RC3 Armor Balance

[Retroactive]

That last wouldn't make sense since the xenophobes use energy weapons. Merely exempting meteorsteel armors, except maybe light which is positively anemic, from the general armor buffing would fix their overpoweredness.

Right, I didn't mean a literal Solon effect for all energy weapons. Perhaps worldship armor could limit you to using "tuned" weapons, which would be Xenophobe weapons and weapons modified with a special ROM. Or reduce firing rate. Or increase all weapons' energy draws. You get the picture.

Worldship armor does not need to be weakened; it is essential that Gaian processors and Xenophobe worldships remain difficult to kill and for that they need big honkin' slabs of armor. What needs to happen is that worldship armor needs to be a less viable option for low-level players. This can be accomplished by changing its cost, weight, level and/or by imposing additional restrictions beyond "you can't have a shield".

[Atarlost]

It's already a very expensive and rare armor that only one playership can handle, and that is near useless unless you get a full set. And it, since it's already balanced for shieldlessness, should not get the boost other armor is getting.

[Retroactive]

It's already a very expensive and rare armor that only one playership can handle, and that is near useless unless you get a full set. And it, since it's already balanced for shieldlessness, should not get the boost other armor is getting.

It's neither expensive nor particularly rare. Its basevalue is 4000, cheaper than heavy blast plate, advanced ceralloy or Gusoku Plate; it negates the need to purchase a shield and reduces the urgency to equip potent weapons; and it can be bought at corporate armor dealers pre-St.-Kat's or ordered (in full sets of 4 plates) from corporate trading posts post-St.-Kat's. I have not had many problems finding full sets in games where I look for it.

Even when other the armors are boosted by 50%, worldship armor will still be overpowered for its level because it is completely invulnerable to all damage types pre-St. Kat's and almost all damage types (excluding plasma from Ferians and Dark Acid from Penitents) up until Ares and Ventari are encountered. All pre-ares/Ventari ion weapons are EMP or blind-only, neither of which damage or affect worldship armor. It should not be feasible to mount a full set of worldship armor in most games until you are already in a system where there are at least a few ion or thermo-armed enemies around or impending within the next three or four systems.

[Aeonic]

Perhaps there could be a new restrictions added to armor and stations where armor not only needs a specific level to repair, but also to equip.

[Atarlost]

The problem is the damage curves. Making worldship plate level 7 or 8 would prevent it from showing up early, but would also make it even more powerful simply from the balance curves. It would lose its relative vulnerability to plasma and positron.

[Aeonic]

Repair and possibly equip level have nothing to do with the armor's actual level.

[Atarlost]

No, that was a reply to the idea of actually changing the item level. Adding an install level would require changing not just the C code but the xml format. We're at RC3 which should be a bit late to get major changes like that in before 1.0.

[george moromisato]

The problem is the damage curves. Making worldship plate level 7 or 8 would prevent it from showing up early, but would also make it even more powerful simply from the balance curves. It would lose its relative vulnerability to plasma and positron.

I actually agree with both of you (I think).

I think we need to make worldship level 8 (to prevent it from showing early, and also because its power warrants it).

At the same time, I also think that 250 hp (the current strength) is good enough--no need to buff it further.

BTW, in RC3 I've also added an attribute to control the intrinsic damage adjustments that you get from level. For any armor you can specify:

damageAdjLevel=

To set the level of the damage adjustment separately from the level at which the armor is found, etc.

[Arisaya]

soo....

damageadj is same as ever, while damageadjlevel is it will use the specified level's curve...?

[digdug]

woah !
thanks George !
custom damageAdjLevel !

[Retroactive]

At the same time, I also think that 250 hp (the current strength) is good enough--no need to buff it further.

When equipped on the player's ship, doesn't having it be 250 HP and +400% against ion and thermo actually make it significantly more effective against ion and thermo than if it were 500 HP and +200% against ion and thermo, simply because patch spiders, patcher arms and regenerating nanos will repair it twice as fast? It could have higher base HP and lower resistances to exotic damage types.

[Atarlost]

I had a thought loosely related to armor balance:

If armor is going to be more important relative to shields the armor limits are also going to become more important. The Freighter has a 20 ton limit. The Wolfen has a 10 ton limit which misses several of the top armors, but also catches most of the heavy armors. The Sapphire has a mere 6 ton limit, which only lets it mount the lightest armors at most levels. Previously this wasn't a big deal because shields dominated, but with shields weak and armor dominant the Sapphire has even less going for it than before. It may be reaching the point where the reduced armor limit may be a big enough deal to merit giving it an eighth device slot to match the other playerships.

[Aeonic]

That's also the reason why I question the reason for increasing the standard armor's mass for each level. Ships that can only mount light armor segments are going to get progressively weaker as the game progresses because of it.

[Bobby]

the mass of armor shouldn't increase as it gains levels, higher tech armor materials are stronger, so less of it is needed to get an armor segment of exactly the same strength, or if it's the same mass, it will be stronger.

[Betelgeuse]

couple questions on damageAdjLevel

Will that work with shields to? Also will we be able to get at it in code? (read only is fine)