Speed, Range, and You.

-Speed is the distance a projectile travels in a given time frame.

-There are no controlled tests done to exactly quantify weapon speed/time (yet).

-It might be Range/Second, but nobody's confirmed it to be true or false.

EDIT: tested with a Tesladonna AM5, a 300 speed, 300 range weapon.
Presumably it would take a 300 speed weapon 1 second to travel 300 range.
I'm getting 0.9s/1s readings most of the time. (Just did around 70 shots)
This is quick testing, take it as you will. If you have extensive data for this PM me and I'll credit you.

-Speed is only a relative value, and not an indicator of a weapon's accuracy.

To express a player's efficiency with a weapon it in relative terms:

[Player's skill as a fixed value for a given weapon (expressed in %)]
X
[The ratio of a weapon's Range/Speed in relation to a
weapons bullet size = overall accuracy (expressed in %)]
X
[The weapon's Force and ammo load-out* (all shots fired in best case scenario)]
=
The damage output that you can deal with a given weapon in arena.

**There are also time factors to be considered for the weapon (such as weapons that have too much ammo and in reality you will run out of HP before ammo).
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To give a example:

I will use a Mega Lightning Gun (High Shooter x2, Great Rapid Beta x1)
[Force 48][Ammo 90][Range 372][Speed 445]
Fielded on an Ilgryps with, 1/40/1/38/16 with Broad Radar+Sniper Sight

[0.8 for skill value; 80% shots I attempt in reality have a valid chance of hitting]
X
[Cannon weapons with a M or L bullet size require a range/spd ratio of 0.8 for me.
The MLG in question is 0.835 which is a bit higher (higher is worse, by the way)
If my accuracy with ideally tuned cannons is 70%, I'd say it'd drop to 65%]
X
[one hit avg 60 damage * 90 ammo (not 100 because -10 from Great Rapid Beta tune)]
results in:
0.8 * 0.65 * 60 * 90 = 2808 damage.
To be honest, even this kind of result is a bit high; generally its around 2-2.5k dmg even under ideal situations, and far less depending on match duration or bad matchups.

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IN WORDS:
Assuming the player's skill is fixed, then the question of raising damage output is simply reduced to an issue of whether the weapon is accurate or powerful enough.

If you tune a weapon to be extremely powerful and understand how to handle it completely, it's useless if the attack never connects because it is too slow.

On the other hand, a fast and accurate peashooter doesn't do you much good either, regardless of ammo count/delivery time.

Learn to balance your power/accuracy vs. how much time you have to deliver the payload before you get shot down is the key to efficiently using your weapon.

1. How do you aim with your weapon ?
I usually using standard anticipation shot. I'll try to calculate the vector and speed of the target + Lag + My clicking speed before firing (could be less if i'm not in the mood). First shot is usually used to measure all of those parameters while the second is the real thing. It is why I loved 2 railgun shots from Acht Seiben.
I know if this is somewhat hampered with the game auto lock on system, but i still adopted that firing style with better result than just aim inside the crosshair.

2. Quote : **There are also time factors to be considered for the weapon (such as weapons that have too much ammo and in reality you will run out of HP before ammo).
I have plenty use of those extra ammos.

A. Such as measurement shots as i said earlier.

B. Then suppresive fire shots. About 50% of my ammo always used for this purpose. I'll fire into a silhouette of bot or missile even it is beyond my range if I see it is necessary, such as when my teammates fall back for repairs. Toy Box and Kagura's missile can be destroyed with this way. Also it will warn the opposing side if we still have ART wall here.
Instead focusing shots to a single enemy, I'll shot once at each enemy when in suppresion fire mode.

C. Supportive shots, to destroy Hippos or bits, Rouche's Barrier Bit (when using piercing rounds). I wouldn't use my ammo for this if i'm using AG or Kagura with very limited ammo.

D. Anticipation Alpha Burst fire. I used this against lagging objects. As usual, i'll measure everything first. Then, i'll just Alpha in a point in the middle of point A to point B where AB is the length of the distance of a single lag jump. Best used with a weapon with high INT or Alpha strikers.

E. The most important thing, you can fall back for repair so that your HP would be last longer than your ammo.

I'm not too sure if you're actually adding on stuff, or asking me a question in particular.

These calculations were made with single-shot weapons as the standard (SDC, MLG, magfrit cannon, etc). where it's either hit or miss, and overall efficiency can be quantified rather easily.

Autogay weapons like AG/TBG, don't need any considerations about its speed/range other than the fact that everything is handed to you on a silver platter with EIW's, and there's no skill involved.

This guide's more about how a (I suppose I should say manual & tunable as well) weapon's parameters affects your overall efficiency, and how you would go about quantifying it, not *how* to use a weapon.

Aethereal wrote:

-Speed is the distance a projectile travels in a given time frame.

I suspected this in my intial evaluation of the game mechanics.

Quote :

On the other hand, a fast and accurate peashooter doesn't do you much good either, regardless of ammo count/delivery time.

I'd just like to point out that due to the ratios involved with the tunes, you're actually losing potential damage per life using h.force/g.force tunes, they exist for burst damage. Getting your hitrate as high as you can is what matters most.

There are obvious exceptions of course (i.e. g.force alpha Structure Breaker) but generally heavier force tuning is always secondary to perfect range:speed ratio, and probably even tertiary to 40tec in builds where the wonder bit isn't focused on.

Isn't the speed shown on weapons only applied to horizontal movement?

I remember vyolets running some tests some time ago, weapons with additional vertical movement like volcano grenade or train sub weapon were moving way faster than they were supposed to. The train sub weapon in particular could hit shadens at quite a high altitude with decent accuracy.
That was more than a year ago though, maybe they changed that. It would be hard to test I guess.

It...kind of depends. That's definitely true for grenades and curveguns. From what I remember of the Loco X test that was using the LR buff, which did make it nearly 100% accurate against a Shaden.

Aethereal wrote:

I'm not too sure if you're actually adding on stuff, or asking me a question in particular.

These calculations were made with single-shot weapons as the standard (SDC, MLG, magfrit cannon, etc). where it's either hit or miss, and overall efficiency can be quantified rather easily.

Autogay weapons like AG/TBG, don't need any considerations about its speed/range other than the fact that everything is handed to you on a silver platter with EIW's, and there's no skill involved.

This guide's more about how a (I suppose I should say manual & tunable as well) weapon's parameters affects your overall efficiency, and how you would go about quantifying it, not *how* to use a weapon.

1. Because you have a parameter 0.8 about accuracy stuff. I want to point if that thing is depends on how you'll act with your weapon (how you aim with them), lag, and your clicking speed. Let's say if it was your expression to put the 0.8 into your aiming efficiency, we still have lag, and clicking speed to consider of. Different weapon has different way to aim. Even homing weapons need aiming... I do aim with Kagura and AG.
But since it was your assumption... okay you can pretend this is nothing. But for me, this is the most important thing as if it will contribute 80% to aiming accuracy.

2. I also want to point that there're many ways to spent your ammo. Since you mentioned if extra ammo is may not necessary. And in case that some of our reader doesn't know, i sent those examples.

Even with single fire weapon, people just use their first shot to calculate for their 2nd shot. 2nd for the 3rd... and so on. So my point it, the longer you shoot at a single target, the better your accuracy would be in a long run.
Umm, i'm not saying if you're wrong. Just i feel something lacking there. This would be a great discussion, since if we know about this, we would have a proper calculation about how much Speed needed for certain range.
How do you think about Rinka's gun ? 600 range 700 speed. For me it is outrageously accurate... It is sad that i can't measure my range when aiming, especially with Octlwaffe. It even hit if i clicked just right on crosshair or slightly missed the crosshair.
Anyone do have knowledge how does CB aiming assist works ?