If you're reading this after 19/10/21 I'm afraid damage has changed now, which significantly alters this evaluation. I will update my guide(s) soon.
Ahh any chance to get on my goddamn soapbox..buckle up for what I'm scared is a tragically long post..I'll colour code my tl;dr points..
You have to consider how you want to actually compare weapons. I.e. what does "damage" actually do? what does "accuracy" actually do? And how much difference does a point in each actually have? They are not equal effects, so simply adding the numbers together is, while popular, a very poor choice.
Damage, in a roundabout way, reflects the damage multiplier your weapon imparts during a fight. That is, if based on your effective STR you would do
X damage (with fists, forgetting the fist education >.>), with a weapon you would do
X * multiplier damage. It is possible to work backwards from the displayed "damage" stat to retrieve this damage multiplier, and this is the first component I would incorporate into any comparison mechanism. You can read about all the damage shit
here.
Accuracy reflects your hit chance against an opponent who's DEX is equal to your SPD. That is, a weapon with 60.00 accuracy would allow 1b SPD to hit 1b DEX 60% of the time. For unequal stats it's a bit more complicated. And while Accuracy isn't so straight forward for unequal stat ratios, when you're comparing weapons I believe the best way to do so is to compare them in a vacuum - i.e. there should be no extraneous advantages or disadvantages for the user comparing them - so 1:1 ratios work perfectly, and thus Accuracy is a simple second component to incorporate.
I do it like this for
my sheet. It's called ProxiQuality because I
had named it Quality and then Ched implemented "Quality"...>.> :
PQ = damage multiplier * accuracy / 100 * 10
I take the accuracy as a percentage and multiply it by the damage multiplier. I also multiply by 10 just to give a nicer number between 1-100, just a personal choice.
What is effectively calculated is the (normalised) average damage dealt to an opponent who's DEX matches your SPD. In fact all stats can be considered the same, although for this simple calc only the SPD:DEX matters.
By normalised I mean that of course this will not spit out the exact damage you will deal, but it will instead provide a PQ value that allows any weapon in the game to be compared with one another. The ratio of any two PQ scores will give you the ratio of your average damage output with each weapon, again with the above assumptions.
So that brings me on to Macanas, DBKs and ArmaLites. All of these weapons have PQ ranges with significant overlap - i.e. they're all really good and while some Macanas are better than some DBKs and Armas, the opposite will often be true.
Macana vs. DBK
The macana PQ range is slightly better than that of the DBK. The best theoretical macana is better than the best theoretical DBK. But here's the other thing..
Damage is uncapped. That is - get more strength, deal more damage. Get a higher damage multiplier weapon, deal more damage. This will always be true no matter what stats you have.
Hit chance is capped, at 100%. That is - getting more speed doesn't
always mean hit more, getting a higher accuracy weapon doesn't
always mean hit more. And even when it does, the other thing about Accuracy is that it's at it's peak effectiveness when your SPD exactly matches an opponents DEX. As your SPD increases over your opponents DEX, or vice versa, the extra hit chance % your weapon provides
decreases.
While 1:1 SPD:DEX may be the fairest way to consistently assess all weapons in the game, it's also rarely the case in practicality and some caveats should be considered when choosing what do fight with.
My advice is:
- If you are a SPD monster and hit basically every time no matter who you're fighting, just max up the highest possible damage weapon you can afford. Forget the macana, forget the f**kin DBK, go to town with a goddamn flail.
- If you're comparing to weapons that
theoretically perform similarly to one another (e.g. PQ scores), pick the one with the highest damage. This will guarantee you a better output when fighting opponents of various different builds (particularly concerning their DEX compared with your SPD).
In essence what I'm saying here is, DBK is your man really.-
If you're severely lacking in hitting an opponent, I'd personally look at temporary weapons NOT higher accuracy weapons. None of this is to say Accuracy isn't good, or valuable, or even worth paying for in some cases. But I do think it's
overvalued and there are better options in many fights.
Macana/DBK vs ArmaLite
This comparison isn't really even close. Reloads set the ArmaLite back a bit (assuming you do actually take turns to reload and continue using th weapon), but special ammo (in particular
Incendiary) blows any melee to smithereens. Special ammo doesn't need some fancy ass logarithm calculation, it just whacks on a percentage to your damage output at the end - which in terms of any theoretical comparison (like PQ) acts as a direct multiplier.
The worst ArmaLite with special ammo is better, even while reloading, than the best DBK or macana. And that's without a discussion of crit mods, which I think is an obvious bonus in favour of the rifle.
If you don't have any special ammo, do some missions. If you don't wanna do some missions or work in a Gun Shop, pick up a DBK and stop kidding yourself that you're trying to min-max your game :P
Okay, I'm out of breath.