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Ungrouping Weapons: Better To Get Through Active Armor Tank?

Author
Tzel Mayon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-09-30 23:42:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Tzel Mayon
(This has NOTHING to do with alpha DPS, and has nothing to do with the question about whether or not Grouping/Ungrouping affects DPS.)

Questions:

We are trying to figure out if ungrouping your weapons and activating them evenly spread out, will more efficiently penetrate an active tank--does it cause their repair cycle to be less efficient?

Grouped/Ungrouped damage will do the same DPS no matter what, the question is whether or not the active repair cycle is less efficient when the damage is being done in a sustained manner, or in volleys.

Is it possible that activating your weapons in this way is causing the target's repair cycle to not efficiently repair the damage being dealt?

Is it the case that there is a period of time where "repairing" is active, and damage done during the actual repair activity is not also included in the damage being repaired?

We have done this test many times, but we have no control case to validate this, but it appears to be an affective way to get through active tanks.


Scenario:

Amarr Harbinger Battlecruiser Tech II tanked, with Meta IV Heavy Modulated Pulse Lasers with Navy Multifrequency DPS doing level IV Missions in Amarr space confronting Gallente Battleships:

Amarr Harbinger "approaches" battleship, until it stops--to rule out tracking issues, and just blasts away with pulse lasers.

Gallente Active Tanking appears to repair most/all damage done in one repair cycle, when weapons are "grouped".

However, ungrouping weapons appear to allow people to go through their tank more efficiently, perhaps by causing the target's repair cycle to be less efficient--is this a lag exploit?

Method:

Use an underclassed ship, (Battlecruiser vs. Battleship), vs a better one ...

Activate 1st Laser, wait until it is about 10%-ish into its cycle, then activate second, and wait 10%-ish, and so on until all 7 weapons are activated.

There is a constant stream of damage to target. Target Repair cycles do not appear to repair as much of the damage dealt.

NOTE: Thanks for the Eve Help Channel for helping me to edit and rephrase this question! Over and Over. ;)
Surfin's PlunderBunny
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2012-10-01 00:27:43 UTC
Higher alpha with grouped

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Zanzbar
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-10-01 05:03:13 UTC
ungrouped give the illusion of more dps because the well aimed shots are spread out among them, but the grouped weapons hit all well aimed when they do, so in the end its better at dropping tanks
Aethlyn
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2012-10-01 09:32:45 UTC
There's no real difference. However, hitting as early as possible after the repair cycle gives your allies more time to also hit before the next repair. However this doesn't change anything overall. Good timng can break the tank (essentially being stacked alpha damage), but it doesn't depend on weapons being (un-)grouped, as long as your cycle times are short. Slow weapons, like artillery, can be more effective, if they hit together within the same repair cycle, though.

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Vilnius Zar
SDC Multi Ten
#5 - 2012-10-01 09:57:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Vilnius Zar
Grouping them can be better, if you have sufficient volley damage it allows you to "punch through" armour into structure and while the repper might make up for it before the next volley it'll slowly kill the target. If you can't punch through the armour EHP+repping then it makes zero difference. If you have vastly more dps than the repper can handle then it won't matter at all.
Sin Pew
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#6 - 2012-10-01 11:42:50 UTC
My 2 ISK:
I don't think a NPC is the best target to practice with, you don't have a detailled stat on their tank, just a progress bar with percents. You should try a destroyer against a target painted player controlled battlecruiser, that can display the absolute readouts on its hud, both sitting still and in the sweet spot of the optimal range to nullify other factors as much as possible. With real numbers you'll be able to actually verify the theory, though server ticks and lag can also impact the results, but using a NPC to verify the theory will only lead to asumptions.
If you really want to make the tests as accurate as possible, you also need to try with an ammo that deals a single type of damage (missiles), preferably against a 0% resist, but even then it will be difficult as the shield's regeneration can troll the results and absorb a fraction of the damage instead of the armor with a different resist.
My guess is that you're just a liiitle over the tank, but the shield regen and occasional "scratch" makes it more evident as you have to get through a tad more tank than is repped on each grouped volley while the ungrouped "flow" doesn't allow the shield to regen. Try faction ammos to compare first if you can't use T2 guns and ammos that have way more oomph.

[i]"haiku are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense, Refrigerator."[/i]

Adamai
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-10-01 15:35:55 UTC
Tzel Mayon wrote:
(This has NOTHING to do with alpha DPS, and has nothing to do with the question about whether or not Grouping/Ungrouping affects DPS.)

Questions:

We are trying to figure out if ungrouping your weapons and activating them evenly spread out, will more efficiently penetrate an active tank--does it cause their repair cycle to be less efficient?

Grouped/Ungrouped damage will do the same DPS no matter what, the question is whether or not the active repair cycle is less efficient when the damage is being done in a sustained manner, or in volleys.

Is it possible that activating your weapons in this way is causing the target's repair cycle to not efficiently repair the damage being dealt?

Is it the case that there is a period of time where "repairing" is active, and damage done during the actual repair activity is not also included in the damage being repaired?

We have done this test many times, but we have no control case to validate this, but it appears to be an affective way to get through active tanks.


Scenario:

Amarr Harbinger Battlecruiser Tech II tanked, with Meta IV Heavy Modulated Pulse Lasers with Multifrequency DPS doing level IV Missions in Amarr space confronting Gallente Battleships:

Amarr Harbinger "approaches" battleship, until it stops--to rule out tracking issues, and just blasts away with pulse lasers.

Gallente Active Tanking appears to repair most/all damage done in one repair cycle, when weapons are "grouped".

However, ungrouping weapons appear to allow people to go through their tank more efficiently, perhaps by causing the target's repair cycle to be less efficient--is this a lag exploit?

Method:

Activate 1st Laser, wait until it is about 10%-ish into its cycle, then activate second, and wait 10%-ish, and so on until all 7 weapons are activated.

There is a constant stream of damage to target. Target Repair cycles do not appear to repair as much of the damage dealt.

NOTE: Thanks for the Eve Help Channel for helping me to edit and rephrase this question! Over and Over. ;)


the only diffrence is with grouped you get an alpha . and you dont get an alpha ungrouped.

how ever because your dps is spaced out per weapon you can gain a better chance of beating a cycle time on a tanks recharge rate. what i mean is as you constantly dmg the tank dureing a recharge you are effectively depriving that cycle of a full hitpoint rep. it has nothing to do with dps.. but more to do with damage repped per cycle. if they rep less dmg then its better !!! DPS IS NOT the be all and all of eve. doing dmg dureing a cycle is

imagine!!! you are doing damage before a cycle as usual. then a cycle happens to rep x amount of hitpoints but you also hit a few times dureing the cycle because you have your weapons fire spaced out over time. this means surely that the rep amount is significantly less than it would be if he got a clean rep off. so you are effectively depriving your target of a clean heal. it works i do it all the time. but it has nothing to do with alpha or dps, its all about depriving a full rep.
Tzel Mayon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-10-01 15:36:31 UTC

Sin Pew wrote:

If you really want to make the tests as accurate as possible, you also need to try with an ammo that deals a single type of damage (missiles), preferably against a 0% resist, but even then it will be difficult as the shield's regeneration can troll the results and absorb a fraction of the damage instead of the armor with a different resist.
My guess is that you're just a liiitle over the tank, but the shield regen and occasional "scratch" makes it more evident as you have to get through a tad more tank than is repped on each grouped volley while the ungrouped "flow" doesn't allow the shield to regen. Try faction ammos to compare first if you can't use T2 guns and ammos that have way more oomph.


Thanks, this helps a lot... I forgot to mention that I was using faction crystals. :(

Is there a type of collidable struction that has active armor tank?

I am doing the Amarr epic line in a Harbinger, and the Battleships are always what are left. I am timing this, but as you said, it really isn't a good test.

I think that doing this test with a destroyer against it a player battleship would work just as well, as long as the weapons are evenly spread out. I think that if there is going to be left-over damage due to latency after a repair cycle or whatever, I think it would show up. Thanks!
Rubishod
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2012-10-01 17:28:57 UTC
I think it is a question of of how fast your guns are against the repair module, since the 'intent' would be to get below armor into hull as soon as possible.

If your guns fire faster than the repper (say Blasters) then ungrouping them would do nothing, since you are still getting multiple shots in per rep cycle.

If your guns fire slower than the cycle (Artillery) then you'd want to ungroup, so that maybe a shot would get through armor, into the hull, before the repper cycles. Mind you in this scenario the repper will go off and you will have to work back through what armor was repaired with you ungrouped guns.

I really don't think it matters. Unless you are firing against something with a very weak hull?
Funky KowaI
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#10 - 2012-10-01 17:39:51 UTC
Active tank is not affected by spreading dmg over cycle time / focusing it in alpha. unless You counter low-hp fast repping ship - as npc AF that You can penetrate below tank with high alpha.

Ungrouping has another advantage tho - if You use high energy wapons and You are cap stable on low % or You are cap unstable - grouping guns in 2-3 groups with firing spread across cycle will help You to stay above cap recharge peak
Katran Luftschreck
Royal Ammatar Engineering Corps
#11 - 2012-10-02 09:13:55 UTC
This is interesting, as (in theory) if one ungroups, say, a bunch of missile launchers and loads them all with different ammunition types then there is the possibility of breaking through a target's defenses faster, provided that the missiles are fired in the correct sequence.

For example, let's say you have four launchers, two with EM missiles and two with Explosive. Timed right, the EM missiles may be just enough to flatten your target's shields the second before the Explosive missiles impact and pulverize their armor... thus each missile type is being used precisely for what it is best at damage and no missiles are being wasted on what they are weak on (read: not hitting armor with EM, or hitting shield with Explosive).

Still, I'm no math wizard, so maybe it really wouldn't make a difference. Might still be worth experimenting with, though.

http://youtu.be/t0q2F8NsYQ0

Sin Pew
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2012-10-02 09:32:16 UTC
Katran Luftschreck wrote:
This is interesting, as (in theory) if one ungroups, say, a bunch of missile launchers and loads them all with different ammunition types then there is the possibility of breaking through a target's defenses faster, provided that the missiles are fired in the correct sequence.

For example, let's say you have four launchers, two with EM missiles and two with Explosive. Timed right, the EM missiles may be just enough to flatten your target's shields the second before the Explosive missiles impact and pulverize their armor... thus each missile type is being used precisely for what it is best at damage and no missiles are being wasted on what they are weak on (read: not hitting armor with EM, or hitting shield with Explosive).

Still, I'm no math wizard, so maybe it really wouldn't make a difference. Might still be worth experimenting with, though.
Actually, no, load the ammo your ship is bonused with in all turrets/bay unless you really know what you're doing or you'll underperform in most situations. Don't just read the OP but also the replies.

[i]"haiku are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense, Refrigerator."[/i]

Keno Skir
#13 - 2012-10-02 14:57:31 UTC
Sin Pew wrote:
Actually, no, load the ammo your ship is bonused with in all turrets/bay unless you really know what you're doing.


Unless you're flying a drake, in which case everyone and their dog knows what missiles you're going to use. If the enemy knows your in a drake try using varied missile damage even un-bonused. Chances are the enemy thinks you will use the same damage type as every other drake in the universe :)
JackknifedII
The Congregation
RAPID HEAVY ROPERS
#14 - 2012-10-03 08:55:42 UTC
Katran Luftschreck wrote:
This is interesting, as (in theory) if one ungroups, say, a bunch of missile launchers and loads them all with different ammunition types then there is the possibility of breaking through a target's defenses faster, provided that the missiles are fired in the correct sequence.

For example, let's say you have four launchers, two with EM missiles and two with Explosive. Timed right, the EM missiles may be just enough to flatten your target's shields the second before the Explosive missiles impact and pulverize their armor... thus each missile type is being used precisely for what it is best at damage and no missiles are being wasted on what they are weak on (read: not hitting armor with EM, or hitting shield with Explosive).

Still, I'm no math wizard, so maybe it really wouldn't make a difference. Might still be worth experimenting with, though.


I used this method in my stealth bomber because I convinced myself it was true years ago.

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SmilingVagrant
Doomheim
#15 - 2012-10-04 03:23:37 UTC
The answer is no, you get the exact same DPS.
SmilingVagrant
Doomheim
#16 - 2012-10-04 03:25:31 UTC
JackknifedII wrote:

I used this method in my stealth bomber because I convinced myself it was true years ago.


It's a good method to rainbow a gang, but if you are running solo it's much better to simply toss your target into the killboard of your liking and figure out what hardeners he's most likely to have. Or if going after ratters just shoot for the pretty well known resist holes that are going to be in the best ships for ratting xyz region.