I don't have a direct problem with that setup Tech, but one concern with such a system is no one wants to multiply out two values in play (and three would be right out). The armor value system gets around this by being a relatively minor factor, a simple percent, which people are good at groking. If I could get x6 armor Hull and x3 from armor, that's x18 which is a huge swing in damage. So I think enumerated Armor types would need to end up translating to simple percents (20% reduction, 40% reduction, etc) that are cancelled by the attacker's Armor Piercing. Think how AP works in Warhammer 40K (basically, Armor Piercing is all or nothing).
That would work too. Actually, having armor being enumerated, but the boost/reduction depends on the ship
recieving the shot rather than the ship shooting it would work well, while still keeping the system simple.
Okay. I have apparently lost everyone and seem to be on an entirely different bookself, not just on a different page then everyone else.
So, in my opinion here is what I see as being broken with armor and what I am trying to fix.
First, right now there is a single armor mechanic in the game, 'Numerical Armor' that many ships have reasonably low values of, usually to give them a bit more survival for balance purposes.
This is countered by the ability armor-piercing usually given to fighter/interceptor types.
The first problem is that the 'Armored/Armor-Piercing' mechanic that was added by giving ships crazy high armor and armor-piercing that turned armor into a binary Yes/No if a ship is armored. All of a sudden ships with lower armor and armor piercing might as well not have had it because there are these ships with 500,000 armor and 500,000 armor piercing flying around, 300 armor is effectively the same as 0 armor now.
My issue with this is I like the numerical armor system as it stands, it gives a fine degree of control over how survivable ships are without making changes to their health or to the attack multipliers of ships attacking them and allows the slower RoF, higher damage bombers to fulfill their role of bombers rather then be just another ship.
It's just the ships with crazy-high armor and armor-piercing break the system so I am trying to separate the two which is where I started getting into Hull Types and all that and then into making Armored an ability.
Look at the Armor Ship, 1,500 armor at Mk. I. That more like what I want to see as a numerical armor value, not the Armored Golems 500,000 armor, that should be a binary flag of some sort. (or ship abilities or etc.)
Thinking on it, I guess it could work, define a "Armored" ship as 500,000 armor and all "Armor-Piercing" ships get 500,000 armor piercing. Then because those values stay static as the binary flags the ships with lower armor and armor-piercing can then be balanced as numerical values.
So something like an Armored Golem has 500,000 armor because it is "Armored" and then maybe an additional 5000 armor because of it's size. Where-as the Armor Ship would just get 500,000 armor for being "Armored" but nothing more then that because it is a fleet ship.
And ships that are "Armor-Piercing" would get 500,000 armor piercing ability to counter them. So attacking the Golem above would still have 5000 effective armor and the Armor Ship would have 0 effective armor.
This allows the armor and armor-piercing relationship of other ships such as the fighter and bomber to still have meaning without moving them into the "Armored" and "Armor-Piercing" binary flags.
The alternative is to get rid of crazy high armor to get rid of the binary "Armored" state. Give something like the Armored Golem high but not crazy-high armor and make sure no ships in the game have crazy-high armor piercing so numerical armor is not simply ignored like it is at the moment. (Giving health boosts in return if needed for balancing purposes.)
Bottom line, numerical values should not be used to define binary states, if you are doing so it can be re-worked to work better.
(That raises the question of if it is good enough as is, but we are throwing ideas out here.)
The other issue I have with armor is Mark levels. The same type of ship should not get a 40% difference in damage for a difference of a single mark level.
I'm not sure what to do about this one. I like the numerical armor system and would rather not see the LoL formula that was being thrown around earlier implemented. The fact that the armor system is in straight numbers is its big advantage to me, which is also why I don't want to see something percentage based implemented.
Having said that, is this an issue that needs changing? A Mk II ship is supposed to be worth roughly 2 Mk I ships after all.
Hmmm.
The more I look at this and actually reference numbers from the Wiki, the more I am starting to ask myself 'does this actually need changing?'.
The way I envision armor working is it is background number you can pay attention to if you want to but it's major purpose is for balancing to give the developers finer control over how survivable a ship is, it is not something I think players should be looking at as a primary stat.
I'm actually starting to think the current system actually works pretty good, there are just a few outliers, such as the raid starship or armored golem that need tweaking.
Let's back off a minute here, in your opinion what is actually broken about the current armor system that needs fixing?
D.
Agreed. My suggestion above was about if the armor system were to be refactored. However, I think that a rebalancing under the current system is probably a better course of action.
Some of the things that are making armor feel "binary":
1. 20% mininimum damage due to armor. That is too high, and it means that increases in armor can very quickly stop starting to matter (thus giving that "binary" feel) 5% (what it was originally) turned out to be too low, so maybe something like 10% or so?
2. Too many ships with high armor rating and armor piercing values. Not that these sort of ships shouldn't exist, but rather, they should not be as common as they are now. Things like 500,000 armor or armor piercing should be reserved for superweapon class stuff, like golems, or maybe not even them, but only the true super-superweapon stuff (like the avenger or something) (exception, units that have an alternate damage computation, where damage reduction from armor would mess with it. Those should have a basically 999,999 armor piercing)
3. Disparity between armor and average damage. IIRC, the calculations of average armor and average damage (excluding self-destructing ships) from the last discussion showed that armor was around 1.2 orders of magnitude below weapon damage. This is why low armor values seem to do nothing, because average armor values are actually low armor values compared to the expected amount of damage one can take. Boosting up the average armor (maybe to, idk, on average .5 orders of magnitude below average weapon damage?) should help make armor seem more significant.
Your observation that armor shouldn't go up with Mk. is a good one. Thanks to how the formulas work, the effective armor of a group of ships is the
average of all the armors, unlike HP where the effective HP would be the sum of all the HPs. This would imply that the armor of 2 ships of Mk. I would be the armor of one of those ships, which would imply that Mk. II (which is balanced like 2 Mk. I ships) would also have an armor of a single Mk. I ship.
I don't think that units with a ultra-high armor rating need to have a different flag reserved for that. After all, ships with infinite range are denoted with 999,999,999 (or something) range (which strikes me as odd, why not display Inf for range like with ship cap?), and even ships with an effectively but technically not infinite range (like cursed golems with their, what was it, 200,000,000 range) don't cheapen that "middlin'" ranges. Same with armor piercing. I think that is because the number of mobile ship types with that sort of range is severely restricted, while there are many mobile ships out there with that 100,000+ armor rating. Having a ludicrously large armor or armor piercing value (again, with the exception of ships with special damage computations) should be something very special, just like ludicrously high ranges are.
