Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

In order to better understand how damage is dealt, I did some extensive testing with the simulator. Here are my results, in FAQ format:

1. How is damage assigned?
First, ignore shields for now (see Question #2). Now, every time you hit a ship, a random component is selected on the target. If the target still has armor, the random component will be a piece of armor. Now, if the amount of damage you've done with that hit equals or exceeds the damage resistance of the component, it is destroyed. If you have left-over damage, another component is randomly selected. Repeat until a component is selected for which not enough damage remains to destroy. This extra damage is stored by the target for use later.

Now, next time the target is hit, the first thing that happens is any extra damage (from previous hits) is added to your weapon's damage. Then, the selecting of components to be destroyed occurs as described in the above paragraph.

As you can see, this means components do not have "damage done to them." I have not been able to verify it, but it is likey that when a component is randomly selected and not destroyed, it is remembered and automatically selected in the future until destroyed. This would give the appearance of a single component taking damage. However, I do know that if you change damage types (say from normal to armor skipping) a new component is randomly selected.

That means, if you modify Armor III to take 400 (instead of 40) damage to destroy and change the Shard Cannon to do only 1 damage (it skips armor) and then hit a ship with one Armor III for 300 normal damage (which cannot destroy the piece of Armor III and so sits around as extra damage) and then hit the target for only 1 point of damage with the Shard Cannon, 301 damage will be randomly targeted at components inside the target's armor!!! This is why Shard Cannons and Null-Space Projectors sometimes really gut ships, especially those using high-resistant armor (Organic, Crystaline, etc).

Of course, the reverse is also true. If you hit with armor skipping damage but fail to destroy a component, you just generate extra damage. Future hits may apply that extra damage toward armor, even though it originally skipped armor.

2. Ok, so how do shields fit into this?
I'm glad you asked. First, don't mix phased and non-phased generating components. If you do, you get non-phased shields. That is, until all the non-phased shield generating components are destroyed; then suddenly, in the middle of battle, your shields will become phased.

Ok, otherwise, shields work just like you expect. Damage from weapons gets taken off your shields first. However, remember above where I told you extra damage is added to your weapon's damage before being applied? That happens before your weapon's damage is applied to shields. That means, hit a ship with normal shields and some Armor III with a PPB (skips non-phased shields) for 35 damage (not enough to destroy a piece of armor) and then with a Meson BLaster (normal damage) for 30 and the extra damage (35 from the PPB) is added to the Meson's 30 for a total of 65 damage delt to the target's non-phased shields!!!

This gets even more fun with shield regeneration. See, if you get some damage passed their shields without destroying components (so it's still extra damage), but the regenerators bring the shields back up, that damage you got passed their shields gets pulled back out and has to go through the shields again next time the ship gets hit.

As an added bonus, destroying a shield generating component drops your current shield value to your maximum shield value (assuming your current value was greater than max value) but it does this before the component is destroyed! This means, with 3 Shield V (900 shields), if you get hit by a PPB that kills one of the generators, your shields will be 900 out of 600! If a second hit kills another generator, your shields will be 600 out of 300.

3. Um, I'm afraid to ask, but how the @#$!% does Organic Armor work?
Ready for this? You're not, but I'll tell you anyway. Each ship with organic armor regenerates constantly. Every turn. Even if you take no damage. With no cap. Put 10 Orgnaic Armor III (30pt regen/turn each) and every turn it gets credit for 300 points of regeneration!!! By the end of turn 5, it has 1500 points stored up with which to repair organic armor. That means, on turn 6, if you deal 1500 damage, you'd destroy all 10 of his Organic Armor III's. Then, before turn 7 begins, all 10 would be completely repaired!!! The repair would cost all 1500 points stored up so far, though.

This is why organic armor seems so incredible at first, then suddenly seems to give out without warning. You are coasting on the built up regeneration for the rounds of combat while you were closing range.

The good news is, destroyed organic armor does not contribute toward this regeneration total. So, in the example above, where all the organic armor was destroyed, no regeneration would be built up at the end of turn 6, because all the organic armor is destroyed. That means, on turn 7, if the ships takes another 1500 damage, destroying all its organic armor again, that's it. It used up all its regeneration pool to repair the first time, and hasn't been able to build up any more, so you're out of luck for the rest of the fight.

Also note that only destroyed organic armor is repaired. Regeneration is never spent on partially damaged armor, because, as you recall from Question #1, components cannot be partially damaged, only destroyed.

4. Do I really want to know how Crystalline Armor works?
No, you really, really don't. But here it is. Let's do this by example. Assume a ship with 0/300 shields and 4 Crystalline Armor III (150 damage resistance each , 15 dmg converted to shields each) and no damage inside shields yet. This ship is hit by a Meson BLaster (normal damage) for 30. The CA regenerates the target's shields by 30 (it could have done up to 60, but the weapon damage was only 30). This shield regeneration is done after the weapon damage is applied against shields, so it doesn't block this hit. Now, the 30 weapon damage becomes extra damage since it cannot kill the armor (that takes 150). So, we now have 30/300 shields and 30 extra damage.

The target is hit again for another 30 damage. First, we added extra damage to this, so we get a hit doing 60 damage (see Question #1 if you've forgot about that http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ). Now, the shield blocks 30, so 30 damage is left which causes the CA to regen another 30 shields and the ships extra damage to be set to 30, again. So, we now have 30/300 shields and 30 extra damage. Look familar?

That's right, if you cannot, in a single hit, do either 150 damage OR more damage than the CA can convert to shields, you will NEVER hurt the ship without armor skipping weapons (see Question #1 for how much fun you can have sneaking non-armor skipping damage inside a ship with armor-skipping weapons).

Don't believe me? Ok, example continued, but doing 60 damage this time. Adding extra damage makes it 90, shield blocks 30, 60 points of shields regen'd and 60 points to extra damage. Now we have 60/300 shields and 60 extra damage. Hit again for 60, plus extra damage is 120, shields block 60, 60 left, regen shield 60 and extra damage becomes 60, leaving us with 60/300 shields and 60 extra damage? Fun, isn't it?

Again, 65 damage though. Add extra damage, 125, shield blocks 60, 65 left, regen shield 60 (max for 4 CA-III) and extra damage set to 65. Hit again for 65. Add extra damage, 130, shield blocks 60, 70 left, regen shield 60 and extra damage set to 70. Hit again for 65. Add extra damage, 135, shield blocks 60, 75 left, regen shield 60 and extra damage set to 75. As you can see, the extra damage slowly creeps up, and once it hits 150, it will kill a piece of CA. At which point only 45 damage can be converted to shields and doing 65 a hit, the ship will begin to die faster.

Now, here is the scary part. We're 60/300 shields with 75 extra damage and no CA destroyed yet. You've been slowly chipping away with 65 damage weapons. Guess what happens if you hit is for 60 or less damage? Hit for 40. Add extra damage, 115, shield blocks 60, 55 left, regen shield 55 and extra damage set to 55. Now we're at 55/300 and 55 extra damage. That's right, the ship has effectively healed 20!!!

Moral of the story, once you've got his shield almost down, fire *only* weapons that do more damage than he can convert to shields (or do 150+ damage). If you must use lower damaging weapons, fire only your highest low-damage weapon until his shields equal the damage that that weapon does. Then, switch to your big guns. This maximizes the amount of damage applied to his components. If your "big gun" happens to be armor skipping, even better. This will suck the extra damage from your weaker weapons right past his armor into his internals. Also, armor skipping also does not trigger CA's shield regeneration. This makes it the ability of choice for taking out crystalline armored ships.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Wow!!!

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I wish I had that much free time on my hands.

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Seawolf on the prowl

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Great work!!!

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

MM has its work cut out for it, to fix all of this screwiness.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Nicely done!!!

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

if every web site has not picked up a copy of this and posted it, they should. "This rocks.. no, YOU Rock!" (sorry, gratuitious movie reference.)

anyway, Z, this FAQ kicks major but, and we all appreciate you taking the time to figure it out and post it. by WE, i mean my whole PBEM group who i was generous enough to send this to instead of just abusing them with it.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Well, a lot of this could be fixed by having components take partial damage. Then you could eliminate the extra damage system and things would work like you'd expect.

However, that requires every component track damage it has taken, which might be annoying to program. So, you could stop adding extra damage to each weapon's damage. Instead, add the weapon's damage (after shields) to the extra damage and use that to destroy components. Reordering how things are done in this way would go a long way toward helping things out.

In fact, the only thing that would not fix is organic armor, using armor-skipping weapons to sneak normal damage past armor, and having phased and non-phased shields at the same time.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<drool>

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"Doctors, glad I'm not sick!"

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

5. And how do fighters fit into all this?
First off, a lone fighter works exactly the same as a ship...almost. You cannot fire only one of multiple identical weapons. All DUC-III's on a single fighter fire at once or not at all. In fact, you must unhighlight all of them or they all fire.

Further, all identical items are combined into a single super-weapon. DUC-III normally do 15 damage each. Mount four on a fighter and you almost have one weapon doing 60 damage. I say almost, because there is a separate roll to hit for each weapon. So if you have only a 50% to hit, your quad-DUC3's will normally behave like a single weapon dealing 30 damage, although it could do either 0 (all four miss) or up to 60.

Incidentally, DUC-III and DUC-II count as different weapons and do not combine in the above described manner. Also, this combining effect is not bad, and can be good. That means you normally don't want to mix weapons on your fighters.

Once you start grouping them, things get more confusing. Like lone fighters, all weapons of the same type combine, but across the entire group. To avoid firing your DUC3's in a squad of fighters, you must unhighlight all of them. Leave even one highlighted and ever fighter will fire their DUC3's.

It should not be surprising that this means larger fighter Groups rip up crystalline armor easier, not to mention help you bypass emmisive armor. Of course, larger Groups are easier to kill due to damage streaming.

If it weren't for how crystalline armor currently works, I'd say the combining effect of fighters is unimportant. It doesn't really effect how things play out. But with CA the way it stands, you might want to consider using larger Groups when dealing with ships protected by lots of CA.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

You did mention about attacking a normal shield ship with phased weapons and normal weapons. But it seems stranger than what you stated. The phased damage will be transfered to the shields by the first hit of a non phased weapon. The destroyed components inside will not be restored but the damage points from inside will be transfered to the shield. It seems that more damage points than just the "leftover" damage is transfered. It actually looks like the damage to the ship is "healed" and this damage transfered to the shields. However this healing is only cosmetic and will not restore destroyed components.

Also another questain about organic armor. You state that destroyed armor does not regenerate but what about when you have 10 pieces of armor and 3 are destroyed. It seems then that the 3 pieces do contribute to the regeneration but I could have been decieved by the effect of storage of regeneration that I did not know before.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 05 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 05 February 2001).]

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Tomgs wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>You did mention about attacking a normal shield ship with phased weapons and normal weapons. But it seems stranger than what you stated. The phased damage will be transfered to the shields by the first hit of a non phased weapon. The destroyed components inside will not be restored but the damage points from inside will be transfered to the shield. It seems that more damage points than just the "leftover" damage is transfered. It actually looks like the damage to the ship is "healed" and this damage transfered to the shields. However this healing is only cosmetic and will not restore destroyed components.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The damage listed when you right-click on a ship, and it says 120/1150 or whatever, is a total of two values: The first is the damage resistance of all destroyed components. I have *never* seen it fall below that value (I've figured it out by hand many times). The second is the extra damage on the ship. This is the value that can frequently be reduced via strange shield interactions. So, if you see 120/1150 and you're using organic armor, all 120 is likely to be extra damage, and subject to loss against shields. If you only have Armor III, it probably means 3 Armor III components have been destroyed, and no amount of funky shield stuff is gonna get the damage "undone."
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Also another questain about organic armor. You state that destroyed armor does not regenerate but what about when you have 10 pieces of armor and 3 are destroyed. It seems then that the 3 pieces do contribute to the regeneration but I could have been decieved by the effect of storage of regeneration that I did not know before.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If you have 10 pieces and 3 are destroyed, 7 are still helping you regenerate. If they are OA-III, they are building up 210 points per turn. So, if you lose 3 OA in one shot, and next turn all 3 are fine, you're using up stockpiled regeneration. If only one or two are repaired, you've run out of extra regeneration. However, as long as you have at least five, you will get one OA repaired every turn. If you got reduced to only one OA-III, it would take five turns to repair one OA.

The easiest way to see that damaged components don't contribute is when all of your OA is destroyed. Do it enough times and eventually it just won't come back.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

This is fascinating stuff. I thought that organic armor was a bit screwy in combining its regeneration for all armor in the ship, but if it really works the way you've described, building up "credit" even while not damaged it's positively bizarre. I could live with a single regeneration total for the whole ship. It makes a sort of sense given that the "armor belt" on an organic ship would be a single organism. But the "credit" makes an organic armored ship more deadly as combat progresses! Just wait a while to come into combat range. 10 turns X your total armor regeneration in a battlecruiser with say 10 components of organic armor? 3000 "credit" in regeneration?Yikes! Unless you could destroy ALL of it in one round or had armor skipping weapons you'd be unable to damage the ship at all! This is not a 'feature' -- this is a bug! I finally see what's been happening with crystalline armor and shields, too. Gah! Something has got to be altered in the damage bookkeeping for these special armors, and shield skipping weapons need to be accounted seperately from non-shield skipping weapons.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 06 February 2001).]

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Wow. Great work checking out the guts of combat, Zanthis. I really hope they can change things so that partial component damage is remembered specific to what initally got hit. That would take away a lot of this screwball behavior. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

-Drake

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Yes Drake. If they tracked individual component damage, things would work very well. It would be important to note, however, that if you had ten Organic Armor III's and got hit ten times for 100 damage each, with individual tracking it would be possible that each hit applied to a different piece of armor, meaning *none* of them would be destroyed despite taking 1000 damage.

The other option would be to a) stop adding extra damage to weapon damage before applying the damage to shields, and b) track two extra damages: "armor damage" and "internal damage". Most hits that passed shields would add to "armor damage" while armor-skipping weapons could add to "internal damage". Once you lost all your armor, the two could be combined. Only odd thing with this method, is if you lost all your organic armor forcing "armor damage" and "internal damage" to combine, when it regenerated, damage previously done to armor would have sneaked to internal systems.

Lots of possible solutions, I just really hope MM fixes it somehow. I haven't mailed this (my original post) to them because I'm not even sure how to explain it. I wrote this for other players. I'm sure Aaron knows how his game works, so most of the info would be unnecessary. I'm just not sure if he is aware of all the funky interactions.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

How about each component having hit points.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Zanthis:
It would be important to note, however, that if you had ten Organic Armor III's and got hit ten times for 100 damage each, with individual tracking it would be possible that each hit applied to a different piece of armor, meaning *none* of them would be destroyed despite taking 1000 damage.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wonder if that's really a problem. It'd certainly make sense if you can't direct general damage to specific components. If you want to avoid that situation though, just have the combat engine apply damage to partially damaged components before it starts damaging other components.

Of course, then it'd have to make sure that rule only applies to components the weapon is supposed to damage...

-Drake

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

SunDevil:
Well, they do each have hit points right now. At least, they have a maximum hit points. They *don't* have a current hit points because they cannot be damaged, only destroyed.

This is most likely a programming choice for two reasons. First, it is easier (less code to write) to just not track individual component damage. Second, it requires less space (memory). Every component would get bigger by at least 2 bytes. How many components have you seen in tactical combat? Not that many right? But guess what, it would increase the size of every components in game, not just in combat. So, how many components have you seen anywhere in the game at one time (remember to include fighters, troops, mines and platforms)?

The only way to avoid that memory waste would be to make two Versions of the component structure, one with current hit points, one without. Then, in tactical combat, use the former, otherwise, use the latter. Lots of programming and doubles the work required whenever code changes are made to the components structure (since you have to change both Versions).

Drake:
Another possibility is to have two "this is the component we are trying to kill" pointers. One for normal attacks, which will typically be pointing to a piece of your armor, and one for armor-skipping attacks which would be pointing to something other than armor.

I said in the FAQ that I thought they already did this (using only one pointer) so it shouldn't be a problem to implement two.

[This message has been edited by Zanthis (edited 06 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Zanthis (edited 06 February 2001).]

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Kudoes to Z for getting that information but I think no one has pointed out is that if we go to this damaged but not destroyed system for components what impact wil it have on the game? If they perform at normal levels then there is little point to keeping track of damage. Damage control could be fixing them while combat is ongoing to account for needing to reach the threshold to destroy it.

Also the entire repair system would have to be converted to a point system rather than a component systems. How much work that would intail I don't know but would guess alot as well as increase exponentially the memeory requirements. While making the game more realistic I don't think that the benefit received outweighs the cost involved.

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Seawolf on the prowl

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Why not just have "extra damage to armor" and "extra damage to internals" as fields to store the info and extra damage is never aplied to shields (as it should never be from what I can tell)? Organic armor wouldn't regenerate at all until damage was taken and then it would only regenerate against the "extra damage to armor" value. The above would also break the CA weirdness as extra damage to armor would pile up and tear down the CA like I presume it is supposed to.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Zanthis - great work!

This is one screwey damage modelling system!

I think the best fix is to allow partial component damage. If it's data storage of management concerns that prevent this - it even only needs to be tracked during combat - let's justr say that all partial damage is automatically repaired (by damage control teams) after combat (that's how I thought it already worked!), so only destroyed components would need to be repaired at space yards, etc.

If the partial damage is only tracked in combat, the data management and storage is minimal and much of the screwiness is fixed.

It sounds like OA needs some tweaking also - I'd prefer if it didn't store up points while undamaged, but if there was partial damage tracking, that should be healed. If removing the built-up repair storage made OA a bit wimpy, maybe then its repair rate could be increased.

For Crystalline, it seems like the absorption should be on a per-armor-component basis. In other words, on a ship with 4 CA's, it you hit with a single weapon for 60 points of damage, that damage would be applied to a single piece of armor, and only THAT piece's absorption would kick in, so only 15 back to shields, not 60. A separate hit on that or another CA piece would also have 15 points absorbed. (Again, this might need to be rebalanced fr more absorption if this made it too wimpy)

Lastly, multiple fighter weapons or grouped weapons, should still count as individual attacks for the above purposes. As it stands now, emissive armor is totally worthless.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Seawolf:
I am not advocating keeping track of partial component damage outside of combat. I think it would be more trouble than its worth.

Nyx:
I agree completely. This is the solution I would pick were I in MM place. Especially OA regenerating "extra armor damage." I think that is very advisable when eliminating the regeneartion build up.

LintMan:
I don't think CA should be changed in that fashion. Just fixing it so "extra [armor] damage" isn't pulled out to not only restrike shields, but re-generate shields would make massive CA armor beatable even by a weapon that did one point of damage.

Basically, as long as you were doing less damage than it could turn into shields, every other hit would do no damage.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

You actually wouldn't need to track partial damage to components outside of combat, so you wouldn't constantly need to store that information with the component, increasing its size everywhere in the game. Couldn't you just create a temp damage tracking table one combat starts for all the components? Heck, you'd only need to track components that were hit - when applying damage, if you don't see an entry for that component, it's undamaged.

Then you're probably only looking at a performance hit, the effective of which I can't determine not knowing the programming details. You might run into an issue with massive battles, but the additional amount of info should be a small percentage of what it's already tracking. Am I missing something?


I do think this ought to get passed on to Aaron, if it hasn't been already. I know it was mentioned that they know how it works, and these are just some screwy things that come up, but it may just be broken... I'm guessing that the stuff with organic armor is a bug, not an intended effect, and that the game doesn't check to make sure regenerated damage resistance points don't exceed the max for the ship. That seems more likely to me then that it's working as intended.
-Drake

[This message has been edited by Drake (edited 06 February 2001).]

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Drake wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>You actually wouldn't need to track partial damage to components outside of combat, so you wouldn't constantly need to store that information with the component, increasing its size everywhere in the game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
True, but if components had a "current damage" stored with them, the easiest coding solution is to make it a universal change. OTOH, since I believe tactical combat is basically a separate program, using to different data structures for components may not be so bad.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Couldn't you just create a temp damage tracking table one combat starts for all the components? Heck, you'd only need to track components that were hit - when applying damage, if you don't see an entry for that component, it's undamaged.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
But this gets messy. How does this "damaged" list indicate that Quantum Engine-III #6 is damaged? The components look identical, but you have six of them. Basically, extra work for the programmer. Not saying impossible, or hard, just extra work. Other solutions are easier to do and would appear to do the same thing.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I do think this ought to get passed on to Aaron, if it hasn't been already.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, guess I'll mail it off. Is se4@malfador.com the address to use?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Wow, that is some damn fine research work. Definitely organic armor should not add up extra points if there is no partial damage.

" But this gets messy. How does this "damaged" list indicate that Quantum Engine-III #6 is damaged? The components look identical, but you have six of them. Basically, extra work for the programmer. Not saying impossible, or hard, just extra work. Other solutions are easier to do and would appear to do the same thing."

But you don't have to know which one is damaged. Like you said, they are all identical. If one of your Quantum engines are partially damaged, then who cares which one it is? The program could automatically count damage on the first component in a list of identical components, if one of those are selected to be damaged. Once that one is destroyed, it could pick another component to damage.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Zanthis:
How does this "damaged" list indicate that Quantum Engine-III #6 is damaged? The components look identical, but you have six of them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I don't know the data structure for how the game was programmed, or any of those details. However, when I design something, usually each object has a unique identifier so other objects can refer to it. Simply keep a separate current damaged list, and on it you have the component ID, and the points of damage taken. Only necessary for combat, and anything on the list isn't damaged.

I only proposed that method though because you brought up the point that modifying the data structure of components to add partial damage might be a problem in terms of extra memory needed to process. Since you don't need the info outside of combat, restrict it to the combat engine only. If adding partial data info isn't a big deal, then add it. Either way, problem fixed. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

-Drake

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Again, individual component damage would be ideal in combat. But it introduces several considerations. Suppose you have two pieces of Armor III. You get hit for 20 damage and the first piece is selected (randomly). Now you take another 20 damage. Does the program a) randomly select between the two pieces b) pick the damaged piece automatically.

If b, there are easier ways to duplicate that effect without tracking component damage.

If a, you will be changing how ships take damage. With 10 pieces of organic armor, ignoring the regeneration, you could take 1490 damage and not have lost a single component! Basically, ships will get tougher.

Also, it is quite likely that the same code that handles components outside tactical combat is used in tactical combat. Making changes to the tactical code's component class means maintaining two different pieces of code. This makes bugs more likely and is generally a hassle. The other methods involve creating an entirely separate system for tracking component damage outside of the component objects. Messy and quite a bit of work.

All in all, I don't think it is necessary. With a few fixes to the current model, we'd have something that worked exactly like we expect it to. Those changes would be:

1) Stop adding "extra damage" to weapon damage. Instead, add weapon damage to extra damage.
2) Switch to two "extra damage" values. One for "extra armor damage" and one for "extra internal damage."
3) OPTIONAL. Keep track of which armor component is currently being beat on (but not yet destroyed). Also, keep track of which internal component is being beat on.

Of course, all of this isn't very useful because, in the end, the fix will be whatever Aaron decides and will likely be based on information we have no way of knowing.

As long as everything acts like its supposed to, I'll be quite happy. I consider Crystalline Armor to be the biggest offender, followed by pulling damage out to strike shields (which is part of CA's problem anyway) and OA Last. I say OA Last only because changing it without making it worthless is going to be difficult.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I don't know that I'd have it randomly pick a component with each hit, since that would be a big change. I'm not sure it'd would've been a bad design to start with, but changing it now...

I don't think adding just one more damage value type would be sufficient. You have weapons which damage just shield generators, engines, weapons, etc. Wouldn't you need to remember each type separately?

I guess the real reason I favored component damage tracking is it more accurately reflects the 'common sense' approach of what would really happen in combat. The way it now works might have been considered an easier way to achieve the same results, but ended up giving us some odd behavior. I guess I view coming up with another workaround that should better approximate things to be more prone to bugs than new code would be.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Of course, all of this isn't very useful because, in the end, the fix will be whatever Aaron decides and will likely be based on information we have no way of knowing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I couldn't have said it better. Without access to how it was originally written, it's hard to say with certainty that it would be easier to fix one method vs another, IMO.

-Drake

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Drake wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I don't think adding just one more damage value type would be sufficient. You have weapons which damage just shield generators, engines, weapons, etc. Wouldn't you need to remember each type separately?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Whoops. Yes, you are correct. I never use component targeting weapons, so I had forgotten about them. However, you could just use the "extra internal damage" for them. That would cause a few slightly wierd effects, but all in all, I doubt you could abuse the effect or, possible, even notice it.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Zanthis:
Again, individual component damage would be ideal in combat. But it introduces several considerations. Suppose you have two pieces of Armor III. You get hit for 20 damage and the first piece is selected (randomly). Now you take another 20 damage. Does the program a) randomly select between the two pieces b) pick the damaged piece automatically.

If b, there are easier ways to duplicate that effect without tracking component damage.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since armor is supposed to be hit first until destroyed, why not line up the armors and have the damage go from left to right as the damage accumulates? Use random hit determination for damage that gets inside the armor and keep track of those components' damage.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If a, you will be changing how ships take damage. With 10 pieces of organic armor, ignoring the regeneration, you could take 1490 damage and not have lost a single component! Basically, ships will get tougher.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, that was what I thought the damage rating for armor was supposed to do. Which is why I only use standard armor for protection. (I use stealth armor as a cheap cloaking device early in the game. I don't play w/organic tech.)

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Also, it is quite likely that the same code that handles components outside tactical combat is used in tactical combat. Making changes to the tactical code's component class means maintaining two different pieces of code. This makes bugs more likely and is generally a hassle. The other methods involve creating an entirely separate system for tracking component damage outside of the component objects. Messy and quite a bit of work.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Would it be possible to have something in tactical that adds up damage for a component, destroying it when it takes enough damage, but when you return to the regular game it only takes note of which components were destroyed and any components that survived are presumed to be functional? Say emergency repairs by the crew patched it up and such.

Say, something hits the engine with enough damage to destroy it so it gets marked with the destroyed part. Another component, say a weapon, takes some damage, but not enough to destroy it and it stays functional when tactical ends.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Those changes would be:

1) Stop adding "extra damage" to weapon damage. Instead, add weapon damage to extra damage.
2) Switch to two "extra damage" values. One for "extra armor damage" and one for "extra internal damage."
3) OPTIONAL. Keep track of which armor component is currently being beat on (but not yet destroyed). Also, keep track of which internal component is being beat on.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Keeping track of internal components sounds better to me. Just how to apportion damage w/o making it like Starfire is something I, as someone who isn't a coder, has no idea of how to implement. IIRC, you really can't make 'random' numbers, but can 'fake' it in the code somewhat. Or maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif

So far all I can think up is taking the damage from one weapon, picking a component to hit and recording damage from left to right. If it destroys the component w/leftover damage, that damage gets transferred to the next component, either the one immediately to the right, or randomly picking a component until the damage is used up, then the next hit picks a component to do damage to. If later hits pick an already destroyed component, it will travel to the right of the component list until it reaches an undestroyed component.

Okay, it's sort of like Starfire, but with a bit more randomness to the damage locations.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Of course, all of this isn't very useful because, in the end, the fix will be whatever Aaron decides and will likely be based on information we have no way of knowing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

True. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif




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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

While I understand the concept here I wonder then do we want a damaged components to have any penalty assigned to them? Or are all these changes only for destruction of components?

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Seawolf on the prowl

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I don't want partially damaged components to have penalties. It would require a lot more coding than the benefits it would create. Especially since you'd almost have to make it so the modders could decide what the effects of partial damage were on an individual component basis as well as at what point those effects occured (20 damage out of 40? 30 out of 40?).

Can you image what changes would have to be made to Components.txt to make, say PPB's "-1 range when this weapon has taken 5+ damage, +1 reload when this weapon has taken 15+ damage". Yucky.

Not worth it IMHO. The damage system present now is workable, just contains a few oddities that, when cleared up, will be just fine.

[This message has been edited by Zanthis (edited 08 February 2001).]

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Bump.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Could the way damage is handled just change slightly to (not real code of couse)

Damage -= shields;
Damage -= armour;
If ((Damage + Retained_Damage) &gt;= component.structure)
{
component.destroyed;
Retained_Damage -= (component.structure - Damage); // not less than 0 of course!
}
else
{
Retained_Damage += Damage
}


So, retained damage is never added to the damage score as such; it just waits until there is enough of it, when added to current damage, to actually destroy a component.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I would have to agree with Sinapus about how to apply damage to armor and internals. The way I see armor is not as individual pieces, but as a single one... Think of each piece as a layer around the whole ship... not like patch work. Damage should take out a 'piece' at a time... representing the layers being bLasted away.
Also, I think it should work the same for multiple components... group them together, and just track damage for the group... so when you do enough damage to the group that would destroy a single piece, it does. It takes some of the 'randomness' out, but is simplistic, but I think, effective. Maybe this is how it works now... does anybody know?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I think that just having a separate "retained damage" for armor vs internals would work well.

Then you only add the retained damage when you hit a component of that type.

This will prevent armor-skipping weapons from using the retained damage that a WMG did to armor, to blow away internals.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

First, Zanthis.. wow.. thanks a bunch for this info. Nice to know HOW the bugs affect the game.

I'm new here. This is my first post and I'm still playing the demo - awesome game!! I'm ordering it this month - I figure my bills can wait a little. &lt;grin&gt;

What about this as a stopgap solution until they do a fix?

Divide armor into smaller chunks - say by 5. Tonnage required, tonnage structure and all effects. This would cause more armor destruction and less 'carry-over' damage effects.

I *think* to do this you'd have to do it for ALL armor and modify all the races build designs to put 5 times as much armor on. If you didn't do it for all armor, I think you'd get weirdness where AI ships piled on loads of standard armor until the better types were researched.

The only other possible problem I see with it - How many components can you shove on a ship without causing problems for the program?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

An excellent thread that definately deserves to be bumped up.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I'm curious if anyone heard back from MM about this. Is it on the fix list somewhere?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

A recent addition to the damage info:

-Small/Weak armor segments will be hit FIRST, 9 times out of 10, with the occasional large segment dying before a small.
-Large/Tough internals will be hit first, most of the time, but most internals tend to be similar size/strength, so its more randomized. Heavy-mount weapons are still the most likely to be hit first.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

WTG Z!

Anyone know if MM has fixed the EM armor yet?

------------------
mottlee@gte.net
"Kill em all let God sort em out"

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I haven't seen emissive armor mentioned in the post-1.35 beta patch lists... are we sure MM is working on it for the next patch?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

BTW, is anyone using emissive armor as it is now? I find it completely useless, even against fighters (since a fighter formation "sums up" all hits instead of shooting one weapon at a time). http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lisif:
BTW, is anyone using emissive armor as it is now? I find it completely useless, even against fighters (since a fighter formation "sums up" all hits instead of shooting one weapon at a time). http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I sometimes use em armor on troops. I don't know exactly how the computer calculates ground combat results (would be interesting to find out though) but in theory ground combat should involve a barrage of seperate, low damage attacks (instead of one big bLast), so em armor should help out. On the other hand, if the millions of defenders on the ground get their attacks grouped together into a single shot like stacked fighters do, the em armor ain't worth much. Any of you elite SEIV players out there know how the ground combat really is calculated?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

Bump. An extremely informative thread about to slip off the bottom....

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

This sure is a bumpy topic...

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

This seems like an excellent thread in which to ask this question: How does Emissive Armor work in v1.49? They say that they "fixed" it. So how does it work now?

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I'm not sure what they mean by "fixed". I did a test right after the patch came out, and nothing seemed to have changed; the armor still only works if the damage is less than 30 (for EA III) -since very few weapons do less than 30 damage, and fighters fire in Groups, EA is still useless.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I think Emissive armor works. When I did a couple of tests my ships took damage and negate the first amount of damage (think it was like 20) and then what was left over went to component damage. Unfortunately the emissive armor didn't break untill after combat.

Re: Armor, Shields and Damage (FAQ)
 

I have done some tests on emissive armor and it does indeed work. The *only* problem (and that is a huge one) is that fighters stack all their weapons for a single shot. So, yes, the way fighters currently work and the fact that very few weapons do 30 damage or less makes it pretty much useless.

However, since the ability itself works, it can be used for mods to make high levels of emissive armor that will be immune to shots of, say, APB, Mesons or PPB (even on large mounts, if you set the emissive ability high enough). So that would make "pack-more-damage-in-one-shot" weapons much more useful and even necessary.

Btw, shard cannons (skips armor) will not only skip the armor ability, but also the bypass the emissive ability. So a shard cannon doing only 15 damage, will be useful against emissive armorII+III.

Just for the record, if you don't know how emissive armor works (there was much discussion about that after all): if you use emissive armor III that means your ship will be immune to shots of damage 30 or less (shields still suffer damage, though). Anything that does 31 or more damage will do full damage. So emissive armor will not reduce damage, it negates damage (as in the description) below a certain threshold.

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. Btw, I have been looking into some of the small weapons as well and noticed how utterly useless small anti-matter torpedoes are (large space, slow reload, not much damage to account for that). Well, if the fighters don't stack their damage that will change, because the small AMT will be one of the few weapons (doing 35 dmg) that will be able to breach the threshold of emissive armor III (maybe that's the reason they are so expensive in the first place).

Rollo