Ships & Modules

When should you use one or the other?

They are actually designed as to have the same impact on dps. doing 15% more damage is practically the same as doing the same base damage in 15% less time. the difference is reload times.

Shooting faster doesn’t make you reload faster, it just means you will reload more often. so factoring reload times shooting faster will actually hurt your dps when compared to more damage.

ofc you also have to take into account how bad is the modifier being penalized. if the RoF is already bonused on the ship but not damage, then go for damage, if there’s no bonus on Rof then a RoF mod could, even with reload factored, be much better.

Another thing to take into account is, are you using an alpha set up or autocannons/blasters/whavetertheycalltheshortrangelazors? Are you doing PvP or PvE?

on pve, specially on high alpha setups having 4 - 5% more damage, which is what the rig will give you after weapmods, can mean being able to set up your artys (or whatever alpha weapon you have) in pairs as opposed to trios and still being able to one shot frigates. that is HUGE.

Or could mean using faction ammo is no longer necessary to kill frigates using your artys in trios, which can also be huge due to savings.

Now if you apply the same to an AC fit, you’ll find that an extra 4% damage on the autocannon volley will hardly make much of a difference on your shoot count, even using faction ammo, and it might be more noticeable to shoot faster using t1 ammo. Specially because your reload will happen between rat groups, not in the middle of the fight.

The logic on pvp is slightly different, with ACs (or any other short range/fast firing weapon) you want to have the least amount of dead time as possible... finally getting your target on optimal only to find your reload cycle starting is very annoying. And shooting 5% faster will make that situation 5% more common.

Now, when snipping with long range weapons, shooting slightly faster will seem like a good bonus, but since you will mostly be waiting for a low radial speed to take your shoot, it’s a lot better to hit harder. Once you get the hang of it you can blow off a nice chunk of shield or armor off logis and even hacs, the moment their mwd finishes a pulse and they slow down.

Needless to say my experience comes from projectile weapons and some blaster fun. Never used any lazors, and i would guess shooting faster is a big "no no" with energy guns since your cap will die horribly.

Correct, and this is also why a rate of fire bonus on ships offers a greater dps boost than a damage bonus.

ROF bonus on the ship has no diminishing returns with modules.

I would only use either of these if the ship setup has 2 or fewer damage mods already. If I am fitting 2 of these rigs, I would always take 1 of each for less stacking penalties. Aerator is slightly higher dps with some slight drawbacks. I would always use an aerator for autocannons, and a collision accelerator for artillery. If hybrids or energy turrets, I would always stick with the collision accelerator if cap use is an issue, like on any active tanked ship. However, if I also have a small nos or cap booster fitted, I would use an aerator. Also, for buffer fit ships I would go for the aerator first, like in the case of a blaster-fit structure tanked taranis.

DPS is tied in very much with the length of the fight turrets front-load their damage ahead of the dps curve.

Consider two ships with the same dps, one doing 10 damage every 2 seconds and 1 doing 5 damge every second.

theoretically they have the same dps, but if you consider a 20 hp opponent, the 10 damage/2s ship will kill it in 2 seconds, effectively doing 10 dps while the 5 damage/1s ship will kill it in 3 seconds, effectively doing 6.66 dps.

Wrong for 2 reasons:
1)It ignores the delay that you'll face waiting to shoot the next target
2)It ignores shots wasted due to high volley. Your numbers look nice and round, which they never are in actual gameplay. If that same target had 21 HP, the 5 dps ship would drop it in 4 seconds, as would the 10/2 ship, but combine that with the first point, and in a situation where you have 2 such ships, the fast firing ship will down both in 10 seconds, while the 10/2 ship would take 12.

The actual benefits of high alpha are pvp-oriented, the 2 main ones being breaking through logi reps and dropping incoming DPS faster in the first few seconds of a fight.

For added info, this is in reference to an Arty Maelstrom using t2 1200s and Republic Fleet ammo.

I asked this because I'm using shield rigs for my booster, but since I hit BS V, the projectile rigs may be better for popping rats before they even get in range.

Adding RoF would make ammo consumption increase, but would provide more DPS. Adding dmg would keep the same rate of ammo usage while each shot packs more punch. I can already insta-pop cruisers and some BCs.

I'm thinking in my case, the accelerators would be the better choice.
However, should I use all three slots or have 2 accels with one aerator or leave a shield rig?

Very very true, but because a lot of people are talking dps is, I meant to illustrate that it's highly situational.

The only time (other than alpha) I would say go for a damage rig rather than ROF is for lasers. Some Amarr ships are bad with cap already, don't need more drain. Abaddon especially.