Organic armor fix
 

I've had it with the craziness of Organic Armor, so I'm gonna fix it.

NOTE: if this has already been fixed for v1.41, and nobody has told me yet, please do so now.


Ok, as it is, all pieces of organic armor must be completely destroyed in one turn, otherwise the damage is completely healed.

So, for Pirates & Nomads v2.3, I propose to do the following:
-Change the organic armor ability into an "organic resource generation" ability.
-Give Organic armor a shield generation ability equal to its hitpoints.
-Give Organic armor a shield regeneration ability equal to its old "organic armor" ability.
-Rewrite my AI patcher (My HDD was reformatted and I lost the source, FYI) and program the shipdesign.txt patch to replace "Organic Armor" calls with "organic resource generation" calls.
-Change the description to mention "Bio-electric Field", "provides a shield effect", and "can be tapped to recharge mechanical shield generators"

Thus:
AI's will still use the OA normally.
Against normal weapons, the organic armor work like you would expect it to, from reading the description.
Phased polaron beams will skip the OA's shield effect, but will still have to cut through the armor.
Also, this will remove the invulnerability issue with Organic races who use 10 OAs on a ship (can heal 1500 damage per turn!)

Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome

------------------
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Re: Organic armor fix
 

I thought Organic Armor stored X hitpoint per turn (X being the regen amount). So during the first few rounds that the ships close on each other the armor is "storing" regen, so even if all of the armor is destroyed on the first salvo, at least some of the armor will grow back. (This is all explained in a previous thread -Armor and Sheild FAQ, or something like that.

What about the situation when a player (or AI) wants phased sheilds and organic armor? Won't the normal sheild generation of the armor make all of the ships sheilding normal?

Just some points to ponder.

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Side effect:
Armor-skipping weapons will no longer skip organic armor totally
Organic armor will (probably) not work in a black hole system, or other shield-interfering area.

Phoenix-D

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Side effect:
Armor-skipping weapons will no longer skip organic armor totally
Organic armor will (probably) not work in a black hole system, or other shield-interfering area<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Well, at least not at 100% capacity. They will still give the armor effect, you'll just lose the shield & regen abilities.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>What about the situation when a player (or AI) wants phased sheilds and organic armor? Won't the normal sheild generation of the armor make all of the ships sheilding normal?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yes. For a human, its not too big a deal; they will use OA until the enemy PPBs appear, then switch to ablative/plasma armor or phased shields.
The AI could be royally screwed by this...

What do you think about giving the lower tech OAs normal, but the high-tech ones phased?


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I thought Organic Armor stored X hitpoint per turn (X being the regen amount). So during the first few rounds that the ships close on each other the armor is "storing" regen, so even if all of the armor is destroyed on the first salvo, at least some of the armor will grow back. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>In my experience (V1.35), the armor just heals everything at the end of each turn. If all of it is destroyed, nothing comes back.
EDIT: OOps I really should be sure that I've got my path.txt set right before I start doing tests http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/blush.gif
Looks like the reduced OA ability works OK.

So... My main problem is that the 300 regen per turn I get from the OAs is good, but having the stored-up 3000 OA points before I get in weapons range is just plain stupid.

So the question is: how should I fix this? I can leave in the OA regen, but at reduced levels; which will eliminate the AI patch requirement.
But, I still want the moderate hitpoint regen without having the insane storage effect.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 15 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

After my tests, I think that currently the Organic Armor, only regenerate other Organic Armors destroyed in the same ship.

I don't know what happened in previous patches, but now I'm pretty sure about that other ship components (no organic armors), are not re-generated if they're destroyed.

An example: one Aquilaeian fleet with DN ships, with 4 Organic Armors every one, engaged in combat a similar fleet of Pyrochette's ships. The Aquilaeian fleet won, but several DN ships had components destroyed and their engines destroyed for the Pyrochette's weapons.
After a second combat against a colony ship (they were placed over a warp point), still the damaged engines/components were not regenerated... but one ship that had one Organic Armor destroyed but 3 Organic Armors intact, after the combat regenerated the damaged Armor.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

OA ability is limited to the ship its on, plus only affects components with OA abilities, or maybe components with the same familiy number.

If you want healing of any components, use living ships http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

This is on a battleship with 10 OAs, just so you know the scale.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>So... My main problem is that the 300 regen per turn I get from the OAs is good, but having the stored-up 3000 OA points before I get in weapons range is just plain stupid.

So the question is: how should I fix this? I can leave in the OA regen, but at reduced levels; which will eliminate the AI patch requirement.
But, I still want the moderate hitpoint regen without having the insane storage effect.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hmmm... I'm thinking 10% regen per turn would be OK; the ship would only store enough OA points for one complete restore before combat, and could only survive three armor wipeouts per battle. (Fourth is permanent).

FYI, the current value is 20%, allowing a ship to store two refreshes before shooting starts, and have each armor piece destroyed seven times per battle.

Also, with a value of 10%, and four refreshes per battle, the effective HP/KT of Organic armor is increased from 5 to 20, surpassing even the best alternative: plasma projection armor (14HP/KT)

At 20%, you get up to 35 HP/KT!!!


EDIT:
So far, OA with 10/13/15 regen seems OK. A little powerful, but more reasonable.
also, I've given the organic crossover armor 8/10/12 regen.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 16 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Unless anybody has further comments, I'm going to set the organic armor regen ability to half in P&N.

This gives 10% of your hitpoints back each turn, for a full healing stored up before weapons fire begins, and at best, a 20HP/KT armor effect.

BioCrystal armor, and Psy Armor will have approximately 8% per turn.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Just though I would give my two cents on the matter. I have no problem with the way it works now. Against NPC races it may be a huge advantage but vs human players it is almost worthless. Personally I love organic tech. But toneing the regen down will probally make it totally useless vs humans. As an alternative perhaps give OA the repair one component ability if you tune it down. Crystal Armor shield regen ability is useful pretty much all thru the game.
Just my opinion. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Against NPC races it may be a huge advantage but vs human players it is almost worthless. Personally I love organic tech. But toneing the regen down will probally make it totally useless vs humans. As an alternative perhaps give OA the repair one component ability if you tune it down. Crystal Armor shield regen ability is useful pretty much all thru the game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Note: for the regenerative effect between turns, you can take the "living ships" trait, and save on C&C space while you're at it.

When you look at the numbers, this is what you get:

Minimum strength: 5HP/KT
- guaranteed strength against non-piercing weapons
- as good as Armor III

Nominal Strength: 10HP/KT
- Must have at least one armor segment remaining after first volley
- Better than shields without ShieldRegen (8Hp/KT)
- equivalent to Armor Tech 8 (PlasmaProjection II)

Maximum Strength: 20HP/KT
- All armor components must heal after each volley of fire. (ship takes small hits over 30 turns of combat)
- Ultimate protection, 2.5x stronger than Phased shield 5's, 40% stronger than Plasma Armor 5's

This organic armor will operate basically the way you expect during the first volley of fire, and only begin to fail the second or third time the components are smashed.

Now, you also have to consider Bio-Crystal armor, which combines these hitpoints & regen capabilities with the shield boosting effect of Crystalline armor.

Light Cruisers can support 5 BCA's, and subtract 60 damage from all incoming attacks. That is some serious strength, rendering a lot of weapons ineffective.

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Does this convince you at all?
I am still open to making changes if you can show me how it will work better.
At the very least, I might copy the organic armor with changes, and let the players decide which type of armor to pay for.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 20 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

10 to 1 is a very high ratio. To combine that with regeneration makes an incredibly tough armor that might be difficult to balance against various weapons without a round of 'inflation' that could unbalance other things. I have only given crystalline armor the 10 to 1 ratio in my techs, though shields go as high as 20 to 1 and so it's not so out of place. But, crystalline armor doesn't regenerate... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Combining crystalline and organic armor attributes is obscene. Either make it an artifact only tech or only give it to some "evil empire" that threatens to conquer the universe in some specially prepared scenario. I would frankly refuse to play against another human who had such tech.

What MM should have done with organic armor is made the first levels only regenerate AFTER combat. This "basic" organic armor would function more or less like shields, and would still be a signifigant advantage in the early stages of the game. Only at higher levels should it actually regenerate in combat.

For a real interesting twist there ought to be an organic armor like they had in Babylon 5 that 'learns' about what damages it. Each time it was hit by a weapon type, it would 'learn' something and the next hit would do less damage! Now that's evil! Combined with regeneration it might be invincible to anything but "ignores armor" or "ignores shields and armor" weapons. Maybe it needs to be exclusive of regen. The accounting for this on the code level would be a nightmare, though. Each ship would have unique resistances that would take up a huge amount of space and combat code could get very bloated. Sigh...

I like the idea of 'living ships' but the game doesn't properly support it with it's current abilities. The "repair component" ablity will be applied to any and all ships present together. There ought to be a special ability "self repair" that only affects the ship it is mounted in. It would be fairly easy for MM to do that. Then you could have the "living ships" by making special hulls with that ability in the VehicleSize.txt file.

Now, if we can just get the "damper field" so we can have ships with superb armor and no shields to compete against the ships with shields like thay have in MOO. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>10 to 1 is a very high ratio. To combine that with regeneration makes an incredibly tough ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>No, I'm afraid you misunderstood.
The 10 Hp/Kt includes the regeneration effect.

The minimum strength is pure hitpoints, in case you get destroyed in a single turn.

The Nominal strength is if your armor just barely survives the first attack.
It will regenerate once and be out of OA points, then be destroyed a second time, permanently.

The Maximum strength is if all of your armor components are left intact (or healed) after every turn, then destroyed on the 30th turn.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I would frankly refuse to play against another human who had such tech.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You should note that they will be spending 3000 racial points, and the regeneration ability is halved from normal SE4 on even the pure organic armor.
This means that your ships will only have to destroy each armor component twice if you hit them right away, and four times if you leave the ship till turn 30.
Also, the combination Organic/Crystalline combo loses efficiency, getting 60% of each ability (for a 20% bonus over having pairs of pure armor).
The combo armor can only regenerate 2&1/2 times during battle, and so should be easy to destroy, since even at best, it has less than 12Hp/KT.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Now, if we can just get the "damper field" so we can have ships with superb armor and no shields to compete against the ships with shields like thay have in MOO<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I have tried to make armor ships equal, yet different.
Standard armor in P&N v2 will give you up to 14HP/KT. Shields give 8Hp/Kt, with the heavy generators putting out 10Hp/Kt and costing a boatload of radioactives.

Thus, armored ships will win against shielded ships, all else equal.
However, once you have won the first battle, your ship(s) will have to head home for repairs or be destroyed easily.

In general, armored ship are good for defending, suicide runs or pivotal battles.
Shields are excellent for scouts and campaigns, where there will be multiple small battles.

The winner between armor and shields is entirely dependent on the strategic situation.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

My concern is with all the weapons that 'ignore' armor. They are as common as flies in human games and seem to be ever increasing in modified AI's.
What I would like to see is a reason to keep using OA all thru the game. Scattering and Stealth provide bonuses, Crystal provides shield boosting even vs weapons that ingnore armor making secondary weapon fire easier to defend against.
OA's ability is useful for a while in the beginning but as soon as large fleets of 50+ ships show up (common in the few PBW games I have played)its armor is shredded like a cats claws on toilet paper. (Or the ship is gutted anyway by weapons ignoring armor.)
This is why I think it needs 'something' more than regen to make it unique/useful.
Perhaps adding this ability at higher Organic tech levels. (They go up to six anyway.)
The Living Ships idea is great. Though it is starting to get pricey. (Perhaps giving OA the repair ability if you only take both.)
There is another mod out there (Zippy's I think) that gives repair to OA. It doesn't seem to imbalance things. Repair bays are still more efficient.
As for ships repairing each other. That seems natural, one creature helping another. Transfusing vital fluids between ships, extending repair feelers etc.
Farscape has done this on occasion with the mother helping its offspring heal.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>My concern is with all the weapons that 'ignore' armor. They are as common as flies in human games and seem to be ever increasing in modified AI's. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>We have:
Null-Space - low damage, slow reload. Buckytube Gel soaks up this damage very well.
Ionic dispersers - ships have up to 40 engines, and LCs usually get 15 or so. Ships are much more resistant to these weapons in P&N2. If you are still worried, use durable or premium engines.
Tachyon weapon disruptors - add some level 3 BuckyTube Gel or a tachyon damper, and your ship will be safe
Shield Disruptors - Use Hardened-Mini SGs, or the Heavy SGs. No worries. Level 2 BuckyTube gel helps here, too.

Did I miss anything?

ISTM, with Organic armor and some buckytube gel, you're sitting with a very tough ship.
Ion attacks are half as effective (relative to unmodded SE4 or P&N1) on LCs, and even weaker against larger ships.
The BT Gel will take quite a few hits from any other "fancy damage" weapons before too many internals are lost, and the organic armor protects well against normal damage.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>OA's ability is useful for a while in the beginning but as soon as large fleets of 50+ ships show up (common in the few PBW games I have played)its armor is shredded like a cats claws on toilet paper<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Big fleet actions will definitely get organic armor toasted.
What you want in that situation is a bunch of Plasma Armored ships which can soak up 14HP/KT (or 20HP/KT for premium armor) before being annihilated during the initial volleys.
With enough PlasmaArmor ships, your fleets will be whittled down to the point where the organic armor will be effective.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

I believe he's speaking of the Crystalline weapons, ie Shard Cannon, that are stopped by shields but not armor. I haven't seen P&N2 yet, but if P&N1 is used as a reference, Shard Cannons aren't too much of a threat in the latter stages of the game because of the HSGs, and the overall toughness of ships. A battle between a ship with heavy shield depletion/shard cannons and a ship with more "standard" weapons would largely be an even match (probably one favoring the "standard" weapon ship) because the "standard" ship has much more weapon power.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Of course SJ your counterpoint is to use other armor/components to make up the 'deficiencies' of OA. Something other armors do not have to do. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Why was it you thought that OA needed to tone down its regen ability? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Why was it you thought that OA needed to tone down its regen ability?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>As it was, OA would store up way to much regen points before ships could open fire. If the ship survived the battle, it could get 35 HP/KT.
With the halving of the regen, it gets a max of 20Hp/KT, and stores only enough points for one complete refresh by the time weapons are in range.

Basically, with regen set as high as it was before, a ship would run out of stored regen only under rare circumstances.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I believe he's speaking of the Crystalline weapons, ie Shard Cannon, that are stopped by shields but not armor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Right. For Organic Armor ships, see the Null-Space entry.
You can also use shield regen to block some damage, while the BTG stops another big chunk.

NOTE: when using BTGs, be sure to have at least a few backups of critical systems, because a lucky shot can still pop your bridge. Having an AuxCon can help, and that can be further backed up by a MC.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Well I am certainly willing to try it out your way. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

P&N is my favorite 'tech' mod currently. Devnull used to be but I dislike so many of his current tweaks that I never play it anymore. Fixed until broken I say. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

I think Living Ships need a little more bang for the buck. What is it currently 750 racial points? (I am currently having a great game with the 500 point Version. So I have not switched to the Lastest Version yet.)

How about making Living Ships cost 1000 racial points and giving OA the repair one component ability if one takes Organic as a racial trait with it? At 2500 points it would be pretty reasonable. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

This would make for an interesting combo. IMHO. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>How about making Living Ships cost 1000 racial points and giving OA the repair one component ability if one takes Organic as a racial trait with it? At 2500 points it would be pretty reasonable.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Actually, I was thinking of doing it the other way around, by making the LS's HOs provide armor regen of 1pt/turn.
Thus, even if all of your OA is wiped out, if you're a living ship, you can still make use of the regen you've stored up.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Well, I have not been accounting for the current illogical behavior of the armor regeneration ability. I am of the opinion that it's going to be fixed sooner or later. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif So, I presume that eventually it will only regenerate AFTER it is damaged.

Now if only the 'armor piercing' weapon concept were implemented properly. Any weapon that penetrates armor has to do SOME damage to the armor. It should not "ignore" armor unless it's some exotic like the Null-space cannon -- which ignores both shields and armor. The Shard Cannon or any other amor 'piercing' weapon ought to do a certain percentage of it's damage to armor and then the rest internally.

I like the 'internal armor' that P&N and several other mods have. But I'm a bit puzzled at the "BTG" internal reinforcement having ZERO size. Sure, it ought to be small, but at zero size you can cram as much as you are willing to pay for into a ship. This is open to abuse. You could cram thousands of 'hit points' into an escort and make an incredible ramming weapon out of it, for example. I've got "Hardened Bulkheads" in my own techs. 1kt size and 5/7/10kt damage resistance. So, you can pack 10 into the components of even a small ship and increase its damage resistance dramatically. But, it does cost something of your internal space to add them. So, you have to give up something else.

The real way this ought to be done, of course, is to have a "structure" attribute to the hull. MM needs to be more shameless in lifting ideas from MOO. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif If we could set parameters on each hull type for 'basic' structure, and then have the option to reinforce it in the ship construction screen, the components list wouldn't have to be turned into a spam-fest in order to simulate a hull attribute.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

"Actually, I was thinking of doing it the other way around, by making the LS's HOs provide armor regen of 1pt/turn.
Thus, even if all of your OA is wiped out, if you're a living ship, you can still make use of the regen you've stored up."

Why not do both and add repair too? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Actually Living ships could probally be made into its own special tech. Hatcheries for space yards. Birthing chambers for ship yards. Special living terraformers to change the enviroment. Natural but short range warp point ability. (All those warp points had to come frome somewhere. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif)Lots of cool stuff. But that would be better discussed on another thread I think. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

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"I apologize. I'm ... sorry. I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves
against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was stupid
enough to fire on a station full of a quarter of a million civilians,
including your own people. And I'm sorry that I waited as long as I
did before I blew them straight to hell. ... As with everything else,
it's the thought that counts." -- Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5


[This message has been edited by Rich04 (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Organic armor fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Actually Living ships could probally be made into its own special tech. Hatcheries for space yards. Birthing chambers for ship yards. Special living terraformers to change the enviroment. Natural but short range warp point ability. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Those are some good ideas, but I'd probably not bother making items so similar to pre-existing stuff.
I see the living ships as mostly a cyborg style thing.

Re: Organic armor fix
 

Well, Living Ships could be a lynchpin for several different styles.
Depending how its combined with other techs it could be Organic, Cybernetic, or Artificial AI.
Much like Moya (Farscape), Borg Cubes (Star Trek), and Andromeda (Andromeda).