Organic armor fix

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

10 to 1 is a very high ratio. To combine that with regeneration makes an incredibly tough ...

---

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.

quote:

---

I would frankly refuse to play against another human who had such tech.

---

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.

quote:

---

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

---

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.

[Rich04]

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.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

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.

---

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.

quote:

---

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

---

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).]

[Will]

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.

[Rich04]

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.

Why was it you thought that OA needed to tone down its regen ability?

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

Why was it you thought that OA needed to tone down its regen ability?

---

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.

quote:

---

I believe he's speaking of the Crystalline weapons, ie Shard Cannon, that are stopped by shields but not armor.

---

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).]

[Rich04]

Well I am certainly willing to try it out your way.

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.

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.

This would make for an interesting combo. IMHO.

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

---

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.

---

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.

[Baron Munchausen]

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. 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. 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).]

[Rich04]

"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?

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. )Lots of cool stuff. But that would be better discussed on another thread I think.

------------------
"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).]