Weapon damage spreadsheet (Updating with other component data)

[clowncar2131]

Original: I was bothered by the sorely lacking descriptions of the weapons in the game, so I unpacked the game files and put together a spreadsheet for weapons based on the values specified in the data. The calculated DPS values are based on my assumptions and observations about how each stat affects each weapon and as such, I make no guarantees that this chart is entirely accurate or even remotely correct. That being said, it seems to hold true based on my brief testing. Hopefully others find this helpful. Please note that I completely ignored heat generation and overheating (for now) as I wasn't concerned with it at the start. If you spot any errors or notice inconsistencies, please let me know.

12/9: I'm in the process of using python to dump component data into spreadsheets and adding these to my original sheet as new sheet tabs. So far I have Missiles and Engines, and soon Shields. For the time being these are just raw numbers from the xml's and don't include any analysis of any kind. If anyone has any specific requests for a category, please let me know and I'll look into it

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... mg/pubhtml

Edit: Here's a non-published google sheet link for any who wants to make a copy or whatever.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[Mobitz]

I've been looking for something like this. Wasn't entirely sure the best weapons.. was going mostly by price. lol

TY

[Tadas]

Thank you, very useful

[PreSpawn]

THANK YOU!

[Geek]

Good idea, but I do not think your calc is correct.
I strongly doubt lasers, beams and gatling are that close.

[clowncar2131]

They may not be, I figured them based on how things seemed to work in game. With all projectile weapons I first tried to find effectively how many rounds it could fire per second if you just hold down the trigger. In the case of the S gatling mk2 it has 20 'Ammunition' with a reload rate of 10, as best as I can tell, Reload Rate seems to be effectively rounds fired per second, so 20 rounds/10 RPS = 2 seconds, plus it has an 'Ammo Reload' of 1, which appears to mean it takes 1 second to reload in game. So 2 seconds to fire all ammo + 1 second to reload, 3 seconds total per firing cycle. Then 20 rounds fired every 3 seconds total, 20 rounds/3 seconds = 6.67 eRPS. The damage value for projectiles seems to be how much damage each projectile does, so 32 damage per S gatling mk2 round, firing at an effective rate of 6.67 RPS = 213.44 DPS. Similarly, the S pulse mk2 has a firing rate of 16 RPS, BUT only 4 rounds per magazine, after which it takes 0.7 seconds to reload, so 0.25 seconds to expend all ammo + 0.7 seconds to reload = 0.95 seconds per cycle. 4 rounds / 0.95 seconds = 4.21 eRPS. With 37 damage per round thats 37*4.21= 155.77 DPS.

Beams seem to work differently and I'm honestly not completely sure about them. The damage value in the file appears to be it's DPS, and it's lifetime appearing to be how long the beam will last if you continue holding the trigger. It looks like the reload rate is effectively how long it takes to 'recharge' once you pull the trigger, starting immediately, so in the case of the S beam mk1, it has a lifetime of 4 seconds and a reload rate of 4 seconds that starts immediately, basically meaning it will already be recharged at the end of its 4 second lifetime and immediately fire again. The S beam mk2 has a 4 second lifetime and a 5 second recharge, so if you hold down the trigger it will fire for 4 seconds continuously then recharge for 1 second before firing again and that seemed to match what I was seeing in game. So the S beam mk2 has 140 DPS specified in the file but can only keep that beam going for 4/5 of the time, so it has an effective dps of 112 (140*(4/5)). I tried to test beam dps as best as I could by firing one full Medium beam mk1 and seeing how much damage it did to my own fighter's shields over the 4 seconds that it fired for. It repeatedly did 588 damage (7886 starting shields - 7298 shields after being beamed for 4 seconds) so 588/4 = 147 DPS which is what the damage value of the M beam Mk1 is in the files (the M beam mk2 similarly did 896 damage over 4 seconds -> 224 DPS which is also the damage value specified in the file).

I am not 100% certain that this is all correct, as it's partially based on my observations about how the stats are handled in game, someone who know exactly how the code handles the data in the files would be able to say with more certainty. At any rate, I'm not terribly surprised by the DPS differences between the weapons, the S gatling mk2 does 213.44 dps (assuming any of this is right) compared to the S pulse mk2's 155.77 dps (~30% more dps by the gatling), but the gatling's bullets are noticeably slower 2400m/s vs 4147m/s (so the gatling has ~60% of the speed of the pulse, making it arguably harder to hit things reliably). That seems like a roughly fair trade-off to me.

[MutantDwarf]

The turret DPSes all look extremely small compared to other weapons. Every turret gun does something like 1/4 or 1/5 of what an S weapon of that type does. That's... concerning.

[clowncar2131]

Yeah, when I first saw that I was concerned I put something in wrong. After checking multiple times, these are the damage values I'm seeing in the bullet xml's. I can't think of an easy, reliable way to test turret damage right now since there doesn't seem to be a way to take manual control of a turret like in X3, so for the time being I just have to guess that the turrets function identically to their main weapon counterparts, just with different values. Maybe I can try to go find an undefended hostile station and park a ship with turrets next to it and verify them that way...

[101khazaddum]

Great work. It’s stuff like this that makes this community such a great place. Egosoft are you watching this. Would be useful in a manual. Oops 🥳

[TempestZ]

Turrets indeed have low dmg values.

An L laser turret has less damage than an S laser mk1. About half. It's ludicrous in my opinion.

I made a mod to buff them and get them in line a bit.
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/61

[lordmuck]

Thank you for this well done !

[clowncar2131]

Cool, it's good to know I was not hallucinating those terribly low damage values. I'll always be glad that the X games support modding so readily so that we can change the balance of the game to taste.

[csaba]

Can confirm that in 1.3 turrets at least work properly now. Flying destroyers is not so painful now and missiles are not necessary for them to be useful.

Attacked a pirate production facility. My Behemoth took out 20 something defense drones that are fairly hard to hit even in a fighter. Used mostly bolt weapons. Although had a beam gun on the top large turret.

Lost 1-2 turrets only in the process.

Weapon damages for capital ships are still abysmal though... Could barely take out a spacefuel production facility with them after continued fire for 5 minutes. (Keep in mind stations have crazy repair capabilities.)

Bolt turrets did less damage then same fixed weapons on S fighters....Egosoft please...



Make capital ships scary again!

[Baldamundo]

Thanks for doing this - really helpful. Absolutely bizarre the values for turrets though - I guess no wonder people have been complaining constantly about capitals being underpowered.

EDIT: I guess this is another reason why missiles are insanely overpowered at the moment. Not only are they much longer ranged, and homing, but the turret versions do just as much damage as the real thing, while gun turrets are worse than S guns.

[StormhawkV]

Thank you very much, this is super helpful!

Are all turrets the same no matter where I buy them? I noticed every species has a turret design of their own. They are described as ARG, PAR or TEL in the same way as thrusters and shield generators.

[clowncar2131]

Thank you very much, this is super helpful!

Are all turrets the same no matter where I buy them? I noticed every species has a turret design of their own. They are described as ARG, PAR or TEL in the same way as thrusters and shield generators.

From a damage standpoint, yes, the different species turrets all reference the same bullet file so they all fire the same values. From glancing at some of the turret files themselves, occasionally (only one that I see) there are some minor differences in 'rotationspeed' (90 vs 99 in the only case I actually saw), but I'm guessing it was unintended as most of them are identical to each other in that. So as best as I can tell right now, the only difference between turrets is the visual appearance of the turret itself. For other equipment, it looks like there might be some minor differences between races, Paranid engines appear to have the most thrust, Teladi engines are slower and Argon are in the middle. I haven't personally done a comparison of anything other than weapon bullets so I can't say that with certainty. I'm guessing Teladi shields are better than Paranid with Argon again being in the middle. I've heard others say before that Paranid ships are faster than the other two, but less shielded, Teladi are slower but better shields, and Argon are supposed to be the middle-ground.

[StormhawkV]

Thanks again!

Yes, engines and shields actually have different values depending on which species made them. Paranid combat thrusters are the fastest when not in travel mode, while the Argon ones excel in overall performance and travel speeds. Teladi shields are the strongest while Paranid shields are the weakest. Luckily you can get all of them from the wharf in Trinity Sanctum VII so you don't have to travel around.

[clowncar2131]

Thanks again!

Yes, engines and shields actually have different values depending on which species made them. Paranid combat thrusters are the fastest when not in travel mode, while the Argon ones excel in overall performance and travel speeds. Teladi shields are the strongest while Paranid shields are the weakest. Luckily you can get all of them from the wharf in Trinity Sanctum VII so you don't have to travel around.

That's great to know, it kinda makes me want to make a weapon mod that varies the race weapons too. Maybe make one race the king of fire rate, another has high damage but slower firing weapons or something to that effect.

[Raider_MXD]

So the burst DPS of the Pulse Laser is higher than that of the Gatling but the sustained hull/shield DPS is lower even though the Gatling has to reaload? How is that possible or rather what am I overlooking?

[Geek]

No, the burst DPS of lasers is not correct.
It shows damage multiplied by firing rate, but (when ammo > 1) the firing rate actually applies to the salvo, not to the delay between salvos.