Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Do you know if multible pieces of emissive armor are stacking (i.e. do 2 emissve-armor III totals to 60 points)?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Emissive Armor does not stack.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Rollo:
Emissive Armor does not stack.<hr></blockquote>

Do we think it should stack? I can't decide whether it ought to stack or not. Organic and crystalline armor stack; but then again, if emissive armor stacked, you could REALLY build invulnerable ships (imagine ignoring 300 points of damage; or even 3000 points of damage!).

I guess I talked myself out of wanting emissive armor to stack. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

It should not stack - this represents damage resistance on one part of the hull.

I suppose fighters can fly in such a way that they can focus their fire on one point on the hull, bLasting through.

We could have different "sizes" of armour though, representing different thicknesses. Bigegr ships can withstand bigger quantities of damage, that way.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>I hope MM fixes the fighters soon, so emissive armor will be useful in standard games as well. That will also make crystal armor much better against fighters<hr></blockquote>Rather than fixing the fighters, fix the Emissive Armor!!!
Instead of an All-or-nothing approach, subtract 10 points from the weapon damage whenever an Emissive component (with 10 ability points) is hit.
With that, damage is reduced for any weapon hit.
Emissive armor will then stack, but only if a second Emissive armor component is hit on the same shot (and the first armor was destroyed).

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

First of all, I agree that emissive armor should not stack. Just too easy to make invulnerable ships that way.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Rather than fixing the fighters, fix the Emissive Armor!!!
Instead of an All-or-nothing approach, subtract 10 points from the weapon damage whenever an Emissive component (with 10 ability points) is hit.
With that, damage is reduced for any weapon hit.
Emissive armor will then stack, but only if a second Emissive armor component is hit on the same shot (and the first armor was destroyed).<hr></blockquote>

Sorry, but I don't agree, S_J. Reducing damage is not what emissive should do. This is already done (Well, very close) with the crystal armor that loads your shields and thus reduces the effect of the next shot.

Rollo

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

perhaps if you tweaked low dammage weapons to be more efficient than their high damage counterparts, then they would become the weapon of choice. then the use of emissive armor would force people to use larger weapons, thus making it valueable, and forcing people to make more choices in the game.

what i think needs to be fixed, is that fighters fire as a stack instead of individuals. so emissive armor that should stop one fighters weapons wont stop the combined attack of the entire stack. that seems to defeat the point of the emissive armor.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I have a damage Q. Sort of.
Has anyone tried to create a weapon that can only fire once than is fried. Destroyed on use ability does not work. How about a weapon that may or may not blow to pieces. Every time you use it is like a toss of the dice?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Sorry, but I don't agree, S_J. Reducing damage is not what emissive should do. This is already done (Well, very close) with the crystal armor that loads your shields and thus reduces the effect of the next shot.<hr></blockquote>The differences, as I wish it was:
- Only components which are damaged or destroyed stack their emissive ability. (crys stacks all of them, all the time)
- Emissive ability works as above for internals, too.
- Components without emissive abilities do not get any emissive-type protection. (crys works, even if some other type of armor takes the damage)
- Emissive abilities work against "only X", and shield or armor skipping weapons. (as long as the component being hit has emissive ability)
- Quad2Shields and shield-only damage types do not reduce the effectiveness of emissive abilities.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Ok, here's another question for all of you gurus out there. How do shields and the special armors work on units????? I know that units don't track destroyed components; they are either in pristene working order or completely destroyed, with no in betweens. But that's all I know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Heres to hoping for an answer!!!

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

That's an easy one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Count all the hitpoints of all the components and add them together. Then add all shild points to this result, too. That's it. To answer your question: Special armor and shield do NOTHING, they just add their hitpoints and nothing else. If you fire on a unit it will never be damaged and only destroyed when you accumulate enough points to compensate for all of the unit hitpoints.

Extended example:
You have 2 weapon platforms. Both have a "body" (i.e. all components added together) of 500. Platform A has 1 shield V (300 shield points) so the total hitpoints for platform A is 800 (body+shield). Platform B has a phased shield V (375 shield points) so its total hitpoints are 875.
Both are stationed on the same planet and so form one stack with 1675 hit points (800+875).
If you apply 799 damage points, nothing happens.
If you apply 800 damage points, platform A (800) will be destroyed.
Iy you apply 875 damage points (in one salvo), platform A will be gone IMHO but here I could be wrong.

Anyway, you got the idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: [K126]Mephisto ]</p>

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

So, when it comes to units, crystaline and organic armor special abilities an non-functional. No regenerative organic armor, no crystalline armor boost to shields are present. Is that what you are saying?

What about mixing units with phased and normal shield, as in your example. Do all the shields block phased weapons, or do none of them (like when you mix phased and normal shields on a ship, they act as normal shields until all the normal shield gens are knocked out, then you suddenly switch to phased shields...)

Oooohhh, my poor head is spinning.....

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Has it ever bothered anyone that 10KT of armor covers a Battleship just as effectively as an Escort. I think that armor effectiveness should be modified by the hull size. This would also make smaller hulls have more compensation for being able to hold fewer components.

I would suggest a formula that makes large hull require more armor components to be equally effective: Adjusted Armor Value = Base Armor Value /((KT of Hull/100)^.5))

where ^.5 means raised to the half power (also known as a square root).

You could even go simpler and make it linear: [b]Adjusted Armor Value = Base Armor Value x (100 KT/Hull Size in KT). This would make a light cruiser require 2 armor to be equal to a frigate with 1 armor (400 KT versus 200KT).

You could use 150KT as the base factor instead of 100 if you want Escorts to be at base value. My 100 based formula actual boosts the armor effectiveness of Escorts (they need help anyway).

I would also suggest a similar thing be done with shield points.

Not that Malfador can handle even multiplication in formulas (ever notice most things are addition and subtraction rather than multiplication and division?).

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Methinks that no special armor abilities are working. And you can mix phased and normal shields as you like - there is no such thing as a unit shield skipping weapon for a weapon platform. A normal shield V adds 340 hitpoints (300 shield points plus 40 component hit points) and a phased shield V adds 415 (375 shields plus 40 component hit points). A weapon platform is one solid slug of material, you cannot pass anything just hit it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>So, when it comes to units, crystaline and organic armor special abilities an non-functional. No regenerative organic armor, no crystalline armor boost to shields are present. Is that what you are saying? <hr></blockquote>Organic armor regeneration requires the component to be destroyed before it regenerates, so units can't make use of that.

Crystalline armor IS sometimes effective, though. Sats/fighters's crystalline armor stacks within the group of units, too.
Unfortunately, as of the 1.41 -&gt; 1.49 patch, sats are screwed up, and their shields are actually "armor". IE shield depleters have no effect, and the shields do not weaken. Crys ability does not seem to be useful on sats anymore. Same with fighters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif .
EDIT: Well, even with a planetary shield, SE4 v1.49 fails to use the crystalline armor.

Time to bug Aaron for these abilities on units, eh?

[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]</p>

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Organic armor regeneration requires the component to be destroyed before it regenerates, so units can't make use of that.

Crystalline armor IS sometimes effective, though. Sats/fighters's crystalline armor stacks within the group of units, too.
Unfortunately, as of the 1.41 -&gt; 1.49 patch, sats are screwed up, and their shields are actually "armor". IE shield depleters have no effect, and the shields do not weaken. Crys ability does not seem to be useful on sats anymore. Same with fighters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif .
EDIT: Well, even with a planetary shield, SE4 v1.49 fails to use the crystalline armor.

Time to bug Aaron for these abilities on units, eh?

[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]<hr></blockquote>

You are saying that you don't see satellite shields respond to damage when hit? I'm not using 1.49 anymore but the current beta. Satellite shields DO respond to damage. I've seen it many times. Oddly, drone shields do not respond to damage right now. They just take hits until suddenly the drone is destroyed. I guess that's the effect you are seeng with sats. What about fighters? When I get into combat with fighters and the PDC doesn't destroy them outright (which is too fast to follow), I can also see shield damage reflected on the display when I use the slower 'main' weapons to finish them off. It seems to be only drones that have this problem right now. I hope MM is working on this, but it strikes me as really odd that a bug would seem to 'move' from an old unit type to a new one.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

V1.49, a stack of fighters or sats.
Shooting a shield depleter does nothing. Hitting with PDC (normal damage) has no apparent effect until the unit + shields is killed.

Against a 400/50 HP sat.
Two 300 damage Shield depleter hits have no apparent effect.
A 60 Damage Meson bLaster has no visible effect.
The eigth meson bLaster hit reads 400/50 damage, and the sat is destroyed.

Note: you do see the shield animation, but the damage meters don't change, and the right-click report shows no damage.
All in simmed combat.

[ 11 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]</p>

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Organic armor regeneration requires the component to be destroyed before it regenerates, so units can't make use of that.

[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]<hr></blockquote>

I thought someone determined that the regenerative processes of Organic occurred as soon as the battle starts. That it would add damage capacity to the armor before it even gets hit. Thus, Organic armor gets stronger even if it is not hit and that Organic ships are harder to destroy if you do not start at point blank.

However, now that I think about it, others have suggested that because components are never partially damaged, that there is a carry over factor (ship wide) for damage that does not exceed the Last component hit that gets added to the next hit.

Can anyone explain how Organic Armor really works? Does it accommulate points for a few rounds and then suddenly reappears when enough points for a whole piece have been saved up? Or does it appear imediately and put the differential in the carry over damage (if so it would be nasty if the next hit came from a Null Space weapon)? Does its regeneration apply to the carry over damage from the Last hit?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by LGM:


I thought someone determined that the regenerative processes of Organic occurred as soon as the battle starts. That it would add damage capacity to the armor before it even gets hit. Thus, Organic armor gets stronger even if it is not hit and that Organic ships are harder to destroy if you do not start at point blank.

However, now that I think about it, others have suggested that because components are never partially damaged, that there is a carry over factor (ship wide) for damage that does not exceed the Last component hit that gets added to the next hit.

Can anyone explain how Organic Armor really works? Does it accommulate points for a few rounds and then suddenly reappears when enough points for a whole piece have been saved up? Or does it appear imediately and put the differential in the carry over damage (if so it would be nasty if the next hit came from a Null Space weapon)? Does its regeneration apply to the carry over damage from the Last hit?<hr></blockquote>


Read the first post in this thread (way back at the bottom of page 5). The answers are all there. Everything you wanted to know about damage calculations, and some things you didn't really want to know! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

It has been so long since I first read the original post on this thread, that I forgot all that information was in there. The original post fits my experiences fighting Organic Armor. It is much easier to defeat at a warp-point battle. Null Space work great, but they are costly.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Getting back to the discussion of Organic Armor on units being useless. It will be useless for the regeneration aspect. However, there is another advantage to Organic Armor that many overlook: it takes no metal resources. Almost everything a non Organic player builds is limited time wise based on Metal, not Radioactives or Organics. If using Organic Armor can even out the cost ratio of your unit design, you may be able to build some extra ones every turn at your planet or shipyard.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by LGM:
Getting back to the discussion of Organic Armor on units being useless. It will be useless for the regeneration aspect. However, there is another advantage to Organic Armor that many overlook: it takes no metal resources. . . . If using Organic Armor can even out the cost ratio of your unit design, you may be able to build some extra ones every turn at your planet or shipyard.<hr></blockquote>

An excellent point. I think that benefit was intentionally designed in, although I think that organics should be useful to everyone, not just Organics races. One way to do that is to mod things like life support, crew quarters, the various supply components (well some of them wouldn't fit very well, description wise), and Colony components to greatly increase their organics cost. But in doing so, one must be careful not to take away the organics benefit of more balanced construction costs. (Unless you think Organics is too powerful, anyway...)

Ok, sorry for the OT response there. It's late and I'm babbling.....

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
Methinks that no special armor abilities are working. <hr></blockquote>

Um, does that include Scattering and Stealth armor? I'm pretty sure that the cloaking isn't working (At least, it shouldn't, anyway...), but what about the tohit bonuses? What about ECM? I'm pretty sure that combat sensors, Events predictors, etc. work (at least, they should...)

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by LGM:
Getting back to the discussion of Organic Armor on units being useless. It will be useless for the regeneration aspect. However, there is another advantage to Organic Armor that many overlook: it takes no metal resources. Almost everything a non Organic player builds is limited time wise based on Metal, not Radioactives or Organics. If using Organic Armor can even out the cost ratio of your unit design, you may be able to build some extra ones every turn at your planet or shipyard.<hr></blockquote>

The first advantage of Organic armor is that it's tougher than standard armor. Don't forget the total damage rating. Since units don't track internal components, this is actually more effective for units than for ships and bases. It increases the total damage needed to destroy the unit. In a stack of satellites this can really add up.

[ 15 December 2001: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>The first advantage of Organic armor is that it's tougher than standard armor.<hr></blockquote>25% stronger at max tech...
The problem is that shields aren't tracked separately from the hull in unit stacks anymore, so a shield generator will blow away any armor in terms of defense. (2x the strength of standard armor!)
Unit shields are not even affected by shield depleters!

Unless your enemies are packing null-space cannons, you'd be better off with shields.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Every to hit bonus plus is welcome for a weapon platform but why go for a to hit bonus defense? A planet is nearly always hit and so is the weapon platform on it.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

LoL. It is true that the stealth armor won't have much effect on a platform, but as a general unit ability, it could have a great effect (eg. fighters).
It's just the fun in discovering how stuff works.

[ 17 December 2001: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]</p>

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:
Every to hit bonus plus is welcome for a weapon platform but why go for a to hit bonus defense? A planet is nearly always hit and so is the weapon platform on it.<hr></blockquote>

Just nearly? I can't recall seeing my ships missing a planet. In any case, any gunners who shoot at a planet and miss deserved to be court-martialled and shot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by CW:


Just nearly? I can't recall seeing my ships missing a planet. In any case, any gunners who shoot at a planet and miss deserved to be court-martialled and shot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif <hr></blockquote>

They may always hit the planet, but it should be difficult to hit something in particular such as a Weapon Platform or a Troop which would be smaller than a Light Cruiser. Hitting population on a domed world should be easier than an undomed world. You also have to allow for possible refraction throwing off the accruacy beam weapons as they pass through different layers of an atmosphere. Gas Giants should get a defense modifier bigger than the other types. No atmostphere planets would get the least modifier.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Just nearly? I can't recall seeing my ships missing a planet.<hr></blockquote>It really is 99%. I've seen a ship miss a planet with a DUC at range 1, twice in the same battle. That's the only time I've seen it happen in the year or so since I bought SE IV.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

&lt;bump&gt;

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

And in the sixish months since my previous post, I've seen planets missed at least half a dozen more times.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Budda-bump

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most likely you hit planet but since no WP has been destroyed, there is no "phhh!" and visual impression is that you missed planet. The only reliable method to see whether you hit or miss is to check the damage number.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

You've got to be kidding me, this thread is still around? Dang, I'm gone for what, like more than a year and it's still on the front page when I get back?!

Since Emissive Armor is being discussed so much, don't forget to check out this thread which contains both a correction about Organic Armor and talks about Emissive Armor. Of course, it was written many patches ago, and I have no clue how accurate it is, since I haven't gotten my Gold yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif .

Good to see SE4 is still going strong, and from the history.txt it looks like the AI is starting to shape up a bit.

-Zanthis

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

In one game, after 200 turns, my brother fired his very first shot from a weapon. It missed the planet he was aiming for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif