Crystalline Armor stacking bug!

[Ed Kolis]

I was testing in the combat simulator to see if crystalline armor stacks its shield regenerating ability (and it seems that it does - isn't that a bit unbalancing? You could put about 60 of them on a starbase and make it literally invincible!) when I found something strange - I had 2 cruisers with 1 Large mount APB XII and 10 Crystalline Armor III and 1 Phased Shield V firing at each other, and it seems that when the beams finally deplete the shields, on the next few hits the armor takes some damage, but then once the shields start regenerating, the ships magically stop hitting each other, even though they are firing from point blank range with 90% to hit!

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
I was testing in the combat simulator to see if crystalline armor stacks its shield regenerating ability (and it seems that it does - isn't that a bit unbalancing? You could put about 60 of them on a starbase and make it literally invincible!) when I found something strange - I had 2 cruisers with 1 Large mount APB XII and 10 Crystalline Armor III and 1 Phased Shield V firing at each other, and it seems that when the beams finally deplete the shields, on the next few hits the armor takes some damage, but then once the shields start regenerating, the ships magically stop hitting each other, even though they are firing from point blank range with 90% to hit!

Are you sure they were not HITTING, or is it just that the damage was being cancelled? This is a known 'feature' of Crystalline Armor. Damage allocation is freaky, and shield regeneration can cause partial component damage to be cancelled (by transfer to the shields). So you must be certain that the beams were really missing (being drawn to miss) before you can claim to have seen anything new.

[Suicide Junkie]

If you were firing those beams from maximum range, and the damage per shot ended up being less than half the crystalline ability, and less than the hitpoints of a single armor component, then the crystalline can negate the entire amount.

Solutions:
1) Move a bit closer - do more damage per shot than the components can handle.
2) Use a larger mount - same as above.
3) Use any special damage type weapon. Shield skipping, armor skipping, X - only; crystalline has no effect on these. Quad to Shields will cut through the crystalline effect very efficiently.

[Ed Kolis]

Nope, I was firing at point blank range, and the beams were definitely missing - no shield animation, no "boom", no explosion animation, nothing...

[Suicide Junkie]

So, the APBs were theoretically doing 130 damage, correct?

With 10 crystalline III's, you get 150 points of CA ability and you get 150 hitpoints per segment.

So, at the end what you would be seeing is:
Shields at 130, hull damage of 130 points.

Your next shot hits the ship for 130 damage. Add 130 for the partial damage to the armor component.
Total damage impacting the ship: 260.
Shields absorb 130.
Total damage hitting the hull: 130.
With 130 points hitting the hull, the CA effect charges the shields back up to 130 points.
The hull takes 130 points of damage, which is absorbed by a crystalline armor segment, but fails to destroy it.

And, you are back to where you started.
This ship can not be destroyed by Large mount APBs alone.

A Large-mount Quantum Torpedo, WMG or almost any Heavy Mount gun would crack the armor, and a null-space cannon could disable the shield generator.

[ January 01, 2003, 02:28: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Taera]

i confirm, there is some kind of bug there.
SJ - run a test combat.

guess what - move the ship away and it hits correctly.

A bug. someone send a bug report to MM i dont have the time right now.

[Taera]

You just want to notice that as well the damage is significantly lower - for example at range 4 )APBIIX-L does 110 damage) you see -10/10 damage.

Definitely a bug, though i dont see why does it happen.