Info: How to think about efficiency.

[Jhereg]

I wanted to present a way for people to think about efficiency that might make it easier to understand the impact of attachments and such. I've seen a few posts where people discuss increasing or decreasing efficiency when using attachments/enhancers etc, and I think the below points might help clear some things up.

1) Using attachments on your weapon does not change the efficiency of your weapon itself
To elaborate, you can consider each weapon and attachment as their own thing. You are still decaying the weapon at the same rate, at the same efficiency so that hasn't changed. What has changed is you have introduced additional decay at some different efficiency. For example, using a gun + amp is effectively the same as shooting the gun and shooting the amp separately! Extenders are sort of an exception so see below.

2) The modified efficiency value is a weighted average of all efficiencies on gun+attachments.

Weighted arithmetic mean - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Efficiency weighted by Cost per use. This is what is shown as the modified efficiency in the item description.

3) Enhancers don't change the efficiency of your weapon, but instead increases cost+damage proportionally (10% per enhancer slot filled). This might appear as better or worse efficiency when you have attachments, but with no attachments you will see no efficiency change visible in item description.

4) Extenders: Decay that is given to the extender instead of the original weapon is assigned the extenders efficiency.

Bottom line: Consider your weapon and each attachment as separate buckets. If you use a gun + amp, your gun efficiency isn't changing. Rather, you've added additional cycling with an amp at some other efficiency. The effective efficiency that is shown on the weapon description is the weighted average of all the efficiencies.

 

[GradenFoss]

Well... while I agree with all of the above, MindArk told us:

Developer Notes #12 - Loot 2.0 Follow-Up

This installment of Developer Notes attempts to clear up some of the questions and misconceptions related to the Version Update 15.15.0 - Loot 2.0.

A few additional points about Efficiency parameter will hopefully clear up many of the questions and dispel some of the more common misconceptions that we have noticed:

• The Efficiency parameter is a relatively small component in loot calculations (no more than 7% of total loot value).

Originally Posted Here

Therefore, at one point one single efficiency value is taken for l00t calculation (»The Efficiency parameter«).
That then should be the weighted aggregate, no?
(Which also leaves the question, whether or how enhancers are taken into account at that point.)

 

[mastermesh]

Bottom line - if your normal weapon isn't killing the mob fast enough an amplifier may add you a litlte more damage that lets you not die a few seconds faster, which can be infinitely helpful so you don't have to fap as much or revive as much... fapping more isn't necessarily a bad thing since you only want to fap when fighting a mob or else the fap decay won't come back to you in loot... going to the revive too often can really hurt since each time you go there if your timer for revive increases if it's too often... and mobs revive their health, etc.... if you end up there too often, amps aren't going to help, just upgrade weapon or change mob to lower level mob or lower health mob... weapon attachments won't help if defesense is the problem... in that case armor upgrades or armor attachmnets may be more necessary than weapon attachments....

TT values also make a big difference. A101 is way better than the webshop attachment to increase damage since it has higher tt value so will last a bit longer on longer hunts, unless you like going to the repair terminal often (guess you can visit it when you hit the revive on those all to often deaths if you are playing over your head)... in the end it's all just a game. The numbers that may look great on paper won't do jack for you if you are hunting mob that are so thick you get attacked by 12 critters at the same time when you only have the equipment to take on 3 at most at a time, etc. Also, sometimes it's just fun to play uneco just for the hell of it. That little amp won't help much if you are in pvp and the other avatar is one shot killing you.

 

[Evey]

Bottom line -

What are you smoking man? Bottom line of which topic? Clearly not this one....

 

[binfordw]

fapping more isn't necessarily a bad thing since you only want to fap when fighting a mob or else the fap decay won't come back to you in loot...



unless you like going to the repair terminal often

I believe the fap decay has been verified to indeed still come back in loot on the next mob. Not my tests- others here (Mike H. for one)

Don't forget, There is a portable repair unit.

 

[Legends]

That's all fine Jhereg but I'm not sure how that changes anything... How is looking at it the way you say change anything at all?

I already know that adding attachments increases the overall cycle amount, I already know that the Efficiency value shown is the weighted average of all efficincies of seperate items involved put together.. How does any of this change my views on Efficiency.

I think there might be an incomplete thought process in your OP..

 

[Evey]

I think MA should have used another term tbh, to avoid confusion. Being efficient is a concept and it's not the same thing as the efficiency parameter shown in the item description (I mention thins because apparently the topic itself is confusing for some).
Returns are calculated taking into consideration the weapon setup's efficiency, not the gun's only. So using attachments that increase the efficiency of the setup will result in more loot. The impact is minimal on shot term but it's pretty significant for very long term. So maybe don't go nuts over extra 0.1% efficiency

 

[MikeH]

I see lots of people add longreach 4 and 2x bulls eye 8 for slight increase in efficiency , my suggestion for those to check the dpp with or without those attachments on weapon compare tool on entropia wiki.

 

[Joat]

I think its interesting that with economy enhancers equipped efficiency is not modified, but with a damage attachment
equipped also it can be modified. Obviously I haven't put enough effort in to how these work in detail...