Base Damage (in General)

How much does base damage affect your actual damage? For example how much extra damage would an ELS do compared to a BoTH? Lastly, why are ranged weapons set to a different base damage scale?

In 5 years of playing I've never understood how weapon damage works other than, you do more damage if you upgrade X. You hit more often if you upgrade +. I don't know if it's a secret or just too complicated for most to understand.

Base damage, the number the weapon comes with, just means the bigger the better. How much better? I'm not sure -- not even sure it is linear or what.

As far as why ranged weapons have different bases, it is just the same reason melee weapons have differences -- the higher the better. That's why there is choice between the MgSk and the ELB -- ELB hits harder, but MgSk targets DD.

As far as ranged bases go, I think the question was why do they use a much smaller scale, for example sling has a base of 1 while even like a beaked axe has a base much higher than the largest missile weapon. Would a beaked axe upgraded to the same level as an ELB do 5 times the damage, or what?

No, they don't relate like that, definitely not across ranged and melee.

Ranged damage used to be much more complicated back in CB1. Jonathan re-worked how the scale worked, and reworked how ammo fit in there, too. It's simpler now, but I am not sure of the details. For example, I don't think a x2 does twice the damage as a x1 ranged weapon. Check the Wiki, there might be some better studies on all that...

Damage = Base Damage * sqrt [ (ST/20) * weapon_actual_x ] * huge randomness
(random number - think it's between 0.3 and 1.0, but not quite sure)

Base Damage is NOT the listed number on the weapon, but the damage the weapon does with no X upgrades on a 20 ST character.
It's a random value Jon decided to have instead, roughly based on the number listed on the weapon.

For instance, an ELS has a much higher base damage compared to a BoTH (compared to what the number would indicate), and an ELBow gets aprox 40% more base damage compared to a mage seeker bow (even if they are listed as 6 and 5, therefore you would assume the damage difference is only 20% or so at most).

Ok thanks.