Can someone explain block pentration to me?

[Neon_42]

For the life of me I cannot figure out how damage is distributed among blocks. My understanding is that the total DPP (Damage Per Projectile) is distributed amongst the blocks in the projectile's flight path. In addition in order to destroy one advanced armor block with full ship HP takes 2000 damage. Basically the block has 1000hp and with full ship armor a 50% damage reduction. This can also be found on wiki here: Defense Systems - StarMade Wiki

1. 1000hp/0.50 = 2000ehp

I would think that we need to do just over 2000 damage to break the first block. So i created a 201 block cannon with no secondary or tertiary blocks. This weapon does 2010 DPP.

But as you can see in the above figure by the damage penetration that this weapon only does 260.8 damage to the first block in it's path. This is not nearly enough to break the first block. However when I test this against a solid block of 100x100x100 advanced armor blocks, this cannon still breaks the first block, and no damage is done to the second block.

This experiment has a few possible conclusions:

1. That the 2010 DPP is deposited in the first block and native damage penetration on cannons is broken.
2. That the Penetration calculated in the Details box above is wrong.
3. That penetration does not work by distributing damage along the flight path of the projectile in this way.

If there is some error in my analysis please let me know, if someone can explain to me how this actually works I would be very appreciative.

 

[Az14el]

Not sure if the penetration or damage/penetration tooltips are correct, but it should deal 2000 damage to the first block destroying it, each block it passes through reduces the shots damage by 50% before passing onto the next block (iirc), dealing only a few damage to the second block after its own armor value reductions too, which would cause no noticeable damage.

 

[Jojomo]

Not sure if the penetration or damage/penetration tooltips are correct, but it should deal 2000 damage to the first block destroying it, each block it passes through reduces the shots damage by 50% before passing onto the next block (iirc), dealing only a few damage to the second block after its own armor value reductions too, which would cause no noticeable damage.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you've written I don't think that can be correct - it means the total damage done would be over 2010, which isn't possible...

 

[DrTarDIS]

You're thinking of Cannon damage the way beam damage is theoretically supposed to work. (state 3)

The way it's pen works is it does the first damage tick when it hits,
->if block not dead second tick to same block,
-->if block not dead next tick to same block,
--->if block not dead next tick to same block,
---->if block not dead next tick to same block,

->if dead spawn new projectile with remaining damage till next collision....

repeat until damage = 0

Beams were supposed to work the penetration/slice way you were talking about before IIRC, but failed miserably

Edit: I bet if you put a block with 5-10 block hp behind the armor, it would be either noticeable damage or broken.

 

[Az14el]

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you've written I don't think that can be correct - it means the total damage done would be over 2010, which isn't possible...

'2000' + somewhere under 10 = >2010?
Not so sure :p

I mean it would dump all the damage needed to break a block into the first block (250 damage after Armor HP & Armor % Deductions), and not have enough to damage the second noticeably (~1.25 after armorhp/% as well as deductions by each block penetrated)

 

[Jojomo]

'2000' + somewhere under 10 = >2010?
Not so sure :p

I mean it would dump all the damage needed to break a block into the first block (250 damage after Armor HP & Armor % Deductions), and not have enough to damage the second noticeably (~1.25)

Sorry, yes, I see what you mean
For some reason I took your "2000" to mean 2010... :P

 

[AtraUnam]

From someone who's actually tested this in-game. Don't listen too the ingame numbers as they are complete bullshit with no bearing on... anything really.