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
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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.