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Guns of Icarus and the Law of Diminishing Returns

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Sammy B. T.:

--- Quote from: Grey T on May 08, 2014, 10:35:10 am ---First off I like this thread,

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It started as a response in the Flamer thread but I realized it was getting off topic but still worthy of being a topic.


--- Quote ---Now to pick your brains, how about a double merc pyra, that is a common enough build and seems to do a good enough job, it has shatter for disable and piercing for taking down the hull, and ultimately can ware down the hull enough for a kill, i would love to hear your thoughts on this?
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Support ships aren't as effected by diminishing returns due to them not needing the efficiency of of kill ships. Now, if your ally is double merc as well then beyond being a jerk, you're an inefficient jerk and will probably get smote by a good enough team.




You know, this thread kind of dips into the idea of ship specialization.

Support ships are basically forms of specialization. The more you specialize, the more specific firepower you bring and this can be effective. Its basic hammer and anvil tactics. The more you specialize, the more you rely on your teammate and the more the teammate has top specialize. If you bring too much piercing, your ally need to compensate with too much explosive. If I traded one of my artemis for a hades on my boat in the Mandarains then Frogger would then need to compensate by changing his hades to an artemis. While the number of guns didn't change that we are using in engagement, our specialization did.

Ducks have found it best to keep a relatively low range of specialization between the two ships as we want to make it difficult to choose a target. I learned this facing the classic Paddling, "Do I attack Squash and get killed by Smollet or do I attack Smollet and get killed by Squash?"

To bring this back on subject, when looking at returns, this comes up because if a ship becomes too specialized it is either targeted (double lumber galleon) or ignored (art junker)



BTW, I put this in gameplay instead of guid for a reason. This is hardly something set in stone and is far more about style than objective facts. I welcome discussion and disagreement.



Geo, this did start as a response in the flamer thread about y'all's double carro. However this is a discussion the Ducks have been having for a year now and I just thought it would be fun to get more thoughts. As i said, this is in gameplay and not guides for a reason.

Concerning the double carro, yes that is indeed true and back in my days of double carro I would heavy on my bottom deck carro and greased on my top to make use of the weapon's two skills. Overtime though the complete lack of explosive with the exception of front artemis pot shots, became apparaent as a major flaw even with a good teammate. I found with the carousel I could still get gun damage as well as I still have an art on the front.

Something I've been seeing recently is the carronade/art combo. Seeming opposites working well together. If a heavy clip barking dog is a poorman's artemis, why not just use an artemis and have explosive?

HamsterIV:
Speaking as one who likes to double down on weapons there are some advantages to having 2 or 3 of the same weapon on a ship.
 
Consistent vertical arcs - Having a Merc and an Artemis on the same side limits the sweet spot where you can have both guns shooting where double merc or tripple Artemis gives a much wider vertical range where you can be at max effectiveness.
Less need for gunners - I know it is an old sticking point in this community, but if I can get by with three engineers and still have more or less optimal ammo I am going to go for three engineers. Having a ship built with duplicate guns reduces the need for multiple ammo types.
Only one optimal range - I don't need to worry about being in range for both guns. It is the same argument as the vertical arcs only made on the distance between ships vector.

Battle Toads:

--- Quote from: Sammy B. T. on May 08, 2014, 09:35:19 am ---
As a long time user of the artemis, nothing angers me more than excessive artemis. It is a great weapon and while effective in competent hands, it is godly in veteran hands. But if sacrifice piercing just so you can fit a bit more shatter in there then you are being quite foolish. It fails in the same way a quad hwacha Galleon fails, its not enough to take down components if you can't kill them.


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I assume the best way to make an artemis junker work is to put a hades on the lower gun deck. Although it is hard to get all 3 guns in arc, a hades is capable of major hull damage, light balloon damage and annoying fire damage while the artemis can do major gun/engines damage and light hull damage. If you have the hades shred armor and 2 other artemisis firing, you should be able to disable with the arts and get some decent permahull damage with each armor pop

Also on the subject of quad hwatcha galleons (one of my favourite silly builds) the 2 hwatchas per side should not be fired instantly. The benefit of this build is that a gunner capable of multitasking can reasonably man all 4 heavy guns, which leaves an extra engie to repair. The way I set up quad hwatcha galleons is that I have a gunner fire an opening shot with the hwatcha, and a burst round shot  can disable the entire ship up close while a good heavy shot can hit either their guns or engines hard from afar. After this the gatling should be able to easily shred the armor of the disabled ship, and this is the only time the second hwatcha should be fired. By that time the galleon should be very close to the target and the hwatcha should easily take out all of a ship's perma hull in 1 salvo (also remember that the 1st hwatcha should be reloaded by this time, incase more firepower is needed)

Mysterious Medic:

--- Quote ---Something I've been seeing recently is the carronade/art combo. Seeming opposites working well together. If a heavy clip barking dog is a poorman's artemis, why not just use an artemis and have explosive?
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There are a few reasons why artemis doesnt perform very well in close range brawls. First is yaw speed; at distances, not much turning speed is needed, you only really need it to lead shots sometimes. On a ship that is closing distance fast, the yaw speed of the artemis will be the death of you, its just way too hard to be able to turn it fast enough at close distance. Second is rate of fire; unlike at mid or long range, where leverage is usually gained slowly, in close range, every mistake could be your last. Thats why there is high risk for high reward, you either have to kill the ship fast enough so that it wont kill you, or disable it fast enough so that you have more time to adjust positioning. The artemis just shoots too slow to do either of these things. - Oh and as for the "need" for an explosive weapon... Rams (;

Although I agree that there is a "Law of Diminishing Returns" for weapons, you are neglecting the bi-functionality of weapons. Double merc doesnt work because it does piercing damage. It works because it does piercing damage AND shatter damage. Double merc would be useless if the merc only had one damage type. There are very few times where having two guns that are imputing the same type of damage is useful, mainly because if you need two of the same gun for the same damage, it only means that the one alone is not doing its job sufficiently. Thats why two artemis are useful, you can actually get enough explosive damage between the two of them to kill a ship quickly.  Same goes for having two gats on a brawl mob, you just need MOAR piercing. But most of the time, muse has designed its guns to be effective by themselves. One flamer is enough to cause chaos, one mortar is enough to kill a ship, one hwacha is enough to disable a ship, etc.

Spud Nick:
I'm a sucker for symmetry. I know It's better to have one side of the junker different from the other but it doesn't look as cool.

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