Mayamas suggestion to make every armor unique and interesting

Ok i should have put a foreword to the whole suggestion

Each armor (exept reactive) should have the same ammount of hp, every armor (exept composite) should cost the same per plate, same for weight. The only difference between each armor is how it works.

Regen:
Keep it as it is now, super fast regeneration and low base health. Makes it very powerfull against very fast firing but low damage weapons but sucks against slow firing high powered weapons

Absorbant:
It absorbs the shock, means each hit damages each side of the tank equaly. Its hard to pierce through a specific side of a tank with absorbant armor but on the other hand if someone manages to remove all plates from one side you are basicaly screwed.

Reactive:
Consists of plates that get destroyed (instead of the tank) when a projectile hits it. In game terms that means every additional plate of the armor has more hp than the previous. Like for example the first plate on one side has 5 hp the second one 10 hp and the third 15 hp etc...

Edit to explain reactive a little bit better:
Ok for example you have 3 plates of armor on one side. The plate closest to the Tank has 5 hp, the second 10 and the last 15. It only "makes sense" if you can carry alot of plates. Lets say every armor has 10 hp in the game. So with 3 plates of reactive you have the same amount of hp as any other armor but if you put more plates on your tank you get the most hp possible. Its not an armor for light tanks, its an armor to breach chokepoints with meds and heavys.

Edit: another suggestion for reactive:
Reactive cant lose more than a single plate per hit. That means hard hitting weapons like nukes or HE cant remove multible plates in one hit. To make it work better I suggest that dual hits of HE,UML,ranged etc count as one hit.

Reflective:
Reflects each projectile a bit from its original direction. That means everytime something damages a plate 25% (example) of its damage gets substracted. This means its a good armor against high damage, low rate of fire weapons but its kinda weak against the opposite, high rate of fire - low damage weapons.

Edit to make reflective actually work: (i keep the original so their are no quotes without a target)
Reflective removes half the damage of a projectile in percent. For example dumg does 10 damage (10 - 50% = 5) the damage gets reduced by 5%. HE shells do 60 damage (60 - 50% = 30) the damage gets reduced by 30%. I am just throwing random numbers around I doubt that in the real game 50% is a good value.

Composite:
Just a better version of Paper like it is now. (give it a flat damage reduction so every armor has the same hp)

(edit)
Summary:

Because every armor has the same hp (exept reactive) and the only difference is how it works its easy to understand for newbies. You dont even need to explain players how it works. Its enough if you read that in the layout menu:

Regen = regenerates, good against high rof-low damage weapons / bad against low rof-high damage weapons

Reflective = reduces the incoming damage, good against low rof-high damage weapons / bad against high rof-low damage weapons

Absorbant = the damage spreads equaly over all sides of the tank, good for defending because each side has the power of all plates but not very good for attacking cause you are screwed if you get hit on multible sides

Reactive = each extra plate on a side of the tank has twice (twice = example) the hp of the previous one. Good for attacking with heavy armored meds and heavys, not so good for defending cause focused fire on one side kills you fast.

Composite = extremly though armor that costs twice (twice = example) the resources per plate.

 

I like absorbant and will back that 100%.

Seriously, I think that's a great idea.

The only thing I have a problem with is reactive, since I don't quite understand how that would work in practice. The last plate would be the toughest...? Would that actually mean anything overall, or just be exactly the same as it is? - since overall health is say 30HP, even if the first plate is 5HP, the second is 10HP and the third is 15HP. Nothing really changes, right?

 

It makes perfect sense, Mayama is saying that it should be a 25% damage reduction.

The problem is that he forgot that multiplication is distributive over addition, so if it's just a flat 25% reduction on a per-shot basis, it doesn't matter what the rate of fire is, it'd have the same net effect against all weapons.

 

Do you frequent the forums often?

http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=16253

And that's only the most recent instance. I'm sure all of those ideas have popped up at least once. There's rarely any "new" ideas here.

Sweeping "overhaul" suggestions are unnecessary. They rarely fix actual problems; they are just some guy's creative opinion. When you make a suggestion, it's important not to step on creative toes. There's a difference between a creative choice and a gameplay solution.

Goodness, I can't believe I have to say this to a guy with four years and almost 6000 posts under his belt.

I think he meant that a projectile can only pierce one plate of armor, then it stops. I think that's sorta how reactive armor works in real life. You hit the armor and that "plate" is completely gone (it explodes), but it completely stops the projectile in its tracks. Protection from another hit in the exact same spot would require another plate behind it.

Yeah, if you want an armor that's good against slow heavy-hitting weapons, but weak against fast weapons, then his solution doesn't do it. To achieve that, you lop off a huge percentage (like 70%), then add a small-ish flat damage amount (say 15 damage). So the armor would be tough against any weapon that does more than 50 damage per hit (15 damage / (1-70%) , but weak against anything that does less than 50 damage per hit.

e.g. HEC normally does 75 damage per hit. 75*(1-0.7)+15 = 37 damage.

DU normally does 8 damage per hit. 8*(1-0.7)+15 = 17 damage.

So DU does double damage and HEC does half damage (success!), and it's all packed into one cute little continuous function! Your welcome, Mayama.

 

Maybee make it "the more damage the projectile does, the more precent is substracted"

Ok for example you have 3 plates of armor on one side. The plate closest to the Tank has 5 hp, the second 10 and the last 15. It only "makes sense" if you can carry alot of plates. Lets say every armor has 10 hp in the game. So with 3 plates of reactive you have the same amount of hp as any other armor but if you put more plates on your tank you get the most hp possible. Its not an armor for light tanks, its an armor to breach chokepoints with meds and heavys.

 

Lol, doesn't that tell you something..?

 

So now you want it to be exponentially increasing? Make up your mind!

But wouldn't a light tank have 10 and 15HP per plate? So it would be worse for heavies and meds?

Or do you mean that an LT should get 5 and 10HP per plate, and heavies should get deeper plates with more HP?

That would actually be a really good replacement for paper armor. Shitty on LTs and APCs, but kinda useful of heavies. Right now, paper is worthless as soon as you get another armor. That kind of a setup would make it an option throughout the game.

 

If I had control over empires I personaly would screw paper armor and let the commander select one armor (exept compo) for free at the start of the round.

 

Why stop there? Why not just let a com pick a tree and get the engine and armor from that tree?

Or hell, just give them the entire tree and remove all regular starting weapons!

That would be some interesting gameplay...

 

Well the commander would have to counter enemy researchs instead of blindly guessing what the other team might have in 3 min.

 

Yeah, it'd only be fun for a change of pace. Something that you play in a pug once every few months. Definitely not fit for regular pub play.

 

Absorbant I like.
Will discuss this with trickster.

Also how about if reactive can only ever lose 1 plate at a time to damage.

Like, it has fairly low health, but if you get hit with a nuke or a super powerful weapon, you can only lose one plate.

It'd work well against more powerful low rate of fire weapons (that we plan to add) but be crap vs fast fire rate guns.

 

That's what I thought he meant when I read the OP, prolly since that's how it works for real.

Then again, hemg/du/biomg vs reactive would be a pretty horrid experience on the recieving end.

 

agreed on absorbant, probly best idea for this armor in a long time.

reactive = seems to me like this is what he was suggesting, but if not it's an improvement and scrap the 'HP difference' idea and just give it that 'ONE SHOT PER PLATE' effect, but perhaps add a limiter on HIGH RoF weapons, so that the tanks dont get chewed up by a random DUMG APC.

Not sure how the limiter would work, but maybe something like this:

1 IF 'tank(unique) firing at you' = has hit you in last 2.4 seconds THEN GOTO 5
5 ONLY One Plate of ARMOR Subtracted
10 GOTO Line 1

just an example, but absorbant dispersion across the plates ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE.

 

Change it from "losing one plate" to "never lose more than one plate in one hit" means it still has HP that dumg can eat through but at the same time a single hit can never kill more than one plate.

 

thats what i meant, but i think otherwise on the second part, imo it shouldn't continue to take damage on the next plate for a brief time, hence the REACTIVE part.

The armor is reacting to environment and the damage and will then finally dissolve away after predetermined time amount. (in example it was 2.4 seconds, should probly be less)

After dissolving and 'reacting' then normal damage ensues on next plate.

If you don't have some kind of time limit, then the HIGH RoF weapons will decimate the armor to shreds.

 

Reactive armor IRL

It's not some magic compound ala regen that "reacts to the environment", its explosive charges attached to the tank that blows up when a sensor detects incoming ammunition. Or friendly infantry throwing rocks at the midgets in the saridine can. Messy stuff.

Anyways, I think I understand what you mean. The plates got the same amount of HP as always, that high ROF weaponry will chip away at like before. Just that there is now a hard cap on the amount of damage a single round can deliver to the tanks plates. Once the amount of damage exceeds the HP of the top layer, the rest of the damage is disregarded.

Not bad in theory, but for a shaped charge ERA style armor to counter a miniature nuke? It'd take an explosion of the same magnitude.

:eek: :D

NUKE ARMOR, FUCK YEAH!

 

I really like these idea's for every armor except compo and reflective, compo should get something better and reflective I dont really understand so yeah.
The absorbant idea is great although I think if you wanna implement it there is going to need a lot of fucking balancing. Reactive I find good aswell although it should be 5 10 20 30 40 imo. if you have 4 plates of reactive on any tank you'll not have that many weapons or just non, 3 plates on a medium will maybe give you 1 weap, so yeah or else it wouldnt make that much of a difference.

edit: fuck off imspartacus

 

Haven't read all the replies. Absorbant I already discussed with Mayama a few weeks ago, and I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that was my idea that I told you. Either way, I obviously still support it for Absorbant. And as we discussed last night, the Regen trick I've tried is genuinely working, so it is as you say in the suggestion (you know this, but others don't), so again, I obviously support this.

But at the same time, I quite like including your 2nd Reactive idea for Absorbant, making a limit of 1 plate per hit.

But I'm not 100% sure about everything else. I'm not a fan of the Reactive idea, I was more up for splitting each plate into 4-6 subplates across, like Reactive bricks, so you had more localised bits to destroy, as well as allowing wraparound damage a bit more, so hitting the front left of the tank hurt both the side and the front (just at the edges).

Reflective idk, and by "idk", I mean I have no idea what you mean.

Composite idk, but a different "idk". In this case, I mean that I've always wanted to make it a bit different, because one uber expensive armour that's just better kind of sucks. If anything, your reactive idea should apply to composite, that could be pretty interesting.

Either way, the regen idea is definitely working so I'm way more encouraged to start diversifying the armours more, which I've been trying to do for months, but I have sort of realised that it's just not going to happen without code support.