Emissive Armor

[dmm]

No, if I understood B. Munch. correctly, emissive armor mixed with regular armor will only reflect damage away if it gets hit. It's not like a mini-shield. One piece of emissive doesn't make the whole ship emissive. So if you have 9 regular armors and 1 emissive, the emissive will only protect you 1/10 of the time, on average. As the British say, "In for a penny, in for a pound." Either use just emissive or don't use it at all.

[dmm]

p.s. I do have the .56 demo. My damage resistance numbers were for ArmorIII.

(In case anyone out there is as unobservant as I am, I will point out that the demo tells you the Version number in the lower left corner when you start it up. Took me a while to find that.)

[Baron Munchausen]

No, emissive armor is not a "blanket" protection for your ship. It only protects itself. Damage distribution is random. The only control on damage distribution is 'armor' or 'not armor'. While you have armor, damage is distributed randomly among armor components - except when a weapon that skips armor is being used. When armor is gone or an armor ignoring weapon is being used, damage is distributed randomly among non-armor components. So, mixing emissive and standard armor is likely to result in a lot of your standard armor getting destroyed just like it would without any emissive armor.

I would point out, though, that what you described is an interesting concept that might be added as a special component. It's what I would call a "damper field" and would make a fascinating alternative to shields. If all direct-fire weapons firing on your ship were reduced by say 25 percent off the top, AND you had good emissive armor, would you need shields? If you have good weapons yourself, the other guy could be toasted long before your armor is gone. Ever play Master of Orion II and tangle with the Antareans? They had damper fields on their ships.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 26 September 2000).]

[Jeb]

While we're at it, another question: is each weapon on a ship counted as a separate attack, or is the whole volley considered one attack? In other words, say I have a cruiser with 10 meson bLasters that do 10 points of damage each. Does emissive armor treat that as 10 (harmless) 10 point attacks, or as one 100 point attack?

If it treats each attack separately, maybe there could be a new component that makes all of a ship's attacks count as one volley. The datalink in "Starfire" worked something like this, and it would be a lot more useful than that ancient tech component that's in the game now allowing ships in a fleet to share experience.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jeb:
While we're at it, another question: is each weapon on a ship counted as a separate attack, or is the whole volley considered one attack? In other words, say I have a cruiser with 10 meson bLasters that do 10 points of damage each. Does emissive armor treat that as 10 (harmless) 10 point attacks, or as one 100 point attack?

If it treats each attack separately, maybe there could be a new component that makes all of a ship's attacks count as one volley. The datalink in "Starfire" worked something like this, and it would be a lot more useful than that ancient tech component that's in the game now allowing ships in a fleet to share experience.

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With a ship each weapon is a seperate attack. With most units (satellites, weapon platforms) each weapon is a seperate attack. With FIGHTERS I think that all units fire together in a single attack, which is really interesting because looking at the damage power of 'small' components you'd think they would be helpless against emissive armor. I've not seen fighters attack a ship with emissive armor yet - I have barely used fighters. Maybe someone else has.

The attack 'consolidator' idea is an interesting one. Would be a good addition to the ancient ruins tech fields.

[dmm]

From: His Imperial Majesty, Emperor DMM
To: General Kargazgh, Fleet Materiel Command
Emissive armor most definitely does NOT work in the .56 demo simulator. I have just personally tested it. A single shot from a level V depleted uranium cannon (15 damage) put 15 damage on a ship with level II emissive armor even though that is supposed to reflect away anything 20 or below. Who is overseeing the armor R&D program? He is to be immediately interrogated as a spy, then found guilty of treason and executed!!

[Cyrien]

It has been my experience with fighters that they do not fire as one. Weapons that they use are listed and fired one at a time just as they are for Weapon Platforms. They are listed as a single ship but each one fires independently.

[Psitticine]

quote:

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Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
While you have armor, damage is distributed randomly among armor components - except when a weapon that skips armor is being used. When armor is gone or an armor ignoring weapon is being used, damage is distributed randomly among non-armor components.

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There are a couple of points I've read about that I'd be interested in seeing confirmed or denied, if anybody can do either.

First, I've been told that once a component is damaged, all additional damage taken by the ship is applied to the same component until it is destroyed. IOW, if you fire and strike a particular piece of armour, additional hits will be applied to that same piece until it finally gives way.

This makes sense to me, in terms of saving runtime. It isn't all that realistic but it isn't all that obvious either, and it would take a *lot* more memory to track the exact status of every single component on every single ship, fighter, satellite, WP, etc., as opposed to just if they are operative or destroyed.

Secondly, I've also seen it stated that if a single shot destroys an armour component and has some damage left to do, that damage is applied to the non-armour components. Subsequent shots would be taken by the remaining armour, unless those rounds too are strong enough to destroy an armour component with a single bLast.

This doesn't make sense to me. These two seem contradictory, considering one shot could pierce armour and damage the interior, and then the next could only damage another piece of armour, leading to two seperate damaged components being tracked.

I've never seen the second in action and rather doubt it is really in play, but I thought I'd pass it on in case anybody knows anything about it. Perhaps it was a concept that got tossed out in early development?

[dmm]

Quote: I've also seen it stated that if a single shot destroys an armour component and has some damage left to do, that damage is applied to the non-armour components. Subsequent shots would be taken by the remaining armour, unless those rounds too are strong enough to destroy an armour component with a single bLast.

Reply: I've never noticed that happen. I have the .56 demo. As far as I can tell, my heavily armored ships never take non-armor damage until all the armor is gone. (That's a bit unrealistic, but to make things realistic you'd have to model the ships in 2D, place the armor around the ship, keep track of orientations, allow for aiming at soft points, etc. Even purely tactical games are rarely that realistic.) Maybe some of the wierd armors (crystal, organic) work as you describe??

[wingte]

[quote]Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
[b] With FIGHTERS I think that all units fire together in a single attack, which is really interesting because looking at the damage power of 'small' components you'd think they would be helpless against emissive armor. I've not seen fighters attack a ship with emissive armor yet - I have barely used fighters. Maybe someone else has.


Yes. When fighters fire it registers as a single massive attack.
Because of this (and the ship size requirment for weapons mounts)I have started using almost exclusively Light Carriers. I make 3-4 different ones using a huge mount for at least one each , shield depleter, ionic disruptor, and enveloping acid globe. Put a couple PDs on each and then a normal sized plasma bolt. Two shields, 2-3 organic armor, an ecm, and 14-20 fighter bays.
Then I make a fighter with small shield depleter and an electric discharge.
Move the carrier to point blank and launch the fighters. 14 X 20 on the shield depleter is 280 ie 2 shield generators then 14 X 30 on the electric discharge is 420 damage. Even crystaline armor is taken out unless it is in amounts large enough to limit the weapons space.
Then hit the enemy with the huge mount on the LC and it usually leaves an immoble/weaponless hulk that can be ignored.

50 of those fighters will take out everything except a super shielded/armored cruiser in one shot.


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Wingte