[Legate Damar]

Is it possible to have a ship that starts with a default armor and then whenever it is hit with a weapon its armor automatically changes to the armor that's most effective against that type of weapon?

[MatthTheGeek]

If it would do that every single time it gets hit, then there's absolutely no way for the player to see the change. So it's probably easier to have just one static armor class that is efficient against everything and just tell the player it adapts.

[Legate Damar]

Well the idea is you have to hit it with multiple types of weapons simultaneously to beat it.

[MatthTheGeek]

You can control the armor class with sexps, but I am not sure you can know what kind of weapon hit your ship from the sexp side. This question might be better answered in the FRED discussion board.

[mormon_boy]

add a weapon that is effective and tell the player it does that by using multiple weapon types at once

[Aginor]

I think that's not what he wants to do. I read it more that way:

- player shoots at ship with lasers, does a little bit of damage, after that the armor just absorbs all laser shots.
- player has to switch weapons. He uses photon guns. He does a bit of damage but then the armor reacts.
- player switches to full guns, using laser and photon guns to blow the ship apart because the armor can't adjust to this,
or maybe he has only one type of weapon aboard. So he asks another ship for help. Combined they can destroy the target.

[jr2]

Hmm.  Do I smell a Borg vessel?

[Nuke]

you could just fake it by giving it an armor that is resistant to all weapon types. and throw in a little bit of randomness to make it seem like its adapting.

[headdie]

Hmm.  Do I smell a Borg vessel?

I wondered about that lol.

Would this be possible/better done with scripting to switch between armour types? 

I can see why doing a basic simulation is far better than an universal block all armour because the armour is supposed to adapt to incoming fire so the system starts at either a general setting or the last used, gets hit a couple of times by a weapon type and switches to a more suitable setting for the remainder of the burst so the first few hits will do much more damage than the last few until the attacker changes weapon type.

[Legate Damar]

Hmm.  Do I smell a Borg vessel?

That was my inspiration, yes.

[Nuke]

Hmm.  Do I smell a Borg vessel?

I wondered about that lol.

Would this be possible/better done with scripting to switch between armour types? 

I can see why doing a basic simulation is far better than an universal block all armour because the armour is supposed to adapt to incoming fire so the system starts at either a general setting or the last used, gets hit a couple of times by a weapon type and switches to a more suitable setting for the remainder of the burst so the first few hits will do much more damage than the last few until the attacker changes weapon type.

that should work. just use the weapon collision hook to change the armor based on the weapon's armor type. to make it more realistic id add some delay to the switch or limit the number of switches allowed per unit of time, or perhaps switch to a weak armor type for a coupe seconds before changing to the appropriate armor type. this opens the ship up to take damage during the switch.  makes the armor vulnerable to mixed ammo and being hit with a wide range of damage types. if you just wanted an instant switch though you are better off just fudging harder than usual armor. because you have, in effect, super armor. you can probibly achieve interesting gameplay mechanics with this, like hitting the ship with energy weapons to soften it up for some heavy cannon.