Talk:Sub Armaments

Can somebody tell me the name of the very powerful missile that you get later in the game?

yes...P.W.T Cannon

Should we list these as separate pages in the style of the Enemy Unknown section of the wiki, or should the data be added here? Arrow Quivershaft 00:54, 1 June 2007 (PDT)

Weapon comparison

I find the article very insufficient. I'm playing TFTD and have decided to finish the game without ever researching sonic weapons. My craft weapon is limited to either D.U.P. or P.W.T. (others have miserable range, which makes them obsolete). I found no valuable comments on the weapons. I'll try to add something if possible. I've added a new column to the table: D×S×A, which is expected total damage caused to a target after shooting all shots from a weapon. Turns out that P.W.T. outdoes D.U.P. by almost 2x. Hope the figures are meaningful and useful to you Commanders. mingos

Did you try following the Weapons vs USOs link? That has more specific narrative-type advice. As far as this table goes, in most cases the DxA/Rt value is the most relevant indication of firepower and effectiveness, unless you are fighting very tough subs where you expect to have a need, and the time to empty your magazines. One caution - I did this table before I found out that the published RoF values, in XCom anyway, are inaccurate. Assuming TFTD has the same game engine, it will also show differences 'under the hood' from the published rates of fire. Spike 12:34, 8 December 2009 (EST)

Yes, I have tried that, but the page has but one brief phrase dedicated to P.W.T. as opposed to Sonic, indicating the superiority of the latter. I have already begun playtesting P.W.T. though. For instance, I used two Mantas, one armed with P.W.T., and the other one with D.U.P. and they are sufficient to sink a Fleet Supply Cruiser. All smaller subs are sunk with just the P.W.T.-armed Manta. Cruisers and smaller subs require a single round (both barrels). I'll try to document my findings on the Weapons vs. USO page. mingos

EDIT: Also, I'd like to remark that the reload times given in th game are incorrect. P.W.T. has a much faster reload time than D.U.P., and if my memory doesn't deceive me, comparable to the Sonic Oscillator.

Excellent! By reload times, do you mean the fire rates during battle (as opposed to the ammo reloading times on the ground)? If so, this is good, it confirms what I was saying about about the actual RoF being not being the same as the game documented. See here Talk:UFO_Interception#Observed_Rates_of_Fire Spike 09:15, 9 December 2009 (EST)

Yes, I meant the actual rate of fire observed in the interception window. My intuition might be deceiving me, of course, but if I'm correct, the numbers in the weapons stats table should be modified as well. I can't really check it with my current game since the aliens stopped using sonic pistols, so reaching the Sonic Oscillator is impossible now, but I'll start a new game to test that after I take on T'Leth (which might be tomorrow if I feel adventurous). mingos

The weapon comparisons that are are here were almost a mimic the one in the UFO pages - and I don't think it worked too well in the original sections. They also need the the neutral-POV mallet treatment.

This topic would be best covered under Weapon Analysis (With links from here pointing to the related article). We do need a section that explains all the ins and outs of the various weapons and compare them against one another and discuss how well they fare vs. the various enemy ships. I mean it's good to know that you need at least 3 - 4 Gas Cannons to take down a Dreadnaught. -NKF 00:45, 10 December 2009 (EST)

Hmm, not sure. Up until now, Weapon Analysis has been used exclusively for tactical weapons, Battlescape weapons. Sub/aircraft weapons have a quite different set of factors and considerations. Personally I think it's best to keep them separate. I agree with you completely though that there is a need for cleanup and probably some kind of consolidation. I would just prefer not to consolidate onto the Weapon Analysis area, because I think it will make that area less coherent. Spike 15:31, 10 December 2009 (EST)

TFTD Observed Rates of Fire?

Here are the observed rates of fire from Enemy Unknown. These differ from the published fire rates. No idea if they apply to TFTD sub weapons, but as they are hard coded in the EU executable, it's possible. @mingos, do they match your experience, for the equivalent TFTD weapons?

Weapon (TFTD equiv?):        Fire Interval in Game Seconds
                             Aggressive/Standard/Cautious    
Cannon (Gas Cannon)           2 /  2 /  2
Laser Cannon (Gauss Cannon)  12 / 12 / 12
Plasma Cannon (Sonic Osc)    12 / 12 / 12
Stingray  (Ajax)             16 / 24 / 32
Avalanche  (DUP)             24 / 36 / 48
Fusion Ball (PWT)            16 / 24 / 32

For example, you say PWT (?=Fusion Ball) is quite close to Sonic Oscillator (?=Plasma Cannon) in its fire rate. This would agree pretty much with the numbers above. You could try mounting an Ajax (?=Stingray) along with a PWT and see if they show the same fire rate. Spike 09:51, 9 December 2009 (EST)

As I mentioned above, I can't really check the exact RoF of the Sonic Oscillator as I can't research it at the current stage. However, I have had a look at D.U.P. and P.W.T. and my previous observations seem to be correct:

Weapon:           observed RoF in seconds
                Aggressive/Standard/Cautious    
D.U.P. Head               3 / 4 / 5
P.W.T. Cannon             2 / 3 / 4

I don't know how much that would be in game seconds. My estimations might also be a bit off - it's 1AM here (CET) and my senses are a bit dull :). I'll do an exact interval measurement tomorrow if I don't forget about it. Is there a way to calculate the intervals in game seconds once the observed intervals are known? mingos

Sort of. The method I used in my EU test was to take the firing interval of a Cannon as "2 game seconds" (as per the in game documentation), rightly or wrongly, and then measure everything as multiples of that. This basically involved mounting a Cannon on one wing and the weapon I was testing on the other wing. Then I would hack the range of the Cannon (using Xcomutil) so that it matched the range of the test weapon, so they would start firing at the same time. And I would usually hack the ammo counts of both weapons up to 100 to reduce rounding errors (and random variation, see below). Then I would let both weapons fire and try to keep my eye on the ammo count of the slower weapon at the exact point when the faster weapon ran out of ammo. That's the method in a nutshell.

One thing to be aware of is that the firing rate (in EU anyway) is not fixed. Seb76 discovered that each shot involves a random interval that the firing rate (probably) just averages out to the values I listed here. So expect some variation, especially on small samples.

The ratios in your data pretty much match my data from EU, e.g. 2:3 ratio between DUP/Avalanche and PWT/Fusion Ball in Aggressive mode. Provided that by RoF you mean the time take between each shot (aka "firing interval")? I'm very guilty of using the term "RoF" very carelessly to mean either the Rate of Fire, or its exact inverse, the firing interval. Sorry about that!

Even though you don't have Sonic Oscillator, you can definitely do the tests with Ajax instead of DUP vs PWT. Those might be interesting. Also it could be interesting for you to test Gauss Cannon. My initial enthusiasm for Laser Cannon waned when I discovered that their firepower is not as great as I previously thought, because it turns out their actual rate of fire is much slower than the in game documentation says. The same might hold for Gauss Cannon, or it might not.

To be fair, a more cautious way of quantifying the "observed rate of fire" data would be to divide "game seconds" by 2, and call the resulting values "multiples of Cannon firing interval". Probably this is meant to be multiples of 2 game seconds, but I can't say for certain. Spike 20:08, 9 December 2009 (EST)

By RoF, I meant firing interval. Haven't noticed the obvious difference between the terms, sorry for that.

My idea for firing interval measurement was the following: record the firing in a sound editor and measure the intervals there. The variation you mention should be easy to assess visually, upon looking at the waveform. mingos

Nice method! I like it. I should clarify that when I say "game seconds" I don't mean "real time seconds". What I mean is, the Ufopaedia says a Cannon takes 2 seconds to reload, so I define that as 2 seconds in game time. In the Geoscape, time is often speeded up. In the Interception screen, time might not be running at 1 game second = 1 real time second. My gut feel is that the game is running at more than one game second per real time second. Also, this rate might vary based on CPU speed, etc - possibly. One reason I used the ammo counting method was, I wasn't sure if the game would keep a constant ratio between "game time" and "real time". In other words, the game might speed up and slow down during its simulation of game time - perhaps slowing down during intense computation. But the sound recording method is an excellent way of testing this! Spike 15:27, 10 December 2009 (EST)

OK, I performed the measurements. First off, the intervals vary slightly, by up to +/- 0,2 sec., approximately (observed in Gauss and D.U.P., and to a lesser extent in Ajax). P.W.T. measurements are incomplete because I lost the game before recording everything :P. Here are the results (they're not 100% accurate, as each is based on one sample attack):

WEAPON NAME       INTERVALS IN SECONDS   MULTIPLES OF GAS CANNON INTERVAL
                  CAUT./NORM./AGGR.      CAUT./NORM./AGGR.
CRAFT GAS CANNON  0.25  0.25  0.25       1     1     1
GAUSS CANNON      1.4   1.4   1.4        5.6   5.6   5.6
AJAX              3.75  2.75  1.85       15    11    7.4
D.U.P. HEAD       5.6   4.2   2.85       22.4  16.8  11.4
SONIC OSCILLATOR  N/A   N/A   N/A        N/A   N/A   N/A
P.W.T. CANNON     3.75  2.75  N/A        15    11    N/A

As you can see, the firing intervals are roughly the same for all tested weapons. I think it's safe to assume same happens with the Sonic Oscillator, contrary to my claim that it had a comparable RoF to the P.W.T. Cannon (I just don't remember exactly).

One more remark: I'm not 100% how many gas rounds were shot in the sample I used. My calculation might be off by a few rounds. That would explain why all other results are slightly lower than in X-COM: UFO Defence.

BTW, we edited this page at the same time :D. mingos

This is great. Your data match mine pretty closely. The reason that your average intervals are lower is, I expect, because the first shot is free (takes zero time). I expect that if you increased your ammo capacity, your numbers would converge on mine. Also it looks like you have got a good approximation of the game time to real time ratio, at least for your PC. It looks a lot like an 8:1 ratio of game time::real time. This fits in with what we know of the programming style of the game, which often uses powers of 8 and scaling by 8s. Fantastic! Spike 16:18, 10 December 2009 (EST)