Damage Influenced By Level?

[Aeonic]

Am I understanding it right that the amount of damage a weapon does to shields and armor is influenced by the weapons level besides its actually damage values and damage type?

[Arisaya]

Not as far as I know

[digdug]

nope, it's influenced by shield and armor level instead, independently of the actual bonuses, shield and armors have level dependent bonuses

Taben was so kind to make and share with us this table that list all the "standard damages":
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=206

[Aeonic]

Okay, I got it backwards. So the actual hit points of shields and armor mean zip when you take into account that a level 10 shield with 50 hit points is better than a level 1 shield with 100? Right?

[Atarlost]

Yep. The automatic level resistances dwarf most shield and armor resistanced and vulnerabilities. There are a few exceptions, but not many.

[Aeonic]

Wouldn't it have been easier to just boost the hit point values instead? Would make it a lost easier for players to understand, too.

[Wurmish]

Quite possibly, but I personally like the level system. Even though I still only have vague clues as to how it works. I'm rectifying that issue though.

What are the exceptions you speak of Atarlost?

[Atarlost]

Let's see.

The level 3 Solon has a huge laser resistance bonus that makes it better than level 4 or 5 shields against lasers.

The level 6 Invincible has large bonuses against severla damage types that make it better than any level 7 shield.

The level 7 Trenton is weaker in some respects than just about any shield from level 5 up.

Heavy meteorsteel and worldhip plate have true immunity to some damage types making them better than level 11 and 12 shields respectively against those damage types and for wordship they're damage types that are in use through most of the game.

Hardened reactive and hardened plasteel gives immunity to radioactive contamination which require the use of enhancment barrels to get otherwise.

Stealth armor provides a benefit in decreasing enemy detection ranges which no higher level armors provide.

Lots of stuff has bonuses that exceed the normal progression, but not by enough to really matter. Especially since resistances are more common on armors which only take damage after shields except in the case of the Trenton.

[Aeonic]

Like it or not, it seems very unintuitive since, aside from chancing upon the link that digdug posted up there, I doubt I'd have known this was the case at all. Its no fun to equip your ship with gear that is statistically better only to find out later that, because it was a lower level, it was actually worse than the gear you had before.

Its like saying I have $10,000. But because I'm level 15, its actually worth $50,000. Makes no sense at all.

[Aeonic]

Gah, it just makes me mad whenever I come across this. I already thought the power progression was too dramatic in this game, but this just totally unbalances it. What a dumb feature.

One of the aspects that I dislike most about Transcendence is how all the easy enemies are so stupidly easy that they're little more than a nuisance, while the hard enemies are so hard that you're usually dead before you realize that they're a hard enemy. You get rid of these level-based defenses and suddenly the weak enemies can still actually hurt you, and the strong enemies (okay, they still shred you like cheese) don't take so obnoxiously long to kill. But if the strong enemies didn't require such powerful weapons to damage high level players, they wouldn't need to be so powerful as to shred weaker players instantly!

There's no reason why a laser that does 20 damage should be inherently inferior to a position cannon that does 20 damage unless the enemy has some logical reason for having better laser defense. If the armor isn't designed to block laser damage, laser damage should do 100%. What if I want level 10 armor that resists ONLY positron? I can't do that, because lasers are still programmed to do 10% damage...

Is this hard coded or is it integrated into transcendence through the data files somehow? I want to know if I can get rid of it...

--

My ship is currently equipped with an X-ray laser cannon. It does something like 8-32 (x2) damage at 5 shots per second, modified by a 100% amplifier. It should break down to 8+32*2*2*5, or 800 damage points.

My other alternative a Katana star cannon. It does ion damage of 3-23 (+30%) at 5 shots per second. It breaks down to 3+23*1.3*5 or 169 damage points.

I do the math, then consider that the Katana has longer range and it tends to travel through targets for multiple impacts. The X-ray cannon is fairly short range. So I use the Katana for long-range base attacks and I use the X-ray for close encounters. Little do I realize that, at the level I'm approaching, the x-ray will only do 30% damage (240, short range), while the Katana does 80% of its damage (135, long range, piercing).

So here I'm thinking that, wow, the X-ray is so much more powerful than the Katana when, in reality, if you consider the piercing damage that the Katana does, they're both about the same, except the Katana has longer range and higher energy usage. Makes me wonder what other powerful items I've turned down because I didn't realize that there was some invisible math in the damage calculations...

Now suppose the game progresses further than it does and we're into level 12-14 armors. Now my X-ray cannon which used to decimate everything nearby isn't doing any damage, so I Positron the snot out of everything and loot the wreckage, analyzing the enemy's defenses trying to figure out why the heck my x-ray cannons aren't blowing things up... Neither their shields nor their armor have any resistances to lasers. Why won't my X-rays work? Here I'm sitting there all confused not understanding that after levels 10-12 lasers are simply useless.

And finally, the whole setup makes cool mod ideas like this impractical.

IMO the whole level concept is only really useful for organizing cargo and determining where you can get things installed or repaired. It shouldn't have any influence on the item's performance. It should be a gauge, like the speedometer in a car. Giving the car a speedometer with a higher speed reading doesn't make the car go faster.

[Arisaya]

Giving the car a speedometer with a higher speed reading doesn't make the car go faster.

very true

[Sponge]

Some damage types are inherently more effective than others. X-ray lasers are wonderful for early to mid game, but they're still lasers. They're also really cheap, and use hardly any power. If you want weapons with a harder punch, you need to pay more for them, and sport a reactor that can power them. I happened across an x-ray laser in the third system this playthrough, and I'm still kicking ass with it. It's only a matter of time, though. I'm waiting for a nice particle weapon. I understand how invisible calculations can be a bit frustrating, but you can get a pretty good handle on how it works by just operating under the assumption that higher level = better for armor and shields. Stronger damage type = better for weapons. It's not always perfectly accurate, but it's close enough so as to not cause too much aggravation. The fact that the weapon/shield/armor has a clearly labeled level, and that stuff like lasers are hard to find later on, in addition to the very obvious price increase should provide enough explanation as to why your low level damage types aren't doing anything.

The level based damage resistance was actually just added in a recent version. Before that, every shield/armor had its own set of resistances that determined what percentage of each damage type could get through. What ended up happening, though, is that high level stuff all ended up very resistant to low level weapons. And so the resistances were removed from the .tbd (or xmls) and hardcoded instead. Now, we have an "hpBonus" field which can be used to give armors and shields extra resistances to damage types, in addition to what the level bonus affords them. These are actually a bit more noticeable than Atarlost lets on. The Class V deflector, for example, is a level 5 (?) with a hpBonuses in laser, particle, and ion (don't quote me on that, I haven't actually checked in months). It takes almost no damage from laser (it has a +100 bonus, though I'm not exactly sure how to make that into a percentage), but kinetic, which it has no bonus toward, can actually tear it up pretty fast in larger quantities. Blast doesn't do it any good, either.

Personally, I like the system. It forces progression in equipment. You can't just grab something good early on (like an x-ray) and enhance it to make it work later on. Low level damage types are prevalent early on while they're effective, but not so much as the game progresses.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Katana does ion damage, not laser, which explains why it's fairing better than your x-ray. It's a lower level ion weapon, while the x-ray is, as I recall, the absolute best laser available.

[digdug]

an interesting point of view, Aeonic, I think it's the first time I see it like that, for many points you are right.

One of the aspects that I dislike most about Transcendence is how all the easy enemies are so stupidly easy that they're little more than a nuisance, while the hard enemies are so hard that you're usually dead before you realize that they're a hard enemy.

balancing a game is a serious issue of nearly all videogames, you cannot blame it all on the weapon level system.

Is this hard coded or is it integrated into transcendence through the data files somehow?

hardcoded.


the level bonuses were invented to force a player to upgrade to new weapon systems (and armors and shields) when they appear in the game, this progression is quite common in nethack-like games.
You probably already noticed that all the weapons of early game are laser and kinetic, mid game are particle and blast, late game are ion and thermo. (of course with notable exceptions)
All the other weapon types used ingame are for special weapons.

I agree with you that with this system, or you have the correct weapon type for the right system level, or the game is too difficult. When you acquire the right toy, the game becomes too easy.

However, again, discovering the right tool at the right moment is classical in nethack games, and I would like to see more 1-use items or weapons for example, that will require the player to think what to do. (like the stargate rod)

Comments?
What do you think Aeonic ?

[Aeonic]

In think you can acquire 'right item at the right time' without the hard coded resistances.

If you're running around the game with powerful lasers, you'll probably want to start upgrading when you realize the current enemy is mostly immune to lasers and is kicking your butt. Its not because your lasers are weak, its because the enemy has a resistance to them. You may want to hold onto those lasers in case you encounter a different enemy, but in the mean time you'll want a different weapon for these enemies. It may well be that by the time you find another enemy that your lasers are effective against, there will be better laser weapons available and you'll want to upgrade.

Same goes for shields and armor - sure, that Nephron P25 lets you kick Sung butt all the way to the next galaxy, but when you start encountering the Ares, the shield won't help you so you should consider upgrading to an ion-resistant one.

If anything, having built in resistances gives you less options since you'll always end up in a linear progression. Higher level is always better for every situation (with known exceptions). I don't want to be forced to progress, I want to be forced to think. I'll progress when better tools become available for what I want to do.

--

Another thing, if the game is going to start spamming resistances on late-game items, it might be good to come up with a different format to display them in. Perhaps showing acronyms would be better.

Imm: LS, KN, PA, BL. Res: IO, TH. Weak: PO, PL.

Don't know that that's the best way, actually I'd really love being able to click on items and get a full page on information on them, but its a possibility.

Any thoughts?

--

PS, I knew Katana was ion - that was a typo.

[george moromisato]

Excellent discussion!

I few random thoughts:

1. The damage resistance for shields and armor is not fully hard-coded. If a shield specifies:

hpBonus="..."

Then we compute the resistance of the shield based on the default resistance for that level (which is hard-coded).

But if the shield (or armor) specifies:

damageAdj="..."

(As in previous versions) Then we use those values directly. For example, you could create a shield with:

damageAdj="100,100,100,100..."

Which means that it has no resistance (or vulnerability) to any damage type. If you re-define all shields and armor classes like that, then you could get rid of level resistance all together.

2. The whole point of damage types and resistance was to model the discontiguous effect of technology: a rifle is not just a better crossbow--it is a qualitatively different weapon. Technology does not advance linearly, but rather in fits and starts.

That said, I agree that sometimes the jumps are too sudden. I don't think it's fun to get instantly killed by a superior technology before you can do anything about it.

Maybe the resistances have to be more gradual.

3. Internally there is a table that specifies the default resistance for a shield (or armor) of a given level. The hpBonus attribute modifies that to increase or decrease resistance. In theory, it might be possible to allow a mod (and Adventure Extension, for example) to modify the default resistance table directly. Then we could experiment with different resistance progressions without having to change all the shields and armor.