DPS graph from dow2.info showing bolter damage values against different armor and cover types.
DPS stands for "Damage Per Second". It is a way of estimating the actual damage caused by weapons in complex games such as real-time strategy.
For example, a weapon causing 100 points of damage per shot but firing once every 10 seconds would cause 10 DPS – if it would hit every time. If the weapon had a 50% accuracy rating, it would cause approximately 5 DPS (missing half of the shots), impossible to predict exactly because of the random nature of the accuracy factor.
Dawn of War II[]
In Dawn of War II (including Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising and Dawn of War II: Retribution, the combat mechanics are fairly complicated and DPS is affected by many situational factors such as weapon and target type, cover, buff or debuff effects, movement and so on. Thus, most DPS values are only directional, but they can give an idea of which targets the weapon is good/bad against and how it compares with other similar weapons.
In-game factors that make it difficult to estimate accurate DPS values include:
- Randomness in accuracy multipliers and weapon reload frequencies
- Players using damage-boosting or protective abilities
- Unit movement (may lower accuracy or prevent attacking)
- Units being knocked down or stunned, unable to use their attack temporarily
- Units entering and leaving different types of cover, affecting how much damage they suffer and possibly whether they can attack or not
- Passive effects such as Melee Resistance Aura
- Unit upgrades may increase or decrease damage against a target type
- Veterancy levels increase damage output
- Splash (AoE) damage effects are hard to estimate exactly