Armor is better than warheads
 

I rammed an escort equipped with a full engines, an ArmorIII, and a WarheadIII (300 damage, weighs 50 kT) against another ship (a frigate, I think) with a total damage resistance of 305 kT. The outcome surprised me. Both ships were affected equally by the explosion, so both were destroyed. On the other hand, replacing the warhead with 5 more ArmorIIIs and doing the same ramming test resulted in the destruction of the frigate with only armor damage to the escort. So armor is better than warheads for kamikaze ships. Which leads to the question: what are warheads good for?

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Umm, they're for when you don't want your ship back!

IOW, for suicide rammers - real kamikazes. When they blow, they take the ship they're mounted on with them. They're for sending something cheap (or outdated) like an escort to take on a much larger (and costly) opponent.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

I think you're missing my point. (But maybe not. See below.) The warheads are so heavy that ArmorIII does more damage to the enemy ship.
ArmorIII:5x10kT=50kT weight and does 5x70kT=350kT damage
Warhead(II?):50kT weight and does 300kT damage

Having slept on it, here's my answer to my own question (which maybe is what Psit. meant?):
1) Warheads are faster than armor to put on a ship as an upgrade because they're only one item. (Heavy items don't take any longer to repair/upgrade than light items.) So if my Yard can do 5 repairs/turn, then in one turn I could either turn one outdated escort into an armored rammer, or I could turn 5 outdated escorts into 5 warhead rammers. So if I'm in a hurry, then warheads win, no contest.
2) A warhead rammer that's down to 5 strength in the warhead and 5 strength in one engine can still sneak up and ram the enemy, doing the full 300 damage. So the enemy is forced to destroy it totally. An armored rammer down to 10 strength will only do 10 damage, so the enemy doesn't need to worry about it. (And if the enemy has EmissiveArmor or CrystalArmor, then he can ignore damaged armored rammers at even higher strength levels.)

One thing I've learned from my discussions about armor, is that new technologies are often not as good as a high level of an old technology. But if you keep researching to higher levels of the new tech, eventually the new tech has significant advantages.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

You're still using the .51 demo if you've got 70kt damage per armor component. That's very high and out of proportion. The .56 demo has much less value for armor and higher value for shields. You would find the warhead more valuable in that demo. In the final release, of course, you can adjust things as you see fit. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif It's easy to add some power to the warhead and make it work the way you expect. And then it's easy to go back and change something else to correct game balance if you find it too powerful.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Hrmm...

I start a game with High Tech look and see...

70kt damage resistance on Armor III for a space take up of 10kt. I know for a fact I have .56, it even says so in the corner when I start it up

Version 0.56 DEMO

Hrmm... perhaps there is a bug here? Maybe it has to do with upgrading from .51 or dling .56 straight? I don't know but this is what .56 has for me.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dmm:
1) Warheads are faster than armor to put on a ship as an upgrade because they're only one item. (Heavy items don't take any longer to repair/upgrade than light items.) So if my Yard can do 5 repairs/turn, then in one turn I could either turn one outdated escort into an armored rammer, or I could turn 5 outdated escorts into 5 warhead rammers. So if I'm in a hurry, then warheads win, no contest.
2) A warhead rammer that's down to 5 strength in the warhead and 5 strength in one engine can still sneak up and ram the enemy, doing the full 300 damage. So the enemy is forced to destroy it totally. An armored rammer down to 10 strength will only do 10 damage, so the enemy doesn't need to worry about it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I hadn't thought of the first point. The second is what I had in mind though. Sorry for not making myself clear!

I've only been ramming as a final option for badly damaged ships and, as you note, a ship's normal ramming damage, i.e. without a warhead, is based on its remaining damage capacity.

When I get to the point where I can't cram enough stuff onto an escort to make it worthwhile to keep the hulls around, I put a warhead on each one and use them as a screen for the more valuable ships. If the enemy damages one badly, and it can still reach them, there's some payback before they go up in a puff of flame and smoke.

I don't really want to pay the maintence costs of them anymore anyway, so why quietly retire an old warrior when it can take down one more opponent on its way out? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cyrien:
70kt damage resistance on Armor III for a space take up of 10kt. I know for a fact I have .56, it even says so in the corner when I start it up

Version 0.56 DEMO

Hrmm... perhaps there is a bug here? Maybe it has to do with upgrading from .51 or dling .56 straight? I don't know but this is what .56 has for me.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've got the same thing in my 0.56 demo. I never had 0.51 - 0.56 was the first (and, so far, only) Version I've installed.

Herr Baron is a beta-tester. It must be hard to keep track of what's in the Version you were using several updates ago, so perhaps this was actually changed after 0.56?

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

In addition to its explosive damage, doesn't the warhead also do "impact" damage just because of its weight ? Physically, (destructive) energy is proportional to mass. The warhead's mass should therefore increase damage as well. If it afterwards explodes, well, that's additional damage.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

That brings up another very unrealistic thing about ramming. As I'm sure you all remember from high school physics (hehehe!), the formula for kinetic energy (KE, the energy from ramming) is
KE = 0.5 * m * v^2
where m is the mass and v^2 is the relative velocity squared. So an escort rammer with 6 quantum engines blazing that zooms head-on at full speed into another ship that's also moving at full speed ought to do a lot more damage than a crippled medium freighter with only one movement point that bumps into someone at rest. Remember what that comet did to Jupiter, mainly because their relative speed was so high? Didn't the folks at MM take Drivers' Ed? OK, maybe relative speed would be tough to figure out, but the current system could be improved somewhat.

In MM's defense, maybe they are just using remaining damage strength as a measure of remaining ship integrity. Like the difference between getting hit with a handful of sand and getting hit with a canvas bag full of sand.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Yes, I have pointed out the real effects of ramming many times. Even moderate sized meteors hitting the earth are more powerful than the entire nuclear arsenal of the super-powers at their height. There's no way that a ship could survive the energies involved. Ramming would realistically be suicide no matter how much armor you crammed into your ship. &lt;shrug&gt; Warp points are not realistic either. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Enough people want the ramming option in the game that it's going to stay. I would prefer that there at least be a "special" tech required to build a ship that can survive a ram, then most ships could not survive and it would really be a Last-resort suicide tactic. Not sure what imaginary science you could invent to make it survivable, though. A ramming-prow made of some incredible substance that can be a "Shock absorber" maybe? It would have to be ablative, meaning you use it once and it's destroyed. A material hard enough to hit another ship and simply "take it" would also be immune to just about any weapon you can imagine.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 26 September 2000).]

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Perhaps an alternative view for Warheads there? Instead of explosive you could explain them off as forward mounted exotic metals designed to take the forward impact of a ram on the ramming ship while not getting involved with the invincibilty of the component, it only covers the front after all... course that doesn't deal with all the issues involved but...

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

You can conceptualize something like a ramming prow with deflector field tech, if'n you like. An extension of repulser field and/or shield technology could be used to project a tightly focused "force field" ahead of the ship that could soak up incoming kinetic energy before it impacted the hull itself. If you want it one-shot, just say it burns out in the process and requires repair before becoming operative again.

It makes a bit more sense then a "superball" substance that would absorb the physical impact and yet not make the ship invulnerable to normal kinetic-based damage.

I agree that it isn't really realistic that anybody could survive a ram at the speeds involved, but I also agree that it is better to just ignore that and enjoy the space opera flavour!

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Well the game is based on starfire. In starfire the engines also protect the ship by giving off a field of some sort (been a while). This is the reason that a missle with a nuke on it doesnt just totally destroy a ship with a direct hit (in starfire that is) if it has an engine and why mothballed ships go up with one nuke. Rammings the same way. Just an artifact from the board game http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Umm... No one's mentioned the nastiest trick you can pull as far as ramming's concerned. To wit: yesterday I was playing the .56 demo, and was at war with the red-shipped lizards. I'd an outpost colony in one of their systems with perhaps 10 weapon platforms and 4 Escorts in orbit. They attacked with 4 Cruisers & 1 L. Cruiser. Later that same turn they repeated the effort with 5 L. Cruisers. I lost one Escort and 2 weapon platforms.
And my point is? The escorts had no weapons on them, just 6 engines and 3 Organic Armor III's. They'd charge the Cruisers as they approached the planet, and if they got targeted by a large volley of missles, they'd run from them 'til they ran out of fuel. This would usually leave me with 2 Escorts free to wreck havoc. They'd each ram a Cruiser, and then run to avoid the L-mount beam weapons from the crippled ship or its brethern. In a round or two, their armor would have regenerated, and they'd be ready to help the weapons platforms clean up the remenents of the enemy fleet. I don't even want to get into what my Cruisers could do to enemy vessels...
If you want to see something frightnening, start a game at high tech (and as Organic), and design a nasty Battle Station, and a Cruiser that's nothing but OA & Engines (ECM helps too, and brings the design to an even 500kt). Then go to the simulator, and charge the BS with the Cruiser. It can rarely survive a single impact, and the Cruiser won't even wreck all its armor. Furthermore, unless the BS has weapons which skip armor, the Cruiser'll probably be at full strength when it hits, regardless of batteries of Massive-mount weapons... (Note: if you make the BS an OA beastie, I'll not attest to the vericity of the above...)

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ealbright:
They'd each ram a Cruiser, and then run to avoid the L-mount beam weapons from the crippled ship or its brethern.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Err, the damage done by ramming is supposed to be the amount needed to destroy the more fragile vessel. Have you been encountering instances where both ships survived a ramming? If so, you might want to forward that info, plus a saved-game file, to MM for bug-stomping.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sultan:
Well the game is based on starfire. In starfire the engines also protect the ship by giving off a field of some sort (been a while). This is the reason that a missle with a nuke on it doesnt just totally destroy a ship with a direct hit (in starfire that is) if it has an engine and why mothballed ships go up with one nuke. Rammings the same way. Just an artifact from the board game http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've played Starfire (dunno why I ever stopped, come to think of it) but I'd forgotten that tidbit. It's an interesting idea and it certainly does make reconciling this part of the SEIV game rules with a bit of realism a lot either.

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Psitticine:
Have you been encountering instances where both ships survived a ramming? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As of .56, it is possible to ram ships and have both survive. This appears to be a feature. Both ships will inflict their current damage resistence in damage to the other; however, the defender (and only the defender) will have this damage applied to its shields before any components are hurt. Makes sense, really: as far as the defender's shields are concerned, the other ship's just a big ballistic projectile...

An example: Cruiser A (S 0, DR 3800) rams Battle Station B (S 3920, DR 1500). Both vessels will survive. They will be as follows:
A: S 0, DR 2300
B: S 120, DR 1500

Hence, if the rammed ship has a greater combined shield value and damage resistence than the rammer's damage resistence (but its DR is less than the rammer's DR), both ships will live.

[This message has been edited by ealbright (edited 01 October 2000).]

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

ealbright:
If that's true, that's a bug! It doesn't make any sense otherwise. In your example, A inflicts 3800 damage on B's shields but only takes 1500 damage itself (instead of taking 3800 damage and being destroyed).

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 02 October 2000).]

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dmm:

If that's true, that's a bug! It doesn't make any sense otherwise. In your example, A inflicts 3800 damage on B's shields but only takes 1500 damage itself (instead of taking 3800 damage and being destroyed).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If that's considered a bug, it's worse than that. I'd say if shields should be factored into the amount of damage inflicted, the rammer's shields should protect it. As it stands, if Cruiser A (S 1400, DR 720) rammed Battle Station B (S 3920, DR 1500), the Cruiser would be very dead, and the BS would be nigh unscathed.

A: dead (presumably S 1400, DR -780)
B: S 3200, DR 1500

I don't have a real problem with the way shields work now as far as ramming's concerned, but if things worked the way you suggest they should, then the rammer's shields should both inflict damage (right now no shields inflict damage in rams) and protect the rammer.

Of course, I'm of the school of thought which holds that if one ship can survive a ram, both can...

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

Either shields should stop a ramming ship or they shouldn't. In StarTrek, for instance, shields stop most everything. In Dune, as a counter-example, shields stop energy and high-speed physical weapons, but not low-speed physical weapons (thus allowing hand-to-hand combat between two shielded people). MM can decide how they want to do it, but they have to be consistent or else it's dumb.
Contrived example: A has 50 S, 200 DR
B has 150 S, 150 DR
A rams B. One of 3 results should occur:
1) Shields count. A is gone, B has 0 S, 50 DR.
2) Shields don't count. B is gone, A has 50 S, 50 DR.
3) Shields absorb damage but can't inflict it (really wierd but possible). Then you'd have
A has 0 S, 100 DR (150 damage)
B has 0 S, 150 DR (150 damage).

But ealbright is claiming that the result would be
A has 0 S, 100 DR (150 damage)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage)
which doesn't make sense. It isn't consistent. There's just no rationalization for having one ship inflict more damage than the other. It violates Newton's Third Law.

No, wait! It's worse than that. I see that now ealbright is claiming that the rammer's shields don't help at all, so the result would be
A has 50 S, 50 DR (150 damage, all to DR)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage, 150 to S and 50 to DR)
which would also violate the principle of relativity -- somehow the physics of SEIV knows who is the rammer and who is the rammee.

Somebody please tell me this isn't true!

[note added later by dmm: Aargh! I tried it. It's true! If I ram a ship with just engines and shields into an _identical_ ship, the rammer is destroyed while the rammee just has shields reduced. Please, MM, fix this! It's a really stupid bug!]

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 02 October 2000).]

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dmm:
No, wait! It's worse than that. I see that now ealbright is claiming that the rammer's shields don't help at all, so the result would be
A has 50 S, 50 DR (150 damage, all to DR)
B has 0 S, 100 DR (200 damage, 150 to S and 50 to DR)
which would also violate the principle of relativity -- somehow the physics of SEIV knows who is the rammer and who is the rammee.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The only ad hoc justification (all right, lame ad hocjustification) I could come up with for this was something along the lines of shields dampening impact, so you'd have to imagine the rammer dropping its shields to allow all of its momentum to impact onto the opposing ship (or its shields), w/o having something which would impact & then yield as it fell. Of course, even this is really stupid if you're using a shield-heavy rammer ("Drop the shields so we'll impact at 150kt instead of at 290!" "Aye, aye, Cap'n!").

All right, I'll recant. It's a bug. It's too bloody goofy having a double standard about shields. But I'd really prefer them to not inflict damage... I get some odd satisfaction out of the possiblity of having both ships survive impacts...

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dmm:
If I ram a ship with just engines and shields into an _identical_ ship, the rammer is destroyed while the rammee just has shields reduced. Please, MM, fix this! It's a really stupid bug!]

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agreed. I'm sure it's not just me that finds this particular bug rather grating.

I guess I won't take as much note of it in much games but it shows up pretty badly, once you know to look for it, against the rest of SEIV. (Is that what you call a back-handed compliment?)

MM, if you've already fixed this one for the gold Version, let us know, eh? If not, well, here's something for the first patch. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Armor is better than warheads
 

In the early Beta if you sent a ship to ram another it was destroyed no matter if the "traget" ship was or not. I liked it this way, but other didn't and you can see the results.

Rambie