I'm not sure where this would go, but good LAVs have an easy time not getting killed by forges, while swarms are a pain in the ass.

Forge Guns are the clear winner in all aspects.

Keep the faith.

For LAV, flux grenade and MD will take them down pretty quick too.
HAV, depends on shield lvl... a true shield tank, forget about it, but it does **** them off pretty quick.

Are you sure about those numbers? I don't have it handy, but from how other items i've used I'm pretty sure its:

300 x 1.25 x 1.1 for 412.5 per missile
1650 for 4
2062.5 for 5
2475 for 6

I guess I'll check later. Totally forgot about damage mods to get past HAV auto repair.

Still a losing proposition for Swarmer, house always wins type deal with clone/Isk loss due to tank just fighting you, while you fight every red with your sidearm...

Correct Math

There's also the "fire and forget" aspect of the swarm, you can pop off a volley at a vehicle quick swap to your sidearm and kill incoming infantry and back to the swarms to continue the assault (I've done this as recently as tonight to great effect).

Really? It is the other way around for me on my AV character. Pull out Swarms for tanks and bad drop ship pilots, pull out Forge Guns for LAV's and good Drop Ship pilots.

What's the the total damage on a HMG... 700*16=11'200, something like that?
You need to factor a few more parameters here...time, hit%. It aint that simple.

I don't see what you're getting at. You want me to factor in the chance of a hit? The Swarm Launcher does all the work for you, there's only fire interval that can be calculated and reload time, but that doesn't change the damage you've dealt. Elaborate.

no clue if 700 bullets is right, or 16 damage, but anyway.

lets say the HMG puts out 2000 bps, so i have to spend about 20 seconds in the open(plus 4 seconds for reloading behind cover), time in which my target can see me and shoot back at me, to put this total damage of 700*16 into my target, IN CASE every bullets hits, which might not be to tuff considering the size of vehicles.

A FG hits immeditaly, its full damage or non, even if just the tail of its target sticks out behind a rock. I can reload and charge behind cover aswell, but it takes siginfiantly longer, compared to HMG. But for 1 FG shot i just need to spend 1 second in the open.

The swarm, considering its reload time and lock on time(which would be the charge time of the FG), takes even more time to deal its total damage. I would say i have to spend more time in the open to lock on my target than to get of my FG shot.
Its not a given to say all missiles will hit, especially when the target gets a few seconds to dodge 'em. When just its tail sticks out behind a rock i can not hit all my missiles, maybe not even a single one. The longer i need to deal my total damage, the more time my target gets to find cover, eliminate me or just repair itself.

Flux 'nades deal more than 1000 damage to the shiel, easy to hit, easy to resupply, still its not comparable to Swarms.

See now, how total damge does not tell the whole story?

Thank you, I will update mine now. I've just heard many different sides. I used to think that skills operated similarly but apparently I was wrong about that as well, so I assumed that everything was additive after that.
So why doesn't skill levels of the same skill work like that?
Currently we operate on 2%+2%+2%+2%+2%=10%
Why not (((((Damagex1.02)x1.02)x1.02)x1.02)x1.02)?

300x1.1=330
(((((300x1.02)x1.02)x1.02)x1.02)x1.02)=331.22
The skills are inconsistent see? Why do they sum the same skill and not compound it like the others?

ive never had a lav survive 1 shot from my FG and ive killed hundreds... Not sure on saying they survive unless your talking about splash damage vs direct damage.

ive never had a lav survive 1 shot from my FG and ive killed hundreds... Not sure on saying they survive unless your talking about splash damage vs direct damage.

no clue if 700 bullets is right, or 16 damage, but anyway.

lets say the HMG puts out 2000 bps, so i have to spend about 20 seconds in the open(plus 4 seconds for reloading behind cover), time in which my target can see me and shoot back at me, to put this total damage of 700*16 into my target, IN CASE every bullets hits, which might not be to tuff considering the size of vehicles.

xd, because you can not take cover and switch to your secondary weapon right after having shot your FG, right?

This 'fire and forget' applies to every weapon, just the swarm does not get immediate response, its target is given a few seconds to dogdge it, keep shooting, repair itself of the last hit or just look for the jet trail to identify the possition of the the SL user. I think you can even shoot down the missiles.

Regarding the dps discussion:
When calculating damage the type of target needs to be considered as well as weapons do differing amounts of damage based on Armor vs Shields, and for that matter based on location of the hit as well (the "head shot" bonus is not universal in that differing weapons gain different degrees of bonus for hitting in 'soft spots').

I don't have those numbers for Swarm vs Forge but they certainly do impact the actual dps output of both weapons.

Cheers,
Cross

I would like to do so, but I'd need figures and accurate stats *looks at CCP*

70%
94%

Swarms vs armor
130%
174% (note, due to the battlefield conditions under which I was testing this I only saw for a split second and thus may have gotten wrong)


Forge vs Shields
100%
202%

Forge vs Armor
**have yet to confirm these numbers**

Cheers,
Cross

ps ~ all numbers are base numbers, meaning vs a tank without any resists fit/active.

Can you confirm that these were in consideration of skill bonuses as well?

Why are you bringing the HMG into an AV discussion?

The HMG will only ever have 38% damage efficiency on any vehicle (possibly less for tanks and DS, I dunno), so it doesn't actually function as an AV weapon in any capacity.

It also relies on pure RoF and medium range engagements to pull off significant damage while both the FG and SL are on-hit damage weapons that, if you're good enough, really ought to be hitting every time.

Incorrect, all weapons do not have this effect equally. The Laser for example does not have it at all.

Keeping things in the Forge vs Swarm context however, swarms track their target with no further input from the user meaning you release the trigger and are done. The lock means that you can start paying attention to lining up your shot/taking cover where as with the forge the impact of the shot is more or less instant meaning you have to keep your focus and your aim directly on the target rather than incoming infantry support.

Further the light weapon slot is top of the selection wheel making it an easier/faster swap than the heavy which is directly across from the sidearm (this won't matter so much for a KBM user but for anyone else those seconds are relevant).

Beyond all of that your movement speed with a charged Forge is much slower than with a swarm, making the return to cover/avoidance of incoming support fire all the more difficult.

As far as the 'contrails' are concerned, fire then move (while locking on) and fire again from another position. Something that one should be doing when using swarms. forge, or sniper. The swarms however have the benifit for being able to somewhat mislead the opposition because you can be locking your second shot while on the move something that the sniper and forge cannot do with any great effect (forge in large part because you can't move at a rate notable enough to make your change in position very relevant/effective).

0.02 ISK
Cross

The efficiency numbers are (as I understand it) a final modifier, as such they remain unchanged regardless of what skill levels are in play (the skill levels effect the numeric value of the figure that efficiency modifies, not the efficiency modifier itself). Just in case these modifiers function differently than I believe however, my Weaponry was at L5 while my Prof (for both weapons) was at L0. All testing done the same night with the same skills.

Cheers,
Cross

Oh Dear, sorry I had a blond moment. I don't know how, but I'm sorry I'll be updating and recalculating shortly.

EDIT: redline sniper, until you can engage in a mature discussion of the issues rather than ignore the majority of what I've said while (inaccurately) harping, in a snide manner, on an aspect of a single point I raised I'm going to cease responding to your posts as such responses are obviously not being read and thus a waste of my time.

I might not have to guide my Swarm missiles into its target AFTER having shot the SL, but this applies to the FG aswell, because its an instant hit. The time i have to spend in charging the FG, is the same time i have to spend on locking on the missiles.

I'm still standing to my statement, the Swarm is not a shoot and forget weapon, and a heavy suit with a FG still allows its user to switch to its secondary weapon, by tapping R2, just like any SL user and its secondary weapon.

I might not have to guide my Swarm missiles into its target AFTER having shot the SL, but this applies to the FG aswell, because its an instant hit. The time i have to spend in charging the FG, is the same time i have to spend on locking on the missiles.

Something tells me the idea of fire and forget means multiple things to people in this thread.

I used to think that it worked completely by multiplication, but what they actually do is add all the percentages up (I'm pretty sure).
So Weaponry Level 5= +10%
Proficiency Level 5= +15%
Complex Damage Mod= +10%

Sum Damage Multiplier=+35%

It works like this to make sure that damage doesn't get exponentially bigger with skills and mods, more linear. If we were to operate on a system like that, damage dealt from skills alone would look like this...

300x1.02^5x1.03^5=383.979

Separating the skills and multiplying adds more damage than just summing the bonuses and multiplying. However the damage multiplier on stat fittings doesn't increase with skills so I may have to take another look into this.

Incorrect, as far as i know, you take weaponry 10%, multiply the new value by the weaponry proficiency 15%?, then multiply that new value by the damage mods. So around...38% ish.

I just want to add that for it's worth Forge Guns are gangster as ****.