That's... a very high AV DPS on the AHMG.

That's going to outDPS all other AV weapons, actually. Is that intentional? Of all the AV weapons, the AHMG is the one that can be best used against infantry in addition to its AV role.

Righto, I haven't actually run the numbers yet and that was off the top of my head, so let's go.
Will disregard proficiency for all weapons because it only applies to certain damage types. Let's look at raw damage.

Summary at the bottom.



Galmando with Allotek does 1870 damage per shot (glorious).
Reload time with Galmando is 3.5*.75 = 2.25. Charge time with maxed skill is 0.45s. Therefore max fire rate without lag and with perfect timing is one shot per 2.7 seconds.

1870/2.7 = 692 DPS

Minmando with Wiyrkomis does 1373 damage per volley. Lock on time is 1.05s with max skills.

I'm not entirely sure how to calculate swarm DPS, honestly. I know there's a forced delay between lock ons and the SDE suggests that's 1 second, but I might be reading the wrong thing. Let's go with the 1 second number for now.

1373 damage per 2.05 seconds means 669 DPS.

Top AHMG sentinel:

The best case scenario for an AHMG is on the Galsent because it can fit 2x damage mods. 2x HDMs gives about a 9% damage increase.

The proto AHMG does 616 DPS under the current proposal. 616*1.09 = 671 DPS

Let's add the forge gun to this list.

Your normal proto forge gun hits for 1440 damage every 3 seconds. With the same circumstances as the AHMG, this leads to 523 DPS. An IAFG will do substantially more at 726 DPS.




Summary:

So under optimal circumstances:
PLCs do 692 DPS.
Swarms do 669 DPS (?)
AHMGs do 671 DPS
FGs do 523 DPS
IAFGs do 726 DPS


Hm. They're all very close, really. AHMG does very similar damage to swarms and marginally less than the Galmando PLC. Bearing in mind that the Galmando does wonderful, wonderful things to the placon I will point out that a double damage modded non-commando allotek placon without the bonus does 481 DPS. The placon is comparatively only viable on the Galmando, then.


Anyhow, looks like I was wrong about it outDPSing -all- other AV weapons. However, it's very similar in terms of DPS to all the others! IAFGs are the only ones that noticeably outDPS it, at 50 DPS more, and that's a difference of less than 10%.


My concern is that it can very viably compete with all other AV options on raw DPS (and indeed, if those other AV options aren't in optimal circumstances it will noticeably outDPS a good few of them) while being much easier to use than the other options and also being by far the most effective against infantry.

No other AV weapon offers anywhere near as much anti-infantry capability as the AHMG, but the AHMG is right up there with the best of the AV options at the same time. It offers, quite literally, the best of both worlds.

Don't forget, swarms are also the most skillless weapon in the game.

That's a very debatable point. It's not so much that the weapons as skill-less....that's a poor term indeed it is that the weapon is very hands off about the way it applies damage....though to some degree that is a very exploitable weakness of the weapon.

It doesnt need a good player to just point the swarm launcher at the general direction of a vehicle, get a lock on and then fire the swarm volley. So yes it does not require skill cause once you done that the swarms will fly sright towards the targeted vehicle.

What it does require arguably is a player able to be in the right position to compensate for the dumb AI that Swarms have. AKA being in a position where the HAV pilot cannot exploit cover.

Exactly. Some pilots just keep hammering this topic in an effort to win some forum points. Nobody is listening to this particular rhetoric at CCP.

It's not rhetoric if it's true Rattati, it's called arguing the point. Many of us find swarms so frustrating because they are mathematically guaranteed to hit. Its 'consistency' has often been a very frustrating point of balance, I remember 1.6 gameplay where I was shot down by swarm fire from the other side of the map by someone who went 'oh noes there's a dropship out time to grab a swarm and aggressively hold r1 at this thing that offends me while standing on a nanohive for forever!'

The balance pendulum has swung many times on the swarm where it's gone from overpowered (pre 1.7) to useless (1.7 triple rep maddies) to powerful (hey it could kill tanks again!) to useless (dropships need only hit an afterburner to zoom away!) to powerful again (get too close to a swarm launcher and you are dead - user skill is irrelevant).

Maybe it's time to re-think the weapon from the ground up as it's clear that its current form is fundamentally flawed from a balance standpoint. I'd love to see a swarm launcher that can be boiled down to a wordsoup of 'plasma cannon + av grenade lockon'.

It's not rhetoric if it's true Rattati, it's called arguing the point. Many of us find swarms so frustrating because they are mathematically guaranteed to hit. Its 'consistency' has often been a very frustrating point of balance, I remember 1.6 gameplay where I was shot down by swarm fire from the other side of the map by someone who went 'oh noes there's a dropship out time to grab a swarm and aggressively hold r1 at this thing that offends me while standing on a nanohive for forever!'

The balance pendulum has swung many times on the swarm where it's gone from overpowered (pre 1.7) to useless (1.7 triple rep maddies) to powerful (hey it could kill tanks again!) to useless (dropships need only hit an afterburner to zoom away!) to powerful again (get too close to a swarm launcher and you are dead - user skill is irrelevant).

Maybe it's time to re-think the weapon from the ground up as it's clear that its current form is fundamentally flawed from a balance standpoint. I'd love to see a swarm launcher that can be boiled down to a wordsoup of 'plasma cannon + av grenade lockon'.

It's not rhetoric if it's true Rattati, it's called arguing the point. Many of us find swarms so frustrating because they are mathematically guaranteed to hit. Its 'consistency' has often been a very frustrating point of balance, I remember 1.6 gameplay where I was shot down by swarm fire from the other side of the map by someone who went 'oh noes there's a dropship out time to grab a swarm and aggressively hold r1 at this thing that offends me while standing on a nanohive for forever!'

The balance pendulum has swung many times on the swarm where it's gone from overpowered (pre 1.7) to useless (1.7 triple rep maddies) to powerful (hey it could kill tanks again!) to useless (dropships need only hit an afterburner to zoom away!) to powerful again (get too close to a swarm launcher and you are dead - user skill is irrelevant).

Maybe it's time to re-think the weapon from the ground up as it's clear that its current form is fundamentally flawed from a balance standpoint. I'd love to see a swarm launcher that can be boiled down to a wordsoup of 'plasma cannon + av grenade lockon'.

Who is more likely to die, the swarmer or the ADS?

Who is more likely to die, the swarmer or the ADS?

Who is more likely to die, the swarmer or the ADS?