Quality vs. Quantity

Is it worth upgrading damage?

from Sins Forums

plz excuse any spelling errors.

Ok looking at this from the standpoint of...  should I make more LRMs or get the 5% damage upgrade??

Being that credits are your number 1 most important aspect and resource, im only considering them in the calculations. Plz someone correct me if I error in my math. I am assuming in these calculation that each side has an equal amount of credits to spend.

LRM's: 275 credits

Damage Upgrade to 5%: 600 credits

Damage Upgrade from 5-10%: 700 credits

ok, First we look at  LRM's vs 5% increase. We want to keep the amount of credits spent equal.

Side 1 produces y amount of LRM's for 275 crd/each

Side 2 produces x amount of LRM's for 275 crd/each + 600 credits for upgrade.

so your equation would look like       y(275)= x(275)+600   {Equation 1}

As you can tell you have two equations and two unknowns.

So what else are you looking for? You need to find out how many of x and y ships you need to have an equal overall DPS.  what I mean is how many ships do you have to make for your increased dam equal your norm dam lrms.

So:  x(11.55)=y(11)      {Equation 2}          [11x5%=.55 +11= 11.55]  oh, LRM's do 11 average DPS according to google docs.

Solving for y in equation 2 and then substituting into equation 1 yeilds:

x=43.6,  y=45.78

So what this means is that given the same amount of credits, you would do more DPS until you get to roughly 44 LRM's by building more LRMS then upgrading the damage by 5%.

Now lets use the same formulas again with the 10% increase. adding 700 on top of the 600=1300, so:

y(275)=x(275)+1300      {Equation 3}

rewriting damage formula to show 10% increase:

X(12.1)=y(11)       {Equation 4}

Solving for y in equation 4 and then substituting into equation 3 yeilds:

x=47.27   y=52

THe problem with the last part is, that say you upgrade to 5% damage increase, it wouldnt be what I wrote in equation 4. And the credits spent wouldn't be what what is listed in equation 1. It more or less shows a direct jump between no damage increase to 10% increase. But that isnt actualy the case, since you have two things to research.

plz correct the following equations as i believe I may be incorrect on these next few, but you will get my drift.

Credit summary comparing 5% increase to 10% increase:

y(275)+600=x(275)+1300    {Equation 5}

damage summary:

y(11.5)=x(12.1)   {Equation 6}

Solving for y in equation 6 and then substituting into equation 5 yeilds:

x=54.19  y=59  LRM's

So if that given information is correct,  After increasing to 5% damage at 44 LRM's, it would not be benifical to upgrade to 10% until roughly 54 LRMs.

 

SO, what does this mean, that research is poop and needs to be rethought out. Based on equation's  3 and 4, I would rather have just 1 research directly to 10% for 1300 credits than two seperate researchs.

 

Plz give any and all feedback on the matter, THANKS.

 

 

26,556 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
hmm... I didnt bother looking over it, so I hope I didnt switch around any x's or y's or anything, but the math is all correct.

oh YEAH, And next up on my To do list is that lovely Hull upgrade, yep buddy, your next!




Oh, I forgot to mention that this is a Static type problem, in reality, The 5% increase would loose DPS at a faster rate than the standard LRM, because one ship is worth more dps than the standard ship, so say at the 43.6 vs 45.78, they would have equal dps, but say since the dps is equal, they would Kill off 1 LRM at the time, so it would drop down to 42.6 vs. 44.78 (round to the nearest hole number... duh) so at that point in time, the standard LRM's would thus be doing more DPS than that of the 5% increase.


Oh, and if you are wondering why I didnt factor the shield migation or w/e, is because the ratio of damage would be the same.

But when I start my Hull analysis, I WILL have to factor shield migation into it., maybe, or no the ratio to damage would be the same. well, let me look into the hull stuff, havent gotten into that upgrade analysis yet.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
One more ship is not just one more source of damage. It is also an extra batch of health, and something more for AoE to work with.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Right.. kinda well known already..

But the thing is, the 5% damage costs about the same as a factory, and less than factory + another lrm.

You do upgrades when you can't produce units as fast as you get income, but not have so much income that you can make them twice as fast.

In short, this game isn't a spreadsheet.

Could the research costs use some adjusting though, or their effects(Ie 7% more damage or something per level)? Yeah, sure.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Upgrades don't require you to raise your fleet cap ;)
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Aye, I forgot to mention that important one too.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, at first glance one can do the math (as done exquisitely above, by the way) and make an informed decision. However, there are nuances that are not so naively arrived at. The most obvious one is the fleet cap - that is a big factor to take into account with your overall situation.

From the opposite direction, if you start to consider more situationally - if you are in a battle where you are concerned about maximizing your efficiency given a certain number of ships/credits/etc. at a certain location - instead of spending money on gaining 5% hull, you could simply take more time to micro a dying ship out of the gravity well and spend the money on another ship/something else instead. Damage upgrades are a whole other subject entirely.

It's not always as simple as opportunity cost, situations demand a lot of attention in this game.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
One mroe thing is, it's fine and dandy upgrading weapon damage, but what if your opponent turns to flak, will you be making lrms still? NO. So your upgrade will turn useless. Keep this in mind.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
The input to the formula is also wildly inaccurate in that it is not considering the value/cost of the resources needed to buy the ships/do the upgrade. The upgrade has a one-time resource cost, while every ship cost resources. The true price of making ships should include the cost of resources (at either the buy or sell value to the Blackmarket, i'd use the buy value personnally).

Even adding the resource value, most upgrades are not very good bargins. But much better than the post would imply.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
yes I did the formula's in a similar manor for metal, and for crystal, and crystal its even worse trade off, but for metal, it is more viable around 41 LRM's instead the 44 mark.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
ok so im going to take the dreadnaught into account, forget the dunov, since the dreadnaugth does mroe missle damage, no reason to account for dunov. Im going to use the missle dam factor only, since the other two damage types remain the same, thus canceling. marza does 28 missle damage, and 29.4 if you add 5%


ok, and adding in the extra +28 damage to y in equation 2 and adding in 29.4 damage to x in equation 2.

y(11)+28=x(11.55)+29.4

redoing the math yeilds:

x=41.73 LRMs and y=43.9 LRMs

thus the 5% increase is still not effective until you get around roughly 42 LRMs and have a dreadnaught. Thats assuming both sides pick dreadnaught.

Upgrades don't require you to raise your fleet cap
End of quote


yes true, but if both parties are already in the 30-40 range of LRMs, then both sides have raised their caps, thus my calculations are still into play.

But say one side doesnt raise their cap, and the other side does, and makes more ships. The side with more ships is still going to be doing more dps, and since the side without the cap has no more ship slots, they will have more money yes, but still will be lacking in DPS compared to the one with more ships.

So saying one side raises cap, and one side doesnt but does get 5% increase, one side will have econmic advantage and the other side will still have DPS advantage. Now in order for econmic man over here to be able to fight off the DPS man, he will have to raise his fleet cap as well to produce more ships, thus putting everything right back to where we started at. 44 LRMs or 42 if you have dreadnaugt...lol

and also, the person with the 5% increase would loose DPS at a faster rate than the standard LRM, because one ship is worth more dps than the standard ship, so say at the 43.6 vs 45.78, they would have equal dps, but say since the dps is equal, they would Kill off 1 LRM at the time, so it would drop down to 42.6 vs. 44.78 (round to the nearest hole number... duh) so at that point in time, the standard LRM's would thus be doing more DPS than that of the 5% increase.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
One mroe thing is, it's fine and dandy upgrading weapon damage, but what if your opponent turns to flak, will you be making lrms still? NO. So your upgrade will turn useless. Keep this in mind
End of quote



even more to the point that upgrades are useless, thank you.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
As you can tell you have two equations and two unknowns.
End of quote

You *only* have two equations and two unknowns if you're playing a game where the only unit every player builds is limited strictly to LRM's. That... doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

Another factor that's missing from this analysis is that the missile upgrade also benefits all fleet bombers and (in the TEC case) two types of capital ship that carry missiles.

Upgrades are most definitely not "useless", and the reasons why are already given by other posts in this thread. The biggest one is that you're not draining your economy by increasing the fleet cap as quickly - losing an extra 7% of your resources every time you do a logistics upgrade so you can build more un-upgraded frigates/capships instead of building a few less that have more powerful weapons is a *huge* penalty unless you're the type that always sits on your resources without using them all.

-- Retro
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
nice post! I agree the research needs be more significant... like 5% dmg increase is barley noticeable. and now doing any non unit research seems pointless until mid game, which makes me wonder why have these techs a low lvls if they are so useless... personally like it when having a tech advantage actually makes an impact, where you can say; "shit, i'm glad a researched rocket pods. I can finally take out his harassing scouts..." -generic researching type game.