So, this whole armor thing

[Draco18s]

Your point 2 only applies if the new armour replacement is more effective against low-damage high-rof attacks, like the current one is.

If it isn't, then the new mechanic is not serving its role properly.  Which is why I'm anti-percentage-reduction.  Percentage reductions (barring niche units like Anti-Armor and Armor Rotter) is just a percentage increase in health.  No need for a secondary mechanic on top of it.

There's a fourth option, actually. Why should any of the triangle ships have armour? I could happily see frigates gaining anti-armour firepower, for use against the rarer stuff with armour rather than against fighters.

A possibility, but I am unable to deduce any side effects.

[chemical_art]

If it isn't, then the new mechanic is not serving its role properly.  Which is why I'm anti-percentage-reduction.  Percentage reductions (barring niche units like Anti-Armor and Armor Rotter) is just a percentage increase in health.  No need for a secondary mechanic on top of it.

It is fulfilling a role. Those ships with armor are stronger against this with no anti armor, but weaker to this with anti armor. Its a form of counter independent of hull

[Draco18s]

It is fulfilling a role. Those ships with armor are stronger against this with no anti armor, but weaker to this with anti armor. Its a form of counter independent of hull

Not really.  Just because a niche ship exists that counters it doesn't mean there needs to be a global rule.*

I have already proposed how to rework both the Anti-Armor and Armor Rotter units if armor gets converted into +%hp.  The polarizer could likewise be converted and end up vastly more useful as a result (all three would, actually, which would remove their status as "niche unit").

*This is a case of "specific trumps general" and your argument was "general rule is good because specific rule exists" which is fundamentally untrue.

[KDR_11k]

Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that if we want to keep armor the counter to that should not be bombers. I think it used to be frigs back in the shield days due to the range mechanic.

I agree, but here's the problem.

Frigates should be the (triangle) unit with armor because:
1) Fighters shouldn't have it (typical "light craft" unit)
2) Fighters shouldn't beat it (typical "low damage, high rate of fire" unit)

This however ends up conflicting with:
3) Bombers aren't the counter

Why not have fighters be armored? Frigates have range already.

[LaughingThesaurus]

What if we kept the same armor system, and only gave armor (in significant amounts) to only a few ships that use it as a distinguishing trait? So basically, tanks and armor ships and stuff. The thing is, if that was the case we would still have the problem of low damage high rof ships being bad against armor... but those aren't the ships that are supposed to fight armored ships. You bring in different ships for that. I'd even go as far as to say stuff like golems don't even get armor, unless it's explicitly supposed to be heavily armored (the armored golem). So, basically, either armor exists as a significant distinguishing ability, or it just doesn't exist on a given unit. We'll have the triangle ship that's kind of meant to armor pierce like you guys are saying... and that honestly seems like a decent way to go. So, you could end up with something like this.

Frigate: Slow, long range, lays down anti-armor fire from a distance.
Fighter: Expendable ships, armor plated for extra armor and health while they intercept bombers and take hits for the expensive ships.
Bomber: Very slow, vulnerable, but able to take down any heavy defense in the blink of an eye.

Well... something like this. Basically, whatever kind of triangle role discussion you guys are all talking about.

[Cyborg]

Phil and Buster are allegedly avid AI war players.

How about this system: The less armor you have, the more protected you are against a certain class of ships. I call this the Elven armor rule.

[LordSloth]

...I'm suddenly imagining a Fighter MKI in a chainmail bikini.

[Cyborg]

...I'm suddenly imagining a Fighter MKI in a chainmail bikini.

And that chain mail bikini has radar dampening.

[zoutzakje]

Just an idea here. Don't know if anybody has already suggested this but I think this could be a possible and perhaps logical solution.
This idea is based on simplifying the armor mechanic itself a lot, yet still making it interesting.
I'm thinking about removing the number or percentage of armor or armor piercing a ship has entirely. A ship has armor or it doesn't. A ship has armor piercing or it doesn't. Ships with armor are protecting their hull and are therefore immune to hull-type bonuses. Ships with armor piercing would bypass this armor (call it armor-ignoring or armor-bypass perhaps) and directly damage their hull, enabling any hull bonus they might have.
Carefully pick which ships/structures get armor and armor-bypass, making sure not to many get it so that ships without armor-bypass still have plenty of available targets for their hull bonuses. Try to balance it all somehow and voila, you got a simple yet interesting armor mechanic.
Armor would play a major role in the game this way ( depending on how many and what type of ships get armor/armor-bypass) and isn't that kind of what we always wanted? I've heard many people complain in the past about how armor doesn't make such a big impact. It also provides the player with more tactic decisions to make.
The only real downfall I can think of at this moment with this idea is the huge amount of time it will probably take to properly balance it. I could be missing something obvious though.

anyway, let me know what you guys think.

EDIT: depending on how you want to balance the different marks, you could give high marks armor/armor bypass more or less often.

[Diazo]

An interesting idea, but this would leave several ships without a counter.

A ships counter is determined by the attack bonuses, if you introduce a mechanic to ignore attack bonuses, you are removing counters from the game.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm just pointing out that this sort of change is significantly larger then it sounds like on paper.

The game is built around counters after all.

D.

[Gudamor]

anyway, let me know what you guys think.

I'm not sure how this differs, functionally, from creating a new hull type called Armored and only giving armor-piercing ships a multiplier against Armored hulls.

It would also create a situation where a ship with armor being targeted by a ship with armor-piercing does nothing, because the armor-piercing ship does not have a multiplier against that hull type. I worry that scenario would be counter-intuitive.

[zoutzakje]

anyway, let me know what you guys think.

I'm not sure how this differs, functionally, from creating a new hull type called Armored and only giving armor-piercing ships a multiplier against Armored hulls.

It would also create a situation where a ship with armor being targeted by a ship with armor-piercing does nothing, because the armor-piercing ship does not have a multiplier against that hull type. I worry that scenario would be counter-intuitive.

well, that's where the balancing would be for of course. Same story for what diazo said. There is no way this system would work properly with the current way hull type bonuses are in place. Like I said, I think it could be great, but it would most likely require to many tweaks and balancing. You'd have to look at every individual unit/mark and decide whether it should have armor/armor piercing or not. Not an easy task unfortunately

[Draco18s]

well, that's where the balancing would be for of course. Same story for what diazo said. There is no way this system would work properly with the current way hull type bonuses are in place. Like I said, I think it could be great, but it would most likely require to many tweaks and balancing. You'd have to look at every individual unit/mark and decide whether it should have armor/armor piercing or not. Not an easy task unfortunately

If we're going to do that, we might as well get it over with and just revamp the whole hull type system anyway.

(Because your idea is literally "new hull type: Armored")

[Tridus]

I'm thinking we need a poll to try and focus this discussion a bit more... in that spirit, here's what I think the ideas being thrown around can be summarized into:

• Remove armor entirely (tough ships just have lots of health instead), and repurpose or remove armor specific bonus ships (or make any new armor system limited to only the "armor as their gimmick" ships)
• Keep the current system of armor as a flat damage reduction per shot (with number tweaking)
• Change armor to a percentage based damage reduction (with base numbers of some form or another)
• Change armor such that it reduces the effect of damage multipliers against the armored ship
• Make an "armored" hull type, armor piercing ships get a bonus against it while nothing else does
• Replace armor and the current ship-type vs hull-type systems with a weapon-type vs hull-type+hull-size system (see http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12810.msg155784.html#msg155784 )
• take armor and piercing away from all ships that don't have it as their "gimmick" and make armor into a new mechanic that reduces damage based on the defending ship's mark advantage, and armor piercing into a new mechanic that gives ships an advantage based on the target's mark.
• Rework armor to be tied to range rather than shot power (like the old system)

Did I miss anything?

[TechSY730]

Two things:

1. an option to rework armor to be tied to range rather than shot power, like the old system. (Both the deterministic and randomized variants will fall under this category)

2. mention in your current option one that one of the possible reworking a of the currently armored ships could be making armor a "limited distribution gimmick". (Which covers all cases of whatever that new, limited distribution armor mechanic will be)