Understanding the weapons and balance

[AngleWyrm]

One way to meausure a weapon's effectiveness is to estimate it's average damage output per minute at a given range.

Let's say we have a target at 30km. If a laser fires every six seconds, it can put ten shots on that target every sixty seconds.

But if we have a missile with the same rate of fire, that takes two seconds to get there, then only nine of those missiles will reach the target in a minute. It will take an additional two seconds for the tenth missile to reach the target.

So what flight time is modifying is the perMinute; instead of ten shots/60 seconds at range 30 km, it's doing ten shots/62 seconds at range 30 km.

range/(1000 * speed) = extra seconds
30/(1000 * .06) = 30/60 = 0.5 additional seconds
Put another way, speed .04 gives 1-second added time every 40km, .05 adds 1 second in 50km, .06 in 60km, etc.

It's not exactly right; the additional time should be an added constant, because once they start arriving, they will arrive at 10/minute. But changing targets (or stepping out of range for a moment) will reset the clock. So it's a fairly good estimate of the difference between weapons that travel at different speeds.