last sentence. The charge lance has insane damage per hit, like the sniper rifle

That's what I said; the charge lance packs enough punch to take off a limb or make a one-shot kill. 

But because of the low fire rate the CL delivers close to the same DPS as the survival rifle. CL can deliver 27 damage every 4.8 seconds. SR can deliver 18 damage every 3.2 seconds. Once accuracy is factored in they both deliver about 5±0.2 damage per second at ranges 25-37.

There might be tactical reasons to prefer one over the other in various circumstances, but DPS performance is basically the same.

[b0rsuk]

It would be even better if weapon names were on the left, at the start of each line. Or at least list the weapons in the order they appear from top to bottom.

When DPS is the same, high damage weapons are better for mutilating, while low damage are better for incapacitating and causing bleeding.

[slamo]

Sadly it's a limit of Google Sheets that I can't attach labels to the lines.

The other suggestions were great, I updated the chart as best I could.