mass-effect-3
Explosive Burst is one of the choices for the last upgrade for Incendiary Ammo.
It's description is:
Ignite enemies with an intermittent explosion that covers 2.50 meters for 135 damage.
Exactly how often does this explosion happen, and is it a 2.50 meter radius, or 2.50 meter diameter?
The reason I ask is because I'm having trouble with whether this will be worth giving up a whopping extra 12.5% damage.
Fortification is, as the wiki describes, an alternative Barrier skill that gives an Armor bonus.
Fortification reinforces armor with a non-Newtonian fluid that hardens when struck, providing a brief, huge bonus. Reinforce armor using protective Foucault currents.
Purge the current and send its charge to your gauntlets for increase melee damage.
- Slows power usage by 60%.
- Damage Reduction: 15%
- Melee Damage Bonus: 50%
- Melee Damage Duration: 20 sec
You can see the Power Ranks for Fortification at the Wiki too.
Force is a comparative measurement just like damage is. You don't actually see the health of your opponents or their damage mitigation, however because ability "A" does more damage than ability "B", than ability "A" must logically take more squares off the enemies health meter.
The same holds true for force. If ability "A" has more newtons of force than ability "B", then it will push the enemy further, or higher or whatever you are trying to achieve. If your trying to translate damage into force, you are really just translating two non-numeric relative measurements.
Also note that impact force can affect shields as well, for example Shockwave. This is again an abstract measurement, if an ability has more force than another ability, the ability with more force will cause more damage to the target's shield.
Edit, here is a technical diagram I drew in paint:
edit 2,
Here I used Throw to push away a Husk. The Husk was in melee range and I threw it back with 600N of force, and it ended 6 "strides" away from me. A stride being one full step from Shepard. Note that the effect was not the same (or even close) on much more armored opponents. This effect was reproducible on two more Husks. I currently do not have any other ability that exerts "force" to test.
edit 3, conclusion
Here I used Throw rank 3 to push away another Husk, the same conditions applied. This was tested twice.
This means an extra 180N of force produced an extra 2 "strides" of pushing distance. However we can account for rounding problems in calculating strides to conclude that,
On a Husk (~200lb?), 100N of force equals 1 stride of "pushing power" at a plane of force perpendicular to the ground.
Best Answer
It is neither diameter nor radius but rather area which gives you a radius of roughly 0.9 meters. The description states that the explosion covers 2.5m which lends itself to area not distance from point of impact. My proof would be a screenshot of it in action if I had a PC (sorry I have a console and could not get a picture). The explosion is roughly the same size as a husk is tall and it is rather chaotic. It is simply is not large enough to say it has a diameter of 2.5 meters.
As for how often, again it says it in the title - intermittent. It does not occur every shot nor after some timed interval. Sometimes it takes several bursts of an assault rifle and other times I get two or three explosions in a single burst. Using a pistol I typically get an explosion once every 2-5 shots. It is also worth noting that the bullet must hit an enemy for the explosion to occur. Think of it like a passive version of incinerate that occurs randomly when you have incendiary ammo active.
I have used both perks and I can guarantee you will not be disappointed with explosive burst. The extra damage is nice of course, but explosive burst is by far the more useful perk. For one thing the AoE damage is very effective when enemies are grouped together (while experimenting to write this answer I took out three husks at once). Also, it seems to have a force associated with it which staggers enemies with shields and can throw unshielded enemies to the floor. It looks awesome in action and is best used with an assault rifle or SMG in burst or full auto.