Game Mechanics Revealed: Energy Weapons Power Greater than 125

Welcome to the fifth installment of Game Mechanics Revealed.  Star Trek Online is filled with vagaries; the devs are not forthcoming with clarification; the forums are a source of confusing and contradictory knowledge; the chats are rife with conjecture and misinformation.  In this series, I will attempt to find the answers and dispel the myths that plague our game.

My partner in science is the ever patient and ever enthusiastic @JeanLPicard.

Game Mechanics Revealed: The effects of Weapons Power greater than 125

The game has a cap of 125 for the maximum power to any of the four ships power systems, however, with consoles and captain skills it is possible or sometimes even likely that, theoretically at least, power can be boosted beyond this number.  There is some debate about this topic, with some claiming that there is an “invisible reserve” from which weapons power can be drained thus preventing multiple weapons firing from sapping your dps, but with most of the recent argument coming down on the side that there is no reserve since at least the start of the Season 5 free to play patch, and that any weapons power above 125 is completely wasted.  Most of the forum posts I’ve seen have been pretty vehement that this is the case, and I myself have repeated this opinion on numerous occasions, but is it true? 

During some of our other tests, @JeanLPicard presented tantalizing evidence that this is not the case, and we decided to test it further.

Premise

If there is an “invisible reserve” of weapons power that provides some sort of buffer against energy drain when firing multiple energy weapons, this should increase sustained dps and allow targets to be destroyed faster.

Experiment

The aggressor is an escort armed with 4 polaron dual cannons and 3 polaron turrets.  At a range of 5km and a weapon power of 125, the aggressor fires at a target until the target is destroyed.  The test is repeated with the addition of 4 plasma distribution manifold mk ix, which raise the theoretical weapon power to 135.

Results

	Time to Kill Galor Cruiser, seconds
Test	125	125 (135)
1	33	32.5
2	32	32
3	33	32
4	32.5	29.5
5	32.5	32
6	33	30
7	33	32
avg	32.71429	31.42857

Analysis

Null hypothesis, Ho, is that the two means of the time to kill are the same, or u1 – u2 = 0.  Therefore the alternate hypothesis, Ha, is that the two means are not the same, or u1 – u2 ≠ 0.  We will compare the outcome with Student’s t distribution.  There are 7 data points per sample, implying 7 + 7 -2 =12 degrees of freedom and we are using a one-tailed test, Ta(12) = 2.179 at the 95% confidence interval.  Therefore we will reject the null hypothesis if t > 2.179.

n	7	7
average	32.71429	31.42857
sample standard deviation	0.393398	1.170063
sample variance	0.154762	1.369048
Pooled s^2	0.761905
s	0.872872
t	2.755676

since 2.755676 > 2.306 the null hypothesis is rejected at the 95% confidence interval.

The result shows a statistically significant improvement in killing power with the 4 plasma distribution manifolds installed, however the improvement is very small and not at all convincing.  Can we make it a little more apparent?

Experiment 2

Second verse, same as the first, except at a range of 8 km.  This will expand the differences between the two dps rates, and allow for some more time for the natural healing of the target cruiser to come into play, thus further drawing out the time differences.

Results 2

	Time to Kill Galor Cruiser, seconds
Test	125	125 (135)
1	58.5	51.5
2	61	54
3	58	52
4	58.5	54
avg	59	52.875

Analysis 2

Null hypothesis, Ho, is that the two means of the time to kill are the same, or u1 – u2 = 0.  Therefore the alternate hypothesis, Ha, is that the two means are not the same, or u1 – u2 ≠ 0.  We will compare the outcome with Student’s t distribution.  There are 4 data points per sample, implying 4 + 4 -2 =6 degrees of freedom and we are using a one-tailed test, Ta(6) = 2.447 at the 95% confidence interval.  Therefore we will reject the null hypothesis if t > 2.447.

n	4	4
average	59	52.875
sample standard deviation	1.354006	1.314978
sample variance	1.833333	1.729167
Pooled s^2	1.78125
s	1.334635
t	6.490209

since 6.490209 >> 2.447 the null hypothesis is rejected at the 95% confidence interval, and how.

Conclusion

This result was surprising to me, and as unexpected as it was, we also did a few more tests to rule out any other effects.  We tested the base damage of a ship at 125 weapons power vs. 125+ weapons power.  This single firing test showed that there is no difference in max damage with the added consoles.  Actually, in the test we ran the cannon did more damage without the consoles, which we can chalk up to a little bit of luck and small sample size.  We also tested time to kill running at 115 weapon power and using the 4 consoles to make 125 weapon power.  In this test there was no statistically significant difference from test with the natural 125.

What does this mean?  It means that everything anyone ever told you about energy weapons power above 125 is wrong.  The invisible reserve does indeed exist and you can get a not-insignificant boost to killing power by running with a setup using your natural captain abilities and skills, consoles, emergency power to weapons, or energy siphon to raise your theoretical weapon power into the 130’s.

The effect is emphasized with tougher targets or more energy drain-heavy builds, so you will see a much greater improvement with a beamboat cruiser firing against a tough dreadnought than you will for a dual cannon and torpedo escort firing against frigates.