New Armor System

Well, the current armor system is good, but I think it has two basic problems:

1) Composite is the best, and most expensive, armor. Not really a "problem" per say, but why have one armor be the best with no weaknesses?

2) Certain armor types don't actually work. Take Absorbant and Reflective:

Absorbant - the faster a projectile moves, the more the damage is reduced. This would lead you to think absorbant is effective vs Cannons, Ranged Cannons, Railguns, DU MG's, and DU HMG's, right? Wrong - it's only really effective (at least from what I can see on the wiki) vs Ranged and Railguns. The MG's are totally unaffected as they are hitscan weapons and have "no speed" and thus are not even considered in the equation.

Reflective - the steeper the angle of attack, the more damage is resisted. This would seem to be effective against Cannons, Ranged Cannons, Railguns, DU MG's, DU HMG's, and possibly explosive based weapons (though I'm thinking that isn't the case at the moment) as those are weapons that would deliver less than maximum damage on a "glancing" hit. However, as with Absorbant, MG's are hitscan, and thus have no effect.

Reactive - disperses explosive based weapons. Thus you would assume it's good against HE Cannons, HE MGs, and most missile weapons (save for possibly Bio). However, it isn't that great vs HE Cannons, and again, MG's are hitscan and not taken into account.

Also, Absorbant and Reflective kind of step on each others toes a bit.

I'm thinking perhaps a general re-working of the system is in order?

All stats are PER PLATE of armor and are taken from the wiki (changes will be in red)

Nothing needs to change there - simple armor that works at game start, but isn't all that great.

Here, I cut the armor HP by 10 but increased the speed and angle modifiers to compensate.

Here, I simply boosted it's speed modifier and added in a 50% damage reduction vs DU mg's. This is the only effective solution I can think of due to the fact MG's currently have no speed and thus cannot be calculated without reworking MG's themselves.

Here I increased the armors health 5 hp, removed the angle modifier, and increased the damage reduction slightly. I'm thinking of maybe removing the speed modifier and instead having it take a straight 25% reduced damage from explosive weapons? I also added the 50% damage from HE MG's.

Here, I buffed the health and damage reduction of the armor, increased the cost, and added a slight angle modifier. However, to compensate, Composite now takes a slight damage penalty from Bio Weapons and DU/HE MG's. This gives it a weakness that helps to offset its massive health, and also gives a reason for absorbant and reflective armors to exist as a counter to those weapons.

For Bio armor, I increased the regeneration drastically (from .045 (dunno what this is a measure of) to a flat 5hp/second). To compensate, Regen armor now takes an ADDITIONAL 50% damage from bio weapons (for a total of 250% increase) plus takes more damage from faster projectiles and has a higher damage to heat.

Now we have an actual system that provides for accurate and usable counters against each type of weapon and armor. In fact, the only weapon NOT specifically countered here is the Plasma series, which is countered by Adv. Coolant engines anyway, and thus a moot point.

All values are subject to tweaking, and, as I said, this is just my personal take on how I thought the armor system could be improved without major re-coding of the entire system.

 

These are some interesting changes. It'd be nice if this was put in the scripts for all the beta testers to try. Could possibly be a good improvement.

 

Glad you thought so

I have to ask though - can we get official input on how the weapons speed, angle, and type affects damage calcs? The wiki isn't exactly specific

 

Lmao what.
If I remember correctly, 2.24 reflective modifier was like 1, and it was already OP.
As in, homing missiles hit the armor in such a way that they would do like 10 damage to armor.
By buffing it to 1.5 modifier, you could probably have 40 armor hp and it would still be among one of the strongest in the game...

Also, if the current regen rate is 0.045hp/sec, 5hp/sec would be ridiculous.
I could lose a plate per shot and as long as I hold at least 2 plates on every side, I could just keep on turning my tank in circles and never lose armor ever.

 

Kittamaru. I mean this in the nicest way possible, I assure you. You are stupid.

Reflective is the most powerful armour in the game, without a doubt. Buffing the reflective modifier to 1.5 would make it take pretty much 0 damage from anything, and that's not even an exaggeration. It'll already mitigate upto 85% of the damage on a BE heavy, depending on the area hit.

Seriously, I suggest you not only play the game, but do your research, before delving into the scripts.

 

Trickster, I mean this in the nicest way possible, I assure you - Learn 2 Read.

I stated quite bluntly that I wasn't 100% sure how the damage reduction system currently worked, and that the wiki wasn't exactly helpful, as it seems to only have part of the equation (maybe even an older one).

I also said that all values were able to be tweaked.

Now, I understand reflective is very potent atm - I think it SHOULD be potent, but have reduced effectiveness against missiles and HE cannons - after all, how do you reflect a contact explosion? You don't. At least, you shouldn't. As the explosion occurs point blank, and assuming we're using shaped/directed charges in everything but the nuke and default cannon (which makes far more sense than a simple, omni-directional blast when fighting armored vehicles) and you can see why reflective should have little, if any, effect against explosive based weapons.

HOWEVER, unless I'm mistaken, the game engine doesn't really differentiate between damage types like that, and everything is done via projectile speed. I could be wrong - hence why I said I'd like to know exactly HOW armor damage reduction due to angle and speed is currently calculated.

@ emcalex - true, at an extreme angle, reflective SHOULD take next to no damage. With an extreme angle being, say, a 10* deflection (meaning the projectile impacts at 10 degrees compared to 90). A 45 degree deflection should still impart a fair bit of its total damage.

Also, in regards to bio armor - I'm not sure how the regen system is calculated - its obviously far more than .045 hp/sec at the moment (otherwise it'd take over 1666 seconds or 27 minutes to regen ONE plate... that obviously isn't the case. However, if we make it a flat 5 hp/second, that would mean it takes 15 seconds to regen one plate. Considering that the armor takes more damage from ranged cannons and railguns and a whopping 250% damage increase from bio MG and bio missiles... it isn't truly that potent. It simply forces your enemy to switch tactics a little bit. Factor in the additional damage to heat, and without a good engine, you'll find yourself QUICKLY overheated and unable to do squat. Recall, even with Bio Diesel, you can move but not shoot when overheated

 

How it works:

Angle Modifier - Rather than changing the script, they keep fucking with it. I'll test it later, but there was a time when "1.00" meant 100% damage reduction if a shot hit perfectly parallel to the armor (essentially the ultimate glancing hit). Anything greater than 1.00 would mean greater than 100% damage reduction at at some angle.

Speed Modifier - Adds damage by a % of the weapon's speed. Most weapons have a speed between 1500 and 3000, so it doesn't vary greatly between weapons. Low damage weapons are more adversely affected. Reactive and absorbant use a negative modifier, which reduces damage by a %.

Regeneration - Honestly, I'm not sure, but I presume it regenerates a % of the base plate hp, as that would fit with the number given and the style of implementation for the other modifiers. It is probably multiplied by the number of plates equipped on that side (since one plate every 22 seconds doesn't reflect in-game experience). Hence, a heavy tank could be regenerating as much as 20hp/second, while a light tank only about 7hp/second.

 

The problem with reflective is that the efficency varies by the model.
Afvs for example dont benefit as much as a BE heavy does.
The other problem is that anti vehicle mg's do full damage, so the low
health of the armor makes it die super quick in dumg, hemg, etc... fire.

 

Bio > Regen
DUMG > Reflective
UML/HEMG > Absorbant
Guided/Homing/Rails > Reactive
...composite

PROBLEM.

 

Hm... I appreciate it mate. I have to say, that seems a little... convoluted... of a way to do things, but eh, it works.

If they add a speed to MG's (even if it's arbitrary and doesn't really do anything but factor for armor damage calcs) that would help.

I'll have to fiddle with the numbers at some point when I'm more awake, heh.

 

It's been fixed since 2.25a, clamped to 50%.

 

I see no problems with the current balance. Maybe only some little changes are needed for rarely used items.

And when you want to change armor values don't forget to keep the complete tree in mind.
For example physics and chemistry tree have weapons for every kind of tank. Especially APC weapons are important know. Therefore the armors should be weaker.
In contrast to this electrical tree is only for mediums and heavies and in biology you have no weapons for heavy tank. And both trees have no weapons for arty tanks.

Personally I would like to see statistics (especially for vehicle weapons) implemented first before the balance is changed again.

 

SIP, my idea was trying to keep the balance while adding in use for each armor as well as a counter for each armor.

And dizzy - I didn't realize that was clamped - interesting to note.

 

All you did was overdo the weaknesses and the strengths for each armor. You made a system that was, using X is good against Y, to, using X is the only thing to do against Y. Not a good idea.

 

Cyber - like I said, all values are open to tweaking. The big thing I was trying to do was make the advantages/disadvantages more useful as well as bring MG's into the mix

 

ya im actually pretty onboard for increasing the strengths and weaknesses of the armors. Not exactly like Kittamaru did it but the general idea. Cyber it would be a bad idea in the older 2.2 versions (not as much current) because the long ass research times give you no chance to use armor/engine/or weapon counters dynamically during a game. With reduced research times you should be able to alter your research without getting raped in the research race.

 

Keef, even if the research is a bit faster, it isn't a great idea. It is not fun to say, he has X armor, but I can only kill Y armor. While it is a good idea to adapt to the team, and even have more than one armor in a game, the player should never feel like they have no chance due to something as simple as armor.