Range Attenuation!

[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 ]

[DirectorTsaarx]

As long as the other beam weapons suffer the same attenuation; ISTR that the APB was "beefed up" in one of the patches so the PPB wouldn't seem like such an uber-weapon.

What about the Meson BLaster? The point of that one is that the damage doesn't decrease at all over the full range - would that damage have to be decreased as well, or is it sufficiently lower than the torpedo damage? (Yeah, I could look up the numbers and form my own opinion, but I'm more interested in what everyone else thinks about it).

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, the Meson BLaster presents a challenge because it cannot be easily 'balanced' by Emissive Armor as it was in SE III. Mounts come along with light cruisers and throw the balance out. MM has got to do something to improve armor, and Emissive Armor in particular. I'd prefer that there be mounts FOR armor, which increase Emissive Ability in the same proportion as weapon power. We've been requesting it, and there have been some new extensions for mounts recently. We'll just see what happens...

Apparently the shorter range was supposed to be the new 'balancing disadvantage' for the MB. It used to be the longer range weapon in SE III. If the AI was smarter in combat and actually executed strategies like 'maximum weapons range' properly it might have worked. I don't think it does, though. We need armor fixed/improved.

[ July 02, 2002, 05:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Marvin Kosh]

I like the idea of Emissive Armour actually turning away some damage. Remember the Excalibur in the Crusade series? Deflects 90% of incoming weapons energy. I would give my right arm for a ship like that

And as for the Vorlon-enhanced main guns, well..... I think there's enough weapons already in the game that you could pick to represent those, except they don't have the after-effect of killing ship movement for the equivalent of a minute.

I think there should be additional tracks on the Chemistry tech tree to allow for new types of alloy which would either introduce new armour types, or enhance existing ones. For example, you could use a thinner armour that allows for more space inside the ship's hull, but provides the same protection as a much more primitive alloy. And costs more