From what I can tell, with DRv3, should Offense and Defense Tiers be the same, it will take two shots to deplete the shields, and one shot to pierce the armor, as the Damage Tier is applied on a per-round/projectile basis, and not over time. This means that a weapon can actually take on something higher Tiered than its individual round/projectile's Tier through the application of more bullets/plasma bolts/beams etc.
That is correct. Much like how it is in real life, a submachinegun has huge advantages over a pistol in terms of killing power... but essentially, they both fire bullets which individually do about the same thing.
DR is not a balance system. It's a definition/nomenclature guideline.
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My input:
The
ONI 2.5cm Type-39 Rapid Cycle Plasma Cannon claims that it can put out of commission (cockpit hit, engine hit) an unbarriered Nodachi in a single well-placed hit. Each of those same shots will cause 7% damage to a Plumeria's barrier facing, meaning that if it brushes a Plumeria for at least 1 second worth of shots, the Plumeria will lose the equivalent of 140% barrier protection - several shots will rip through the protection and possibly inflicting 9 'light damage' hits.
If this is a heavy cruiser's turret meant to mow down smaller vessels, this could come across as reasonable. I get the sense that it's not, though. But this seems like a point-defense system for a Plumeria-sized vessel. It uses the vocabulary 'run-the-mill', which inspires in me that it should have adequate and not exceptional performance effecting point defense.
I can't tell you whether such a high rate of fire is acceptable or not (a submachinegun is 900 rounds a minute, but ammo is typically a very present concern too). I can tell you that if ships are not meant to easily fall to this thing, reducing the lethality to Heavy Anti-Armor (Tier 6) will 'better protect' ships from its lethality through mass-weapon's fire, while still allowing it to perform its job and respect its cinematic flair.
The
ML2A4 30mm Hypervelocity Rapid Cycle Plasma Cannon (HRCPC) appears to be a weapon made to be the 'main gun' of a combat VTOL. In the case of the weapon displayed, it seems like the four barrels are part of a single weapon system, and fire is rotated through the four barrels out of concern for cycling heat. Performance-wise, it seems to have an even higher rate of fire, so it would do about the same damage I described on the previous weapon, but on a smaller ship like the Midori-class scout.
If the expected visuals are meant to be tearing through a similarily-sized VTOL without being that great of a threat against frigate-sized vessel, we're aiming around the Tier 5~6 ballpark as well.