Implemented Armor Alternative to Shields?

[Reviire]

Now, this isn't a very thought out idea, but the gist of it is, why not have alternates to shields. They're essentially requires for obvious reasons, but what if instead people could opt for armor tanking over shield tanking.

Maybe have a different sort of module, that increases the strength of armor blocks, letting them take more of a beating. Being stronger than shields, but lacking that whole regeneration thing.

Honestly the only reason I want this, is because when we get more projectile scaling, it'd look pretty amazing to have a ship sitting there tanking shots, without the giant craters from any decent weapon.

EDIT: I know that piercing is there, but the point was a replacement for shields. Let people choose between armor tanking and shield tanking, with advantages and negatives to both. But oh well, RIP.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I like it but you have to remember; advanced armor is already pretty powerful; albeit, very heavy and cumbersome. If you add a piercing effect as a defensive component it reduces the damage done to blocks by applying it to your armor HP. Add a punch through effect defensively and your armor HP gets a reduction in damage sustained upon taking a hit. Add both and you have a ship with advanced armor, stronger blocks, and hardened armor HP.

- If my calculations and interpretation of the StarMade wiki are correct (the community will roast me if I'm wrong ), advanced armor has 250 block HP with a 75% damage resistance. So that means each block has roughly 1000 effective HP.

- Meanwhile, the armor HP system supposedly causes a 50% reduction in damage taken; doubling the damage needed to destroy a block. That brings an advanced armor block to 2000 effective HP.

- A full 100% piercing effect will bring that 50% reduction up to 75%; quadrupling the damage needed to destroy a block.
Based on the wiki notes, this allegedly brings a block of advanced armor up to 4000 effective HP; provided you have enough armor HP to soak up the damage.

- Furthermore, - A full 100% punch-through effect will take some of that damage and apply it to the armor HP rather than the individual block HP; giving you an additional (but unspecified) armor boost...

- If that wasn't bad enough... Missile explosion damage is roughly halved due to half of the blast going out toward space, away from the target.

Once the armor HP is depleted, your defenses lose effectiveness but while they're up, you basically have an ablative armor shield that keeps you from losing blocks for as long as you have sufficient armor HP. To test this on a smaller scale, I fired some 500,000 damage missiles at an unshielded ship, clad in standard armor. The first missile strikes did pitiful damage. As I continued to fire, the missiles started to leave their signature giant craters as the armor HP started to plummet. I've also fired 10+ million damage missiles at a 6000 mass ship, clad in standard armor with 800,000 shields. The shields obviously dropped, but the ship barely had any physical damage at all. The armor HP absorbed nearly all the damage that made it past the shields!

So armor taking is currently possible, if you set it up right.

On the other hand, I'd love to have a way to replenish your own armor HP after a battle; as having to go to a shop every single time, gets old.

 

[Madman198237]

Well, you can also go to a shipyard and rebuild the vessel.....at the risk of suffering some of our silly shipyard shenanigans. Also, alliteration.

 

[jayman38]

So, shields without the shield visual effect. Sounds boring to me and frustratingly non-feedback to players in battle. The attacker will not know at-a-glance if their weapons are having any effect whatsoever.

I am thinking back to how boring it was to fight boss monsters in other games, without any kind of enemy health bar. I had no idea how much longer I had to fight to win. It was boring.

I dislike this idea. Giant craters are what we want to see in a voxel game.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

So, shields without the shield visual effect. Sounds boring to me and frustratingly non-feedback to players in battle. The attacker will not know at-a-glance if their weapons are having any effect whatsoever.

I am thinking back to how boring it was to fight boss monsters in other games, without any kind of enemy health bar. I had no idea how much longer I had to fight to win. It was boring.

I dislike this idea. Giant craters are what we want to see in a voxel game.

When you target the enemy you can see their armor and structure HP as health bars on the top-left of the HUD; right under their power and shield bars. You also, get damage indicators when you score a hit.

Regarding big craters; like it or not, you still have to weaken/deplete the armor HP to do that kind of damage anyway. Remember; I had to fire 2 planet buster missiles to kill a 6,000 mass frigate. One for the shields and armor, then one more to actually blow up the ship.

Think of the current incarnation of StarMade's combat system as being like Eve Online; only, once you deplete the armor HP, the actual hull/structure takes visible damage and you get a health bar notifier.

To be honest, any more armor tanking than what is currently in-game is going to be way over-powered. If anything, we need a missile damage buff, or at the very least, a reduction in missile power consumption. Seriously; if we lose half of our missile damage by default, why should we have to exert full power for half damage? I guess that's a question for another thread...

 

[Reviire]

When you target the enemy you can see their armor and structure HP as health bars on the top-left of the HUD; right under their power and shield bars. You also, get damage indicators when you score a hit.

Regarding big craters; like it or not, you still have to weaken/deplete the armor HP to do that kind of damage anyway. Remember; I had to fire 2 planet buster missiles to kill a 6,000 mass frigate. One for the shields and armor, then one more to actually blow up the ship.

Think of the current incarnation of StarMade's combat system as being like Eve Online; only, once you deplete the armor HP, the actual hull/structure takes visible damage and you get a health bar notifier.

To be honest, any more armor tanking than what is currently in-game is going to be way over-powered. If anything, we need a missile damage buff, or at the very least, a reduction in missile power consumption. Seriously; if we lose half of our missile damage by default, why should we have to exert full power for half damage? I guess that's a question for another thread...

On the topic of missiles, would be cool if piercing gave it a sort of piercing affect, at the cost of damage. It tunnels under the armor and detonates, or something.

Otherwise, thanks for your feedback on the suggestion. The pierce/punchthrough defensives do exist, they're great, but don't change how shields are pretty much required, and there's no armor alternative to shields. I wonder if several layers of armor, using the shield space for power/thrust instead, would be any good.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

On the topic of missiles, would be cool if piercing gave it a sort of piercing affect, at the cost of damage. It tunnels under the armor and detonates, or something.

Otherwise, thanks for your feedback on the suggestion. The pierce/punchthrough defensives do exist, they're great, but don't change how shields are pretty much required, and there's no armor alternative to shields. I wonder if several layers of armor, using the shield space for power/thrust instead, would be any good.

Sounds like we need to turn it into a shaped charge.

- Piercing Missiles: Applies the full damage of the missile forward so all of it hits the ship; similar to how a damage pulse emits its pulse several meters in front of the module. The higher the ratio used, more damage is applied forward and the less damage escapes to space. The effect would be kind of like a HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) shell.

- Punch-through missiles: Applies the full damage of the missile forward but detonates with a much smaller blast radius (3-5 meters). After impact, the missile travels forward then applies all damage that is not expended in the initial impact and creates a small 3-5 meter tunnel of small explosions that passes through the target ship's interior until all damage is expended. The higher the ratio used, the smaller the blast radius becomes and the deeper the armor/hull penetration becomes. The effect would be like an APDS (armor piercing discarding sabot) shell.

As far as armor tanking in the way you're thinking, the only thing that would work without becoming unbalanced would be a system that applies all incoming damage to the armor HP rather than block HP; causing your opponents to have to deplete your armor HP before they can do any damage. You'd also need a a block that recharges your armor HP at the expense of energy/sec in the same way shield rechargers work. I can't speak for Schine on this but it seems unlikely they'll make it a priority with all the other stuff they have in development.

But who knows? Maybe one of them will see our discussion and say "Hey! We NEED that!"

 

[sayerulz]

It seems to me that the whole point of armor as opposed to shields is that a percentage of the damage dealt to it is negated, while shields take 100% of the damage that hits them.

I think an interesting mechanic (assuming it's not already in, I haven't done much testing) would be to have armored blocks negate a flat amount of damage and then a percentage of what's left. That would hopefully make high alpha weapons needed to combat heavy armor. Right now, any decent capital-ship cannon-cannon combo goes right through armor.

 

[Madman198237]

Dr. Whammy, the second option is more like a focused HEAT round than a sabot round. US military sabot rounds are generally depleted uranium, have 0% explosive content, and are an armored vehicle's worst nightmare---punching straight through armor and spraying sparks and spall and shrapnel everywhere, in an enclosed metal container. Other nations' sabot rounds are similar.

I love the thought of more directly specialized versions of weapons...though I've usually imagined these particular effects for cannons.


As a counter-proposal, how about this: Punch-through effect delays missile detonation. The stronger the effect, the more the delay. At 100% effect, the missile would "wait" a set number of blocks (Affected by projectile velocity as well as piercing effect %), say 10, before detonating with a reduced explosion compared to an unmodified version., similar to a "bunker-buster" missile. Two-stage detonation, though we don't need to represent the first stage (Which is a highly directed shaped-charge) as an explosion, just as a cannon-style penetration.

Piercing can be an actual shaped-charge detonation, though they are (As far as I know) rare for large missiles, which are usually not used for precision or anti-armor work.

Obviously, both options trade damage for the effect.


For cannons, the piercing effect remains a "sabot" style, increased penetration for lighter damage; punch-through could also remain the same, but I really want a better explosive effect. An explosive cannon should detonate once, expending all its damage in a missile-like blast (Always with less damage than a missile of equivalent size, however). Perhaps punch-through could instead be a delayed detonation round, like the missile version. Those would have enough uses.

 

[Reviire]

As far as armor tanking in the way you're thinking, the only thing that would work without becoming unbalanced would be a system that applies all incoming damage to the armor HP rather than block HP; causing your opponents to have to deplete your armor HP before they can do any damage. You'd also need a a block that recharges your armor HP at the expense of energy/sec in the same way shield rechargers work. I can't speak for Schine on this but it seems unlikely they'll make it a priority with all the other stuff they have in development.

But who knows? Maybe one of them will see our discussion and say "Hey! We NEED that!"

Well if it recharged/regenerated that kinda removes the point. It was more supposed to be, it can take more hits than shields, but it doesn't regenerate, so in a long fight shields would probably do more.

 

[DrTarDIS]

- Furthermore, - A full 100% punch-through effect will take some of that damage and apply it to the armor HP rather than the individual block HP; giving you an additional (but unspecified) armor boost...

Default max value is 25%
the % is specified when you turn the system on as an annoying box that might cover-up your current speed and energy bar. after 25% it's to cover cargo, docked, etc increases in mass.
it actually takes up to it's max value OFF the damage that's being directed to the armor pool, kinda like an "auto-heal X% of damage taken", but only for your armor pool.

Well, you can also go to a shipyard and rebuild the vessel.....at the risk of suffering some of our silly shipyard shenanigans. Also, alliteration.

Shipyard to disassemble -> place blueprint into shipyard inventory, open, click "add all" ->spawn as astro.

On the topic of missiles, would be cool if piercing gave it a sort of piercing affect, at the cost of damage. It tunnels under the armor and detonates, or something..

AFAIK Piercing still reduces the armor value by 1% for every 2% supported. so that kinda works as digging in deeper. and punch though causing bonus system HP damage (unless that's been patched-out???) is just OP