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[Zeb]

It obviously won't do too much with shotguns, BFGs, and stuff like that, but the boosts it gives to Chainguns and plasma rifles are absolutely ridiculous With Chaingun, you get +5 armor piercing damage per attack per level, meaning that at SoaB(3) you'd get  +15 armor piercing damage per attack. This means that against unarmored monsters your average damage would be rising from 17.5 per attack to 32.5 per attack- that's almost twice as much damage! And that's without throwing armor into the mix. Against an enemy with level 2 armor, you'd be going from an average of 10 damage to an average of 25 damage- a 150% increase.

The effect on the Plasma Rifle are even more dramatic, giving +8 armor piercing damage per level per attack, with +24 piercing damage. This brings the damage of the Plasma rifle from ~36 damage per attack to ~60 damage per attack- meaning that you now have a good chance of taking out high-level monsters with a single attack. Moreover, piercing damage is more important in the later stages where plasma rifles would be used then in stages where one would be using chainguns. Against a monster with 2 armor for instance, 3 SoaB would change the Plasma rifle from doing ~23 damage to a ludicrous ~47 damage. Remember that the Baron of Hell only has 60 HP. And all this speculation doesn't even take into account Overloaded rifles.  In addition to the ~180 damage minus armor penalties that an overloaded rifle normally gets, you be getting +120 armor piercing damage! The Cyberdemon, which is the final boss in the game, only has 200 HP, meaning that in a single turn you'd be guaranteed to do an absolute minimum of 75% damage.

What does this all mean? First of all, it would make the ludicrously easier. In addition, consider that the chaingun and plasma rifle are already, along with Rocket Launcher, the most used weapons in the game- well above pistols, melee weapons, or the shotgun series. this isn't like overhauling the shotgun or increasing the to-hit chance for chainsaws- these are weapons that 90%+ of normal runs use anyway. With this change there would be no reason for anyone, ever to use any non-bullet stream weapon after they've picked up the chaingun. The only exceptions to this would be the BFG which is only used in extremely select circumstances anyway, and the Rocket Launcher for destroying walls. Yes, even the RL would no longer be a viable option for damage doing.

I really think that Beta testers need to try this out and Kornal look at it before the next version comes out, because if the new version comes out with SoaB working as advertised, SoaB will become 0.9.8.5's Int3 on crack.

[007bistromath]

I remember reading somewhere that SoaB was going to be changed to account for this. No idea what to, but I'm fairly certain it was.

[BDR]

Ok, let's look at the math calmly.

It obviously won't do too much with shotguns, BFGs, and stuff like that, but the boosts it gives to Chainguns and plasma rifles are absolutely rediculous

In my experience with the beta, this actually gives a fair amount of help to shotguns; it's still not as handy as being able to reload while moving, but it gives a noticeable boost such that you won't need to be quite as close to land a killing blow.  Obviously, a person using shotguns primarily will have more important trait picks first, but the effect from SoB is appreciable as it pads the effect of distance some.

With Chaingun, you get +5 armor piercing damage per attack per level, meaning that at SoaB(3) you'd get  +15 armor piercing damage per attack. This means that against unarmored monsters your average damage would be rising from 17.5 per attack to 32.5 per attack- that's almost twice as much damage! And that's without thrwing armor into the mix. Against an enemy with level 2 armor, you'd be going from an average of 7.5 damage to an average of 22.5 damage- a 200% increase.

Your first figure on the armor math is wrong; the lowest amount of damage from a hit that is at all possible, including things not normally called hits like acid and lava damage, is 0 (as far as everything I've ever seen indicates), and I'm about 99% sure that gunshots/punches/the like have to do at least 1 point of damage on a successful hit, thus it would not be 7.5 damage but 12.5 damage (((1+4)/2)*5).  But I know the response already; an 80% increase still seems like too much of a change, and granted, the possibility that I'm wrong about the single point of necessary damage would up that to 125%.  The trouble with giving percentage changes is that when the numbers are low, so's the effect; the number difference, for conservative arguments' sake is 0-4 versus 2-7.  It's not clear just from that that things are going to suddenly turn into a cakewalk.  Before we go ahead and declare that SoB's gotta get removed, or perhaps changed such that it makes hits less accurate, or that it makes only a decimal increase in the damage, let's see what the wiki says about HP totals...

O = 40 HP, 1 Armor
B = 50 HP, 1 Armor
B = 60 HP, 2 Armor
A = 50 HP, 2 Armor
V = 70 HP, 2 Armor

..and compare the number of times you'd have to shoot our most notorious foes (assuming all bullets hit their mark and that armor can reduce a hit to 0 damage) before they go down, since that's what will ultimately determine the change in the usefulness of the chaingun and the level of difficulty in the game (plasma rifle ignored for the moment, simply because the chaingun uses *the* most plentiful ammo type in the whole game and is the most powerful weapon using said ammo):

Before SoB:

O - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 6 times, best case: 3 times.
A - worst case: never, average case: 5 times, best case: 2.5 times (halfway through the third).
V - worst case: never, average case: 7 times, best case: 3.5 times (halfway through the fourth).

After SoB 3:

O - worst case: 3 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 1 time (8*5=40; ouch).
B - worst case: 4 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: 6 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
A - worst case: 5 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
V - worst case: 7 times, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.

With results like these, I gotta admit there's a balance problem.  I think the best way to fix things while keeping the spirit of SoB is to change SoB so that it affects either the min or the max damage of hits but not both; I'm not totally sure which one would be better but I'm inclined towards the min damage as mods already cover the max damage portion.

[Potman]

And shotguns are left unused once more...

[Psion]

Maybe in the next major version Kornel will raise all the numbers involved except the SoaB bonus.  The enemies could have more hp to balance things like this out.  I kind of like the idea of SoaB so I'd hate to see it removed (although I don't think it will be).

[Zeb]

You're right, I messed up the chaingun damage. I was indeed factoring in that bullets have a minimum damage of 1, however I was using the damage spread 1-1-1-1-2-3 which would be for level 3 armor, rather than 1-1-1-2-3-4 which would be for level 2 armor. With level 2 armor, the average damage per spray would then be 10 damage, not 7.5. [(12/6)*5=10]. I have updated my original post to reflect this. My plasma math was correct though, as the spread would be 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6, and thus [(23/8)*8=23].

I still maintain that the increases are incredibly drastic, with nearly double damage for both weapons against unarmored foes and over 200% damage against armored foes, and thus this needs to be looked into.

(Note that if damage can be reduced to zero then the average damages should reduced by 2 each thus making SoaB's effect more dramatic. However, I remember reading somewhere that they could only be reduced to 1)

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Please bear in mind that

1) Pistols/AoMr have been upped -- you can now dualwield modded weapons
2) Shotguns have been upped -- especialy double now deals *3 damage in the beta (with a shorter range though)

So strengthening chain weapons won't be that bad.

[Zeb]

DS deals three times as much damage? Niiiice.

Will you be raising monster spawns or HP to make up for the changes in everything, or will you just let the game be easier?

In other news, I just noticed that my topic title has not one but two unintentional puns in it. That's not something that happens every day. :-P

[packrat]

I am not sure how attack speed is calculated, and if Dual Wielding is worth it.

I won AoMR win Level 2 Finesse, Level 3 Son of a Gun, and a advanced pistol (2d10) [2/17] (D3R3S1M3). Does that mean that I had 100 / (100-20-60-10) = 10 shots per turn? Would any dual wielding be better than that?

[BDR]

Dual-wielding is better for certain than single-wield; the only real questions are "can you get enough mods for two pistols?", "can you snap up enough levels for SoG, Finesse, Whizkid, and finally Dualgunner?", and "do you really want to bother seeing as one is plenty awesome on its own?"

Also, way attack speed is calculated is like this:

1 turn = 100 energy, all player actions before modifiers are taken into account = 10 turns or 1000 energy (this goes for everything, not just attacks).
Speed mod = -100 energy (10% of 1000)
Son of a Gun = -200 energy (20% of 1000)
Finesse = -100 energy (10% of 1000)

So for a guy with 3 SoG, 2 Fin, and 1 speed mod on his pistol, he shoots with a cost of (1000-(3*200)-(2*100)-100) or 100 energy, which is the lowest possible amount of energy any action can take.  If this person added another speed mod to his gun, it wouldn't have any effect at all, and they're already shooting once every turn.  So, yes, where most would only get 1 shot, you will get 10.  Of course, in practice you probably won't actually take 10 shots in that timespan since the nasties *will* get a chance to act in that time (which means if you, like me, use aggressive tactics for the +tohit and/or the +todam boost, you'll likely get smacked in the face by whatever gets thrown), and you'll really want to either try to dodge or heal instead of shoot.  Also, a person using Dualgunner 1 will have to use two speed mods instead of one to achieve an energy of 100, otherwise they will have to live with an energy of 140 (translating to about 7 shots in a normal turn).

Also also, the bit about this being Intuition 3 on crack is rubbish even with this being a significant balance change.  Back before the nerfs, Intuition 3 games, when properly managed, allowed players to kill pretty much every single enemy on the level without ever once getting into range of attack, obliviating the need for medkits and armor alike.  All you really needed in an Int 3 game was rockets for blowing holes in the walls, lots of 10mm ammunition, and a good amount of caution and foresight, and the only way it could have been made any better would have been magic map style revealing of the level structure and items.  Now, it's useful, but it's not nearly as easy to abuse.  SoB 3 just means that you spend less time fighting the hellspawn head-on; you still have to give the enemy the chance to attack and kill, which you never had to do with Int 3.

[Zeb]

Also, the bit about this being Intuition 3 on crack is rubbish...

I meant as far as that being the build everyone takes, not as far as them being equal as far as effect. Maybe 75%-80% of runs used an Int3 build in 0.9.8.5, but with SoaB having no prerequisites and being such a game-altering boost to something 90% of people used before it was fixed I'd guess it would be more like 95% of runs would use SoaB. (Not counting AoB and AoMr runs of course)

Sorry for the confusion.

[packrat]

Thanks for your explanation, BDR. Do I understand correctly that 140 is 140% of 100, and if I have 2 speed mods this gets reduced to 0 (140% * (1000-600-200-200)) but works as 100 because this is the minimum? Do these 2 speed mods need to be on both guns, or the main one is enough? And how fast is a rapid weapon?

Anyway, here is my analysis:

Dual Gunner 1 allows you to shoot 2 / 1.4 ~= 1.4 times faster. Dual Gunner 2 allows you to shoot 1.4 time faster than Dual Gunner 1.

Suppose I already have SoaG 2 (600 energy to shoot). Taking SoaG 3 reduces energy to 400, which gives 1.5x attack speed, which is better than Dual Gunner 1. If I already have a speed mod, this is even better (1.6x attack speed). (Of course dual gunner survives longer without reloading, OTOH I think dual reload takes more time, wastes some ammo, and does not give SoaG's damage bonus.)

Now, when I have SoaG 3, I can take Finesse or a speed mod, each of them reduces energy by 100. So, the first one gives 1.33x speed, the second 1.5x, and the third 2x. So if I have already one speed mod, Finesse 1 gives more shots than Dualgunner 1, and Finesse 2 is even better. (Using only Dualgunner and 4 speed mods also makes sense, but makes it impossible to use any other mods on the pistol(s) which have these speed mods, and if they are required on both... 8 speed mods are hard to find.)

With SoaG 3 and Finesse 2, there is a choice of Whizkid or Dualgunner, I guess Dualgunner is better here (I picked Whizkid because I logically expected Dualgunner's speed to be based on the main pistol's speed, of course I could use a rapid pistol as the other one, but there is no guarantee to find one).

[Zeb]

Curse you Kornel for turning my topic into an AoMr discussion. D:<

Back on topic though, how about changing SoaB into a 2-level trait instead of a 3-level trait? That would make things at least a little less silly.

[DaEezT]

Just two quick points:

Do these 2 speed mods need to be on both guns, or the main one is enough?

Only the weapon in the main slot is used for determining the firing speed.

Dual Gunner 1 allows you to shoot 2 / 1.4 ~= 1.4 times faster. Dual Gunner 2 allows you to shoot 1.4 time faster than Dual Gunner 1.

You always have to remember that Dualgunner works different from all other speed reducing skills/mods. Finess/Speed Mod/Rapid/SoG all use absolute values (like BRD pointed out) since they always take the unmodified attack speed as base.
Dualgunner on the other hand takes the already modified value and applies the 1.4 multiplier.