SpaceCombat Counters

[utilae]

Weapon Damage- Description
Basic Energy - Basic forms of energy including electrical and thermal damage. This includes Fusion Cannon, Ion Cannon, Hard Beam, Lasers, Plasma Cannon and Nova Wave Emitter.
Advanced Energy - Advanced forms of energy including fluctuating and subspace damage. This includes Subspace Disruptor, Black Hole Generator, Phasors, Disruptor and Quantum Laser.

Basic and Advanced Energy should be combined into just energy.

Weapons can have more than one damage type. Explosive should, IMO, always be combined with another type.

Explosive CAN be combined with another type.

Energy Spores

I think a broaeder type is need for these. I think these should go under 'living' or something wierd.

Corrosive weapons have no bearing on shields since the corrosive material is still in its delivery container.

Corrosive weapons may not necesarily be in delivery containers. They could be a cloud of space fairing nanaites that can wear down shields as well.

[miu]

Corrosive weapons may not necesarily be in delivery containers. They could be a cloud of space fairing nanaites that can wear down shields as well.

Or spitted by some nasty organic thing.. sprouting corrosive clouds be interesting way to mine areas.

[PowerCrazy]

So bascially your counter system Ranos breaks down into, 5? types of damages. But one is not actually a damage type, wouldn't explosive be unrelated to the damge type but be factored in with other stuff.

I'm not sure how to deal with explosive damage. Why is it different than kinetics?

So you have
4 or 5 damage types.
5 armor types.
3 shield types.

It looks like you have your armors are Good against 2 things, and Bad against 2 things, then normal against one.

SO we have a 5 on 5 system. 5 weapons, 5 armors. 2v2v1

Shields will have to be approached in a similiar manner as Armor, so we will need to be able to rebalance some of our weapons to deal with shields. IMO the best way to do this is to add weapon effects onto each weapon, that will behave differently when fired at shields.

Otherwise they should just act as a buffer with a %dmg reduction and a dmg threshold and maybe a rechage rate.

Also I believe we have a few things we can assume to help us.
Damage of each weapon will generally increase as Tech increases.
Hit Points wil generally increase with Tech.

I assume everyone is makeing those assumptions. Because it is quite possible to make Hit Points fairly constant throughout the game, but just increase damage reduction of armors, and to increase the penetration of weapons.

[Ranos]

Basic and Advanced Energy should be combined into just energy.

Why? Why should all energy weapons be lumped into one category? The majority of weapons in the game will probably be energy, because energy allows for the most flexibility. To lump all energy weapons into one category would be limiting their potential. I would prefer to have at least three if not four different energy categories, but most people seem to be in favor of one or two. If I have to choose between the those, I pick two.

How can you lump subspace disruptor into the same category as lasers? They function in completely different ways. Lasers do heat damage while subspace disruptors tear at the fabric of space-time itself.
Disclamer: The previous sentence was completely invented in my head and has no basis in reality. I made it up for purposes of the game and to show the difference between subspace disruptors and lasers.

Explosive CAN be combined with another type.

Okay, you're right. I just remembered Sonic Charges from Star Wars.

I think a broaeder type is need for these. I think these should go under 'living' or something wierd.

AND

Corrosive weapons may not necesarily be in delivery containers. They could be a cloud of space fairing nanaites that can wear down shields as well.

I was thinking of adding another weapon deliver type, Mines. Both the energy spores and the shield attacking nannites should be included in this category. Mines could have energy or kinetic weapons mounted on them or include little ninnite clouds. To effect shield though, they would need to have microscopic energy weapons since matter doesn't effect the shields because it moves to slow. If matter will effect shields, then the nannites would be kamikazies and ram into the shields causing immediate damage and not corrosive. Corrosive should be, IMO, be limited to weapons that eat at the hull of a ship. If all weapons and all weapon types can function in the same way, why have multiple types?

Or spitted by some nasty organic thing.. sprouting corrosive clouds be interesting way to mine areas.

Mine category of course. but would count as corrosive and only do damage to armor/hulls.

So bascially your counter system breaks down into, 5? types of damages. But one is not actually a damage type, wouldn't explosive be unrelated to the damge type but be factored in with other stuff.

I'm not sure how to deal with explosive damage. Why is it different than kinetics?

So your asking how a block of C4 and a machine gun are different? Explosive damage is caused over a larger area than any other damage type. I don't know. I guess its something that needs to be thought about.

It looks like you have your armors are Good against 2 things, and Bad against 2 things, then normal against one.

That was an example as I clearly state. It could be good against 1 bad against 2, good against 3 bad against 2, however we want to make it. That's the beauty of Zpock's resistance suggestion.

Shields will have to be approached in a similiar manner as Armor, so we will need to be able to rebalance some of our weapons to deal with shields. IMO the best way to do this is to add weapon effects onto each weapon, that will behave differently when fired at shields.

Otherwise they should just act as a buffer with a %dmg reduction and a dmg threshold and maybe a rechage rate.

Shields are approached in a similar manner as armor so I don't know why you are bringing this up and I have no clue why weapons would need to be rebalanced to deal with shields. You need to explain the adding effects to deal with shields. Shields could work as only a buffer or they could stop all damage until they run out. I honestly don't see how weapons would need to be changed to deal with them differently.

I assume everyone is makeing those assumptions. Because it is quite possible to make Hit Points fairly constant throughout the game, but just increase damage reduction of armors, and to increase the penetration of weapons.

You assume correctly, at least on my part. I don't think hit points should be constant though. They should increase throughout the game. It makes the new weapon or armor seem more important when it can deal or take more damage instead of just increasing or decreasing penetration, which should be a mod for weapons.

[noelte]

Why? Why should all energy weapons be lumped into one category?

What is the obvious difference between basic and advanced energy??

[utilae]

Basic and Advanced Energy should be combined into just energy.

Why? Why should all energy weapons be lumped into one category? The majority of weapons in the game will probably be energy, because energy allows for the most flexibility. To lump all energy weapons into one category would be limiting their potential. I would prefer to have at least three if not four different energy categories, but most people seem to be in favor of one or two. If I have to choose between the those, I pick two.

All energy weapons should be lumped in one category because that is how the counter system works, it relies on the counter relationships between weapon types, 'energy' being one weapon type.

Advanced energy just sounds like energy weapons that are higher in the tech tree. If Advanced energy weapons are mean't to be like subspace/exotic etc, then we should name the category something else.

How can you lump subspace disruptor into the same category as lasers? They function in completely different ways. Lasers do heat damage while subspace disruptors tear at the fabric of space-time itself.

Well subspace disruptors don't go in the advance energy category, they should go in subspace or something.

Hey, about the enery spores and mine categories. I was overthinking. Energy spores are energy type, mines are explosive type. I was for some reason thinking too much about the delivery system of the weapon (something that naturally comes into effect).

[discord]

bah! you get a good idea, and you turn into mush within days, is it just to make things more crappy or what?

'counter system' that should be game by game based, not set into rules from the core engine.

yes that is how they do it in star craft/warcraft....and it works there...but your average starcraft game on higher levels is over within 10 minutes, while the higher the level are in a 4x game the longer the game will be....

as such, in a 4x type game you have time for evolution of war, especialy since you create your own types of units all the time....

so take a step beyond what has already been done a few hundred times, and look to the future instead, free the system up, and let the players balance it among themselves instead, as it is supposed to be.

okey, to explain it to you who cant figure out what i just said.

#1 materials have resistance values against different types of damage, yes?

#2 as such, you dont have 'armor of this type' you have thickness/type wich in turn tells you how much resistance it has against different damage types...and a high amount of the structural integrity aswell(hit points)

#3 there should be LOTS of different damage types, as there are lots very different ways to create damage, no?

#4 composite armor,
meaning of the word should be looked up...as should ablative, although ablative is abit trickier, as it's original meaning is purely grammatical, and used in a similar manner for armor, basicly it is a passive form of reactive armor, that allows itself to be destroyed partly to decrease the amount of actual damage, as such the resistance of both ablative and reactive armors should decrease as they suffer more enemy fire.

and composite armors should be player designed(with some penalties for using different armor materials, since no creation is perfect...)

hopefully someone will actualy understand this, although my hopes are not high.
/edit
and yes, composite damage exists aswell, as in a nuke for instance, it is mainly EM and Thermal damage in space, while having quite a kinetic punch aswell on the ground, there of different damage types in the same weapon(most weapons are like that in one way or another.), and so should it be in the game aswell.
/edit

[Impaler]

I dont think we should handle shields in the same manor that armor is handled, their should be some differnt mechanism by which shields work or the Shield/Armor of a ship is realy just a mix of 2 similar things.

Also I think the Armor Math should work like follows. A ship of some Size will have an "Armor Area" of A which is a number relecting how "BIG" the ship is. Important Note Larger ships have a better Area to Space Ratio so its esentialy cheaper per unit of internal space to armor them then it is a small ship. Each armor in the game will have a Cost and Mass in addition to its resistences. So Adamantium armor might be...

Cost 11
Mass 5
Resistence 50/75/25/125

When the player selects Adamantium as the chossen Armor for their ship they can select how thick they wish the armor to be. They enter this number T. The cost will be A x T x Cost value. The ships mass will incresse by A x T x Mass value. The Ratio of a ships Engines to Mass will determine its speed and acceleration, Hull size is of no importance in speed only the Thrust/Mass ratio.

Calculating Damage is done quite simply

Raw Damage - ( T x Resistence to this damage type) = Damage delt

This is called Damage nulification, with thick enough armor and/or good Resistence a ship will suffer no damage from puny pea shooters.

[Impaler]

Some interesting material here, this is a link provided by Prokonsul Piotrus in the Ship Design thread, though it looked to be of some use here as well.

http://nift.firedrake.org/Weap-Def_Archive.htm

[Zpock]

I thought It was going to be:

(rawdmg - nullification)*resistance
or
rawdmg*res - nullification

In english, resistance modifies dmg directly not through the nullification. Isn't that better? I mean, damage nullification isn't a factor very oftenly, when big guns are used. We only want resistance and the countering system come into play with the peanut shooters?

[Impaler]

The problem with that is that tinfoil armor with a high resistence will esentialy act as a Damage Mitigator. For example.

Death Ray 2000 Damage
Hits Ship with tin-foil Zortium Armor thickness of 5
Zortium has 50% Energy Resistence

(2000 - 5) x .5 = ~1000
And
(2000 x .5) - 5 = ~1000

In Both these cases their would be a huge benefit from the Resitence bonus of the Armor regardless of how thick the armor is. Thus the Bonus should apply to how much the armor nulifies, not to the raw damage. This will give an insentive to actualy use thick armor. I belive Damage Nulification should be a big factor, it makes the big huge capatal ship survive in combat as they should.

[Zpock]

I don't think it's a good idea taking damage nullification too far. Since when did large ships need help? I thought small ships were the ones usually having a hard time being useful.

Damage nullification makes small guns useless and have no effect on big guns. I can't imagine how you would balance the game if it gets a central role in the damage system. I can only see it leading to one thing, a race to thicker and thicker armor and bigger and bigger guns. No point using fighters etc, just make one ship with armor thickness as high as possible and stick on the biggest gun you have. Nothing will touch that but another big thicker ship with a bigger gun. You wouldn't even have to bother with the resistances if you had a big enough gun.

I wouldn't miss the damage mitigation much if it was scrapped altogether. It's not like high tech desperately needs an edge vs low tech or anything. I think the damage system should be based mainly on hitpoints and the resistances. More armor thickness -> more hp.

About the tinfoil armor acting as damage mitigator. I can see a slight problem here if it's what happens when a ship with thinfoil 50hp armor gets hit by that beam, but has 2000 hull hp or something under that armor. That should be solved so that only the damage to the armor gets resisted, so 100dmg goes to the armor (50% res) and remaining 1900 goes to the hull unmodified. Otherwise I don't see the problem. If the armor can take that 1000 dmg it should. Then it's not tinfoil.

[PowerCrazy]

Ranos, the confusion about your energy advanced energy stuff is why you just need a generic name. Type A weapons, Type B weapons etc.

Shields need to be considered differently from armor because they aren't just another armor on the outside of the ship. They are something different altogether. Thus they need different rules governing them then Armor does. Otherwise why even have shields? Just call it Armor layer 2. But we already decided we only want one type of armor on the ship.

Impaler, I don't think Armor shuold nullify based on thickness. There should be a base cancellation factor. Say level 6 Armor cancels 6 pts of damage. But that should be it. If the player is able to meter the amount of damage a ship takes based on armor thickness, there are almost no limits, or worse you could end up in a stalemate situation where the battle never ends because neither ship has a powerful enoguh gun to damage the other. That sucks and is not very fun.

[Impaler]

I never said their was no Cap on how thick armor could be. We would ofcorse balance the Armor strength with coresponding weapons to keep ships from becoming completly involnorable to anything but the most tecnologicaly backward assaults.

MOO1 uses Damage Nulification adsactly as I have described it (but it was the Shield that dose it with "armor" being a just the "Health Points" of the ship). Of practicaly any 4X game you could mention though Moo1 keeps small ships the MOST usefull through its generous evasion bonus and Overkill rules, aka 1 Death Ray can only kill one fighter and the other 9999 take revenge.

About the tinfoil armor acting as damage mitigator. I can see a slight problem here if it's what happens when a ship with thinfoil 50hp armor gets hit by that beam, but has 2000 hull hp or something under that armor. That should be solved so that only the damage to the armor gets resisted, so 100dmg goes to the armor (50% res) and remaining 1900 goes to the hull unmodified. Otherwise I don't see the problem. If the armor can take that 1000 dmg it should. Then it's not tinfoil.

It sounds like your agreeing with me here, am I understanding you right that you support...

2000 Raw Damage - ( 50 Armor x 2 Resistence Multiplier) = 1900 Damage Recived

Also note that the player should have the option of making "Torpedo Bombers" aka Small ships that carry one realy Big Bomb/Missle/Torpedo that can do some massive damage to thouse capital ships. Tiny Ship dose not nessarily equal Tiny Gun.

[Zpock]

It sounds like your agreeing with me here, am I understanding you right that you support...

2000 Raw Damage - ( 50 Armor x 2 Resistence Multiplier) = 1900 Damage Recived

No, What I meant is an armor with 50 hitpoints and 50% resistance to the waepon type in question would only have the modifier apply to the armor itself and not underlying hull hitpoints. I want hitpoints and resistance for the armor and that's it, no mitigation. Hitpoints are taken off everytime you hit the armor with something, not like mitigation that stays and always substracts itself from the damage.

Damage mitigation could be used to get a delicate balance between rapid fire small guns and weapons like huge battleship batteries and those "proton torpedo" weapons for fighters you talked about. I think it's a good idea following moo1 here. Let the shields get a hp value and damage mitigation. Armor with resistance and hp. Anti-fighter weapons will then have trouble getting through shields but can tear away at armor once the shields are gone. This makes sense to me, shield feels more like it can shrug of minor dmg with no effect at all while armor should fail eventually to constant tear by small guns. We also get the separation of how shields and armor work, isn't that great?

Math:
Shield gets hit:
damage to shield hp = damage - mitigation

Armor gets hit:
damage to armor hp = damage * resistance

Not even any complicated math to worry about.