Wow. My message didn't get across.
Cyan, let's say that we take your .75 second charge and your .25 second cooldown as a baseline against your baseline damage, Heavy Anti-Armor.
On a barrier, that does 50% damage on a same tier target. So, where barriers are concerned, your gun does 50% barrier damage a second. So, it'd take 2 seconds to fire 2 shots (and be ready to fire the next) and you'll have caused 100% barrier damage.
But, you can charge briefly (+33% of your normal rate of charge), you do twice the damage. In 2.5 seconds, you can fire charged shots and cause a total of 200% barrier damage.
To compound that, you can charge to maximum and cause 150% barrier damage. Your gun is stronger when we charge to maximum in any amount of times than it would be firing normally.
And that's not to mention how you easily gain access to higher tiers of damage too. Charge .25 second longer, and you can core an unbarriered light mecha rather than just seriously damage it. Charge 1.25 second longer, and to can popcorn a shuttlecraft like the Kuma. This is greatly significant.
In the first place, I think your charge times and cooldown times are too low. But there's actually no sacrifice to your charge time. Not only do you get a spike in damage, but it's even more effective than firing normally.
In the first place, your charge times should be consistent with the amounts of normal shots you can fire. Secondly, since charging carries the advantage of greater penetration on top of extra damage, charging should be slightly less advantageous in terms of raw damage to your baseline.
Example:
Tier 6 weapon on Tier 6 target -
1st shot, Lethal or 50% barrier damage, 0.75 second charge, 0.25 cooldown (1 second total)
2nd shot, Lethal or 50% barrier damage, 0.75 second charge, 0.25 cooldown (2 seconds total)
3rd shot, Lethal or 50% barrier damage, 0.75 second charge, 0.25 cooldown (3 second total)
In 3 seconds, I do 150% barrier damage to something at same tier. Given that, I feel fairly secure with the idea that I could have a charged shot, that'd take 2.25 seconds to charge, that would cause the equivalent of 100% barrier damage. Since it's essentially a bigger heat spike, I'd round up the charge time to 3 seconds (taking slightly longer to gather energy to avoid overclocking the hardware too harshly). I'd make the cooldown double what single shots would be.
Tier 7 weapon on Tier 6 target -
Charged Shot, Quite Lethal or 100% barrier damage, 3 second charge, 1.5 seconds cooldown (4.5 seconds total)
This way, you retain the usefulness of your normal shot and apply a reasonable price to your charged shot. For instance, your normal shots are better in open battle, your charge shot better in battles where you have cover.
It could be a similar process for determining the maximum charge. It's pretty much the same process.
Tier 7 weapon on Tier 6 target -
1st Charged Shot, Quite Lethal or 100% barrier damage, 3 second charge, 1.5 seconds cooldown (4.5 seconds total)
2nd Charged Shot, Quite Lethal or 100% barrier damage, 3 second charge, 1.5 seconds cooldown (9 seconds total)
3rd Charged Shot, Quite Lethal or 100% barrier damage, 3 second charge, 1.5 seconds cooldown (13.5 seconds total)
So, I could pinpoint this 'maximum charge' attack would do 150% damage against barrier and it could take 9 seconds to charge, 4.5 to cooldown. I'd probably round both up to 10 seconds charge and 5 seconds cooldown to play on 'safer factory specs'.
Tier 8 weapon on Tier 6 target -
Super Charged Shot, Highly destructive or 150% barrier damage, 10 second charge, 5 seconds cooldown (15 seconds total)
* * *
You may not find my values generous. That's because I find yours to be a tad on the 'ridiculously low' side. Going for a straight x3 without any extra judgment calls on my part, your weapon would still look like this:
Tier 6 weapon on Tier 6 target -
- Normal shot, Lethal or 50% barrier damage against Heavy Armor; 0.75 second charge, 0.25 cooldown (1 second total)
- Charged Shot, Quite Lethal or 100% barrier damage against Heavy Armor; 2.25 second charge, 0.75 seconds cooldown (3 seconds total)
- Super Charged Shot, Highly destructive or 150% barrier damage against Heavy Armor, 6.75 second charge, 2.25 seconds cooldown (9 seconds total)
* * *
Finally, I concur with Frostjaeger. You shouldn't be showing decimal DRv3 values, even if you consider that they round up. Your focus needs to be showing at which amount of seconds a complete tier is reached.
