A luxury problem, that's what I call it.
In the past quarter cycle or so, my searches in the Ruins of Yards of Gadani was so successful that my large storage locker was nearly full. I would have loved to buy more storage space, but regulations blah blah blah.
Time to sell some of these armors and weapons!
But which should I sell, which should I keep?
I can't stand the thought of keeping something inferior, and selling something superior. Price is not a concern, but there are so many ways to compare weapons!
Some are more accurate than others, but heavier, or they cause less damage, or maybe a different kind of damage? But if a weapon is too complicated to use for some less experienced users, then it might do them no good at all.
I bought some of my pals a few rounds in the bar, and convinced them to compare weapons. To be honest, they didn't need too much convincing. So we went to a quiet section in the Ruins, and started shooting guns at metal sheets, hacked with sabres through plastic poles, and swung electric stun weapons at steel wool. All the while we took careful notes on how much damage each weapon did, and how often we missed the targets.
After the first segment, we stopped and fetched ear plugs. It's hard to overstate the noise that we made!
I was thoughtful enough to inform security services in advance; I'm sure they were a bit uncomfortable, but there's no law against testing weapons, as long as you don't hurt anybody, and the safety of the station as a whole is not in danger. Still, I think they watched us pretty closely, I caught a glimpse of two or three agents keeping lookout.
First, we divided the weapons into two groups by ease of use, and dealt with them separately. We used the following working definition:
Weapon A is strictly inferior to B if and only if
- A and B are in the same ease-of-use group
- B is more accurate than A
- A is heavier than B
- A does the same kind of damage as B, but less than B
Bashing weapons against mock targets was fun, analyzing the results less so; but I had a goal in mind, so I figured and cyphered, and came up with the following pairs of weapons, where the left column is strictly inferior to the right:
worse better ============================================================= Aged Stun Baton Half-Broken Multi-Tool Basic Blackjack Worn Carbon Nunchaku Basic Club Suppression Battery-Rigged Short Plank Dulled Bolt Cutters Carbon Mace Soldering Wand Carby G-009 Cargo Crank Rusty Iron Baton Charge Cable Half-Broken Multi-Tool Charged-Tip Copper Pipe Dulled Bolt Cutters Copper Wire Knuckles Half-Broken Multi-Tool Crate Hammer Frayed Lead Sap Gloves Crude Charge Maul Industrial Grade Soldering Iron DiplomatC28 The Legion’s Horn Filtration Pipe Suppression Furnace Pistol G-220E G-007E G-009E G-4 G-009 Homemade Taser Half-Broken Multi-Tool Interconnected Steel Rings Shock Knuckles Iron Baton Suppression Kiyoshi Stick Shock Knuckles Little Sputter G-009 Mama's Pride G-220 Metal Shank Antique Tantō OfficerC1 G-220 OfficerC2 The Legion’s Horn OfficerC3 The Legion’s Horn Officer's Spark Nightstick Industrial Grade Soldering Iron Old Shoe Crude Manriki Pole Pike Rusted Butterfly Knife Primitive Tonfa Pipe Pulse Rifle Red Dwarf PVP Pipe Frayed Lead Sap Gloves Ragtag Handgun TalentC18 Recogrete Pin Frayed Lead Sap Gloves Rusty Steel Pole Shock Knuckles Ship Breaker's Multitool Shock Knuckles Shredder G-220 Simple Student’s Katana Rusty Shotel Small Pylon Brace Pipe Snub Laser G-220E Spark Charge The Legion’s Horn Stun Stick Half-Broken Multi-Tool Thin Steel Pole Pipe with Grip Time-Worn Stun Baton Soldering Wand Vera G-220 3D Printer Brush Attachment Juggler's Sticks Antique SMG G-YoG Bagh Naka Juggler's Sticks Big Top G-YoG Charged Tonfa Cylindrical Mineral Sample Consortium Stun Baton Knuckles-the-Clown Cudgel Cylindrical Mineral Sample Damaged Stun Baton Knuckles-the-Clown Deep Burn G-PS8E DisturbanceC11 G-PS8E ENT-SMG Crop DusterV2 Epee Respectable Wakizashi Filament Knuckle Wrap Juggler's Sticks Gaule Protectorate Stun Baton Knuckles-the-Clown G-PS1 G-YoG G-RM G-YoG G-RPS4 G-YoG Independence et Liberté Meat Knife Knuckle Irons Old Copper Pipe Kyarr Sun Consortium Jian Maulstick Juggler's Sticks Miner’s Mace Old Copper Pipe Molybdenum Baston Knuckles-the-Clown Molybdenum Hanbō Old Copper Pipe Muai Cad Chuke Juggler's Sticks Naboot Heated Prod Nickle Head Mace Old Copper Pipe Old Shotgun Tenderizer Old SMG G-PS8E One Life Kaiken Consortium Jian Paris Sabre Respectable Wakizashi Platinum Cestus Old Copper Pipe Platinum Security Baton Old Copper Pipe Protectorate Dao Sharpened Ice Club RepeaterC2 G-YoG Rhenium Blackjack Old Copper Pipe Rhenium Club Heated Prod Scabbard Respectable Wakizashi Scrumsettler Juggler's Sticks Security Katana Respectable Wakizashi Sharpened Shiv Meat Knife Spatula Juggler's Sticks Strange Thing Knuckles-the-Clown Taungoo Vajra Heated Prod Traveler's Maul Knuckles-the-Clown Truncheon Heated Prod Tuck Meat Knife Zeni Espantoon Heated Prod Aged Kodachi Unusual Stone Dagger
Then I spent a few cycles negotiating good deals for selling the weapons in the left column.
Mad Weapons Testing signing off for the day!
Re: Mad Weapons Testing Posted from Yards of Gadani (Alpha Centauri) by Dotsent at 197.85/83:907 GCT
Well done and interesting results! Interesting to see how the armor behaves :) Also it might be interesting to conduct a similar research on the less sophisticated weapons - this would be beneficial for our more recently joined colleagues.
P.S. It looks like the column titles and description in the sentence preceding the table contradict each other?
Re: Re: Mad Weapons Testing Posted from Yards of Gadani (Alpha Centauri) by moritz at 197.85/85:913 GCT
I'm currently not in the possession of even less sophisticated weapons (or at least not enough to do comparative research); if you have them, I'll be happy to analyze your for you!
(And thanks, I've fixed the column headings).
Re: Mad Weapons Testing Posted from Yards of Gadani (Alpha Centauri) by Shadow at 197.86/84:689 GCT
You've got more patience than I, my friend. I've contented myself with wandering from vendor to vendor in the various Markets and asking what they think. I figure they have far more experience evaluating weapons (and armor) than I ever will. And, remarkably enough, they seem to be completely uniform in their pricing. You might expect there'd be someone willing to haggle, or offering too little in the hope of fleecing some naive tourist, but no, literally every vendor--even on different stations--seems to offer the exact same amount for each item. So I tend to assume that whichever weapon is worth more is also the generally superior one. Simplistic, I know, but as I said I lack your patience. And your ambition, which by the way is commendable.