Dimension Splitter Underpowered

[onero S]

I wanted to bring up something I noticed today, the DS is currently much weaker than the other MC5 chips. So weak in fact, that it's arguably worse than a single purpose level 2 implant.


For the sake of this discussion, I'd like to define something called a "contribution unit (CU)". I'll define a contribution unit as equal to the contribution of a single point of an attribute to the weapon stat in question. Note that I'm basing all of this off of the skill contribution guide for 2.2 here. Here is the APU one (the PPU is symmetrical except there is no aiming):

Category: PSI Combat (APU)
Damage (100): Base 10 %, APU 70 %, FCS 20 %
Aim Speed (100): Base 20 %, APU 40 %, FCS 30 %, PPW 10
Aim Precision (100): Base 20 %, APU 40 %, FCS 30 %, PPW 10
Frequency (100): Base 10 %, APU 30 %, FCS 40 %, PPW 20
Range (100): Base 10 %, APU 20 %, FCS 40 %, PPW 30
Handling (100): Base 10 %, APU 20 %, FCS 40 %, PSU 30 %

Going back to my definition of a CU, an implant that simply gave 1 to PSI level, would have a damage rating of 1 CU, and an Aim Precision rating of 2 CU. An implant that gave 1 to APU, would have a damage rating of 7 CU and and Aim Precision rating of 2 CU.



Now let's see what the DS gives a non hybrid monk (hybrids are horrible no matter what at the moment and not worth considering).
From a dmg perspective (by far the most important combat stat for a monk) the DS is as follows:

5.23 PSI (5.23 CU) + 20.92 PSU (0 CU) + 20.92 FCS (41.84 CU) + 10.45 PPU (0 CU).
This means that for damage, a DS contributes 47.07 CU.

Now let's look at a simple tl 41 Aggressor 2 CPU (keep in mind the Combat Core and Aggressor 3 are better):
1.71 PSI (1.71 CU) + 2.26 PSU (0 CU) + 6.85 APU (47.95 CU)
That means that for damage, an Aggressor 2 contributes 49.66 CU, better than the DS.

In other words, for damage, a DS is only 94.78 percent as good as a level two aggressor implant.


For comparison, here is the Distance Projector calculation for damage:
5.23 DEX (5.23 CU) + 10.46 WEP (20.92 CU) + 20.92 RC (146.44 CU) + 10.46 TC (0 CU)
A DIP contributes 172.56 CU to dmg, making it 366.6 percent the contribution of a DS; It's more than three times as good!


Finally, just for fun, let's compare the DIP with the level two rifle chip, and see how it compares:
3.17 WEP (6.34 CU) + 9.50 RC (66.5 CU)
A Long Distance 2 CPU contributes 72.84 CU to dmg.
Comparing this with a DIP, we see that the DIP is much better, specifically 236.9 percent the contribution.

It's also worth noting, as a sidenote, that monk chips are worse across the board, with the level two rifle chip providing 46.7 percent more damage than the APU chip 2.




From this analysis, two things seem clear:

1) Monk chips are weaker across the board (this isn't necessarily a problem as weapons can be balanced around available skill points to use for those weapons, but it does seem like a bit of an extreme difference at the moment.)

2) The MC5 monk chip is horrible compared to the MC5 chips for other classes. Not only is it worse than other MC5 chips in a direct comparison, but it's usefulness compared to lower level chips for the same class is also far worse than other MC5s.


Anyway... Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to show how I came to this conclusion. I really think that the DS needs a pretty serious buff. MC5 chips don't have to make or break a character, but they should still be something awesome to strive for.