[Gearhead] [UT] Beam Weapon Efficiency

[Darekun]

I slapped together a program to analyze the efficiency of beam weapons from G: Ultra-Tech, with a particular eye toward pairwise comparison in search of the exponent that relates damage to energy consumption. There are inconsistencies, but I'm generally starting by assuming consumption is proportional to the cube of damage. Once this thread dies, I will submit anything I then consider to be errata.

Damage is considered in dice for a single shot. Adds are converted to dice, rather than the other way around. Armor divisor is not considered, and thus this value is not transferrable across beam technologies(including TLs for "prototypes").

Consumption is considered in pounds of power supply per shot. This value is not transferrable across power supply technologies, or across the D cell/E cell line, and is only transferrable across TLs by using the REFs on UT19.

For each type, I also give an iterated arithmogeometric mean(IAM) efficiency factor. To calculate this efficiency factor for a single weapon, divide the cube of damage by the consumption. To calculate the IAM of two or more numbers, take their arithmetic mean and their geometric mean, then the arithmetic mean and geometric mean of those two numbers, etc. until they converge. There's probably a better way to do it, but I have a function that does it that way.

Note that lots of false precision is in use here; usually, the inputs have a minimum of 1-3 sig figs, but no maximum is listed. Yet, a base damage of 6d×5 is hardly accurate to the nearest point of damage.



High-Energy Lasers
I'm ignoring the laser crystals, since they don't have an easy way to rate consumption.

TL9 chemical laser rifles:
TL9 Assault Laser & TL9 Laser Sniper Rifle: 3.10628366470337
IAM efficiency factor of 632.477765821436.



TL9 powercell mounted lasers:
TL9 Area Defense Laser & TL9 Point Defense Laser: 2.99128278289889
TL9 Area Defense Laser & TL9 Semi-Portable Laser: 2.97712619241892
TL9 Point Defense Laser & TL9 Semi-Portable Laser: 2.96641714513055
IAM efficiency factor of 1104.67848197817.

For some reason, it seems to assume that TL9 powercell lasers are ~1.75× as efficient as TL9 chemical lasers. One wonders why they'd bother with chemical lasers at that point; a D cell would be superior to those dangerous chem packs.



TL10 laser pistols:
TL10 Holdout Laser & TL10 Laser Pistol: 4.67887358726757
TL10 Holdout Laser & TL10 Heavy Laser Pistol: 2.97400479146706
TL10 Laser Pistol & TL10 Heavy Laser Pistol: 0.571127181791335

Looks like the TL10 Laser Pistol has just about half the efficiency it should(1782 vs 3520 & 3584). If you consider this an erratum, double its Shots, resulting in this:

TL10 Holdout Laser & TL10 Laser Pistol: 2.96936229591612
TL10 Laser Pistol & TL10 Heavy Laser Pistol: 2.98054802144454
IAM efficiency factor of 3555.9496483904.

It's possible the powercell load should be dropped to 5B or something instead, I'll have to check the weights.



TL10 laser rifles:
TL10 Dinosaur Laser & TL10 Laser Carbine: 2.9495396947139
TL10 Dinosaur Laser & TL10 Laser Rifle: 3.00155146599174
TL10 Dinosaur Laser & TL10 Survival Laser: 3
TL10 Laser Carbine & TL10 Laser Rifle: 2.86747120859403
TL10 Laser Carbine & TL10 Survival Laser: 3.10628371950539
TL10 Laser Rifle & TL10 Survival Laser: 2.99889921736071
IAM efficiency factor of 3563.30521621454.

A subtle deviation, but the laser carbine could use a bit of tweaking(3500 vs 3584, 3585.6, & 3584). Increasing its Shots to 29 yields this:
TL10 Dinosaur Laser & TL10 Laser Carbine: 3.02420150076758
TL10 Laser Carbine & TL10 Laser Rifle: 3.05994060403106
TL10 Laser Carbine & TL10 Survival Laser: 2.94902477294566
IAM efficiency factor of 3594.62869578419.



TL10 mounted lasers:
TL10 Gatling Laser & TL10 Laser Cannon: 2.97712619241892
TL10 Gatling Laser & TL10 Strike Laser: 2.96641714513055
TL10 Laser Cannon & TL10 Strike Laser: 2.99128278289889
IAM efficiency factor of 8837.42785582536.

The gatling laser could stand to have its Shots bumped up to 103, but then it'd lose a decimal round number, so eh.



The TL11 rainbow lasers are generally similar, except the rainbow strike laser has a reduced Shots for no perceptible reason. This makes even less sense when you consider the weights and costs. I'd bring its Shots(at least) in line with the other strike lasers. Also the rainbow dinosaur laser looks like it has a typo in the weight, 9 vs 19.

The TL11 xasers are generally similar.

The TL12 grasers are generally similar, except the graser carbine and graser rifle have reduced damage for no perceptible reason. The weights are rock steady, and WTF is up with those costs? I'd bring their damages in line with the other laser carbines and laser rifles.



Particle Weapons
I'm ignoring the TL10 blaster and the TL11 pulsar, because there's only one of each.

TL11 blaster pistols:
TL11 Blaster Pistol & TL11 Heavy Blaster Pistol: 3.07811698400437
TL11 Blaster Pistol & TL11 Holdout Blaster: 2.90692089842468
TL11 Heavy Blaster Pistol & TL11 Holdout Blaster: 2.97797369367
IAM efficiency factor of 2117.20600809215.

TL11 blaster rifles:
TL11 Blaster Carbine & TL11 Blaster Rifle: 2.91039776312268
TL11 Blaster Carbine & TL11 Heavy Blaster: 3.07852725575407
TL11 Blaster Rifle & TL11 Heavy Blaster: 3.18508110034468
IAM efficiency factor of 2110.73911325708.

A subtle deviation, but the heavy blaster could use a bit of tweaking(2048 vs 2125 & 2160). Increasing its Shots to 21 yields this:
TL11 Blaster Carbine & TL11 Heavy Blaster: 2.97471919740411
TL11 Blaster Rifle & TL11 Heavy Blaster: 3.01548358683396
IAM efficiency factor of 2145.10786506716.

I'm not gonna touch these:
TL11 Blaster Cannon: 10000
TL11 Semi-Portable Blaster: 4320 (Yet converting that to D-cell equivalents is 1728. Should probably change the Shots to match the semi-portable pulsar, which would then be 2073.6 in D-cell equivalents.)
TL12 Antiparticle Cannon: 409600 (I think that ammo load is errata.)
TL12 Semi-Portable Pulsar: 41472 (The only reasonable one of the bunch.)