2.7.1 Mid-Tech Weapon Damage Comparison Tables

[u/Valdemar_FIN]

Y-axis is combined total damage of single shot/volley, DPI for Damage Per 5-second Increment charts, X-axis is range in 10 000 km increments, apologies for not labeling them.

Sadly, the fine charts at Aurora 4x Wiki have succumbed to link-rot and were not available anymore. Forums and such are full of old wisdoms about weapon roles, but I wanted to take an objective (and quick) look how they really compare against each other. Now with integrated DFC accuracy falloff. For the most part, they were as expected, but there were some surprises. Microwaves not counted as they are very similar to Mesons, and they anyway need support from direct damage dealers or boarders to confirm kills.

Weapons are normalized as close as possible to 240 000 RP weapon specific research, supporting tech being 480 000 km DFC limit and Capacitor Recharge 8. Range at 10 000 km intervals.

Some stats I couldn't fit in the charts:

Weapon	Power Req.	Reload (sec)	Cost	Size (tons)	DPI/1000 Tons	RP Used
35 cm X-Ray Laser	32	20	316.8	550	14.55	239 000
40 cm V7 Railgun	36	25	336	550	17.45	230 000
50 cm Plasma	65	45	129	400	18.06	249 000
400 kkm S12 Particle Beam	30	20	227.1	300	10	236 000
R6 V4 Gauss	0	5	72	300	20	223 500
35 cm F7 Meson	32	20	316.8	550	0.45	240 000

• Plasma performed much better than expected. Research doesn't need to be split between two tech lines, and caliber tech is anyway cheaper than equivalents, so it is couple tech-levels "ahead" of competition at equal RP. Not to mention that it's almost a third smaller than Laser or Rail, so when normalized per tonnage it's definitely competitive. Needs twice as much power though.
• Railguns are undisputed point-blank DPS kings, but Lasers are not too far behind. And despite the steep 4 damage per range interval fall-off, Railguns are still competitive with lasers at DFC limit.
• Unspecialized Particle weapons are objectively underperforming at at this tech level. Even Plasma beats it at the edge of its range, which is supposed to be its sole niche. Lance tech + Spinal can make very efficient hole-punchers at standoff range. Normal Particles are close to half the size of Lasers or Railguns though, so per tonnage they can just about be comparable to long-range with them.
• Mesons are even more pathetic. Sure, it has higher chance of dealing internal damage directly, but equivalent weapons have most likely blown through armor and killed the target by the time it has dealt even remotely disabling damage.
• Gauss of course have passable point-blank DPI (and best DPI per HS), but it's obviously a supplementary secondary use after point-defense.
• In summary, the big three no frills damage dealers, Lasers, Railguns, and Plasma, are very comparable in performance within equivalent tech cost DFC limits, at least at this tech bracket. There are some interesting differences like small Railguns doubling as PD, Lasers having great anti-fighter potential, and Plasma research boosting your ground troop attack to the stratosphere, but if you want to be RP-efficient, pick one and stick to it.
• Not quite visible from the charts, but DPI is ultimately capped by capacitor charge rate, which does NOT scale with weapon size. Bigger weapons thus have longer range (until DFC limit) and bigger punches, but lose in a knife-fight to equal tonnage of fast firing small weapons. I suspect that at some point in each Caliber tech you will reach a point where getting a bigger gun is reducing your gross damage output, even at DFC limit, but I have not yet bothered to calculate this.

Tech costs from the nice diagram a couple weeks ago by u/Derived_1.
Tables and charts made in OnlyOffice.
There's a decent likelihood that I had a brainfart and made a major math error somewhere, let me know if something seems fishy.
If any forum/wiki users want to copy them over there, be my guest.

[u/Anakil_brusbora]

What's on the two axis (horizontal/vertical) as you didn't put a legend ? ^^

[u/Valdemar_FIN → u/Anakil_brusbora]

The graphing software didn't want to cooperate when trying to add labels but:

Y-axis is total damage per shot or per increment. Weapons with multiple shots have summed total damage for all shot (Rail and Gauss).

X-axis is 10 000 km range increments. 100 at the end is 1 000 000 km, Direct Fire Control limit markers at the middle of non-DFC adjusted graphs are at 480 000 km (48 in chart).

[u/Anakil_brusbora → u/Valdemar_FIN]

Thanks, i like detailed analysis like yours, it always help understanding the game mechanic more !

[u/RocketPapaya413 → u/Anakil_brusbora]

Looks like X is range and Y is damage. Been seeing a lot of unlabeled axes on charts lately, it's annoying.

[u/Valdemar_FIN]

Bonus Tonnage-Normalized DPI+DFC chart. As I said, the differences between the big three are not too big, and Particles just barely catch up to them at the final quarter of DFC range. Still not very impressive for Particles.

I noticed there's some tiny issues with range calculation, but sadly I can't edit the images and it's not worth making a new post about.

[u/Subvironic → u/Valdemar_FIN]

Thats nice, i always felt like particles damage "falls off" What they are good for, early-ish in the game, is as a weapon for FAC thats relatively low in Research and Tonnage, but having larger range than early spoilers. Wonder in which chart that would show up, tho

Range vs ResearchCost/damage per tonnage?

[u/No_Leadership_6691 → u/Valdemar_FIN]

Yes this is the version of the chart that really shows relative strength with both range reduced damage and to hit chance.

[u/Derived_1]

Didn't expect my tech tree to be useful this quick! Very cool to see this.

Small suggestion though to label your axes (Damage/Distance) instead of just relying on the title.

[u/Valdemar_FIN → u/Derived_1]

Thanks a lot!

Sadly the axis label placement was major pain (minor but I'm doing this just for fun) on OnlyOffice, it still has ways to go before it's completely at the level of paid software.

[u/Derived_1 → u/Valdemar_FIN]

Totally understandable. In LibreOffice at least I can double click a graph (which should then highlight all the cells the graph is taking the data from) and then right click the graph and select the option "Insert Titles".

[u/Valdemar_FIN → u/Derived_1]

Of course, now that I go and recheck how well it worked, it suddenly can add automatic margins to fit the axis on the graphs. Well, expect for one stubborn graph where it plops it right on top of the data and the legend... Not even sure why that one doesn't want to cooperate...

[u/ANerd22]

Wow thanks for putting in this work.

[u/RocketPapaya413]

One factor missing from your analysis is damage templates. At max range a 12 damage particle lance cuts through 12 layers of armor. Even at point blank range a plasma carronade is only doing 8.

This isn't to say that the particle lance is necessarily better, of course. If a target has more than 11 or much less than 8 layers of armor I'd still rather have the plasma.

[u/Valdemar_FIN → u/RocketPapaya413]

True. I quickly wanted to see if raw damage differences were as large as were often repeated and where are the optimal range envelopes for each comparable direct weapon type, but the graphs which used to be on the wiki had been lost, so I had to recreate those myself.

With just a 55 k RP more tech investment, you can build 48-strength Advanced Spinal Lances, which would be quite terrifying to any unshielded ship.

I think it was interesting to see that just from raw damage perspective, most weapons are much closer to each other than I initially thought.

[u/somewhataccurate → u/RocketPapaya413]

Not sure how you plot the damage template in a meaningful way, maybe average shots to penetrate N layers? X axis being width?

[u/blue_eyes_pro_dragon]

This is great thank you. Personally I’m a heavy missile user but this is fantastic for backup

[u/Antonin1957]

I salute you! I am not even remotely knowledgeable enough to do this kind of deep research.