Baffled Armor is Phony?

[HellishEnt]

I was looking at these threads PvP Anti-Player Research Baffled armor deflects nuke blast so I decided to try to replicate the results in the second one.

I got the complete opposite results, using slabs significantly increased damage taken.

I used three layers of advanced armor white, then grey, then black, with water behind to show the amount of leftover damage. I baffled in both basic, and advanced armor, and will show you basic because of how great the difference is. I tried slabs with the empty part facing towards space, and tried slabs with the empty part facing each other. I will show you them facing each other, because the difference is the most dramatic.

Spoiler: Without baffling

Spoiler: With baffling

How is this supposed to be done?

 

[jstenholt]

An interesting experiment. But this probably requires far more testing. It is worth pointing out that in the thread you linked the baffled parallel armor was standard armor, not basic or advanced.

 

[Az14el]

Depends a lot on what kind of missiles you used and how far you fired them from, it's fantastic against large single hits or many small hits spread out, but several hits on roughly the same spot like with dumb firing & close ranged waffle patterns, or swarmers going after docked entities, it may as well be another layer of wet tshirt armor.

And this is more averaging out over a large number of tests than a concrete "yes this works EVERY time" thing, at least for me

Also noted that this is far less effective against large objects, and seems to work better when the explosion hits multiple surfaces (so massive plates of baffled armor might be pointless). Could try randomising your baffling a little on larger plates to simulate this, but it's what i already do and it still doesn't seem to provide as much benefit as with a small fighter to destroyer type ship.

 

[HellishEnt]

I used a single M/P missile from 150 ish meters. I think the array had 1600 blocks in it in total. I also used separate entities for each variation, I never hit one more than once.

 

[Keptick]

The original tests in the baffled armor thread were bad. Basically, slabs act the same way as full blocks when it comes to weight and HP/armor. So adding slabs on top of a normal armor layer (aka baffled armor) is the same as just having two layers of armor. The only difference, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that cannons and beams can hit the blocks beneath the slabs since there's a hole (because the slabs don't cover everything). So basically, there's no purpose to having baffled armor instead of normal armor, and it actually protects less against cannons and beams....

If there's a difference then it's bugged because slabs are supposed act the same way with regards to damage as normal blocks.

 

[HellishEnt]

If there's a difference then it's bugged because slabs are supposed act the same way with regards to damage as normal blocks.

Ok, so this is definitely bugged, considering that adding more armor made the target take more damage.

I had thought that there might be some legitimacy to it because in Minecraft which is also a voxel game in Java; slabs are able to absorb explosions better. Although obviously block damage is handled differently in each game.
[DOUBLEPOST=1460943135,1460939570][/DOUBLEPOST]I think I figured it out.
I expanded the AHP of the target significantly, and the baffled target was damaged as you would expect, rather than taking massive amounts more damage. Turns out the AHP became depleted in the original tests when baffling was present, causing the target to take significantly more damage.

Moral of the story (I think): don't protect your advanced armor with basic hull, it's a waste of your AHP.
Further experimentation:
Try "case hardened" targets vs other basic/standard/advanced sandwich techniques. Basic protecting advanced is clearly a bad tactic.
Take a second look at advanced baffling to see if it's identical to non-baffled, but equally thick plates.

 

[Madman198237]

I've heard of using advanced armor in front of basic layers, in order to provide the AHP needed to sustain an armor tanker. Maybe try the relative effectiveness of that?

 

[HellishEnt]

I've heard of using advanced armor in front of basic layers, in order to provide the AHP needed to sustain an armor tanker. Maybe try the relative effectiveness of that?

Yeah, that is exactly what I meant by "case hardened". Relevant wiki link: Case-hardening - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Madman198237]

OK, I wasn't clear enough.

I don't mean case-hardening (Which is utterly pointless in a game with no fracturing and no need to bend components) but instead mean using advanced armor to soak up ALL damage, but using hull blocks to provide the AHP to keep an armor tank going.


The testing question that I'm getting at is:
Is it better to use space for basic hull, or just more advanced armor on the outside to absorb more damage?

 

[HellishEnt]

Is it better to use space for basic hull, or just more advanced armor on the outside to absorb more damage?

Without testing it (yet) I'm going to guess that doing
[inside]=>[Basic]=>[Basic]=>[Advanced]=>[outside]
(not to split hairs, but this is what I meant, because IMHO this is analogous to rl case hardening: soft on the inside, hard on the outside)
is going to be less effective than three layers of advanced, but as a trade off it will also be lighter and faster.

However, assuming equal weight, rather than thickness, that having
[inside]=>[Basic]=>[Basic]=>[however many more layers of basic]=>[Advanced]=>[outside]
could be more effective, because of the distance you would keep missiles from your interior
[DOUBLEPOST=1460948819,1460948308][/DOUBLEPOST]Different note, I tried un-baffled
[inside]=>[Advanced]=>[Advanced]=>[Advanced]=>[Basic]=>[outside]
vs baffled [inside]=>[Advanced]=>[Advanced]=>[Advanced]=>[Basic]=>[outside]
again, and I think the missile is going between the baffles, allowing it do more damage to the basic, which in turn eats AHP, causing more damage to be done overall.
[DOUBLEPOST=1460951994][/DOUBLEPOST]I've done another test using my 1600 block total M/P single output array. This was .5 mass/m^2 of Basic + Advanced, vs .5mass/m^2 of just Advanced. There was no extra armor to increase the AHP, besides the plating being tested.

Spoiler: Basic Advanced Combo

Spoiler: Advanced Only

As you can see, the basic/advanced combo plating clearly out performed the advanced only plating. This was most likely due to

A) the fact that the combo plating had 1.75x the AHP in comparison to the advanced only plating
B) the extra distance between the point of impact and the water​

Further testing: assuming equal AHP which design would perform better, results would be dependent on block hp, block armor, and distance between the point of impact and the water.

 

[Madman198237]

Your images are broken, at least for me. Sounds like good testing. I'll have another look later, when I'm closer to awake.

 

[Groovrider]

I have found that the best defense against missiles is to put stuff you can afford to lose in front of stuff that you cant afford to lose. Try to make your enemy dead before that gets all used up.

Add air gaps between the layers. Explosive force is wasted overs space until it hits the next layer.

 

[Keptick]

I have found that the best defense against missiles is to put stuff you can afford to lose in front of stuff that you cant afford to lose. Try to make your enemy dead before that gets all used up.

Add air gaps between the layers. Explosive force is wasted overs space until it hits the next layer.

Yep. Having shield caps on the outer-most sections of the ship is best since they become useless after the shields go down.

 

[PriZm]

@ Madman: Don't know, if we mean the same thread, but i also already sayd sth about so called "armor tanks" in another thread. The best way imo - after rather intensive testing - ist to have layers of adv armor (1 or several layers, depending on the ships size) on the outside or (more risky) in spots, where you expect hits. But adv armor is (imo) inefficient if you dont back up your ships armor HP with lots (!!!) of basic hull. Also its wise to use both, punch and piercing effects, as passive with full bonus. Making a ship completely out of adv armor ist very inefficient, makes your ship heavy as f*** for its size, and does not provide enough additional defense capabilities for its cost. Standard armor would rather be the way to go, if you wanna get more armor HP and you dont like the rather squishy hull blocks.
Why i wrote "armor tank" in the beginning, has some reasons, too. i like to have all 3 of the passives (at least) ion, punch, and piercing. why shouldnt i try to be a so called "shield tank", as long as my shields are up? you can simply turn the ion off once your shields get low, to not take additional block damage, and turn on punch and piercing, when the armor/structure HP time of a fight starts. i also dont think its very smart ressource-wise to build ships that completely or mostly rely on armor-"tanking". in this case, "tanking" means, that you actually lose blocks - in case of adv armor kinda expensive blocks too. while shield-tanking doesnt include losing any blocks at all. So, id always suggest to first make sure you have decent (ion) shields with an adequate recharge and the power to support the recharge while still being able to fire weapons etc. Ofc this does not mean, that your ship has to be easy to kill once shields are down.

 

[Malacodor]

you can simply turn the ion off once your shields get low, to not take additional block damage

Since when does the defensive ion effect increase block damage taken?

 

[PriZm]

The description of the passive effect in the game still says "Makes your shields stronger against damage at the price of additional block damage and power consumption". Im not sure, if this it still the case, or if it is outdated.

 

[Malacodor]

The description of the passive effect in the game still says "Makes your shields stronger against damage at the price of additional block damage and power consumption". Im not sure, if this it still the case, or if it is outdated.

I misread it , thank you.

 

[Top 4ce]

The description of the passive effect in the game still says "Makes your shields stronger against damage at the price of additional block damage and power consumption". Im not sure, if this it still the case, or if it is outdated.

It's wrong as far as I know. As a weapon secondary, yes the weapon does less block damage, but as far as I know none of the passive effects have downsides outside of power use.

 

[PriZm]

im really not sure, didnt test it enough tbh. afaik ion worked liked that before defensively. not sure, if changes have been made. its no big deal to turn off an effekt once shields are down usually. ofc, sometimes you might lose your missiles' lock to do so etc. so, if someone can like 100% confirm that there is no block dmg malus for ion passive, it still would be nice

 

[AtraUnam]

AFAIK defensive ion does not and has never increased block damage taken. Sounds like someone making assumptions based on the ofensive effect and posting it on the wiki without checking.