MechQuest: Combat Trainer

Learn these five things: weapon location, average damage, energy usage, cool-down, and DOT. Don't get out of the ship at Soluna City until you know these basics.

Weapon Location: This is obviously where the weapon will be mounted. Beginners have three locations: Front Arm (FAr), Back Arm (BAr), and Back Shoulder (BSh). More advanced mechs have more locations for weapons such as Body. There are many heads that have attacks.

Average Damage: AKA Damage Per Turn or DPT. Time to do some math. Take the highest amount of damage a weapon does and add it to the lowest amount of damage. Divide it by two. That is your average damage. This is a better indicator of how good a weapon is instead of looking at the highest damage amount.

Energy Usage: Every weapon and device on a mech uses energy. Even projectile weapons use energy. If a pilot eats up her energy early in combat, she'll be totally vulnerable.

Cool-down: Another way a mech pilot can find himself without weapons is to have none with a short cool-down. A "0" cool-down means a weapon can be used every round. A "1" cool-down means a weapon can be used once every two rounds. What happens if a pilot has four weapons with a "5" cool-down?

Damage Over Time: (DOT) Weapons that do damage over several rounds have the highest total average damage.

Combos: Buying certain mech weapons can allow the pilot to get combo bonuses. It's important when planning your higher-up mechs to understand combos. Here's a list at Ultimate MechQuest Spreadsheets.

Let's evaluate three newbie weapons that are available on the ship at the beginning of the game:

Refurbished Machine Gun (Default weapon):
Front Arm

The damage for this weapon is "1-2" which is miserable. However, the rate of fire (number of shots per turn) is 3! This means the effective damage is 3-6. To find the average damage:
3 + 6 = 9
9 / 2 = 4.5

Energy usage is 6, which is good. Cool-down is 0. That means you can use it every round.

Squire's Volt Sword:
Front Arm

This sword has a damage listed as "4-8". To figure out the average damage:
4 + 8 = 12
12 / 2 = 6

Energy use is 10, which is good. The cool-down is 3, which means that you can use it only once every 4 turns. This is not good unless you have another weapon to use.

Freshman Laser Pointer:
Back Shoulder

This shoulder-mounted weapon does 5-10 damage. To figure the average damage:
5 + 10 = 15
15 / 2 = 7.5

The cool-down is 3 and energy usage is 15. Neither is good or bad.

Looking at the three weapons above ask yourself, which is the best? The Refurbished Machine Gun can attack every round and uses only 6 energy. The sword does a little more damage with only a little more energy use. The Freshman Laser Pointer does the best damage but uses the most energy.

Which is the best?

The answer is none, of course. But a mech pilot has to plan and carefully study the data to make the best decisions. If stuck with only one weapon, then the machine gun is best. If combining weapons, then the machine gun and laser pointer are the best combination; the sword's slight increase of damage does not offset its cool-down needs.

Because DOT weapons dole out damage over the course of a few rounds, the average damage is figured with the initial damage and the ancillary damage.

Example: The Shadow Blaze does 18 to 28 damage on hitting then does 5 to 10 damage each round for four rounds. The average damage can be figured different ways but I like to:

First, figure the basic average damage.
18 + 28 = 46
46 / 2 = 23

Next, figure the average damage for ancillary damage. It is 5 to 10 for four rounds, so multiply the highest and lowest by 4, then divide the sum by 2.
5 * 4 = 20
10 * 4 = 40
20 + 40 = 60
60 / 2 = 30

Now add the basic average to the ancillary average to get the total average damage:
23 + 30 = 53

Advanced mech pilots learn to plan combat and measure weapons efficiency in many different ways. Here are just a few:

Weapons Sequence: The order in which a mech pilot uses her weapons is the weapons sequence. The primary factor of a weapons sequence is cool-down. Energy usage is also factored in a weapons sequence. Veteran pilots have different sequence plans for very short, short, and extended combat.

Damage-per-sequence (DPS): This gauges how much damage a weapon does during several rounds. The sequence is determined by the pilot and depends on how long the pilot expects a combat round will last.

Example: Pilot determines the sequence will be 5 rounds. The damage-per-sequence for a Refurbished Machine Gun (cool-down 0) is 20 (5 attacks x 4 average damage). So the Refurbished Machine Gun has a 5-round DPS of 20.

Example: Pilot determines the sequence will be 10 rounds. The damage-per-sequence for the Freshman Laser Pointer (cool-down 3) is 14 (2 attacks x 7 average damage). So the Freshman Laser Pointer has a 10-round DPS of 14.

Damage/Cool-down Ratio: This is simply the average damage divided by one plus the cool-down rate.

Example: Refurbished Machine Gun average damage is 4. The cool-down is 0, so add 1 for 1. So the D/C ratio is 4. Formula 4 / (1 + 0).

Example: Freshman Laser Pointer average damage is 7. The cool-down is 3, so add 1 for 4. The D/C ratio is 1.75. Formula 7 / (1 + 3).

Using the D/C ratio, it is possible to determine how much damage a weapon can potentially do per round compared to other weapons.

Damage/Energy Ratio: AKA Damage per Energy or DPE. This rates a weapons efficiency by dividing the average damage by the energy usage.

Example: The Sniper Rifle has an average damage of 10 and an energy usage of 20. The D/E is then .5.

Example: The N00B Missile (x4) has an average damage of 12 and an energy usage of 5. The D/E is then 2.4.

The following is an example of how a mech pilot can use knowledge and tools to plan a weapons sequence for combat.

In this example, the pilot wants to design a sequence to use in a PvP combat round. She determines that the average player will have 100 hit points. She also believes that most other opponents will be able to destroy her mech after 20 rounds. The goal is to see what sequence the pilot will use to take down an opponent with 100 hp within 20 rounds.

Using the generic Weapon Sequence Chart, the pilot starts plotting the sequence of a Refurbished Machine Gun, Smokey Flame Thrower, and a Freshman Laser Pointer. Starting with the most powerful weapons, she creates the sequence. At the bottom of the chart, she keeps a total of damage done to the opponent and how much energy she has left. It looks like this:



To determine how much energy is left, the pilot subtracted the weapon's energy use and added the mech's recharge rate, which is 5 in this example. Also note that the Smokey Flame Thrower does extra damage for four rounds. The first round of extra damage is added to the initial round the weapon was used.

All damages are the average damage.

Since the above weapons sequence leaves the pilot without energy and cannot do 100 points damage within 20 rounds, the mech pilot takes out the Freshman Laser Pointer and recalculates:



Much better! This sequence succeeds in the 16th round. The pilot also knows that she must look for a weapon that has a low energy use and more than 4 points average damage to upgrade the sequence.

Note that the first sequence was better up to round 10. That means for weaker opponents the pilot would go with the first sequence.

Some weapons have special effects that make them more useful than weapons that do similar damage. We've already talked about weapons that have a DOT, but there are also effects like stun and vampiring (transfers energy or stamina).

Try to add at least one special effects weapon to your arsenal. It can make the difference to obtain victory in a close match.

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