Thread:TarasqueCL/@comment-34929636-20180716045945/@comment-31173317-20180718231309

Hum, not sure I agree on either point.

FWR weapons do have a cycle time, it's full burst plus full reload. It is relevant because full burst plus full reload is the most efficient way to use the weapon. No FWR weapon is worth anything when firing at the reload speed, if you can be into cover by when the burst ends, there is where you should be. Anybody with a loaded burst will toast you. There are two main advantages to a FWR: you can use partial bursts without having to discharge the rest on a wall, and you have longer, more powerful bursts. Being able to fire at the reload speed is not one of them. So cycle duration is definitely relevant in my opinion.

Now, you can make a point that what is relevant is the burst time and the reload time rather than the sum, fair enough. But FWR alters both, because you have longer bursts, and because you have partial reloads: the gust for instance is midway into reloading a shell when its burst ends, making the reload time 8.5s instead of 9s. This has measurable effects in slow reloading FWR weapons (e.g. Pin), and I have tested that they do show up. So they need to be computed properly. If you try on the field the duration of a gust burst it is most definitely not 4.5s

Cycle dps is a somewhat artificial quantity, granted, but it is relevant too, I think, because it shows the difference between burst weapons and sustained damage weapons. You don't use a punisher the way you use an orkan. Cycle dps is not the only way to quantify it, but I think it is the most intuitive. You can use a fill factor (burst/cycle) but it is an adimensional, and it is just the factor to convert burst dps to cycle dps so why not to use quantities people can relate to?