Ye Ol' Armor Debate

[Wingflier]

Excuse me, I may have misunderstood the point of this as well. I thought we had decided that hull type distribution was just as much of a problem as armor effectiveness, and that the rebalance was going to address both.

Oh, no, I think the hull multiplier system could be better (I'd prefer weapon type vs hull type instead of ship type vs hull type, but it's a lot better than the old ship type vs ship type), but I don't think it's even really in need of a significant refactor, let alone as much as armor.

Okay, that was the misunderstanding then because I thought that it was just as important and connected with the armor issue. Specifically the fact that Heavy and Ultra-Heavy have such a disproportionate amount of ships, and that ships with the Light and Ultra Light hull type category are so weak that a bonus isn't really needed against them anyway. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7867

Can you explain how the new armor system addresses this? I'm probably missing something sorry.

[Wingflier]

Excuse me, I may have misunderstood the point of this as well. I thought we had decided that hull type distribution was just as much of a problem as armor effectiveness, and that the rebalance was going to address both.

Oh, no, I think the hull multiplier system could be better (I'd prefer weapon type vs hull type instead of ship type vs hull type, but it's a lot better than the old ship type vs ship type), but I don't think it's even really in need of a significant refactor, let alone as much as armor.

Hull type and hull type bonus distribution would certainly use some work as well, (see 7867: Balance distribution of hull types (especially Heavy, Ultra Heavy, and Command Grade)) but I don't think the hull type situation is nearly as bad as the current armor situation. However, considering that both armor and hull type are pervasive mechanics that influence net damage, I think people were suggesting it would be sense to rebalance both at the same time, so they can be balanced together instead of separately. This way, we don't have to risk the rebalance of what comes second throwing off the balance of the net damage distribution that we got from the first rebalance.

Thank you for articulating this better than I could. I just assumed we were trying to kill two birds with one stone in this rebalance.

[keith.lamothe]

Two birds with one stone would probably be a bridge too far in the current timeframe, even assuming you don't thrown rotten fruit at my glass house for that mixed metaphor

I don't mind shifting what ships get what, but in general heavy/ultraheavy/structural is what we give stuff that we want killed with the siege-ish weapons like bombers, and the rest are kind of whatever fits, trying to make sure there are representatives of each kind and that the "value" of a given ship's bonus types are kept in mind.  Having a bonus against structural counts a lot more when I'm balancing something than a bonus against swarmer or light or whatever.

[Wingflier]

Okay, then how do we prevent bombers, with the new armor system, from being disproportionately powerful and necessary while units like fighters and other weak ships with rare hull types from existing just to counter bombers or have some other extremely niche role?

[Wanderer]

Okay, then how do we prevent bombers, with the new armor system, from being disproportionately powerful and necessary while units like fighters and other weak ships with rare hull types from existing just to counter bombers or have some other extremely niche role?

Zero Armor Piercing comes to mind as an easy solution.  I tend to think of Bombers more as the ol' B-52s with guided dumb bombs than piercing bunker busters.  Frigate missiles are more in line (in *my* mind) for that.

[Diazo]

Having thought about it, right now I have two main goals for armor:

1) Be able to have some "armored" types that have a higher "effective" cap-health against types that lack sufficient armor-piercing.
2) Be able to have those same "armored" types have a higher "effective" cap-health against types that rely on high rate-of-fire.

Need a math double check here, I don't think the new system fits point 2.


Ship 1: 100 dmg, 1 second reload.
Ship 2: 500 dmg, 5 second reload.

Both ships do 1000 damage to an unarmored target over 10 seconds.

However, against a ship with 1000 armor, so 50% reduction.

Ship 1: 50:(100/2) dmg, 1 second reload.
Ship 2: 250:(500/2) dmg, 5 second reload.

Both ships do 500 damage to a target with 1000 armor over 10 seconds.

Therefore, rate-of-fire does not matter for damage percentage done, because it's reduced by a set percentage the percentage reduced is always the same.

Unless you manually add something like: For every 2 seconds reload over 4 seconds, unit gets 50 Armor-Piercing.

This does not make this change something that should not happen, but it does not meet one of the stated goals at this point.

D.

[Wanderer]

You're quite right, Diazo.  However, none of the percentage systems really would affect that, given equivalent armor piercing.  The old system simply gave inbound damage a haircut, which effectively reduced low-damage shots to a higher percentage than high-damage shots.

Of course, I have no solution that isn't worse than the current method, so I've mostly just tried to follow along.

[Hearteater]

That's what this does:

1) Change armor_piercing calculation from just a type-specific bonus to (some_function(log10(damage_per_shot))) + type_specific_armor_piercing_bonus, with the result being a value between 0 and 1 with 0 meaning no armor piercing and 1 meaning "ignore armor".  This number is precomputed for each type and would be based off the "mark I" damage per shot for that ship type, rather than scaling with mark.  All the player sees for this stat is a % of armor penetration, so they don't need to know how it got that.

It creates a multiplier for armor, that reduces (or in theory, could increase) the actual armor value of a ship based on the attack damage of the attacker.  Note that against unarmored targets, this does nothing.

[Diazo]

Okay, it seems that I am once again off on my own page in another book entirely.

Are we talking about most ships in the game have 0 armor and 0 armor piercing with a few exceptions such as heavy bombers or "armor" ships?

Or are we talking about every ship in the game having 100 - 200 base armor as well as 5-10% armor piercing?


And I've seen two methods for Armor Piercing tossed around. Reduces effective armor or cancels out armor.

Reduces effective armor. Ship A with 50% (1000) armor is attacking by a ship with 50% armor-piercing. Ship A's armor is reduced by 50% so it has 500 armor against the attack.

Cancels armor: Ship A with 50% (1000) armor is attacking by a ship with 50% armor-piercing. Ship A's armor is directly canceled out and so has no effective armor against the attack.

D.

edit: The most recent version of the formula that I can find as posted by Keith:

Max(
   damage_per_shot * Max(1,(1000/(1000+Armor))+Armor_Piercing_Percent)
   , damage_per_shot*0.1
)

I don't get the '+Armor_Piercing_Percent', how do you add a percentage? I thought you'd be multiplying it.

[Hearteater]

Keith's answer to that is here:

So I think modifying it to simply subtract the armor_piercing_% from the armor_% (minimum zero) and multiplying damage by (1-that) would achieve basically the same thing while being more intuitive.

But basically, it is your second example.

[Wanderer]

That's what this does:

1) Change armor_piercing calculation from just a type-specific bonus to (some_function(log10(damage_per_shot))) + type_specific_armor_piercing_bonus, with the result being a value between 0 and 1 with 0 meaning no armor piercing and 1 meaning "ignore armor".  This number is precomputed for each type and would be based off the "mark I" damage per shot for that ship type, rather than scaling with mark.  All the player sees for this stat is a % of armor penetration, so they don't need to know how it got that.

It creates a multiplier for armor, that reduces (or in theory, could increase) the actual armor value of a ship based on the attack damage of the attacker.  Note that against unarmored targets, this does nothing.

Hearteater, I'm afraid I'm just not seeing how that affects low damage high ROF ships from incurring the same DoT as high damage low ROF ships.  Percentages are percentages.  If the base DoT is equal (and so is the Armor Piercing percentage result), then the applied damage would be equivalent.

What am I missing in that?

[Diazo]

For the rate of fire to affect armor piercing, rate of fire, not damage, would have to be used for the armor piercing calculation.

I think the assumption is that high RoF ships are comparatively low damage is why damage was used in the example calculation Keith gave.

Having said that, I think I'd prefer a squared calculation rather then a log for armor piercing.

If I remember my math classes right, a log begins by increasing rapidly then leveling off while a square function starts out slowly and start going up rapidly as the values get bigger.

This is really a preference rather then an issue with the system, I'm coming down on the side of firepower. Bombards which are on a 30 second reload with really high attack power should get a suitably high armor piercing to go along with it.

By using a square rather then a log function, the highest damage units in the game will never hit the damage cap. I would prefer that to having the highest armor units in the game have all attacks against them damage capped. (Without manual armor piercing bonuses added to specialty ships.)

D.

[Hearteater]

It works like this, there is a second multiplier each attacking ship has that is applied to the Defender's Armor.  Basically, the Defender only gets X% of his Armor against each attacking ship.  The calculation of the X% is using some (undetermined) formula based on the attacking ship's attack damage.  So an Autocannon Minipod does 560 damage per attack.  The formula Keith picks might translate this into 100%, meaning Armor is 100% effective against them.  AKA, you actually get your listed Armor against them.  Meanwhile, an Artillery Golem might get 50%, meaning Armor is only 50% effective against them, before Armor Piercing is even applied.  I think I'd prefer a 50% to 150% range for this, but Keith's current proposal has a 0% - 100% range.

TL;DR: Every attack has "built-in" Armor Piercing that gets higher the more damage the ship does with one attack.  This may either combine additively with standard Armor Piercing, or it may reduce the target's Armor multiplicatively and then Armor Piercing would get subtracted from the remaining Armor.

[Diazo]

Wait, that's separate?

I took that to mean that every ship would get a small amount of armor piercing based on its base damage and RoF so that armor is more effective against low damage/high RoF ships in comparison.

Then special ships, such as the Anti-Armor ship would then have there armor piercing boosted further because that is appropriate to their special role.

I did not rthink it was going to be an entire separate mechanic.

D.

[Hearteater]

I'm not sure how to respond.  What do you mean by separate?  It sounds like you do get it, but you say you don't so I'm confused .

There are TWO source of effective Armor Piercing.  One is derived from a ship type's attack damage (let's call this AM for Armor Mod).  The other is a stat assigned to the ship type, called Armor Piercing (let's call this AP).  How exactly they combine is a little unclear.  I originally proposed: Actual Armor = Armor * AM - AP.  Keith's write up might be indicating this instead: Actual Armor = Armor - AM - AP.