DPS in Fallout4 - or - What are the units on weapon fire rate?

[Feargan]

Greetings fellow wanderers of the wastelands,

 

Having difficulty determining what weapon to use? Confused about the lack of a "DPS" display for weapons in the user interface? I certainly am.

I can't find a straight answer anywhere. Now, there are many things that determine the actual effective damage, chance to hit, et cetera. I get that.

The one little piece of information that I don't get would clarify everything:

The units on "fire rate"; what are they?

Rounds/Shots per second? per ten seconds? per minute?

 

In example,

Righteous Authority*: Damage = 26 , Fire Rate = 50 --> Approx. 3 to 4 shots per second average

Pipe Auto Pistol: Damage = 10 , Fire Rate = 127 --> Approx. 12 shots per second average

Tactical Hair Trigger Pipe Pistol: Damage = 13 , Fire Rate = 83 --> Approx. 6 shots per second average

 

Without units, "Fire Rate" is an arbitrary, useless piece of information.

So, what is "Fire Rate"? How is it calculated? Does it take reloading into account? Why won't it return my calls? How can I get it to notice me?

 

I don't even want to ask about the units on "SLOW, MEDIUM, and FAST" for melee weapons.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Feargan

[Vagrant0]

Fire rate has nothing to do with damage directly.

 

It relates mostly to how quickly you can shoot the weapon but is still a mostly arbitrary value since it is also offset by cock/reloading times. If you look at your numbers without regard for damage the values mostly remain consistent of a value of 10 being about 1 shot a second. A similar situation exists with melee weapons, the fate of fire relating to how quickly you can swing the weapon.

 

I wouldn't get too hung up on it though since usually you will be using one of three setups... A single hard shot for sniping, a semi-auto for clearing, and a fully automatic for when the s#*! hits the fan. You also need to balance how much ammo you have early on.

[Feargan]

Fire rate has nothing to do with damage directly.

 

It relates mostly to how quickly you can shoot the weapon but is still a mostly arbitrary value since it is also offset by cock/reloading times. If you look at your numbers without regard for damage the values mostly remain consistent of a value of 10 being about 1 shot a second. A similar situation exists with melee weapons, the fate of fire relating to how quickly you can swing the weapon.

 

I wouldn't get too hung up on it though since usually you will be using one of three setups... A single hard shot for sniping, a semi-auto for clearing, and a fully automatic for when the s*** hits the fan. You also need to balance how much ammo you have early on.

 

Not trying to start a fight, but though fire rate doesn't directly affect damage, it does directly affect damage output over time.

Furthermore, it doesn't relate "mostly to how quickly you can shoot the weapon"... it is "how quickly you can shoot the weapon".

 

The reason that I'm getting "hung up on it" is that myself and others wish to make a mod(s) displaying a base line, unmodified, maximum DPS value similar to the excellent "Value per Weight indicator for container UI" by CyberShadow http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/334/?

 

The best approximation that I and those experimenting with me have been able to determine is that the "Fire Rate" value is in units of approximately:

[(1 Shot)/(10 seconds)] or Shots per 10 seconds.

 

Therefore, the general formula for approximating Damage Per Second (DPS) before accuracy/target damage resistances/reloading/etc. are taken into account should be:

DPS = (Damage) * [(Fire Rate)*(1/10)]

I would like to get some independent verification of my results.

 

Just trying to do some math here.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Feargan

[Vagrant0]

 

Fire rate has nothing to do with damage directly.

 

It relates mostly to how quickly you can shoot the weapon but is still a mostly arbitrary value since it is also offset by cock/reloading times. If you look at your numbers without regard for damage the values mostly remain consistent of a value of 10 being about 1 shot a second. A similar situation exists with melee weapons, the fate of fire relating to how quickly you can swing the weapon.

 

I wouldn't get too hung up on it though since usually you will be using one of three setups... A single hard shot for sniping, a semi-auto for clearing, and a fully automatic for when the s*** hits the fan. You also need to balance how much ammo you have early on.

 

Not trying to start a fight, but though fire rate doesn't directly affect damage, it does directly affect damage output over time.

Furthermore, it doesn't relate "mostly to how quickly you can shoot the weapon"... it is "how quickly you can shoot the weapon".

 

The reason that I'm getting "hung up on it" is that myself and others wish to make a mod(s) displaying a base line, unmodified, maximum DPS value similar to the excellent "Value per Weight indicator for container UI" by CyberShadow http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/334/?

 

The best approximation that I and those experimenting with me have been able to determine is that the "Fire Rate" value is in units of approximately:

[(1 Shot)/(10 seconds)] or Shots per 10 seconds.

 

Therefore, the general formula for approximating Damage Per Second (DPS) before accuracy/target damage resistances/reloading/etc. are taken into account should be:

DPS = (Damage) * [(Fire Rate)*(1/10)]

I would like to get some independent verification of my results.

 

Just trying to do some math here.

 

And I'm trying to explain that this approach isn't really right for this kind of game. This is not WoW or COD. Any sort of dps value you might get is snake oil and highly subject to a particular situation.

 

Once you enter into mid-late game and have upgraded weapons and aren't desperate for every bit of ammo you find, there are very few enemies that you need to put more than 10 rounds into before they die or you need to seek some cover. Furthermore, even at 150 accuracy, shots still often miss their mark or just get stopped by collision. If that wasn't enough, most weapons have a significant accuracy loss if you try to fire at their maximum fire rate, further diminishing the validity of any sort of dps value.

 

As for the rate of fire, value, even this isn't as concrete and meaningful since this is offset by things like input latency, frame rate, as well as the animation speeds for reloading and pulling the trigger. For determining dps this makes any sample larger than the size of the magazine highly inaccurate. As the magazine size for many weapons is smaller than 10, any sort of factoring would be wrong for these kinds of weapons... Ignoring the fact that you don't use a sniper rifle or fatman in the same way you would a shotgun or machine gun.

 

Then you have modifiers like double shot which make the weapon report double damage, but which adds a higher degree of inaccuracy to the point where usually only one shot will hit unless at pointblank range. Then you have differing damage types which are resisted differently depending on target, and makes any weapon that does mixed damage give an unreliable value, as well as make certain weapons significantly more effective in some situations despite being statistically inferior.

 

Combined with the parts above, the only thing such a value is doing is giving your brain a bit of assurance (usually false) that one weapon performs better than another. This is why I say you shouldn't get hung up on things like this. The only thing you are doing is fabricating your own form of statistical validation and trying to simplify something that really can't be simplified in this way.

[Feargan]

 

 

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I don't know how much more clear and simple I can make it for you that I understand that a great deal goes into effective damage calculation and situational weapon usage. This is not a debate. "Fire Rate" is a value in the game, it has meaning and therefore applicable units. I want to know what those units are and how they figure into the overall scheme of effective damage calculation. If we don't know what the units are for fire rate, it is not a useful piece of information.

 

It looks as though http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_weapons is backing up my earlier assertion of "DPS = (Damage) * [(Fire Rate)*(1/10)]" for what that's worth.

I would still like to see more supporting evidence before we begin work on any mods dealing with this. This game is a computer program and somewhere in its code there are formulas that it uses to determine... well, everything. So please, if anyone wishes to add something here, have it contain evidence of any kind as to the nature of fire rate from a mathematical standpoint. No more 'Pay no attention to these units behind the curtain', please. Because math, dammit. Math.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Feargan