DPS Per Metal Stats and Analysis

I just recently added a new stat to the PA Matches Wiki: DPS per Metal.

The DPS per Metal stat allows players to better judge whether a unit is worth the investment or not. (also useful info for balancing) Naturally, this isn't the only stat that should be taken into consideration. Unit speed, health, range, etc also needs to be taken into consideration. Some fascinating stuff.

So head on over to the PA Matches Wiki and check it out.

Vehicles
Bots
Aircraft
Naval
Defensive Structures

(this analysis is as of .59607 and is subject to change with the following builds)

Noticed quite a few interesting things while compiling those stats. First off, air units have some of the highest DPS per metal. The Inferno tops the charts at 1.778 DPS per metal and the Peregrine not far behind with 1.481 DPS per metal. Not surprisingly the Sun Fish has the lowest DPS per metal at .022 and the other scouts are pretty low.

There's other units out there that are pretty interesting. For example, the Pounder has a DPS per metal of .14 and the Leveler has a DPS per metal of .056. That's not right.

Also, the Bluebottle has a DPS per metal of .169 and the Leviathan has a DPS per metal of .058 while the Stingray has a DPS per metal of 1.157. That also isn't right.

Now let's contrast the Leveler and the Leviathan to the Firefly, which has a DPS per metal of .05. With that being the case, we'd pretty much be better off building a ton of Fireflies due to their speed.

The defensive structures seemed to be nicely balanced so far though in terms of DPS per metal.

tldr

Quite a few units need some balancing. (duh) All things considered though, not too bad of a balance job so far from Uber. Looking forward to how this game develops.

If that is the case.....Id like advanced units to cost less.

I'm going to perfect a surprise firefly rush. YoSP!

Oh wow. Another interesting one.

Doxes have a DPS per metal of .111 while Slammers have a DPS per metal of .417.

While Levelers have .056...

I swear, it's like Uber forgot to put a "0" onto the Leveler's stats. If Levelers did 500 damage per shot, then they'd do 250 DPS and a DPS per metal of .556 which would have it more in line of other units. It'd be very powerful, and probably would be better off having 200 dps and 400 damage per shot.

That's a really interesting stat. Thanks for all you do for us through that site!

Would it make sense to add energy to the equation? I'm still not sure which non-building units, if any, consume energy.

There's also the obvious target restrictions - the DPSxM of a Peregrine has no bearing on Levellers, for example. Either way, keep up the scholarly work!

The only units and buildings that consume energy already have that. They have all the energy per shot, total energy storage, energy recharge rate, and such.

Now I wonder, what's the DPS per metal of a nuke? That's not nearly as straightforward I think...

What is the burst damage per metal?

Yeah. Not very straightforward especially since the nuke relies so much on AOE.

Another interesting stat.

The Gil-E has a DPS per metal of .185 while the Leveler has .056... The sniper bot, which isn't supposed to have a high dps, has a higher DPS per metal than the Leveler.

Ok. I think we've established that the Leveler is way broked.

Well DPS isn't everything, there are lots of little things that could make it useful.

But that is not to say that the general consensus is wrong.

You are very correct. DPS isn't everything.

But the Leveler is supposed to be a high DPS unit and when it has less performance than a sniper bot...

The leveler would need to be fast, or high health, or long range or something to make up for that terrible DPS.

Id vote for it having more actual damage per shot, then a better DPS inexplicably.

Nice work, there is also an interesting metal to hp ratio that could be added in the future.

I think it would work better if its damage was increased as well. It has always been the heavy tank IMO.

DPS per metal isn't a very good balance method, it justifies tiered obsolecence if flat balancing is made across the board with metal to dps ratios. I think the better option would be to just observe the "usefulness" of a unit and determine if its role is being filled or barely filled at all.

I just feel we could do something more exciting then just, bigger.

Like a way for it to stack well with the Pounders, but without really replacing them.....What if it went all 40K and had like, 2 or 3 individual turrets?
Like anti-infen....Anti-Dox guns?

Edit: Whilst making the main guns equal to that of the pounders single gun, or each of the two half as good, so it equals up?

You know, just something.

Well, DPS per metal shouldn't be the main balance method across all units, but it is definitely a good thing to analyze while doing balance. We know the leveller is slow, and reasonably high HP, but it's DPS per metal is bad, and it's other attributes don't make up for that. DPS per metal is a good thing to measure while balancing, but shouldn't be the only thing to look at.

...
You want a baneblade don't you...?

Well I want a Manta, and a hammerhead.

That'd be a nifty stat as well. Ergh.

Hmm... not sure if I should add it or not...

Of course it isn't the only stat that should be examined. I even said that in my original post. But it is a very helpful stat for determining which units should be built.

There are several units that are not useful at all with their current stats – Levelers and Leviathans for starters.

That sounds pretty cool.

Low DPs high Alpha low dps gun and high dps low alpha gun high rate of fire for a very diverse unit. The danger would be against making it a single unit that does everything...

The defensive turrets should have their DPS per metal reversed. You should always have to pay a higher price for compacted DPS than for lots of spread out DPS emitters. The reason for this is that compacted DPS stays the same until the tower gets destroyed, whereas if the same amount of DPS is spread out over several towers then it will go down incrementally with each tower destroyed. The end result of this is that even if the heavy defensive tower is only 3/5 as DPS/Metal efficient as a lighter tower a heavy tower will take out many more units before being destroyed than the amount of lighter towers required for equivalent DPS.

What I'm getting at: Even advanced towers were much less efficient than lighter towers, they would still be used for undeminishing DPS. Right now they are stupidly OP compared to other towers.

Could we get health per metal stats?

Shouldn't this go in balance discussions?