I think it's ok. As you advance you skills to the point of being able to use proto, you passive skills allow you to utilise the weapon better and take advantage of it's slightly higher damage. On top of that, you are able to start specing into AR proficiency to give the passive damage increase. All this combines to give a very nice edge against your opponents. This top tier edge should be expensive. Something that you might pull out once or twice at match at the present payout grade. Once we start getting ISK flooding in from EvE then it'll become more viable for those players with the skills to fully take advantage of it.

Try recalcing the values using damage per second taking efficiency into account:

DPS = (Damage * RPM * efficiency rating)/60.

Did you look at the spreadsheet or read the numbers I posted? I don't mean that insultingly, I mean honestly what you're saying doesn't make sense in the face of the facts. It's true that your passive abilities develop more as you push toward those prototype weapons, but it still remains that using what passive abilities you have unlocked in doing so and applying them to lower tier weapons results in practically the same performance as they would had you equipped the prototype weapon you now have access to.

You have reason to upgrade your skills, but no reason to upgrade what weapon you use. In equipping that higher level gun, you're sacrificing CPU and PG, which equates to you sacrificing something like HP, so much in fact that the difference in amount of HP you could fit with a lower weapon outweighs the amount of damage done with a higher tier weapon. You would win a fight against someone using a proto weapon if you used a standard weapon purely because you out-HP their almost negligible higher damage.



I'm not aware of if efficiency ratings change per tier of weapon, and if they don't, it doesn't change anything. The comparisons were all across the normal variants of each gun across std/adv/pro tiers. They're the same guns with the same firing mechanics, and there's hardly any performance difference.

But, at proto suit level, if , the skills are up to speed, you can have maxed out armour and shields by dropping equipment and sidearm if needed for CPU and PG

The spreed sheet shows that there is very little difference(no difference for some other low RPM weapon types) in ammo requirement to take out the same target. It's rare though where a battle is both parties start firing at the exact same moment with the same accuracy.

Now that we're in open beta and I'm not going to get yelled at for linking a spreadsheet, I would like to bring this back into the spotlight.

I made a handy spreadsheet to showcase the result of the weapon damage flattening. The numbers listed are bullets it takes to kill the various HP levels shown at the top.

I personally feel this is a bad direction to be taking weapon damage across tiers. The incentive to use a higher level gun is being diminished, and this occurs across all levels of SP investment and even occurs with the use of damage mods. There is much more of an effect across SP investment and the use of damage mods (than there is using a higher tier weapon), and the overall result is it doesn't really matter what weapon you use; the time to kill is so close between standard and prototype that in many cases it's negligible (and the sacrifice of fitting space to use the prototype weapon would be better spent elsewhere, making the prototype weapon useless).

For quick comparisons, and those who don't want to click the link, here's the bullet difference between standard and prototype weapons, from 300 to 1000 hp in increments of 100.

Current AR values:

At base damage: 1-1-2-2-2-2-3-3
At max SP investment: 1-1-1-2-1*-2-2-2
At max SP + 2 damage mods: 1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2

Using old AR values, we get:

At base damage: 2-2-3-4-4-4-5-6
At max SP investment: 1-2-3-2*-3-4-4-5
At max SP + 2 damage mods: 1-1-2-2-3-3-3-4

*probably a fluke with hp values chosen that one value just barely doesn't make its difference 1 higher

Current HMG values:

At base damage: 1-3-3-3-4-5-5-6
At max SP investment: 1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4
At max SP + 2 damage mods: 1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4

Using old HMG values, we get:

At base damage: 3-5-5-6-7-9-10-10
At max SP investment: 2-3-4-5-6-6-7-8
At max SP + 2 damage mods: 2-3-3-4-5-6-6-7

The ARs, while not hugely different than before, almost never reach a point where it's more than a 2 bullet difference with current values to kill anybody from 300 to 1000 hp. The HMGs show a vast difference and highlight the direction these differences are heading. The incentive to upgrade to a higher tier weapon is diminishing with the damage flattening. There are some weapons and variants that have added bonuses such as better accuracy and faster fire rate that come with upgrades, but for the majority of weapons, they have this problem.

I personally would like to see SP removed from the damage equation, have passive bonuses be things that improve target acquisition rather than target destruction, and also broaden the gap in weapon base damage to incentivize upgrading.

That's part of the sacrificing needing to be made that I mentioned. Losing your equipment or sidearm when you would otherwise have it makes you less effective in a number of cases. This largely depends on things like how often you use them, but if you have to get rid of your nanohives? You're now dependent on other people for ammo and can't readily get it right when you want it. If you can't get it, you've sacrificed long-term potential, when you're now running around with no ammo, for in a number of cases negligible increased killing power.



It's not really so much about looking at it as a you vs someone else perspective and comparing having that edge. It's more along the lines of (let's grab an example, max SP AR shooting at someone with 400 hp), you pick up your standard gun, you'd have killed him in 11 bullets. You change to advanced gun, find him again, this time you kill him in 10 bullets. That's kinda cool, but really, one bullet difference with an AR is 80 milliseconds of firing time. Some people won't notice the difference between that and lag. But anyway, you've now got enough money for your sexy prototype gun. You put it on, find the same poor guy with 400 hp, and you kill him in... 10 bullets. You've just upgraded, potentially sacrificing fitting space, wasting a ton more ISK, and you kill no better. That's the problem that's a result of the damage flattening. What reason is there to equip a higher gun if in many cases it gives you no benefit, especially if on a number of suits you have to sacrifice things in order to fit it? I'm not sure where to rate a "bonus" to upgrading like accuracy, either, because that'd be on a case-by-case basis, I think accuracy only really affects hipfiring (I haven't noticed bullets not going where I aim when zoomed in, even on militia rifles).

You've already done a spread sheet for this build with the flattened damage difference. Try doing it for the last build.