New Mission Items - D92-S, Gauss Supercharge, Drac R Armor

First off, if you missed last night's rant, it is below.  I'm not mad, just disappointed.

Second - How do you like the new banner?  I ordered it through fiverr.com.  I had a few options -  Let me know which you like best in the poll.

Banner #1:

 Banner #2:

Banner #3 (Clear background picks up the water background):

The old Banner:

 And now, on to the new Forsaken Mission Items:

D92-S Impulse Launcher
Some of you who just spent some points in the last raid to pick up an Impulse Launcher weapon may be dismayed to see the new D92-S launcher as a Tier 4 prize in the Forsaken Mission.  Spoiler alert: Don't be dismayed, the S isn't as good.  

Let's do the stat compare: 

	D92-U	D92-F	D92-S
Range	91	91	91
Damage	160	648	900
Bldg Dam	80	972	1,350
Salvo	4	9	1
Reload Time	2.50	2.50	6.00
Accuracy	70%	70%	50%
Weight	514	970	700
Shock Damage	7,864	7,864	7,864
Charge Bonus	x1	x1	x8
Bonus Armor	150	300	150

The big differences with the S are its one shot salvo, slower reload rate, lower accuracy, and 8x Charge Bonus.  The Charge Bonus means that it will create a shockwave with 8x fewer hits than the other launcher types.

I used the calculator from my last article on D92-F vs D92-U to compare the DPS/hton of this new weapon.  When using the calculator, I changed the "hits to shockwave" number from 120 to 15 to reflect 8x fewer bhits required to make a shockwave.

Here's the results (25 U launchers, 13 F launchers, 18 S launchers, all weights about 12750 tons):

Reload Bonus	Accuracy Bonus	Evade	total DPS/hton			D92-F Margin over U	D92-S Margin over U
			D92-U	D92-F	D92-S
0%	0%	0%	20.53	27.07	16.96	32%	-17.39%
50%	0%	0%	29.23	36.21	25.43	24%	-13.00%
100%	0%	0%	37.09	43.57	33.91	17%	-8.57%
150%	0%	0%	44.22	49.63	42.39	12%	-4.14%
100%	-20%	0%	29.67	34.86	27.13	17%	-8.56%
100%	35%	0%	50.07	58.82	45.78	17%	-8.57%
100%	35%	-20%	60.09	70.59	54.94	17%	-8.57%
100%	35%	20%	40.06	47.06	36.62	17%	-8.59%
100%	35%	50%	25.04	29.41	22.89	17%	-8.59%
25%	0%	Building	28.94	57.5	55.78	99%	92.74%
100%	0%	Building	42.94	78.54	89.25	83%	107.85%
180%	0%	Building	55.8	95.11	124.95	70%	123.92%

What does it mean?  For dealing damage to fleets, the D92-S is the least effective launcher.  Kixeye said that the S launcher is helped more at high reloads, but even at very high reloads, the S does not catch up to the U in effectiveness.  Because the accuracy doesn't come into play, for dealing damage to buildings, the D92-S is the most effective launcher (when reload bonus is above 50% or so).  

Here's the thing... have you ever wished that launchers did more building damage?  Me neither... I'd still pick the F version, every time.

Gauss Supercharge: 

Very simply, the Gauss Supercharger is supposed to multiply the shockwave charge by 1.5, meaning that you only need 80 hits instead of 120 to make a shockwave with F or U launchers, and 10 hits with an S.  

I'll ran the same kind of numbers with an F launcher with the Gauss - due to the 14% weight penalty, a D92-F launcher with Gauss equipped would weigh 1105.8 tons, so I compared 11 launchers with Gauss instead of 13 without.

Instead of publishing the table, here's the scoop:

Against Fleets, the Gauss Supercharge special increases your DPS/hton by 8.6%

Against Buildings, the Gauss Supercharge special increases your DPS/hton by 4.3%

That isn't much when you are talking about using up a special slot.  But in some situations, perhaps when you are firing at a clustered up fleet, and you have a ship with 4 special slots, and you really want to make a shockwave as quickly as possible, this may be worth using.  Can anyone think of such a situation??? Ahem... enforceronbasedefense  ... ahem.

Draconian R Armor:

We finally got it... lead panels for our ships.  These armors operate just like the Draconian Penetrative, Explosive, or Ballistic defense armors (M, X, C), but defend against radioactive damage.  Each plate gives a 10% resistance against its particular damage type.  Use them if you want to, but keep in mind that Evade armor will give you 7% evade against the launchers.  This is less than 10%, but when using evade armor, the shockwave will not build as quickly... But when using Anti-Radioactive armor, the shockwave will not do as much damage.  Decisions decisions.  As a general rule, if you have a ships with low radioactive defense, but high evade, the R armor will be better.  If you have ships that already have a high radioactive defense but low evade, then the E armor will be better.  You also may want to keep in mind other non-aimed sources of radioactive damage such as Infernos, Chaos Mortars, and Fire Pools from Incendiary Shells - E armor won't help at all on those.  I don't have a solid recommendation on this one, but it is another tool in the ship-building toolkit.