Defensive Systems Revision: Contiguous Region Bonuses for Armor (and other tweaks)

[Kimiro]

Introduction – What This Is and Why I Made It

As it presently stands, ship to ship combat is little more than a race to see who's shields drop first, with the loser (and often the winner) being forced to scrap their ship after suffering any amount of damage. This means three things:

1. Battles are extremely short, usually over in a few volleys. Battles only last longer if it's a fight to overheating, which is rarely an ideal thing.
   
2. Armor, while not useless per se, is severely limited its usability as any damage inflicted will more than likely outright destroy it, meaning it has to be replaced.
3. There is no room for strategy in a battle beyond “lots of shields and lots of guns”. If any defensive systems are used, they're switched on at the start of battle and only thought of again if your power reserves drop to a point where they shut off.

Clearly this isn't ideal for a lot of people, as I've found countless threads suggesting small changes here and tweaks there to make combat more... Dynamic. So in many ways this may be considered an omnibus of suggested changes rolled into a single suggestion. However, it's in the details that I hope to find that glimmer of... Something. The ideas presented here are, to my knowledge, new perspectives on the issue.

General Terms

Throughout this post I'm going to reference some things which do and do not presently exist in the game. For the sake of brevity I will refer to them by the short code listed with each.

Module Count – Mod – The number of associated modules.

Power Cost – Pwr – The amount of power required to use the system.

Variable – Var – A variable amount that depends on the specific system.

Volume – Vol – A static variable determined by the length, width and height of the ship multiplied together. This represents the absolute largest number of blocks a ship of those dimensions could occupy.

Block Count – BlC – The number of blocks within the ship.

Volumetric Density – vDe – A static variable determined by the Vol of a ship divided by its BlC. This represents a close approximation of the block distribution within the ship.

Mass Density – mDe – A static variable determined by the Vol of a ship divided by its Mass. This represents a slightly different approximation of the blocks within a ship.

Mass-Volumetric Density Ratio – mvR – The ratio of mDe divided by vDe.

Spoiler: Example #1 - Isanth Type-Zero

Vol = 25L x 11H x 31W = 8525
BlC = 2339
Mass = 301.9
vDe = 8525 / 2339 = 3.64
mDe = 8525 / 301.9 = 28.23
mvR = 28.23 / 3.64 = 7.74

Spoiler: Example #2: Isanth VI

Vol = 17L x 7H x 17W = 2023
BlC = 741
Mass = 93.8
vDe = 2023 / 741 = 2.73
mDe = 2023 / 93.8 = 21.57
mvR = 21.57 / 2.73 = 7.90

Spoiler: Example #3: Nietzsche

Vol = 315L x 30H x 119W = 1,124,550
BlC = 165,036
Mass = 20,826.199
vDe = 1,124,550 / 165,036 = 6.81
mDe = 1,124,550 / 20,826.199 = 54.00
mvR = 54.00 / 6.81 = 7.92

These are the statistics of ships I had available to load in; first two being ones everyone knows and the third being something I found a while ago. The actual specifics and design of the ships don't really matter, as they are simply placeholders for future examples further below. Each of these values, as is detailed below, is used as one of the base values for one or more systems and how they would function. But before I get to that, a few small changes that would be required to be implemented for this plan to work.

Required Changes
These changes form the basis of a lot of the rework below, and are sort of requisite.

Spoiler

Power System Revamp:

• Energy Regeneration is moved to a separate meter. If the ship is using no power presently, the meter will be full. Systems (including thrusters, shields etc.) place a passive drain on this value, meaning the meter doesn't fluctuate as it presently does but instead will be represented as a percentage of your generation capacity being used. The remainder of the energy generation is diverted to fill the capacitors.
• Power reactors can be toggled on and off via hotbar. While off, they generate zero power, with any active systems draining from reserves instead.
  
• Capacitors represent your reserve energy, and are depleted directly only by the firing of weapons, charging a jump drive, or the event of your energy generation being exceeded. In the event your generation is exceeded, power is drawn from the capacitors until they are depleted. Essentially it works as it presently does but allows both smoother performance (generation wouldn't have to be broadcast, and capacity would only change in bulk under most circumstances) and for a finer distinction to be drawn between power production and capacity.
• Aux Power functions a little differently, providing an automatic secondary reserve buffer that will be consumed if the primary Capacitor banks are drained. When off, their power is channeled first into their internal buffer, then into the standard Capacitor banks up to 50% capacity (this means while they're in this state you'll quickly recover to 100% Aux and then 50% standard before they effectively stop producing power). When turned on, they instead add their power output directly to the energy regeneration meter at 25% effectiveness - a system that produces 10,000 while off and charging the reserves will provide 2,500 to the power generation pool while on.

Shield System Revamp:

• Base shield regeneration is equal to 10% of your capacity per second. This means a Ship Core produces 22 shields/second.
  
• Shield regen can be toggled on and off via hotbar. While toggled off, shields don't recharge and drain at a rate of 1% every second until depleted.

Armor System Revamp:

• This was the purpose of the original version of this post (just noting for posterity).
• Any block that provides AHP provides a bonus to the AHP provided by that block equal to its base AHP contribution times the number of adjacent armor blocks of the same type (ignoring color or shape; only tier matters) times 0.25. As an example, a fully surrounded block of Advanced Armor grants 100 x (6 x 0.25) = 150 additional AHP for a total of 250. QED Thicker armor provides a cumulatively larger bonus.
  
• Blocks that provide no AHP apply a penalty to AHP if they are adjacent to a block that does. This penalty is a flat 25 for each side touching for a max penalty of 150.
• Blocks without an AHP score can't be damaged until AHP is depleted.

Defensive System Revamp:

• All defensive systems intrinsically provide their bonus at 100% effectiveness (see the detailed part below for the specific effectiveness level of each; note this doesn't apply to weapons, which will still require a proportional number of modules), regardless of the number of modules attached.
• All defensive systems can be stacked by employing multiple computers. Stacking is performed multiplicatively, meaning each subsequent layer is less effective than the previous one.
• A maximum of 3 layers on any one system can be active. However, a ship may have further systems of that type as backups, but a maximum of 3 can be active at once.
  
• Each layer must have exactly the same number of modules connected to each computer.
• Cloakers and Jammers require a module block to be associated with them to fall in line with the rest of the systems.
• Systems are concatenated in the weapons menu, so all systems of the same type correspond to a single icon. Left-click charges up one layer at a time (2 second "wind up" time; fixed) and right-clicking disables one layer (no wind up time or cooldown).

Jump Drive System Revamp:

• Charging a Jump Drive doesn't draw power. Power is consumed when the drive is activated, drained from the Capacitors. If there is insufficient power in the Capacitors, the jump fails and the charge is reduced by the percentage of the missing power.
  
• A ship can have exactly one jump drive computer on board.
• The jump drive computer block should have the same statistics as a faction block.

Thruster System Revamp:

• Thrusters preferentially draw from active generation.
• Thrusters can be toggled on and off via hotbar command. While off, the power requirements are reduced to 10% but the ships top speed is reduced to 25% (think of it as maneuvering mode). In this mode, any changes to momentum other than pilot input are nullified (including gravity effects and weapon effects). Toggling their mode puts them on a fixed 15 second cooldown before you can change it again.

General Block Changes:

• Blocks that are destroyed are replaced with Ghost Blocks containing their data (except if they are destroyed by the detonation of a Warhead block that was part of the same entity). Ghost Blocks hit by an Astromech beam or on an entity that enters a shipyard will be replaced with their appropriate real block counterpart, provided the repairing entity has the block in an inventory available.
• Warheads require a logic signal to be detonated if and only if they are adjacent to at least one non-Warhead, non-empty block.

Other Changes:

• Ships within the same sector broadcast any active subsystems while they aren't actively cloaking or jamming, meaning you can know your enemy is utilizing an Ion effect. The strength of the effect, as determined by the number of active layers, is not broadcasted.

General Outline of System Changes
This section will detail the general way in which systems will function under this proposed new system; the individual systems will be further detailed below. This breakdown comes down to three main sections: Power Cost, Layer Cost and Layer Effectiveness.

Power Cost: (Var * [One of: Vol; BlC; Mass; vDe; mDe; mvR]) / (Mod * 0.625)
Example using an Isanth Type Zero's Mass and 50 connected modules: (1000 * 301.9) / (50 * 0.625) = 9660.8 e/s.
With 100 modules: 4830.4 e/s
And 1000: 483.04 e/s
The maximum a system's drain can be reduced, in this system, is 75%.

Layer Cost: (Pwr * (NumLayers ^ (NumLayers - 1))
1 layer is base cost, 2 layers adds 200%, 3 layers adds 900% for a total of 12x the base cost to run three layers. Using the above example, 2 layers would cost 28,982.4 e/s and 3 would cost 115,929.6 e/s, as well as 150 modules connected to 3 computers.

Layer Effectiveness: EffectStrength ^ NumLayers
Outer layers are less effective than the base layer. There are a few more steps in calulating the number listed below, but for simplicity I've opted to only provide the numbers you can add together to get the actual effect strength. Layers are only for Specialized Systems, as listed below.

Generic Systems

Spoiler

Thrusters, Power Reactors, Capacitors, Aux Power, Shield Capacitors: Statistically unchanged from present.

Shield Rechargers:
Pwr: (35 * Vol) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect: Recharge rate is equal to 10% of shield capacity plus 0.1% for every Recharger above and beyond the number of Shield Capacitors, to a max of 55%.

Jump Drives:
Pwr: (145 * mvR) - (Mod * 2.625)
Effect: Charge rate in seconds is equal to the mvR divided by 0.625 (an Isanth Type Zero would require 7.72 / 0.625 = 12.3 seconds to charge, baseline). This number is then reduced by 0.01 seconds for each module connected (with 100 modules, the Isanth shave off 1 second of jump charge time). The absolute minimum time a jump drive can take to charge is 5 seconds. Additionally, while a jump drive is holding a charge and isn't actively being charged, every time the charge time elapses, it loses 50% of its current charge unless the entity is docked.

Specialized Systems

Spoiler

Piercing Effect:
Pwr: (45 * mDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 30% /9% /2.7%
Effect: Unchanged from current, but can increase the amount of damage the AHP pool absorbs by up to 41.7% for a maximum of 91.7% damage absorbed by AHP instead of blocks.

Punch-Through Effect:
Pwr: (75 * mDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 30% / 9% / 2.7%
Effect: Unchanged from current, but can provide up to 41.7% mitigation to damage done to AHP.

Ion Effect:
Pwr: (150 * Vol) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 45% / 11.13% / 3.99%
Effect: Unchanged from current, but can increase the mitigation to up to a max of 60.1% total at three layers.

Explosive Effect:
Pwr: (65 * mDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 25% / 6.25% / 1.56%
Effect: Applies an armor bonus to your SHP of up to 32.8%

Overdrive Effect:
Pwr: (90 * vDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 50% / 12.5% / 4.6%
Effect: Unchanged from current, max top speed increase is 67.1%.

Push/Pull Effect:
Pwr: (25 * Mass) - (Mod * 2.625)*
Effect strength: Special
Effect: Functionally unchanged from present, but it instantly pushes/pulls you to top speed in either the forward or reverse vector, depending on which is used. Multiple systems allow you to boost in sequence, with each incurring a vastly larger energy cost. Allows for maneuvers like pulling a U-turn, as your velocity is instantly changed to maximum in the vector you're facing.
* formula is slightly different for "burst" effects, as they behave more similarly to weapons and therefore drain from the reserve energy.

Stop Effect:
Pwr: (15 * mDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 75% / 14.06% / 4.61%
Effect: Provides a passive resistance to inertia-affecting weaponry of up to 93.67%.

EMP Effect:
Pwr: (60 * mvR) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: 50% / 12.5% / 4.68%
Effect: Unchanged from current, but provides up to 67.1% mitigation to energy-draining weapons.

Cloaking Effect:
Pwr: (500 * vDe) / (Mod * 0.625)
Effect strength: N/A
Effect: Renders you invisible. Layers 2 and 3 of the effect merely provide a measure of effectiveness against being scanned and taking damage dropping your cloak. Firing a weapon drops all layers and puts the Cloaker on a 60 second cooldown.
Weapon Effect: "Camouflaged Munitions" - Renders the shot invisible (and in the case of missiles, untargetable by point defense). Percentage determines the chance each projectile or beam will be rendered invisible. Damage is reduced by 33% with 100% connected. Increases the firing cost by 1/2.
Note: Requires a new block to be created, an Active Camouflage Co-processor.

Jamming Effect:
Pwr: (50 * mDe) / (Mod *0.625)
Effect strength: N/A
Effect: Hides your targting icon. Subsequent layers function like Cloaking.
Weapon Effect: "Targeting Subroutine" - Reduces the time for a lock-on weapon to acquire a lock. At 100% they acquire a lock instantly. On other weapons it slightly reduces the cooldown by up to 25% with 100% connected. Increases the firing cost by 1/4.
Note: Requires a new block to be created, a Jammer Heat Sink.

Scanning Effect:
Pwr: (275 * BlC) - (Mod * 2.625)
Effect Strength: Each layer increases the effective range, in sectors. 1 (the one you're in) / 2 (27 sectors) / 4 (125 sectors i.e. whole system). Range is bounded to the system you're in and wraps around.
Effect: Layers charge passively in sequence over 15 seconds, for a total charge time of 45 seconds. Using a scanner deactivates one layer each of Cloaking and Jamming on each entity in range and puts those systems on a cooldown equal to the time spent charging the scan, up to 45 seconds. Otherwise functions as it currently does. Power is consumed when the system is activated.
Weapon Effect: "Painter Rounds" - Causes the weapon it's attached to to potentially force an enemy to decloak and unjam by one layer (even if the shot hits shields), with a chance equal to the percentage of modules to the weapon. Reduces weapon damage by 75%. Power consumption is increased by 1/5.

Conclusions (For Now)

Overall, layering systems is linearly less efficient but allows you to stack slightly more defensive measures onto a ship, provided you have the power generation to utilize it. As I'm not proposing a change to the power supply cap, you would have to manage which systems you have active at a given time in order to optimize your defenses for a situation. It also allows for more intelligent strategy to be used, for example: If your enemy is utilizing an Beam/Cannon/Ion to strip your shields, it may be prudent to just turn off your shields and save the power costs. With those savings you could activate your Jammer to nullify his lock-on missiles that would shred your hull. But if your enemy has a Scanner on board, watch out!

If any ship could potentially implement any or even all of the systems available, versatility and strategy become somewhat paramount to counter the sudden increase in the number of threats. Knowing your enemy means you can anticipate his strategies.

This thread has sort of diverged from my original vision somewhat, but at the same time I realize there were flaws in that original vision that require a more general solution to allow it to work. That being said, utilizing variables other than the Mass and Block Count of a ship allows each system to be fundamentally different in its power requirements, which in turn means they're fundamentally different in the required number of modules for a given vessel to be able to utilize them. The variables I've chosen, I've chosen for the explicit reason that they are already technically available in the game, as they are derived from values that are known. The other reason is one of flavor - the very nature of the different systems means they have to be integrated differently into the ship.

So yeah... That's v2 of this post. More will be added as I think of it.

 

[Madman198237]

This idea, especially the first idea, seems ludicrously overpowered. It would make armor incredibly powerful, mostly against missiles. It would also cause fires to break out in every server ever as they try to keep up with the changes of armor in every ship on a battlefield (Can you be on a battlefield in space? Where there is no ground? Whatever!) as the server is already lagging through simple combat stress.

 

[Kimiro]

This idea, especially the first idea, seems ludicrously overpowered. It would make armor incredibly powerful, mostly against missiles. It would also cause fires to break out in every server ever as they try to keep up with the changes of armor in every ship on a battlefield (Can you be on a battlefield in space? Where there is no ground? Whatever!) as the server is already lagging through simple combat stress.

The proposed system wouldn't require recalculation during battle, only at build time.

The system protection function would be a simple check to see if there's any AHP left, and if there is, if there's an adjacent block that has armor, damage that block instead.

I am going to go over the OP with a comb when I have proper net tomorrow to clarify it though. Never post halfdrunk

 

[jstenholt]

Overly complex and far too beneficial to capital ships.

 

[Zyrr]

I like the idea of corrosive as an effect. As for the rest, it seems like it could be abused with a little planning and the complexities of introducing it and then explaining it to new players might be a little too far.

 

[Kimiro]

Overly complex and far too beneficial to capital ships.

I've done some number crunching on a few random samplings of builds I've downloaded the files for. Using the formula I initially posted, the largest ships saw at most a 20% increase in armor, while smaller ones received bonuses closer to 50% (one neat little fighter actually hit 78% bonus). Manually figuring out armor cuboids isn't fun, by the by.
Of course that's only for existing ships, and this sort of change would shift the meta pretty drastically. I dunno, I'm going to look into implementing it as a mod to test it out properly, or at the very least a utility to calculate it for me.

I like the idea of corrosive as an effect. As for the rest, it seems like it could be abused with a little planning and the complexities of introducing it and then explaining it to new players might be a little too far.

Corrosive wouldn't be advisable to implement without armor getting some sort of buff, since it is already functionally useless, providing a delaying effect to your complete destruction rather than a proper mitigating one that protects your systems - What good is a tank with 400mm of armor if small arms fire can still kill the crew inside, after all.
I don't feel it's that complex, as it follows a natural sort of logic - more solidly grouped armor is going to be more effective than less. I do tend to convolute explanations though, so that may be why it seems more complex than I mean it it be. >.>;;
And arguably, any system can be abused with planning. This is why Chain Drives and Docked Reactors are/were things.

Also, gonna re-write the OP for clarity and maybe adjust the formulas a bit. But that will be for later, possibly tomorrow.

Anyways, thank you both for feedback.

 

[TheGT]

Honestly, this sounds lovely. However this come from someone who is not a prided battle engineer. But, as with all systems: it seems cool if the balance is done right.

 

[Zyrr]

Corrosive wouldn't be advisable to implement without armor getting some sort of buff, since it is already functionally useless, providing a delaying effect to your complete destruction rather than a proper mitigating one that protects your systems - What good is a tank with 400mm of armor if small arms fire can still kill the crew inside, after all.
I don't feel it's that complex, as it follows a natural sort of logic - more solidly grouped armor is going to be more effective than less. I do tend to convolute explanations though, so that may be why it seems more complex than I mean it it be. >.>;;
And arguably, any system can be abused with planning. This is why Chain Drives and Docked Reactors are/were things.

That's a negative friend, armor isn't functionally useless, just functionally less efficient than shielding. A properly armoured ship is scarily well defended against ships not designed specifically to kill them. The downsides here is that for the mass, they aren't as effective as shields (conventionally. I'm not going to go into the nuances of shields here) as a general rule. Additionally, and especially before the last update, it was not economically as viable to make armor, which requires multiple steps for each armor type compared to shields, which is single step. On top of that, with no real repair feature and AHP that would be hit hard regardless, every armor tanking ship basically had to be scrapped and rebuilt after any battle.

The nuances of this system are far more difficult to explain than our current system, and the implementation would be far more difficult than other, simpler and less abuse-able suggestions.

In regards to your comment on systems abuse, chaindrives and docked power barely scratch the surface of how easily you can break this game. Between flimsy math and just poorly thought out balancing, there are near innumerable bugs that allow for absurd amounts of damage or protection, most of them coming from somewhat disturbingly simple methods. An addition to armour of this size and complexity would without a doubt add in another layer of exploits.

 

[Winterhome]

The downsides here is that for the mass, they aren't as effective as shields (conventionally. I'm not going to go into the nuances of shields here) as a general rule

Of course, this most recent update may very well have changed that. Shields can still get one-shotted by an ion beam or missile, but allegedly armor HP is now tied to actual armor block damage (I haven't yet tested to see how huge a difference this makes, though). Shields are great for a limited time, but if my brain is working well, armor should be able to protect a ship thoroughly for the entire length of the battle. That said, yeah, armor tanks do need to be scrapped and remade, since shipyards are fucked up and shop armor repairs are in desperate need of some tweaking via config to be cheaper than buying a whole new ship.

 

[Zyrr]

Of course, this most recent update may very well have changed that. Shields can still get one-shotted by an ion beam or missile, but allegedly armor HP is now tied to actual armor block damage (I haven't yet tested to see how huge a difference this makes, though). Shields are great for a limited time, but if my brain is working well, armor should be able to protect a ship thoroughly for the entire length of the battle. That said, yeah, armor tanks do need to be scrapped and remade, since shipyards are fucked up and shop armor repairs are in desperate need of some tweaking via config to be cheaper than buying a whole new ship.

Even with armour changes, the way shields work can be exploited to the extreme even with all of the "fixes" Schema has applied to them.

Again, though, this heads deep into the realm of exploits and it would take a book and a half of explanations to cover them fully. It's easier just to say "shields can and will be more efficient barring significant changes to the way the voxel system and armour interact".

 

[Winterhome]

the way shields work can be exploited to the extreme even with all of the "fixes" Schema has applied to them.

Ah, right, the stuff that was designed to make support ships viable that can't really be removed without removing support ships as a concept.

 

[Kimiro]

That's a negative friend, armor isn't functionally useless, just functionally less efficient than shielding. A properly armoured ship is scarily well defended against ships not designed specifically to kill them. The downsides here is that for the mass, they aren't as effective as shields (conventionally. I'm not going to go into the nuances of shields here) as a general rule. Additionally, and especially before the last update, it was not economically as viable to make armor, which requires multiple steps for each armor type compared to shields, which is single step. On top of that, with no real repair feature and AHP that would be hit hard regardless, every armor tanking ship basically had to be scrapped and rebuilt after any battle.

The nuances of this system are far more difficult to explain than our current system, and the implementation would be far more difficult than other, simpler and less abuse-able suggestions.

In regards to your comment on systems abuse, chaindrives and docked power barely scratch the surface of how easily you can break this game. Between flimsy math and just poorly thought out balancing, there are near innumerable bugs that allow for absurd amounts of damage or protection, most of them coming from somewhat disturbingly simple methods. An addition to armour of this size and complexity would without a doubt add in another layer of exploits.

Added emphasis for a point: Armor is functionally useless if it means you have to rebuild your ship. It hasn't been protected, simply deferred from total annihilation.
And yeah, there are exploits which would need to be fixed first before this sort of system could be implimented fairly.

Of course, this most recent update may very well have changed that. Shields can still get one-shotted by an ion beam or missile, but allegedly armor HP is now tied to actual armor block damage (I haven't yet tested to see how huge a difference this makes, though). Shields are great for a limited time, but if my brain is working well, armor should be able to protect a ship thoroughly for the entire length of the battle. That said, yeah, armor tanks do need to be scrapped and remade, since shipyards are fucked up and shop armor repairs are in desperate need of some tweaking via config to be cheaper than buying a whole new ship.

AHP is tied to the block count to an extent, but the amount of armor removed by the destruction of a single block of armor is still greater than the AHP it provided.

Even with armour changes, the way shields work can be exploited to the extreme even with all of the "fixes" Schema has applied to them.

Again, though, this heads deep into the realm of exploits and it would take a book and a half of explanations to cover them fully. It's easier just to say "shields can and will be more efficient barring significant changes to the way the voxel system and armour interact".

"It sucks because something else is broken" is what I'm reading here. Which is a fair point - shields can be made pretty robust - but this thread isn't about shields, it's about armor. I'm working off the assumption that exploits are fixed before this is implimented.

Ah, right, the stuff that was designed to make support ships viable that can't really be removed without removing support ships as a concept.

This, so much this. As it stands, support ships are so un-viable for a whole host of reasons (the biggest that comes to mind is the lag inducing nightmare that is ship collisions). Presently, a ship has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It can easily be replaced and in fact is easier to replace than to repair. It's sort of an incongruity of philosophy - you build and customize your ship like a PC but then the power supply gives out and you have to recycle the whole thing like a Mac.

Addendum: I may actually do a little bit on shields when I revise the OP. I've got a few ideas on how to re-balance them too.

Addendum Two - Electric Boogaloo: OP updated.