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[cruc1al]

I did some calculations, and ended up with a few interesting conclusions.

[edited]
Ammo powers increase damage by a set amount, regardless of other factors that modify damage. A damage bonus from an ammo power is always the same proportion of the weapon's base damage. For example, squad disruptor ammo gives 40 bonus damage against shields for a weapon with 100 base damage, regardless of other damage modifiers that increase the damage done. This is why the more you have upgrades, the smaller the proportion of ammo damage is of the total damage.

Now for the meat of this post. I calculated how much that proportion gets smaller with each 50% damage increase from other factors.

I'm assuming that all other damage bonuses are multiplicative. It means that base damage is multiplied by each separate damage multiplier. For example, 100 base damage with SMG 5/5 damage upgrade (+50% damage) and the inherent SMG shield multiplier (1.5 or +50% damage) would result in 100*1.5*1.5 = 225 damage against shields. (It may be more complicated than that in reality - hoping a dev would expand on this - but it should serve as a good approximation.)

Now, according to my calculations, every 50% multiplicative damage increase lowers the damage done by an ammo power relative to total damage by about 30%, relative to not having that 50% increase. That's regardless of what the fixed damage of the ammo power is; the numbers vary slightly, but they're all close to each other.

For example, if you have no upgrades on your SMG and you use disruptor ammo +40% against an unshielded Geth, you get +40% total damage. If you use it against shields, you get the 1.5 shield modifier of the SMG. That decreases the proportion of disruptor ammo damage to ~70% of what it was against the unshielded Geth. If you have the SMG shield piercing upgrade, that decreses the proportion of disruptor ammo damage to ~70% of what it was before that upgrade, and to 0.7*0.7 = ~0.5 of what it was against the unshielded Geth.

So, the more you have upgrades, the less you do damage with your ammo power relative to total damage done. This means ammo powers are more significant in early game than late game.

And, because many upgrades and multipliers apply strictly to protection but not health, ammo powers that do damage to health are relatively more useful against health than against protection.

Just a couple of thoughts. Congrats if you read through it all!

Modifié par cruc1al, 15 mars 2010 - 08:20 .

[RamsenC]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying the math works like this:
(Base Damage) + (Base Damage * 0.5) + (Base Damage * 0.5) + (Base Damage * 0.4) = Total Damage

This would be for a max upgrade SMG with disrupter ammo against shields. This is always how I thought the math worked, if it doesn't work like this I am very confused. 

Modifié par RamsenC, 15 mars 2010 - 07:01 .

[Grand_Commander13]

No, what he's getting at is that all bonuses seem to be multiplied in, except ammo bonuses. So you'd be looking at base damage * 1.5 * 1.5 + (Base damage * 0.4) if you had two fifty percent damage bonuses and then a +40% bonus from ammunition.

Trust me, we're also very confused, but as Mordin would say: hypothesis fits data.

[swk3000]

I think what he's saying is that, because Ammo Powers only inflict a set amount of damage, the more damage upgrades you get, the lower the percentage of your damage is coming from an Ammo Power. The amount the ammo power is inflicting doesn't change, but because the damage the weapon is inflicting is going up, that fixed damage becomes a smaller part of your total damage output.

[cruc1al]

swk3000 wins at articulation.

[RamsenC]

Ah so Cryo Ammo may be better than people were thinking. A lot of it depends on your gun since 40% more damage on one of the shotguns or snipers is still a lot of damage.

[Atmosfear3]

swk3000 wrote...

I think what he's saying is that, because Ammo Powers only inflict a set amount of damage, the more damage upgrades you get, the lower the percentage of your damage is coming from an Ammo Power. The amount the ammo power is inflicting doesn't change, but because the damage the weapon is inflicting is going up, that fixed damage becomes a smaller part of your total damage output.

Can we get a TL;DR (too lazy; didn't read) in the OP because this pretty much sums it up for all of us that went "HUH?" 

Modifié par Atmosfear3, 15 mars 2010 - 07:54 .

[swk3000]

I've been meaning to ask: what exactly does 'TL;DR' mean?

[Grand_Commander13]

"Too long; didn't read."

[D Amiri]

This is true but it's too simple of an analysis. Your example assumes that you max you ammo powers first then start to get upgrades. The reality of game play is you level both over time during your play through. Most of the time you will achieve your maximum ammo power bonuses around the same time as you max out your upgrades.



If you are maxing your ammo powers on shep, grunt, Zaeed, or Jacob early in the game you are choosing to use a min/max strat that gives you an early benefit but that doesn't mean ammo powers get worse late in the game.

[Murmillos]

While the OP may be correct that the damage that comes from your ammo slightly diminishes as you gain damage upgrades, depending on which ammo power and if you keep it at rank 3, or go for rank 4 squad or rank 4 Shepard.. Ammo power can still be between 25-35% of total damage. If you had no weapon upgrades and was using rank 3/4 ammo, your ammo power damage could be 35-45% damage (or more if the weapon you were using is not effective against the current protection type.)

[cruc1al]

Well, while it's true that ammo powers can be leveled up in synchrony , it's also true they can be maxed out much earlier than the weapons can be upgraded. My analysis means that it may be worth it to concentrate on maxing out ammo powers as soon as possible to get the max benefit. And I didn't mean that ammo powers get worse in late game, I mean they get relatively less effective, so that not using an ammo power doesn't make as much difference as it would with less upgrades.

[phordicus]

imo the only end-game reason to ever put more than 1 pt in any ammo power is to make it squad. or you just have nothing else worth bumping.

[Athenau]

The assumption that most/all bonuses are multiplicative is wrong. I can confirm that (for example) the adrenaline rush and range multiplier bonus stack additively, as do class passives and the headshot bonus. I suspect that most bonuses operate this way.

Though this doesn't really change the conclusion of the OP, the more bonuses you have, the less difference ammo powers make. Not really surprising though...

[Illwillsam]

While that's all well and dandy, you do very much notice the effects of ammo powers (/drool at AP Ammo).



I have to disagree with phordicus, I haven't played the game without an ammo power since I played it for the first time on normal difficulty. For me pound for pound an ammo power is the best investment as I use my weapons a lot, but to each his own.



By now I think it's been well established that this game can be beaten on Insanity with whatever class/group you want, and a lot of what you choose can be based on personal preference; so while it's somewhat cool to know what the OP said in the back of my head (I must admit I've never thought of it), it is largely irrelevant.

[phordicus]

it is pretty much preference and class specifics. a soldier has almost no choice but to boost ammo powers because if he's not shooting he's not doing anything useful. more tactically flexible classes don't have such a need.

[RamsenC]

phordicus wrote...

imo the only end-game reason to ever put more than 1 pt in any ammo power is to make it squad. or you just have nothing else worth bumping.

Don't forget the Inferno AoE, that is definitely worth 10 points.

[cruc1al]

Illwillsam wrote...By now I think it's been well established that this game can be beaten on Insanity with whatever class/group you want, and a lot of what you choose can be based on personal preference; so while it's somewhat cool to know what the OP said in the back of my head (I must admit I've never thought of it), it is largely irrelevant.

Yeah you're absolutely right. I didn't find this stuff out because I thought there would be actual value in it, but because I found it interesting how the ammo powers work. Just to make my squad, weapon and level-up choices more important gameplay-wise, I'm actually currently playing an Adept on modded Insanity; all enemies have about 50% more health, but my cooldowns are 10% less and my shield recharge is a bit faster... Those damn scions take ages to kill.