[Liberator]

How about adding different armor types?

I was thinking that all ships have a basic amount of standard armor, say about 1/2 their total HP.  Then they could have different types for the other 1/2 based on what their designed role is.

Deflective: takes only a small percentage of damage from energy weapons like big ship lasers and beams(maybe through flak in too), fighter cannons need not even try.  How ever it would take 2x damage from bombs and missiles since they explode all at once.

Ablative would only take full damage from beams  and high energy cannons, 1/8th damage from fighter cannons and 1/2 damage from bombs.

Deflective ships would be would be primarily assault ships that go diving into battle with heavy hitters who mount lots of beams and heavy cannons.  Ablative would be for defensive ships who screen fighters and bombers to prevent them from deploying their ordiance that would kill the deflective ships quickly.

[Carl]

and interesting idea, but the numbers are a bit too extreme. for instance, instead of ablative taking 1/8 damage from fighter cannons, make it more like 1/3.

[Liberator]

The numbers are example only and should be able to be set via TBLs or something.

[Flaser]

I think a full blown armor simulation would be easier than making up some "grades of armor" and implementing them on a case-by-case basis,

Idea:
*people wih good memory or keen sense of mantras already know what's coming*

My beloved Armor Treshold + Armor Resistance model from Fallout along with the multi type damage.

Implementation:

Serious table tweaking. + Modified damage code.

Example table enrty for a ship's amor:

• ------------Armor Treshold/Armor Resistance
• Laser---------------------30/15%
• Beam------------------- 120/7.5%
• Kinetic--------------------15/30%
• Explosive---------------- 30/45%
• Penetrating--------------12/12%
• Pressure/Area-----------20/85%

Whenever a hit occurs damage treshold is substracted from the damage, then the resistance*damage is subtracted.
Why the two values?

Imagine a function graph:
Treshold is just what it says - the armor can absorb and dilute this ammount of damage without any difficulty.
It sets the starting point of the graph.
Resistance is the steepness of the graph telling how adept the armor is at resisting that type of damage once it's treshold has been breached.

The types of damage should be weapon flags - all weapons should have at least one.
Most are obviously mutually exclusive (like laser/beam/kinetic), but when more than one are assigned the lowest value from the different stats are used.
For example an area affecting beam: GTVA implemented a beam system where fissioning materials are injected into the reactor plasma steam. As a result the beam emmits radiation all around itself, so being near one will also do some splash damage.

You can complicte that one by adding subsytem damage, but that should be more of a weapon's thing.

[aldo_14]

It probably would make the techroom data for 'Armour' a bit more enlightening.  I wouldn't want to over-complicate it though; otherwise the actual effect might become more or less invisible to the user.

[Lynx]

If anything, the ship should be split up in different armor sections. The way the damage system works now you can soot at those antennaes on an Orion until it blows up. I'm not advocating realism or something, but that's just absurd.

[Carl]

It's probably best done the way the weapons do it:

$Armor Factor:                 0.7
$Shield Factor:                  0.9
$Subsystem Factor:                 0.3

doing armor the same way it would be something like:

$Laser Factor:                 0.7       ;;damage done by laser
$Missile Factor:                  0.9       ;;damage done by missile or bomb
$Beam Factor:                 0.5       ;;damage done by beam weapons

[Taristin]

Twould be nice...  And if it could be done for subsystems, as well... (I mean destroyable subsystems) Like for the AWACS, to have a higher damage rate than the rest of the ship?  I'm asking for , though.

[Goober5000]

What's wrong with just increasing the hull strength?

[Solatar]

How would we get this balanced so it retains backwards compatability?

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Goober5000
What's wrong with just increasing the hull strength?

That doesn't allow a weakness to a certain type of weapon type.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by Solatar
How would we get this balanced so it retains backwards compatability?

Originally posted by Carl
It's probably best done the way the weapons do it:

$Armor Factor:                 0.7
$Shield Factor:                  0.9
$Subsystem Factor:                 0.3

doing armor the same way it would be something like:

$Laser Factor:                 0.7       ;;damage done by laser
$Missile Factor:                  0.9       ;;damage done by missile or bomb
$Beam Factor:                 0.5       ;;damage done by beam weapons

Carl's pretty close.  When not entered (the default) everything gets set to 1 so it doesn't change existing gameplay mechanics at all.  Missile and Bomb should probably be seperate though.

[Solatar]

Alright, sounds like an idea.

[SadisticSid]

Can we just have a global damage threshold/damage resistance modifier for all weapon types first? e.g. a Subach could do no damage to an Orion while a Maxim would be way above the threshold and cause proportionally more damage.

[StratComm]

Backwards compatability would die though.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by StratComm
Backwards compatability would die though.

Just keep a default armour setting for that sort of thing;

if (for example)

$Laser Factor: 0.7 ;;damage done by laser
$Missile Factor: 0.9 ;;damage done by missile or bomb
$Beam Factor: 0.5 ;;damage done by beam weapons

Where the 0.7 equates to '70% damage' and soforth, the default would be

$Laser Factor: 1.0
$Missile Factor: 1.0
$Beam Factor: 1.0

I think.

Actually, I think this would very, very useful for what I want to do.  Better still would be to able to create a weapons type flag (i.e. "plasma") and allow that to be linked to a specific damage type, but I'm not sure how dynamic you could make that sort of thing.

[FireCrack]

Would also be nice to stop non-huge weapons from doing damage, rather just do a small amount of damage, somthing in the armour like

$hugesSet  15%

so anything that falls below the threshold for it's damage type wouldnt do no damage at all, but would instead do this precent of it's damage. This way you could destroy a capship by repedidly pummeling it with maxim and hornet fire, it would simply take longer.

Oh and the weapons flag thing is a good idea

$meson 100%  

[deep_eyes]

the current system is fine. u want stronger HP, go to ur TBL.

[Solatar]

Originally posted by deep_eyes
the current system is fine. u want stronger HP, go to ur TBL.

methinks somebody is missing the point entirely...

A more "dynamic" damage model, where it is OPTIONAL to make ships more resistant to certain weapons. It's like shooting a 9mm at a tank vs. a donkey...Sure it's different, out of the normal fs2, but that's why it's optional, even if it did get put in.

[aldo_14]

Say, for example, you have a mission against the HoL or Shivans, and you have an option of choosing a 'normal' primary, or one specially designed to be more effective versus Shivans, or one for the Vasudans - instantly you have another level of tactics available (i.e. outfit a wing to handle the Vasudans while you handle the Shivans, or go all general?).... plus you have scope for 'special' weapons which are designed to be used against a narrow type of target.

Depends on the freedom to designate armour types, of course.