gunner stamina and gun buffs

[BlackenedPies]

Using all of the gunner stamina reduces a reload by 1.6 seconds. This isn't much compared to the dps bonus of a buffed gun.

To make gunners competitive against buff engi the reload bonus should be at least 50% (vs 25%). This means you could reduce a reload by 3.2 seconds.

Second suggestion: increase time required to buff a gun and increase buff duration. Gunners can have their gun buffed for longer and engi must prioritize more. Ex 10s buff 30s duration

[Daft Loon]

I'm all for putting this into testing.

I can see it making pre-buffing more powerful but also making gun disables a real pain for a buff engi, it might balance out in there somewhere.

If i calculated it right 3.2 seconds reduces the full fire+reload cycle duration on a hwacha to about 80%(standard ammo) making a 25% dps boost. (less when accounting for stamina running out)

[ZnC]

I'm not sure where you got the 1.6 seconds from, but gunner stamina reduces reload time by 25%. Using all of it will give you about 3.2 seconds on the Hwacha, like Daft mentioned.

Although Gunners would be used slightly more with stamina now, I think it still boils down to ship choice and pilot's preference.

[BlackenedPies]

Gunner stamina lasts about 6.5 seconds. Hwatcha reload with full stamina is about 12.4 seconds.

Increasing the reload bonus from 25 to 50% would increase hwatcha dps from +9% to +18% (with burst ammo). This seems fair to me considering reload bonus is temporary compared to the consistent +20% damage of buff.

The temporary reload bonus is insignificant compared to a real damage boost. The most significant effect of gunner stamina is the arc boosts. The sound of stamina reload makes it sound fast but it's not- 1.6 seconds isn't much.

[ZnC]

Ah, I see now. Forget what I said in my previous post, it does reduce it by about 2 seconds.

Back to the topic - I think it is worth mentioning that you can have your buff-gineer buff your gun while you use gunner stamina to multiply your DPS.

[BlackenedPies]

There are usually more important things to do than buff the gunner's gun. This can be done for the first clip but on most ships it's unlikely that a buff engi will have time to constantly buff the gunner gun. 


More importantly the calculations I did were incorrect because stamina doesn't reduce reload time- it reduces reload speed. Reload speed is (1/reload_time).

Courtesy of Extirminator:
reload_time = stamina_usage_time +  ( ( 1 - ( ( 1.25*reload_speed )*stamina_usage_time ) ) / reload_speed )

Example:
For simplicity let's use a hypothetical "mine launcher" and assume time to empty clip = 0 (there's no delay between shooting clip and reloading).

The reload time is 4 so using 4 seconds of stamina decreases reload time to 3 (+25% dps)
If reload was 5 seconds then stamina reload would be 3.75s (+25% dps)
If reload time is longer than stamina use then the bonus is lower. If the hypothetical gun had a hwatcha reload time of 14s stamina reload is 12.375  (+11.6% dps).

Longer time to empty clips reduces the dps bonus. If the gun has a 4s reload and 1s time to empty clip then the dps bonus with stamina is +20%. With a 4s time to empty clip the dps is +12.5%.


My original suggestion was to increase the bonus to 50% but this would not work. The mechanics of the reload bonus system has me worried that it's not balanced for all guns. This was my initial concern when I first heard the suggestion.

[BlackenedPies]

Calculating by reload speed or time is the same.

Reload - (0.25*stamina_use) =
stamina_usage_time +  ( ( 1 - ( ( 1.25*reload_speed )*stamina_usage_time ) ) / reload_speed )

Dps bonus =
Reload time with stamina + empty clip time / reload time + empty time

+DPS  = 1 - ( (R' + E) / (R + E) )

The dps bonus is higher if the gun has a short reload and short empty. The mine launcher benefits the most because it has a quick reload and empty.

[ZnC]

Bringing a gunner would mean you can get more out of your core guns if you can maintain buffs. Interestingly with engineer stamina the buff-gineer would have an easier time keeping up buffs. However, if you are not making use of gunner stamina or the multiple ammo choices, triple engineer would still be the way to go.

Calculating by reload speed or time is the same.
Reload - (0.25*stamina_use) =
stamina_usage_time +  ( ( 1 - ( ( 1.25*reload_speed )*stamina_usage_time ) ) / reload_speed )

I don't want to turn this into a math thread, but this is misleading. The formulas are accurate, however "-25% reload time" and "+25% reload speed" are completely different.
If reload time is reduced, it would result in a one-third increase in reload speed, as opposed to 25%.

[BlackenedPies]

The best bonus of gunner stamina is the arcs because the reload bonus is little compared to a buffed gun. Buff engis usually don't have the time to keep buffing the gunner gun. They also have to repair, buff, and shoot other guns. That's why I think gun buffs should last longer and take longer to buff.

The results are the same if you calculate using either equation. There may be a technical difference between the two but they give the same answer. The simple way is to calculate by reload time. Reload time = 1 / reload speed

[Extirminator]

The results are the same if you calculate using either equation. I don't know the technical difference between the two but they give the same answer. The simpler way is to calculate by reload time.

There is no technical difference between the two equation because if you simplify the larger equation they are both the same. You haven't actually done the calculation in any different way, so you did not prove anything because you haven't calculated it they way it should be if the actual reload TIME was reduced.


Picture the reload time a bottle with the capacity of 1 liter. Picture the reload speed to be someone pouring in water at a certain rate, so if it will take that someone 4 seconds to fully fill up the cup his reload speed is 0.25 bottles/sec.

Now if we take muse's saying of decreasing the reload TIME by 25%, that would mean that they have two options:

1. actually decrease the capacity of the bottle by 25% - so instead of 1, you would have to fill up 0.75. Now I have to say, this option is completely idiotic - it means that if you have weapon that it's reload time is so high compared to stamina usage time so that after you finish the use of stamina, you still have not reached 0.75 - you have less than that AND then the cap is raised back up to 1 so effectively stamina had no implication at all. A different scenario is that you would activate stamina a fraction of a second before you would have reached 0.75 - meaning the cap would be lowered to 0.75 and the reload the reload would be instantly done - with practically 0 stamina usage.

Obviously the first option is not the case, as determined from observations in-game, so it brings us into option number 2-

2.When saying that reload time was decreased by 25% the people actually mean that you still have a bottle of 1 liter, but the guy who is pouring is actually pouring it at a faster rate so that it would fill up as if it would have been a bottle of 0.75 liters at the previous, slower rate. So, in order to get that going in the new speed - the speed will have to be(as already calculated by ZanC here) +33% faster.

Now, there is actually a 3rd option that is competing with option 2 on the title for the truth, which is that the developers don't actually make things so complicated and tangled up like in option 2, but they have actually got confused with the terms of reload speed and reload time. Which would imply, that it is most likely an increase in reload speed.

[BlackenedPies]

I'm thinking of it like speeding up time during stamina use. By using the full 6.5 seconds you reduce time by 1.625 so whether you're speeding up time or increasing the speed of reload it's the same result. I now see that "reload time" is different from the time I'm talking about.

[Omniraptor]

I agree, the way stamina reloading works right now is really unintuitive. AFAIK it makes the reload bar fill 20% faster as long as you have stamina remaining, after stamina turns off it goes back to the normal rate.

Which kind of makes sense but doesn't really give a big benefit on the slow guns like minotaur or hwacha, because it doesn't help slow-loading guns as much as it helps already fast-loading guns.