So, this whole armor thing

[keith.lamothe]

I'm done tilting at the crystal windmill for... possibly for quite a while   But as mentioned a few times there, the armor windmill still stands.  Sancho, our duty awaits!

We've talked about a bunch of solutions to this in the past.  Some relatively simple, some unbelievably complex.  I held out for some of the more complex ones in hopes of solving some other problems at the same time (notably wanting to go to weapon types vs armor types as a replacement for both armor and hull-type-bonuses) but I've come to see that approach as misguided, at least in this case.

So my current favorite is to:

1) Change armor from a subtractive reduction to a % reduction.

2) Rebalance armor for everything that has it, along these rough principles:
- If it has very low armor, just make it 0% reduction.
- If it has extremely high armor, just make it 80% reduction (the current maximum effect armor can have).
- If it's somewhere inbetween, find a % that makes sense.  If we get to the "we want to go ahead with this" phase on this idea I'll post the actual armor values of everything in this category so we can figure out together what "makes sense" actually means.
- Edit: just to be clear, armor would not vary with mark level, as it currently does.  So if a mkI Armor Ship gets 50% reduction, then a mkV Armor Ship gets 50% reduction.

3) If something has extremely high armor-piercing, just make it ignore armor altogether.

4) For anything with armor-piercing not covered by 3), just remove the armor-piercing.

5) For stuff with armor-rotting:
- If it's a minor amount (like the autocannon minipod) just remove it.  Probably buff DPS a little to compensate.
- If it's a major amount (like the armor rotter) make it suppress the effect of the armor completely for the next X shots the target receives.  Or something like that; I'm not particular.

6) For the Zenith Polarizer (which does extra damage according to armor currently), have it do 100% damage to armored targets plus whatever amount the armor would have reduced it by.  Or perhaps plus twice what the armor would have reduced it by.  You get the idea.


And I think that covers it.  If I missed a case let me know.


Thoughts?

[Wingflier]

I like it, go with it.

[chemical_art]

Looks good.

[keith.lamothe]

*passes out*

[Aklyon]

*passes out*

Expecting another crystal thread?

[Diazo]

Crystal thread? Not here, no sir-ee! 

Anyways, this would affect only armor right? The attack multipliers and hull type are not up for any changes as currently being talked about?

If so, I'm cautiously in favor.

My biggest reason for saying cautiously is that this is going to throw the end-game out of whack and AIP scaling will probably require a rebalance.

My reasoning is that this is going to effectively increase the DPS of the lower mark ships when attacking high mark ships and decrease the DPS of high mark ships attacking low mark ships. The end game is where you end up in this situation quite often, with the AI having the higher mark ships.

See here on the wiki for more details.

This is going to effectively increase the player's DPS, without doing math I could easily see a 15% increase and 20 to 25% increase would not surprise me.

The only other thing would be that all the 'bomber' type ships get a little armor piercing, even just 10%, if they don't have any right now. Maybe even nerf their base DPS slightly to compensate, but the 'bombers' are designed to take out the big stuff, which I'm assuming will all have noticeable armor after this re-work.

D.

[Cinth]

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

[keith.lamothe]

Just added this note to the OP:

- Edit: just to be clear, armor would not vary with mark level, as it currently does.  So if a mkI Armor Ship gets 50% reduction, then a mkV Armor Ship gets 50% reduction.

Anyways, this would affect only armor right? The attack multipliers and hull type are not up for any changes as currently being talked about?

Correct, no changes not listed in 1 through 6 in the OP.

My biggest reason for saying cautiously is that this is going to throw the end-game out of whack and AIP scaling will probably require a rebalance.

My reasoning is that this is going to effectively increase the DPS of the lower mark ships when attacking high mark ships and decrease the DPS of high mark ships attacking low mark ships. The end game is where you end up in this situation quite often, with the AI having the higher mark ships.

True, it will be a bit of a nerf to high-mark stuff.  And a buff to swarmers.  And so on.  Rebalancing will be needed, I'm sure.

The only other thing would be that all the 'bomber' type ships get a little armor piercing, even just 10%, if they don't have any right now. Maybe even nerf their base DPS slightly to compensate, but the 'bombers' are designed to take out the big stuff, which I'm assuming will all have noticeable armor after this re-work.

Well, bear in mind that in the OP I'm talking about making armor-piercing just a boolean thing: either you ignore armor or you don't.  I considered making piercing a % stat but that just seems more complex than we need.  The bomber ships don't have a lot of piercing right now and I think they do their job pretty well.  Largely I think the bonuses are to thank for that.

[keith.lamothe]

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

That still leaves you (probably) well within range of energy weapons.

[Aklyon]

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

That still leaves you (probably) well within range of energy weapons.

And also within range of speed-boosted units with 9' poles.

[keith.lamothe]

And also within range of speed-boosted units with 9' poles.

Ah yes, the much-feared Neinzul Youngling Cattleprod.

[Winge]

I definitely feel that the overall change is the right way to go.  Although, it will probably still require a good bit of number tweaking.  The initial idea of the Polarizer looks decent; I would recommend something around 4-6x the armor amount (maxing out somewhere in the vicinity of 4-5x base damage with high armor).

I would kind of like to see some granularity in armor piercing.  For example, a fighter might have 10% armor penetration...could either be multiplicative (55% damage against a unit with 50% armor) or additive (60% damage against the same target).  Armor rotting would work similarly.  That said, that is just my preference.

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

That still leaves you (probably) well within range of energy weapons.

And also within range of speed-boosted units with 9' poles.

Or teleporters with brass knuckles.

[Cinth]

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

That still leaves you (probably) well within range of energy weapons.

Cloaking Modules active.  Running silent..

[Aklyon]

Ain't touching this one with a 10' pole

That still leaves you (probably) well within range of energy weapons.

Cloaking Modules active.  Running silent..

Still within range of the over-engineered Neinzul Tachyon Teleporting Knuckleprodder.

[Diazo]

The only other thing would be that all the 'bomber' type ships get a little armor piercing, even just 10%, if they don't have any right now. Maybe even nerf their base DPS slightly to compensate, but the 'bombers' are designed to take out the big stuff, which I'm assuming will all have noticeable armor after this re-work.

Well, bear in mind that in the OP I'm talking about making armor-piercing just a boolean thing: either you ignore armor or you don't.  I considered making piercing a % stat but that just seems more complex than we need.  The bomber ships don't have a lot of piercing right now and I think they do their job pretty well.  Largely I think the bonuses are to thank for that.

Hrm.

For me this is a (relatively small) negative.

One of the advantages of the current system is that it has a very high granularity in how you can get the interaction of armor and armor piercing in terms of how much they do.

I'd like to see at least two levels of armor, something like an armored golem should have armor that a lot fewer units can ignore then something like the siege tower, or whichever fleet ships are going to get armor.

Going to think on this over-night at this point.

D.