How can you tell exactly how much an Upgrade augments your weapons in Mass Effect 3?

Question

I've found the Weapon Upgrade station in my Normandy vehicle bay, and they seem to be reasonably priced and offer a decent range of improvements (weight, damage, and ammo capacity). The question is, is there a comparison screen so you can see how much it's changing your weapon in those areas similar to the loadout selection screen or the mod screen?

The only thing I've found is to buy the augment, go to loadout, and see how much your weight cooldown changed.

I also haven't noticed any change in the ammo capacity of my N7-Valiant. It had a 30 round capacity with a 3 round magazine at rank I, and still the same at rank III.

Answer 1

No, there is no way to tell that in-game before applying the upgrade. The information should surface soon enough about the stats of weapons and their upgrade variants.

Answer 2

I seriously think weapons and combat are still a little buggy. On the functional side the strategies you expect to work do tend to work, but on the numbers side, some of their formulas are all out of whack. I am willing to guarantee they will adjust some of that stuff in the first official patch.

I'm trying to make an overlay that calculates damage, but the formulas just don't seem to be consistent enough, or there are just a lot of odd variables that I'm missing.

That said, I recommend saving before you upgrade anything and test it out to see if you like it if you're really strapped for points. You will always be able to respec later if you need to, but that can get expensive if you do it too often.

Answer 3

You can go to the Spectre shooting range to test out weapons. There are 3 targets with Shield, Armor, and Health hitpoints for estimating damage. You can also control the target distance to get a feel for the scope mods.

Answer 4

There's no way except looking at the game files. Here's the data:

Level 10 weapons deal 25% more damage than level 1 weapons, so weapon damage improves by 2.(7)% per level. This applies to all weapons in single player, and with the exception of a few errors, all weapons in multi player as well.

Weapons with more than 40 spare ammo at level 1 improve it by 2.(7)% per level(25% total), and the ones with less improve it by 1 per level and 2 at level 10(10 total).

The Valiant is the only weapon that does not improve ammo reserves(likely an error and an intended 20 to 30 spare ammo capacity).

Weight upgrades are not consistent among all weapons and have several different "categories":

Level 1 weight - level 10 weight - upgrade per level - weapons in category

250% - 200% - 5.(5)% - Black Widow, Widow, Javelin, Claymore, Crusader

200% - 140% - 6.(6)% - Falcon, Revenant, Saber, Argus, Graal, Geth Plasma Shotgun, Raider, Valkyrie, Collector Assault Rifle

175% - 100% - 8.(3)% - Mantis, Indra, Chakram, Valiant, Raptor

150% - 90% - 6.(6)% - Geth Assault Rifle, Scimitar, Incisor, Talon, Scorpion, Arc Pistol, Katana, Eviscerator, Wraith, Mattock, Phaestom, Viper

100% - 50% - 5.(5)% - Disciple, Hurricane, Vindicator, Avenger, Hornet

75% - 35% - 4.(4)% - Paladin, Carnifex, Tempest, Locust

60% - 25% - 3.(8)% - Phalanx, Eagle

50% - 20% - 3.(3)% - Predator, Shuriken

So it's between 3.(3)% and 8.(3)% per level

Shepard has 75% starting weight capacity, which can be increased by upgrading his passive skill(adept and engineer up to 125%, soldier up to 175% and the rest up to 145%).

Formula for recharge speed from weight is:

200% + weight capacity - weight of all carried weapons

It's capped at +200% and -200%(other recharge speed bonuses do not adhere to this cap).