The simplest implementation of a resist system I could think of: After you have researched the armor of your choice there are research options to get one kind of resist on your armor. Example: You research composite armor and want it to be better against missiles, so you spend some more to get Composite Armor (AM). It has no other downsides. Every armor has this for the three main damage types (Cannons, Missiles, Anti Vehicle Mgs) Every armor also has 1 "niche" armor that is unique to this armor. (at low costs) I know these niche armors aren't overly useful as a whole but until I find something more interesting they will do just fine. (Interesting: Something with completely new features) Here is the full list: Composite Armor Composite Armor (Anti Cannon) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Composite Armor (Anti Missile) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Composite Armor (Anti Bullet) - 40/30% damage /300 res/ 60 sec Composite Armor (Anti Mine) - 50% damage /200 res/ 30 sec Reactive Armor Reactive Armor (AC) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Reactive Armor (AM) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Reactive Armor (AB) - 40/30% damage /300 res/ 60 sec Reactive Armor (Anti Sticky) - 50% damage /200 res/ 30 sec Reflective Armor Reflective Armor (AC) - 20 % damage /400 res/ 90 sec Reflective Armor (AM) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Reflective Armor (AB) - 40/30% damage /300 res/ 60 sec Reflective Armor (Anti Artillery) -50% damage /200 res/ 30 sec Regenerative Armor Regenerative Armor (AC) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Regenerative Armor (AM) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Regenerative Armor (AB) - 40/30% damage /300 res/ 60 sec Regenerative Armor (Anti Grenade) - 50% damage /200 res/ 30 sec Absorbant Armor Absorbant Armor (AC) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Absorbant Armor (AM) - 20% damage /400 res/ 90 sec Absorbant Armor (AB) - 40/30% damage /300 res/ 60 sec Absorbant Armor (Anti Mortar) - 20% damage /200 res/ 30 sec Note: The niche armors like Reactive Armor (Anti Sticky) can easily be deactivated on flag maps. Discuss.
So you can only research one kind of resist per armor? So really all BE have to do is research anti missile armor all the time and NF have to research anti cannon armor?
Yes they have. This makes double weapons less OP and combinations out of cannons + missiles better. They have time to research these armor variants until the enemy gets heavies, which is long enough.
Ah cool, this is better than my idea. Might want to make them more expensive though, or longer. Want to have a drawback to having a greater armor vs. researching a better weapon or something. Also can we have the same for weapons maybe? :D
I think it seems a little redundant to be honest. Yes it may make combination loadouts more powerful but on the face of it, the best strategy for each side is to research the armor which opposes the enemy's most common weapon. So BE only researches missiles, because that's the most common NF weapon, and NF only researches cannons, because that's the most common BE weapon. You could get exactly the same effect by just giving each side automatic resistance against the enemy's favoured weapon type. All the other researches are somewhat pointless. Unless of course you know in advance the enemy is going to be APC rushing.
Yea and now imagine someone on NF gets behind the fact that BE always researches Anti Missile armor and goes for... railguns and DUMG. OMIGOD.
Yeah I like this.. Add in maybe a way for scouts to sab a radar and find out whats being researched or something like that nacho plug-in but instead of stealing research you just find out what you need to be effective. This would make protecting radars much more important.
Then they'll suck, because BE will have dual rail heavies which beat single rail NF heavies even if the NF heavies have better armor, they'd need twice as much to beat the BE heavies, and in the time leading up to that BE will have cannon tanks which own the fuck out of any sort of DU/HEMG based vehicle. The only possible benefit to this is that it makes APC rushes more valid, but as APC rushes are only moderately effective with the base armors we have now, it's not going to make much difference. Also even if they do research cannons, the BE should still research anti-missile armor because that will render more of their tank armaments useless, or at least less useful, even if the NF never use missiles the BE should have the anti missile armor because that prevents the NF from equipping their two missile slots and forces them to use their cannon slot in order to maximise armor/damage efficiency, and that makes their tanks weaker. Anti-missile armor reduces the potential firepower of NF tanks more than any other armor. There isn't any point researching anything other than your enemy's favoured weapon. Also, what's to stop BE going for armor which is already good against missiles and giving it cannon resistance? Or cannon armor and giving it missile resistance? If they can do that they get armor which beats everything in the game, and what's the point in ever reserarching other armors?
what about making something like this but in stead of "counter against missiles" they do "counter against weapon X"
Then it would be much more complicated and still boil down to 'research the weapon that does most damage to your tanks' Essentially this is just a research which nerfs a type of weapon for the enemy, and obviously you want to nerf their most powerful weapon, and they yours, and you'll always do that every singe round.
No you wouldn't, you'd research whatever you preferred for your strategy at the start, then you'd adjust with the new tree to counter whatever the enemy has. The strategy element isn't destroyed, just adjusted.
What does that mean? Your strategy is you want to reduce the enemy's ability to damage you, so you research the armor which blocks most of their weapons... There's no strategic desire to get hurt more, so you always research the best armor, and the best armor is the one which counters most of the enemy firepower. As anti-missile armor is available in every tree, it's not like you're saying 'well I'd like this armor but it's in another tree so I'll use that armor instead'.
Instead of resists, I would like to see advanced armors where the research actually makes the armors particular strengths more potent. Have each armor, for the sake of arguement, have 3 levels of development. Bio armor would be bio armor, but researching bio II would make it regen slightly faster, and maybe augment it's HP slightly more, or augment it's HP and keep the HP/s regen rate proportional. Otherwise, why get any other armor besides bio? If you did it as shown above, if you get bio and research all of the buffs, it would be a regenerating armor at a decent weight and cheap price.
You can't research all the buffs, you can only research one. Other than that the idea of enhancing existing armore perks is an interesting one, I can't see any major problems with it. You could also perhaps have armors like absorbant and composite become lighter with more research, for example composite starts out at weight twelve and goes down to eight after two upgrade researches, it's also cheaper to start with so people can spam it more, but it's also weaker to start with and doesn't get much better per plate than it is now, so it doesn't become a god armor by the end of the game, just a good armor for heavies. Absorbant goes down to ten with two upgrades and gets more resistance to fast cannons, reactive just gets tougher in general but stays heavy, and the others just have their respective bonuses enhanced. This also has the benefit of making some armors better for some chassis, obviously composite would be best on heavies because its low weight makes it spammable, super reactive would be good on lights etc.
I'm on the fence with this, I honestly have no idea how it'll play out ingame, and testing in our closed playtests won't work. Only public testing can say how well this will go.
Would be pretty cool if the top tier of regen armor would regen a side that is completely destroyed as long as you have some armor on both the sides surrounding it