Proposed Damage System Overhaul

[Barnacle Bill]

Not sure I get the percentage thing on penetration/damage absorbtion. A layer of sheet metal from a car door will stop a much larger percentage of the total damage from a .25 auto pistol bullet than from a .50 cal machinegun bullet. In fact, it might completely stop the .25 and not measurably slow down the .50 cal.

It seems to me that a more realistic model is to rate waepons for penetration and shields/armor for penetration resistance, with the damage actually taken by the target = D * (P-R)/P where
D = base damage caused by the weapon at the given range
P = penetration of the weapon at that range
R = resistance of the shield/armor

You could then have different damage types for which a given weapon might have different D & P and a given shield/armor might have a different R.

To prevent just piling on too many layers of shield/armor (so as to outclass all weapon P values), though, you'd want to limit the number of slots available for defenses but have something conceptually similar to mounts for them so bigger ships can mount a stouter defense.

[Matryx]

The reason for the % absorbtion / resistance was mainly because quite a lot of things are energy based weapons - without the % you lose the ability to simulate that. Yes, with kinetic damage it's quite often all or nothing, but then again - you can't accurately represent that alone because armour doesn't just "fall off" when it gets hit by a slug.

[AngleWyrm]

A couple ideas for shielding systems:

Trank Shields
Trans-Kinetic shields use superstring theory of action at a distance (remember when they said that wasn't possible?) to absorb kinetic energy. Using a gyroscopic flywheel effect of perpendicular energy fields, it converts forward momentum and returns angular momentum, thus deflecting objects before they strike the hull. Only good against projectile weapons.

Warp Shields
Nearly impenetrable by their nature, warp shields are an extension of warp drive theory. They connect the space in front of a ship to the space behind a ship, forming a short wormhole. This takes the ship out of harm's way, and is effective against all weapons that travel to their target, including most energy weapons. However, warp shields must be aimed along the axis of danger, and so it's hit or miss.

Temporal Shields
Surrounds the ship in a temporal anomaly; all things approaching the ship take longer and longer to get there as they pass through the field, until at the field's event horizon they take an infinite amount of time to strike the shield. Until the ship and it's field move along down the road. Instant weapons, and weapons that don't travel to their target are immune.

Phase Shields
Broadcasts an energy pattern identical to incoming beam, but 180 out of phase, damping it's effect out. Phase shields can only counter energy beams the player has researched. Further, if incoming fire is of a higher tech level, damage is passed through as a weapon of strength equal to the tech difference.

[Ragnarok-X]

Make a mod, release it, let players test it. You wont receive many opinions without people actually realizing exactly how your change influences the system.

[Barnacle Bill]

Matryx said:
The reason for the % absorbtion / resistance was mainly because quite a lot of things are energy based weapons - without the % you lose the ability to simulate that.

I don't really see energy weapons of different strength as getting reduced by the same percentage by the same defense strength. I still see it as a more powerful weapon loosing a lower percentage of its strength that a less powerful weapon. I think the difference between different weapon types can be modelled by playing around with the damage & penetration values, plus the damage/resistance types that you propose.

Matryx said:
- you can't accurately represent that alone because armour doesn't just "fall off" when it gets hit by a slug.

I wouldn't treat it that way. Failure to penetrate would result in no damage to the shield/armor - the hit was deflected. Successful penetration of a shield would result in the hit with its new lower penetration (original P - shield R) being applied against the armor R. Again P <= R means no effect. If the shot penetrates the armor then the amount of damage applied to the ship is the base damage of the weapon times (P-R)/P, with R being the combined R of shields & armor and P being the base penetration of the weapon. Neglecting the possibility of "leaky" defenses, that amount of damage would be applied to the "Tonnage Structure" of the armor. Let's say that the armor is 50% damaged - next hit it has 50% of its base R. When the armor is gone, then damage gets allocated to internal systems - including shield generators. The shields stay at full R until/unless the generator gets hit.

For an enhancement, armor could "leak" proportional to the percentage of damage it has absorbed. If the armor is at 90%, not only is its R reduced by 10% for the next shot but a damage point inflicted by the next shot has a 10% chance to get allocated to internal systems even though the armor isn't completely destroyed. This would basically model the increased possibility that the hit occurs on a previously damaged spot on the armor as the armor gets shot up.

[Suicide Junkie]

What you really want is emissive ability.

Reduce damage by a fixed amount so small shots kapwing off, and big shots mostly go right through.

Combine that with armor-as-inert-internals, and you can make holes.

[Barnacle Bill]

Suicide Junkie said:
What you really want is emissive ability.

Reduce damage by a fixed amount so small shots kapwing off, and big shots mostly go right through.

Combine that with armor-as-inert-internals, and you can make holes.

Yes, emissive is pretty close to the idea except I'd want shields to work that way, too. Also there should be a limit by hull size on how much you can pile on. I'm really wanting to set up a situation analogous to real world naval combat c.WWI, where you have distinct tactical roles for large, medium & small ships. That would stem from small ships being unable to hurt big ones with "guns" but quite dangerous at close range with "torpedos". So, you need a balanced fleet - big ships pound each other at range, little ships to try to close with the big ones & luanch potentially devestating "torpedo" attacks, medium ships to to keep the little ships away from the big ships.

[Kana]

Sounds alot like the Carrier Battles Mod...

[Fyron]

Barnacle Bill said:
Yes, emissive is pretty close to the idea except I'd want shields to work that way, too.

Surely leaky shielding can be implemented in SE5 too.

Also there should be a limit by hull size on how much you can pile on.

Even easier done than said. Look up my thread on modding out LCX as early game warship for a method of limiting the number or percent of hull you can use for arbitrary groups of components.

[Captain Kwok]

You can also limit more simply than Fyron's example - look and see how engines are restricted in VehicleSizes.txt - you can do that for any component or ability.