A guide to D.P.S basics
D.P.S stand for Damage per second, and is a theoretical indication of the damage output of a unit. Contrary to to other systems where damage is constant COH2 uses a probability systems that depends on R.N.G. (random number generator). Because of this actual result can be allot different from the theoretical numbers, although unit A has better dps than unit B good RNG result might help unit B win an engagement.
Weapons:
There are 4 basic different weapon types in coh2
Small arms (in most cases everything up to mgs)
Ballistics (mainly tank guns, atgs...) (wrong term since most of this weapon use direct fire and not indirect)
Explosives (mostly artillery, grenades...)
Flame weapons (flamer, incendiary grenades...)
DPS in small arms:
DPS equation has a number of factor and can be be broken down to the following:
(chance to hit) (chance to damage) (rate of fire) (damage)
The factor that affect these variables in most cases is range...in fights at longer ranges units have less DPS.
Chance to hit:
Chance to hit depends mostly "target size" (higher better), Weapon accuracy (higher better), target's received accuracy modifier (higher better, mostly affected by cover). It maximum value can be 100%.
most of these factor can be affected by auras and other buffs.
(Better means better DPS)
Chance to damage depends mostly on "target armor" (lower better) (available to shock troops, heavy engineers, vehicles) and weapon penetration (Higher better).
Rate of Fire (ROF)
Rate of fire is an indication of attack speed, and there allot of factor so I simplify thing a bit. Unit need some time to acquire a target or change a target, some time between firing a shot or a burst (cooldown) and some time to change magazine (reload). These times are affect but a number of factor like auras, bulletins and moving.
There is also a difference between automatic weapons and rifles. Rifle will fire one round cooldown fire another cooldown until the magazine is out and then will reload, automatic will bust a number of bullets (depending on firerate and burst duration) cooldown, burst...unitl magazine runs out and then reload. So depending how other a weapon has to reload cooldown or reload have different importance on overall DPS.
Damage is the actually damage a bullet will do, some weapon can critical and kill instantly.
All this factors combined give you the DPS of a unit in small arm fire. Will get to other weapons type later...
Comments
Although in principal the same rules apply there are some differences.
(chance to hit) (chance to damage) (rate of fire) (damage)
The factor that affect some of variables in most cases is range
Chance to hit:
Instead of accuracy what is important here is scatter (and AOE). There are 2 types of scatter angle (smaller better )and scatter distance (smaller better). Simplifying things a bit, if one draws a direct line between the target and the firing weapon scatter angle represent the angle the weapon might miss to left or right while the scatter distance the length by which a shot might miss.
One can envision the area the shot will land a t r a p e z o i d with a height depending on scatter distance and range and side that depend on angle scatter and range. An explosive weapon does not have to hit to cause damage but does in circle around where it lands called AOE (area of effect).
For AOE important is the value AOE near mid far that represent drop of damage the further away from the explosion.
One can define as the chance to hit the ratio of circle of the explosion divided by the t****zoid of scatter.
For moving target things become a bit more complicated since the speed of the target and flight time of the projectile come into play...
Chance to damage:
Again this is related to armor divided by penetration but there few differences. Some explosives weapon have different penetration and AOE penetration. Some of them also have deflection damage so they will damage even if they do not penetrate (usually will do a a percentage or normal damage)
R.O.F.:
Most explosive weapons fire and reload so reload is rather important. In most case only the first shot will have an impact so reload time might or might not be important...
Damage:
Damage vs infantries can be a bit misleading. Most infantries have 80 HP so weapon needs 80 damage to kill an entity and any more damage is not important. So the actual parameter that is important is the radius with 80 damage and above that depends on damage and AOE near,mid,far.
Ballistic weapons work a bit like a hybrid between explosives and small arms...and should be looked at in 2 different cases against small size targets like infantry and against large targets that collide.
The equation remains the same:
(chance to hit) (chance to damage) (rate of fire) (damage)
The factor that affect some of variables in most cases is range
Small targets:
Ballistic weapon can hit small targets but the chance is rather small so they work more like explosives weapons. The projectile speed is quite fast so it does not really have an impact in moving targets...
Large targets:
Things here work like small arms fire only most of the weapons fire one snot and reload.
The main difference here that missed shots do not necessarily "miss". Ballistic weapons have a projectiles that continue to travel if they miss and can hit the intended target or another target via collision. If a enemy unit's BOX is in the path a stray projectile than the uni will be hit by the projectile. That means that scatter and especially distance scatter is not necessarily a bad thing.
Let me try to explain this once more. A weapon reloads once it runs out of shots, that would mean after every shot for most ballistic weapons (mainly tank guns) but would happen less often for a HMG with a magazine of 50 bullets.
There is also cooldown which is the time between shot or bursts without changing magazine.
The answer to you question is not very simple because it depend on what weapons the infantries have, veterancy bonuses, how one uses his infantries but I will try to give you a general answer:
In long range fights and especially in cover accuracy is better.
In close combat fights and especially with smgs cooldown is probably better than accuracy.
Reload is good for weapon with small magazines or for single shot weapons like tank guns.