SE4 weapon index

[PvK]

I have some formulae for balancing for my Proportions mod.

Range and hit bonus and special abilities are important, but subjective and depend on conditions. Contrary to Fyron's thinking, I think a +10% to-hit bonus is usually worth MORE than a 10% increase in damage, because it is only when the chance is otherwise over 90% that it becomes useless. At lower to-hit chances (which is very common, especially at range), the percent increase is actually greater than the bonus %, because it is relative to the chance to hit that would otherwise apply. E.g. If you'd otherwise have a 20% chance to hit, a +10% will on average give you 50% more damage than without it. If the chance would be 80%, +10 increases damage by an average of 10/80 = 12.5%.

[Suicide Junkie]

It is also a good idea to reduce the to-hit modifiers across the game.
Base accuracy, range penalty, racial modifiers, weapon bonuses, mount bonuses, component bonuses.

I try to keep accuracy in the range of 50% +/- 25%...
That way, while damage is crippling, you do not have to give up hope of hitting until all your weapons are destroyed.

[Fyron]

I didn't mean that 10% to hit was worth less than 10% more damage, only that its not really comparable in a simple mathematic formula. "not really 10% more powerful" was just meaning that you can't simply multiply the damage ratio by 1.1 and expect sound results.

For reference, 10% bonus to hit varies from 1000% more damage (11% chance to hit instead of 1%) all the way to no effect at all (99% vs. 99% or -20 vs. -30).

[Suicide Junkie]

Personally, I wish it was sum[Attack Modifiers] / (sum[Attack Modifiers] + sum[Defense Modifiers]) instead.

That way it is still limited to 0-100%, and you get diminishing returns near the edges.