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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0021326AI War 2Gameplay IdeaNov 4, 2019 9:51 pm
ReporterChris_McElligottPark Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status consideringResolutionopen 
Product Version0.871 More Control, Part 1 
Summary0021326: Consider bringing back Armor and Armor Piercing from AIWC under a different name.
DescriptionFor reference: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War:Armor

Notes from AnnoyingOrange:

"AIWC had armor as a simple way to change weapon effectiveness across different ships, AIW2 has no way to do the same so it's hard to create a balance between "all small ships die immediately" and "big ships barely get scratched" in normal combat."

My thoughts:

It would be interesting to have those again for some ships, and it would help to differentiate some of them without going absolutely crazy. But do we really need this right away? That's... more of a question mark.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

Chris_McElligottPark

Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am

administrator   ~0051966

AnnoyingOrange further notes: https://forums.arcengames.com/ai-war-ii/beta-ai-war-2-v0-868-released!-'fleet-exp-level-ups-and-starting-battlestations'/msg220863/#msg220863

I don't think the AIWC multishot would work well without damage mitigation via armor, in most cases it would be identical to a single big shot with the combined damage of a whole salvo gameplay-wise while being worse performance-wise.
In theory, diminishing returns if multiple shots are fired on the same ship could change this, but I would expect it to be far too taxing on the CPU.
I'm not sure armor mitigation is a good idea to bring back either, it would require a ton of work and might very well not work out.

In any case, these are minor issues in my opinion: I mostly mention them to see if anyone has clever ideas about those.

Chris_McElligottPark

Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am

administrator   ~0051967

I'm going to shelve this one for now.

NRSirLimbo

Nov 4, 2019 9:51 pm

developer   ~0054352

So here's what I think since we talked about this on Discord:

Armor and Shield being opposing sides of the same coin (damage reduction).

Armor should be good against low-damage shots with a flat damage reduction like in the earlier game. Its role is to cancel out a large portion of swarmer or multishot-focused ships.
Shield should be good against low-dps since they can regenerate just like that. Its role is to withstand "lengthy" bombardment of guns which deal considerable damage but take an even longer time to charge.

If they scale in the same way as damage does the effective "time/shots to kill" is always the same, but the actual time it takes to destroy can vary a lot based on how well suited the weapon is:
Shield health: 1000 | Shot damage: 100 | Firerate: 1/s | DPS: 100/s | Shield regeneration: 50/s -> 20 seconds time to deplete the shield
Shield health: 1000 | Shot damage: 200 | Firerate: 0.4/s | DPS: 80/s | Shield regeneration: 50/s -> 0000097:0000033.3 seconds time to deplete the shield
Shield health: 1000 | Shot damage: 50 | Firerate: 2.5/s | DPS: 125/s | Shield regeneration: 50/s -> 0000067:0000013.3 seconds time to deplete the shield

The same is true for armor:
Ship health: 1000 | Shot damage: 100 | Firerate: 1/s | DPS: 100/s | Ship armor: 50 -> 20 seconds time to destroy the hull
Ship health: 1000 | Shot damage: 200 | Firerate: 0.4/s | DPS: 80/s | Ship armor: 50 -> 0000001:0000016.7 seconds time to destroy the hull
Ship health: 1000 | Shot damage: 50 | Firerate: 2.5/s | DPS: 125/s | Ship armor: 50 -> never does any damage (if armor is absolute)

In each case, if implemented in this form, it would be possible for a ship to become invulnerable to an enemy:
If the enemies DPS are too low and shields regenerate faster then there is no way it could be damaged.
If an enemies damage is too low and the armor soaks up all of it then there is now way it could be damaged.

On Discord we've had the discussion about how this would make Macrophages a way more difficult enemy if as I first suggested the shield regeneration per second would be at 5% of maximum capacity. Macrophages at level 1 have 3.000.000, which would effectively negate 150.000 damage per second and make them effectively immortal to the player unless they only use shield-piercing weapons. Therefore I now suggest setting a custom regeneration rate in while combat for a few of the big nasty ships.

As for armor, I suggest limiting the maximum effect of armor to negate 75% of incoming damage as to not have ships become completely invulnerable, as well as introducing a few armor piercing ships and ship variants.

There are more stats which could counterbalance each other if they increase at the same rate:

Cloaking points <-> Tachyon drain (Currently implemented)
Range <-> Ship speed (Could be implemented)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Jun 25, 2019 1:25 pm Chris_McElligottPark New Issue
Jun 25, 2019 1:25 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => assigned
Jun 25, 2019 1:25 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Jun 25, 2019 1:25 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added child of 0021310
Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0051966
Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0051967
Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => considering
Jun 26, 2019 10:37 am Chris_McElligottPark Relationship deleted child of 0021310
Nov 4, 2019 9:51 pm NRSirLimbo Note Added: 0054352