Range Attenuation!

[Phoenix-D]

Comment on the APB: remember that the thing costs more than four times as much as the torps to research.

The PPB on the other hand costs about the same as the torps, as does the meson bLaster.

Phoenix-D

[Suicide Junkie]

In SE3, every component had 1 hitpoint.
The emissive Armor said "takes 3 damage to destroy"

When a shot <3 damage hit, nothing happened.
When a shot =3 damage hit, the armor was destroyed, nothing else.
When a shot >3 damage hit the emissive absorbed four points of it.

If the leftover damage hit another emissive armor component, it would get a chance to absorb 3 hitpoints as well.

Compare this to SE4's EA.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yep, I noticed that it seems to work like the old Emissive Armor. But that doesn't seem to be the correct way for it to work in the new game system.

[Suicide Junkie]

It definitely does not work like in SE3.

If it did, then a 3 damage hit to that EA below would destroy the EA AND two other components, rather than just the EA

[PvK]

Yep, SJ is right. The old EA effect was nice and interesting - with multipel EA components, some of the damage would be spread between them randomly, with the result that sometimes you would destroy an EA component, and sometimes not, with the same amount of damage. SE4 increased the grain of damage by about 10x, which means even if MM suddenly decided to use an SE3-like system, it would have less randomness with 10x points than in SE3, unless a neat algorithm was invented to make it more like the SE3 performance.

As has been said many times before, the SE4 EA is rather too much an all-or-nothing affair. Personally, I'd like to see some new protection effects possible, such as:

1) Reduces damage of each weapon hit by X.

2) Reduces incoming damage by Y%.

3) Reduces damage per hit by a random amount between A and B.

4) Has a Z% chance of being hit before other components.

PvK

[Tenryu]

Yes, PVK, I agree. I've often felt that the weapon/armor interaction is such a fundamental one that, like weapon components with all their extra fields, an 'armor component' should also, by its nature, require a group of additional fields. Your suggested fields probobly about cover it.

Hmm, how did we get on armor, when Baron M. started a thread on beams and torps, lol.
Sorry Baron.

[Baron Munchausen]

Reducing damage by X percent is the Damper Field from MOO. I've asked MM to implement that many times.

Ok, I see what SJ was pointing out then. Yes, the damage that over-rides the EA rating doesn't get reduced but carries through 100 percent. This is the bug I was complaining about. If EA really absorbed the rated damage it would then make torpedos and other high-damage but low fire-rate weapons much more valuable again.

As for the topic drift, Tenryu, we're still on topic. I started the thread on the effects of range attenuation. Emissive Armor is deeply entwined with the issue of range attenuation. It was Emissive Armor that made torpedos really useful in SE III. Now that beam weapons are so strong in SE IV the torpedo is far less important...

[ July 01, 2002, 18:01: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]