Factorio Forums

It's often the case that if there are two same-tier techs to improve a weapon or turret, one to improve Rate-of-Fire and the other to improve Damage, then they'll cost the same, e.g. both might cost 50 red magic science potions and 50 green magic science potions.

That's a bad idea. A bad design principle. Things that are not equivalent - not equally worthy - should not cost the same.

Increased damage means that you do more damage per shot. That is, you can now do more damage with 10 shots fired than you could before. You do more damage without spending more ammunition.

Increased RoF is different, in that you don't do more damage per shot, rather you fire more shots per time unit. This means that you expend your ammunition faster.

Same holds true for energy-using weapons, such as Laser Turrets, which burn stored energy faster if they fire more shots-per-second.

Therefore, same-tier techs should not cost the same to invent; instead, the RoF-improving tech should be cheaper than the damage-improving tech.

For instance if +25% damage costs 50R/50G, then +25% RoF should cost 35R/35G or something like that.

Think about it. If both costs 50R/50G, and you could only ever effort one of the two, and would then never be able to get the other later, for whatever reason (this is a thought experiment - a gedankeneksperiment, as Einstein called them), which one would you choose?

Anyone with a functioning brain would choose the +25% damage over the 25% RoF.

Not entirely true. Damage per shot is only better than rate of fire as long as you don't overkill your enemy. In the extreme case (see Bob's sniper turrets), Damage per Shot is almost worthless, as most enemies are one-shot. In this case, rate of fire is more valuable.

Without checking the values, I suppose yuor argument holds for vanilla, though.

Last I checked, both upgrades cost the same, but ROF generally gives a larger percentual bonus than DMG.
I think that first tier of damage is 10% bonus, while ROF is 20%. And both scale up as you upgrade.

Generally I go for damage second unless armor is getting to be an issue. ROF gives more damage output in general, and resource costs tend to be insignificant compared to DPS bonus.

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Also, please avoid blanket insults vs anyone who might disagree with you.

Ranakastrasz wrote:Last I checked, both upgrades cost the same, but ROF generally gives a larger percentual bonus than DMG.
I think that first tier of damage is 10% bonus, while ROF is 20%. And both scale up as you upgrade.

If it is so, then there is no problem.