Talk:Firepower Tables

Could you explain further what Instataneous rate and sustained rate mean? Give the formula or something? Some of those figures look wrong, specifically the Rocket Launcher. Jasonred 14:52, 20 May 2009 (EDT)

Formula

I think I discussed this elsewhere but rather than try to find it, it's easier just to write it again.

The damage rate for "skirmish" is:

FA% x weapon accuracy x average damage x fire rate per turn

The damage rate for "shock"/"point blank" (or whatever I'm calling it this week) is:

average damage x fire rate per turn (i.e. no accuracy considerations)

Average damage is easy to calculate when there's no armour and no vulnerability/susceptibility, as in these tables (taking armour and damage type adjustments into account is much harder to do)

Fire rate per turn is simply:

100% divided by the %TUs per relevant firing action (but capped at the max ammo capacity of the weapon)

For "instantaneous" values, this can have decimals/fractions, as it is an "instantaneous rate" (as in calculus). For "sustained" values, this is rounded down to the nearest integer - since you can't fire "4.3 times" per turn.

As noted in the text, there is no account of near misses from area weapons. "Shock" assumes everything hits. "Skirmish" assumes only accurate shots hit. Real situations are mostly between these two extremes.

Hope that helps. If you want more information I believe there is a link on the Weapon Rankings sections I added to the talk pages of most of the XCOM-EU aliens. Quite possibly there are some errors, please do point them out if you see them.

For example, some helpful people have pointed out that it's probably incorrect to consider ammo capacity limitations on the rate of fire when looking at the "instantaneous" value. So the "instantaneous" firepower of single shot weapons is understated in these tables. I will put a note to update my spreadsheet and recalculate.

Another way of thinking about these numbers is that they reflect the TU Efficiency of the weapon, multiplied by its base damage level (i.e. damage per hit).

Spike 15:38, 20 May 2009 (EDT)