Armour and shielding

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Armour and shielding

Post by Prototype » Thu May 16, 2013 12:55 pm

My current ideas (likely to change): there are two types of damage, normal and special, anybody who has ever played Pokemon should understand what I am getting at here, but I'll explain anyway:

Normal: kinetics, bullets, ship impacts, and such

Special: energy weapons, lasers, plasma cannons and the likes

Each block has a damage resistance and a special damage resistance, which determine what percentage of the damage dealt by the damage inflictor is actually inflicted on a block.

For example, block X has a damage resistance of 60%, but a special resistance of only 20%, so a kinetic impact dealing 100 points of damage will be reduced to 40, but a special impact will deal 80 points. This system can be balanced so that the total resistance is equals a maximum or 100%, but doesn't necessarily have to for lower grade materials.


Shields will follow the same principle, but will cut out after absorbing so much damage, meaning people can choose from a more normal resistant, or a more special resistant shield, which means if you want to build a ship with high normal resistance, that leaves it very weak to special attacks, you can use a shield to cover for this, that it until the shield breaks. Shields can either be cast as a box (or any other shape for that matter) around the ship, or just be invisible and absorb damage that would normally be taken by the ship



Now for ships, there are two systems immediately obvious to me:
1: each block on the ship has its own HP, and they break individually

Pros: more realistic, as it means you have to be a little more tactical during ship to ship combat
Cons: might be harder to do, might make fights a bit too complicated

2: the ship has a total health determined but the number of blocks, but its resistance to the two types of damage is an average of the total resistances of each type, for every block in the ship

Pros: in ship combat, you just shoot wherever you want, might be easier to implement
Cons: would create scenarios equivalent to the classic FPS game feature of knifing someone on the little toe, and them dying, just as they would if you knifed them in the face
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Chairman_Tiel » Thu May 16, 2013 12:57 pm

I think fr0st said that per-block resistance was impractical without using lagtastic methods in the old armor thread.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Iv121 » Thu May 16, 2013 2:10 pm

No, he didn't favor it because it limited people's creativity in his opinion, in my opinion it adds to the gameplay.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Chairman_Tiel » Thu May 16, 2013 2:10 pm

No.

NO.

We are not arguing this again. It only ends in tears and frustration.

But mostly mayonnaise.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Prototype » Thu May 16, 2013 2:13 pm

Limits people's creativity? I think we could solve that with adjustable shields, that way you could get a good looking ship, then cover its flaws with a decent shield.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by joykler » Thu May 16, 2013 2:17 pm

we eventually cameup with sectioned health
a group of blocks [size depending on the whole size of the ship]
has a amount of hp
this group is armored per block but calculates it [when hit] with the average shielding
when the group didt suffer damage for a minute it will divide the suffered damage between the blocks in a random order thus makin some blocks break
if the group is hit and suffer enough damage for it to break that part will explode

air is a block
if we make space a block too we can make vacuum
the block between those two will instantly drain all oxygen from the player and deal damage to him [unnles he has a suit]
this wil provide people building airlocks and stuff

and stopping borg cube

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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Chairman_Tiel » Thu May 16, 2013 2:22 pm

If I may -

Shielding: Basically protects your ship from ***t in spess. Useful against any sort of high-speed projectile, not so much against slow moving stuff like *cough* torpedoes *cough*. The negatively charged plasma the enemy's energy cannons spit out will actually ADD to this module's strength temporarily, but the plasma within your shield will struggle to keep up with the massed fire typical of kinetic weapons. Missiles have a chance of breaking through the shield entirely and ***king up your hull, but oftentimes they'll just end up melting or even blowing up within the shield itself.

Armor: Also protects your ship from ***t in space! As with shielding, the module itself isn't passive - one must activate it before it comes into effect and starts sucking up power. But unlike shielding, which basically deploys a plasma umbrella around your craft and draining your batteries based on its size, armor is based on the actual blocks of your ship. Once activated, this addon will attempt to polarize your the outermost blocks of your hull to create a temporary 'armor' of sorts. Some blocks cost less than others to charge, but overall one wants to keep as little hull blocks as possible polarized to lessen power drain. Now, Armor is in a rock-paper relationship with Shielding. Kinetic weaponry will often bounce right off armor, though lessening the overall integrity of the polarization at a steady rate. Plasma weaponry, on the other hand, will literally melt down the armor with each successive burst faster than you can say 'fr0st!'. Missiles act similar to kinetic weaponry, though explosions may do more towards compromising the integrity of the 'armor'. Once the armor starts to get beaten down by the weaponry (when reactor charge no longer is greater than or equal to the volume of fire its taking in), blocks on the hull will suddenly start to become vulnerable. And this is where missiles shine in all their glory, explosive charges taking down the charge percentage of the armor while obliterating 'naked' blocks on the hull and exposing the ship to cold vacuum.

Old post is old but it seems like a nice compromise.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Iv121 » Thu May 16, 2013 2:37 pm

Well that isn't exactly a compromise, it is the opinion on the other side of mine (and Prototype's I guess ) that states the armor is taken from the overall pool of blocks rather than the blocks that actually see the action. Somehow I don't like the idea of exposure of a random bit of the bridge to the vacuum while you were shooting the engine on the other side of the ship ... And if you don't make it randomized but rather localized than again why not take that little step of actually calculating the DMG based on the same blocks you calculate anyway ...
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Chairman_Tiel » Thu May 16, 2013 2:39 pm

You do realize the way you type makes everything you say look like attempted insult, right? :tongue:
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Prototype » Thu May 16, 2013 2:41 pm

My idea was that they could both protect against both types of damage, just some more than others.

Also, I do sort of like the idea that each block can be damaged and broken individually, but IDK if this can be done without lag.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by joykler » Thu May 16, 2013 2:56 pm

the sectional thing also reduces lagg but makes it look better also

because if each block has its own damage value you would see broken blocks scattered
but with the sectional thing that devides the broken blocks AFTER he is damaged
you can make nicer appearing holes in the hull holes that rip togehter

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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by Iv121 » Thu May 16, 2013 3:00 pm

I'm more vorried how you generate those sections in the first place joykler.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by joykler » Thu May 16, 2013 3:45 pm

when you first generate a ship
it will look to the total amount of blocks
then it will automaticly make groups
lets say you have a ship of 100 blocks it will make
5 groups of 20
if you have 1000
it will make 10 of 100
you can edit some groups in a special dock by coloring the blocks in a group color
but each wil remain to have the automatic number of blocks included
if you addsomething to the total ship it wil get in a extra group
unitl you bring it to the dock

having more blocks in the same group is more dangerous especcially in this extra group because they are linked in a way like you mentioned hit a toe stab a face
so you would want to look out with wich group is where
you can also make special groups of reinforced tunnels thru your ship
because they wont suffer immediate damage

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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by  ҉  » Thu May 16, 2013 4:28 pm

I dislike that idea.
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Re: Armour and shielding

Post by joykler » Thu May 16, 2013 4:42 pm

a reason why would be nice

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