.com.unity Forums - Capship Mod

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- - Capship Mod (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=22734)

Ah... thank you. But, can you make a comp which produces res and intel? I've tried it once, for another (personal) mod, but it didn't work...

And... once, I made a long Ability descr, but then ALL THREE ability descrs, the other two of which were one line, were just TOTAL BLACKNESS BEHIND THE BULLET when I rightclicked the comp ingame... y?

edit: OK... so that didn't make much sense.

Is it true that "leaky armor" is simply an armored comp without the Armor ability? And how do you make leaky shields?

Leaky armor is just components with no armor ability, but very high hitpoints per kt size.
They push your ship's hitpoints way up, and by details of the way damage is applied, the high hitpoint components will tend to absorb more than their expected % of the damage.
Size of the component does not matter when picking which component to destroy, only hitpoint total.

The damage is applied via a "hitpoint lottery", where each component gets a ticket for each of its hitpoints, and one is picked randomly.
However, due to the process of absorbing damage, and then picking new targets for any leftover damage points, components with large hitpoint counts will absorb more than their fair share of damage.
five 10-hp crew quarters, for each 50-hp armor. There is an even chance that CQ or armor will be hit first, however, IF the armor is picked, it absorbs 5x more damage than the CQ would have. If a CQ is hit, it only absorbs 10 damage, and the rest gets another chance to be absorbed by the armor.

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Leaky shields use the shields-from-damage ability, just like crystalline armor.
For normal damage weapons, the first hit will knock down the shields. The second hit will do hull damage, and recharge the shields. Third hit is blocked, fourth does damage, and so on.
On average, when your ship has more than enough generators, the shields block 50% of the damage.

If you are short on generators or they suffer damage, then you'll hit a point where the SFD ability total is less than the damage per hit. When this happens, they will only block that ability amount per shot, instead of the full 50%.

If the weapon deals different damage types, you will get different absorption %:
quarter to shields: 80%
half to shields: 67%
normal: 50%
double to shields: 33%
quad to shields: 20%
any-skipping, any-only, etc: 0%

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Ability descriptions only reserve enough space for one line.
You will need to shorten the description, or break it up over multiple ability descriptions.
You can use the "Star - Unstable" ability to make extra ability tags, since that ability has no actual in-game effect. Add it multiple times if you like.

Also beware that your component's description / name dosen't get to be taller than the component picture, or it will eat into your space as well.

There is leeway of about one line worth of text, depending on font size, for the whole window.

Quote:

StrategiaInUltima said:
And... once, I made a long Ability descr, but then ALL THREE ability descrs, the other two of which were one line, were just TOTAL BLACKNESS BEHIND THE BULLET when I rightclicked the comp ingame... y?

edit: OK... so that didn't make much sense.

Yes, this happens all too often. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif It also happens if the component description is long enough to go below the component image... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Not COMP descr, ABILITY descr. I've made long comp descrs before, and they all worked. It were the Ability descrs that caused me trouble.

Thnx for all the input, guys.

What I said is absolutely true... go test it. Having descriptions in either place that are too long causes the same problem...

OK, so I'll split it up.

Something to bear in mind about a leaky armor system, any armor skipping weapons get devalued because they have nothing to skip. However, on the other hand, armor skipping weapons can make a leaky shield system useless because they wind up skipping the shields.
Just a couple points you should know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Thnx. I'm not planning to add leaky shields, I'm just going to make projectile (i.e. non-energy) weapons skip all shields, to reflect real life - an incoming laser beam might be scattered by a strong EM field, but a bullet will go right through it. I'll also revise the entire armor system. With everything I've planned for 0.81, I think it'll be quite some time before it's in working order.

edit: Torps will skip normal shields. They're essentially projectiles, but they have strong energy warheads. The projectile will be able to travel through a normal shield, but a phased shield will suck all energy out of the warhead.

Among other things, I'm completely revamping ground combat. Fighter weapons can no longer be placed on troops, now you have infantry, mech infantry, armor detachments, artillery, air units etc.

(Note: Thanks to DEG for making some of the pics I'm using as infantry/officer units... also used two of these to use as new pics for the boarding marines/security forces comps.)