SpaceCombat Counters

[skdiw]

Flux shields could go either way. They are the same as Screens but with a fluctuating percentage. After looking at utilae's numbers, I'm even more inclined to say let's throw them out. If Flux shields do either 15, 30 or 45 percent damage reduction, the median number is still 30 and if Screens do 30 all of the time, why would I go with a shield that fluctuates? The chance of having the greater reduction is equal to the chance of the lesser reduction.

If Roulette shields only do a max of 20% reduction, I'm picking Screens over them too. Screens will always reduce by 30% and never have the chance of allowing all damage through. While the stopping all damage is nice, it is the same as Flux shields, the odds are the same that I will stop all damage or take all damage. I'm not a big gambling person. I would rather stick with shields that are going to give me the same performance through the entire battle instead of having my last ship get blown up by your last ship right before I fire the killing blow because a 6 was rolled and that extra 30% damage that I took was enough to destroy me.

I guess that people don't like a random shield, because all they see is the average performance of the shield, so they think that the positives will be negated by the negatives. Of course if we did go with this system of shields being different by how they reduce damage, we could have many shield types (like i have described). It wouldnt hurt to have a few superior shields and a few bad ones, a few dupes, etc. If the player wants to pick a dupe then they can. I would prefer all shield types to be equally viable, so no shield is superior to another throughout the game.

It is true that flux shields, roulette shields and screen shields are basically the same, but at the end when the important decisions are made we will pick from a big list of shield types. At the very least we could make shields such as flux/roulette as mods to a screen shield for example. I would be ok with that, as long as there are plenty of unique shield types.

Perhaps some other people could think of more shield types. I know we shouldn't be thinking of the shield types right now, so if anyone can think of a direction we can go from here, then lets go.

See, here is the trick of a good game. We want superior shields under some circumstances and not on others so the job as the emporer of 4X is to pilot your men into the situation so your men can take advantage of it and win.

Thing thing about screen, roulette, and flux is that there is no RPS element so they are just clutter, and hence violates KISS. I would much rather pick from a short list of pertaninent of different kinds of shield, rather than pick also from dupes. Dupes has no gameplay influence so I don't think it should be in the game. It has nothing to do with realism. If you wanted, nix screen and flux and use roulette as replacement; it makes no difference in the game or to me as a player what you call the shield. It's just that screen does the same and it's much easier to explain and program.

Combination of different shield types is a good idea. But I think small bag is better than large considering the scope of the game.

Lastly, I don't think superior "something" should cost more since you already pay a lot of rp for it anyway. If you had to pay more in cost then it destroys the spirit of researching. I think we should make it simple and fix the cost and just increases "something's" capabilities so everybody is clear what will happen if they research "something."

Another thing about refinements is that if X, Y, and Z yield exact same results independent of any other factors, then as soon as the player picks one and advances through that path, all other becomes a dead weight in the tech tree. I don't think we want that and also see it again in designing ship menu. If you wanted, you can go screen -> flux -> roulette with greater statistical benefits as you research up the tree so the roulette ultimately replace the other two.


I think a good starting point is identify what we want to accomplish in space combat and go from there. I would like to see 1. Fireworks, 2. Mixture of small and large ships 3. some tactics involved and 4. neato things if we can come up with them.

[utilae]

Roulette shields would be good on small ships in which even 30% of a shot would kill in one hit. These would allow small ships to take an average of 2+ hits before being killed, despite having basically no armor.

This makes roulette shields extremely important for small ships. And we have always wanted a way for smaller ships to be more useful.

Here another idea to handle the effects of Armor Resistences and Weaknesses.

First off I am asuming that people find the idea of having armor 3-5 armor thickness aka (light, Medium, Heavy) a desirable idea even if the exact implementation has not been determined yet. Thicker armor offers more protection in some way, thinner less so and no armor option leaves you naked (execpt for the shield ofcorse).

It seems logical to fold the effects of Resistence in as a modification on the effective level of thickness. A weakness decreases the effect by 1, a bonus incresses it by 1. So for example if Armor X is Medium Thickness and weak against Energy damage an Energy weapon will damage the ship AS IF the armor was Thin. Conversly Armor Y which is Medium Thickness on your ship if hit with a Damage type that its resistent too it will act AS IF the armor was Heavy for that attack. By folding all the desired effects into + and - effects on a single paramiter the player gets a much better idea of how each element contributes to the whole.

This goes along with the earlier Idea I had conserning Tec Refinment of Armor being the basis of the Protection factor. Now the full equatin is

Level of Armor Tec/Refinment + Thickness Modifier (+1, 0, -1) + Resistence Modifier (+1, 0, -1) = Effective level of Defence

So this is really a simplified resistances system is it. Seems good.

About Shields: Ranos I dont want to sound rude here but Ablaze, Utilae and myself are able to see the depth of strategy involved with these various shield types and many others mentioned earlier. Please give us the benefit of the doupt here, rather then constantlly saying "Theirs no point to that, its adsactly the same, I dont like it, take it out ect ect", instead ASK for elaboration. You said yourself this is Brainstorming not a desision making thread you cant "take out" or "Get rid of" an idea thats not even anyware near getting into the game yet.

Yes, well take them out when we start filtering the list of shield types. I think Ranos and skdiw are simplifying everything down to statistical averages too much. You guy's say that the roulette, screen and flux shields are exactly the same. Ranos, you say that all shields are the same (they either stop some damage or all damage). Also all shields should be the same in terms of balance, which is how much damage they stop. They key is how they stop it.

Name Change Sugjustion: Rather then "Roulett" which admitedly is very sugjestive of the function dose not seem to fit will in a Sci-Fi theam. Having been inspired by the Improbability Drive used in the Hitckhickers guide to the Galaxy and David Brins Uplift trilogy I would propose "Improbability Shield" as a new name. I think it gives the same sugjestion of randomness/luck and is more Sci-Fi oriented.

Yeah, that sounds cool. I'll use that name.

Thing thing about screen, roulette, and flux is that there is no RPS element so they are just clutter, and hence violates KISS.

I dont want an RPS element for shields. We have already discussed an RPS element for armor and weapons. If shields also have an rps element, then weapons will have two layers of RPS to go through (one for shields and one for armor). This would violate KISS. I think it is simpler to have shields not involved in an RPS system, like we have been discussing (how they stop damage).

I would much rather pick from a short list of pertaninent of different kinds of shield, rather than pick also from dupes. Dupes has no gameplay influence so I don't think it should be in the game. It has nothing to do with realism. If you wanted, nix screen and flux and use roulette as replacement; it makes no difference in the game or to me as a player what you call the shield. It's just that screen does the same and it's much easier to explain and program.

I think you are simplifying things too much. The roulette shield can possibly stop all damage, but is very risky. It is more useful on a small ship that will die using other shields (as Ablaze explained). The flux shield is risky, but less so then roulette shields. Also you talk about averages, but you are talking about using the shields on 30 ships or something and saying that statistically they are the same. What if you used a shield on one ship. Would they be the same then. Would you use a roulette shield or a screen shield. Roulettes are probably too risky to be used on one ship. I know what you are saying though. Roulette, flux and screens are really just small variations of each other. They all stop damage in the same way, just have some numbers changed. If I was to throw one out, it would be flux I think. But still I like it, cause it fluctuates. And roulettes are crazy, but awesome on a small ship, I like this alot if it helps out small ships more.

Another thing about refinements is that if X, Y, and Z yield exact same results independent of any other factors, then as soon as the player picks one and advances through that path, all other becomes a dead weight in the tech tree. I don't think we want that and also see it again in designing ship menu. If you wanted, you can go screen -> flux -> roulette with greater statistical benefits as you research up the tree so the roulette ultimately replace the other two.

This is a clear problem. Though I think we should look to Diablo 2, which has a similar system and should have a similar problem. In Diablo 2 when you learn skills, you learn skills lower in the tree before those higher in the tree. You can then refine those skills once you have learn't them, up to level 20. Of course once you learn a skilll you don't just refine that skill forever and forget about the rest. You continue up the tree to learn others. I am not sure why, but I think this is because each skill is very different from another. Plus I think that a skill higher in the tree is significantly better than one lower in the tree after a few levels of refinement. But then why do you refine. Because skills are unique enough that they are worth refining. I think this outside of the scope of counters and ship offense vs ships defense, etc.

[skdiw]

@ Imapler

Your armor resistance and weakness system is good. I also really like your early post about giving each type of weapons and amor some character on top of RPS. Just hope we can program them. Splash effects are difficult to do and so are beams slicing through multiple ships, though these are the stuffs I really like to see.

@ untilae

Okay, I see how the counter system works now that I've went way back and read the basics of weapon vs. armor RPS and the role of shield is just reducing damage before hitting the armor. :p (I'm lazy)

But I still think we should stick with a list with more unique ways of stopping damage. The effects of overkill for roulettes to be advantages just for small ships just seems too small to be included in the game. I don't imagine you would want to fire your stellar converter at a fighter unless it's the last target. That's why I mentioned overkill in a small note. small ships and fighters are usually countered by fast firing, weak PD weapon mods.

I guess flux and roulettes are interesting enough for additional consideration. Maybe we say they eventually evolve into displacement device in moo1 thru refinement. But the three are still so similar that I am afraid that as soon as a player picks one of the three to research and refine, there is no reason to research for the other two if all three parallel each other. I can see how other shield types are useful in different situation so they are worth researching and refining, but the screen, flux, and roulettes aren't unique enough. I think it would be wise to throw flux out or include into roulette refinement series and keep roulette just for entertainment value for some ppl.

[Ranos]

Welcome to another long post by Ranos.

It seems logical to fold the effects of Resistence in as a modification on the effective level of thickness. A weakness decreases the effect by 1, a bonus incresses it by 1. So for example if Armor X is Medium Thickness and weak against Energy damage an Energy weapon will damage the ship AS IF the armor was Thin. Conversly Armor Y which is Medium Thickness on your ship if hit with a Damage type that its resistent too it will act AS IF the armor was Heavy for that attack. By folding all the desired effects into + and - effects on a single paramiter the player gets a much better idea of how each element contributes to the whole.

This goes along with the earlier Idea I had conserning Tec Refinment of Armor being the basis of the Protection factor. Now the full equatin is

Level of Armor Tec/Refinment + Thickness Modifier (+1, 0, -1) + Resistence Modifier (+1, 0, -1) = Effective level of Defence

Well, here I go pointing out the downside of yet another idea. It seems to be my lot in this thread.

Even though this seems like a simpler way of doing Resistances, it really isn't. The reason why is simple, you are changing the ammount of armor HP with the modifier instead of the damage being done. While it may simplify it in programming and writing down +1, 0, -1 is easier than 80%, 100%, 120%, it complicates the the damage calculation for the attack.

Using percent resistances, the way damage would be calculated is as follows: Final Armor HP = Starting Armor HP - (Damage * Resistance) or F = S - (D * R).

That is a very simple calculation. If armor is used in the traditional manner with HP (as opposed to the system proposed by Impaler), then this is the simpler way of doing it. To use the "Folding Principle" (FP) would require an adjustment to be made to the HP of the shield for each different weapon type. If my ship has Medium Duranium armor on it which gives 1000 HP and has +1 against Energy and -1 against Kinetic, then the armor thickness would have to be recalculated for every single shot fired against the ship. Lets say the scale works like this: No armor = 0, Very light armor = 1, light armor = 2, medium armor = 3, heavy armor = 4 and very heavy armor = 5. For Duranium armor, the HP number would be N = 0, VL = 250, L = 500, M = 1000, H =2000 and VH = 4000. The base number for calculation in the FP would be 125.

An energy weapon is fired at my ship that does 100 damage. The armor has to be recalculated to light and damage factored in. I am writing this at 3:30 AM and I am having trouble working out the exact formula for the calculation but I do know there is wone of two ways of doing it. If armor is double for every level as I used above, the formula is actually simple. Damage is multiplied by 2. If the increase in thickness works in some other way, first it would complicate the way thickness is determined and then it would complicate the formula. Basically, the easiest way to do it is to double the damage. This gives absolutely no depth to the resistance system. Damage is doubled and halved for -1 and +1 to thickness, quadrupled and quartered for -2 and +2, etc.

Using percentages for resistance allows for far more customizability and depth. Percentages could be anywhere from 1 - 1000% or we could even go with tenths of percents if we wanted to get that picky. The formula is still easy and I think it makes more sense to say damage done is 80% of normal compared to armor thickness is adjusted by -1.

About Shields: Ranos I dont want to sound rude here but Ablaze, Utilae and myself are able to see the depth of strategy involved with these various shield types and many others mentioned earlier. Please give us the benefit of the doupt here, rather then constantlly saying "Theirs no point to that, its adsactly the same, I dont like it, take it out ect ect", instead ASK for elaboration. You said yourself this is Brainstorming not a desision making thread you cant "take out" or "Get rid of" an idea thats not even anyware near getting into the game yet.

What strategy? The only benefit of any of those over the other is that Screens give a definate 30% reduction, Flux have a 33.333% chance of giving a 45% reduction and Roulette have a 16.667% chance of giving a 100% reduction. The shortfalls are Screens give a definate 30% reduction, Flux have a 33.333% chance of giving a 15% reduction and Roulette shields have both a 16.667% chance of giving a 0% reduction and a 66.667% chance of giving a 20% reduction. The only thing that could benefit from Roulette shields are small ships that would get wiped out by a single hit from the gigantic guns of the late game. In other words, their only possible usefullness is in the late game. But that usefullness will never come because of Wall shields which will be able to take at least one if not 2 hits from the big weapons before failing. The only two viable options here are whether you want to have a gauranteed 30% reduction or take the risk of only a 15% reduction at the same time as a possible benefit of a 45% reduction. That is merely player choice. There is no strategy involved.

When you get down to it, all shields would be the same in that respect. To make all of the shields viable in the game, they must be balanced and be equally good choices. But unless all shields have HP, which in utilae's last update on the list, only Wall and Regen shields had HP, then the shields without HP will be overpowered because they will never run out.

Actually, I take that back. There would be strategy involved in the choice of two shields, Screen and Deflector. 30% reduction compaired to 15% reduction but doing that damage to an enemy ship. That is the only strategic choice. In the end, smaller ships would be equipped with Wall shields because of the stop all damage benefit and large ships would be equipped with Screen or Deflector shields because they never run out.

The only way to make different kinds of shields have strategic options is if shields also have resistance. Personally, I see no problem with this. If you look at my last counter proposal at the bottom of page 3, there would be strategic options in choosing between those three shields. They would also opperate differently than armor. Kinetic and Explosive weapons would need to be more expansive and/or do less damage to balance out the different damage types. The other option is of course to make multiple shield types that each have their own resistances and have them effect all weapons in the same manner.

One of the biggest arguements against resistances on shields and armor was that that would make double layered resistance. This would add more strategy to the game. You could go into a battle with your shiny new ships with your newest weapon and do massive ammounts of damage to ships that have a single resistance layer that takes more damage from that weapon type or you could end up getting your hind end kicked by ships that have a double resistance to the weapon. That could mean the survival or death of a small empire. If they were able to strongly counter the big empires weapons, they would actually be able to overcome the big empire and maybe even gain a system or two that would tip the balances even and allow them to survive to fight another war.

Back to Impaler's quote, I did ask for elaboration and got it and liked it. Then skdiw showed up and pointed out how mathematically, three shields would be the same and I felt I needed to make a comment in regards to that. I said that it would be my only commment in regards to mathematics and it would have been if you hadn't commented on it.

Another thing about refinements is that if X, Y, and Z yield exact same results independent of any other factors, then as soon as the player picks one and advances through that path, all other becomes a dead weight in the tech tree. I don't think we want that and also see it again in designing ship menu. If you wanted, you can go screen -> flux -> roulette with greater statistical benefits as you research up the tree so the roulette ultimately replace the other two.

I am assuming that X, Y and Z are different weapons since that is the only way that sentence would make sense. If X, Y and Z are all the same type of weapon that are available at the same level in the tech tree, then yes, you are correct. But since weapon delivery types will be spread out all over the tech tree and damage types will be a part of the factor, every single weapon will be unique and therefore would not be dead weight. Take a look at this thread, viewtopic.php?t=907, for the last discussion on refinements. That will hopefully explain refinements better. That was a discussion on weapon refinement but shields and armor would/could work in the same manner.

Yes, well take them out when we start filtering the list of shield types. I think Ranos and skdiw are simplifying everything down to statistical averages too much. You guy's say that the roulette, screen and flux shields are exactly the same. Ranos, you say that all shields are the same (they either stop some damage or all damage). Also all shields should be the same in terms of balance, which is how much damage they stop. They key is how they stop it.

Yes but if they are all balanced then it doesn't matter which one you pick because by the time a battle is over, you should have taken the same ammount of damage regardless of which type of shield you have. Tell me why I should pick Roulette shields over Screen shields? Why should I pick Regen shields over Wall shields? What benefits do each of them give to me over the other? If there is no clear benefit, then why bother confusing somebody with multiple things that in the end, do the same thing?

These arguements against the math go along the same lines as the elaboration that I was arguing for earlier. If you can't show what the benefit of one over the other is, then the complicated ones will get thrown out in favor of the uncomplicated ones that do the same thing.

I dont want an RPS element for shields. We have already discussed an RPS element for armor and weapons. If shields also have an rps element, then weapons will have two layers of RPS to go through (one for shields and one for armor). This would violate KISS. I think it is simpler to have shields not involved in an RPS system, like we have been discussing (how they stop damage).

Actually, I don't think it would violate KISS. I think the KISS principle is to make the game easy to understand and simple to program. It wouldn't be any more difficult to understand both armor and shields having resistances than it would be for armor to just have resistances. If armor can be programmed to work with resistances, then it wouldn't take much more work to make shields work with them too.

I think you are simplifying things too much. The roulette shield can possibly stop all damage, but is very risky. It is more useful on a small ship that will die using other shields (as Ablaze explained). The flux shield is risky, but less so then roulette shields. Also you talk about averages, but you are talking about using the shields on 30 ships or something and saying that statistically they are the same. What if you used a shield on one ship. Would they be the same then. Would you use a roulette shield or a screen shield. Roulettes are probably too risky to be used on one ship. I know what you are saying though. Roulette, flux and screens are really just small variations of each other. They all stop damage in the same way, just have some numbers changed. If I was to throw one out, it would be flux I think. But still I like it, cause it fluctuates. And roulettes are crazy, but awesome on a small ship, I like this alot if it helps out small ships more.

If I wouldn't use a shield on a single ship, then why would I want to use it on thirty ships? If I got to have only one ship and I had to use only one of those three shields, I would pick Screen because it would give me the most solid results through an entire battle. Now if I was using multiple ships, I might use Flux shields because the probability that a 3 will be rolled will be increased because of the ships and I would be more willing to take the risk that I would only roll a 1. Roulette shields though are far too risky because of the statistics. They would have a 66.667% chance of rolling 2-5 which would result in 20% damage reduction and then the 16.667% chance that there would be no damage reduction. That means that most of the time, damage would be reduced less than Screen and Flux shields. That is why I would never use Roulette shields.

The End. (of this post)

[noelte]

... then the armor thickness would have to be recalculated for every single shot fired against the ship. Lets ...

Hmm, are you saying we recalculate the armor type depending on how much damage is already taken????

Takeing your numbers 100 Damage taken by a Medium (1000) armor results in a light (500) armor?? IMO, if this is the case it would hurt!!!! maybe different armors absorb different amount of hp .... NONO!

I would say, ship armor typ is medium armor and this armor typ can take 1000HP and absorb 3HP per attack. Even if the armor has only one hp left, that would remain true.

[Ranos]

I was having trouble thinking at the time I wrote that post. I was trying to figure out how Impaler's system would be calculated and when I finally came to the conclusion that it was a simple doubling of the damage, I just said that and forgot to delete all of my previous gibberish. I was originally thinking it was going to take a long and complicated equation to figure out how damage was dealt.

Takeing your numbers 100 Damage taken by a Medium (1000) armor results in a light (500) armor?? IMO, if this is the case it would hurt!!!! maybe different armors absorb different amount of hp .... NONO!

No. What impaler was suggesting was that if an armor was weak against Energy weapons, instead of giving it a resistance penalty (damage done is 120%), treat the armor as if it was one thickness less. So if an energy weapon is fired at the medium armor 5 times, the armor is all gone because it was weak against energy and therefore only acted as light armor when stopping it.

That suggested system is more suited for Impaler's earlier suggested way of doing armor in that thickness was just a nullifier on the ammount of damage that was done.

I would say, ship armor typ is medium armor and this armor typ can take 1000HP and absorb 3HP per attack. Even if the armor has only one hp left, that would remain true.

If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that armor thickness determines how much HP the armor has and that it gives it a small ammount of damage nullification as well. If there is any damage nullification involved in armor, it should be a base number on the armor itself that is modified by the armor thickness. MOO3 did this and I have no idea how much of an impact it actually had on battles. Here is what the numbers looked like:

Zortium Armor: 1000 HP, 5 deflection (nullification)
Very Light Modifeir: HP * .5, deflection * .5
Light Modifeir: HP * .66, deflection * .66
Medium Modifeir: HP * 1, deflection * 1
Heavy Modifeir: HP * 2, deflection * 2
Very Heavy Modifeir: HP * 4, deflection * 4

I am sure those aren't the exact numbers and I deleted MOO3 off of my computer and don't feel like loading it back on just to make srue my numbers are correct.

If a ship had Light Zortium armor on it, it would have 660 HP and deflect 3 damage (rounded). If it had Very Heavy Zortium on it, it would have 4000 HP and deflect 20 damage.

This is, IMO, a good system to use, just not the numbers I suggested.

[noelte]

Okok, i didn't realy thought you was seriously suggestion it.

And i agree, if one armor typ is weak/strong against one weapon typ, it shouldn't be handled as a -1/+1 modifier to armor thickness. As you suggested (or refered to), i would modified the amount of damage which is cause by an energy/kinetic weapon.

Medium Armor (1000) weak energy/strong kinetic than a energy 100 damage shot would cause 100 * (1/80%) damage and a kinetic 100 damage shot would cause 100 * (1/120%) damage. The Medium armor current hit point would be reduced by that value but always stay a medium armor.

And yes, IMO it a good idea if armor thickness AND armor typ (duranium, tritanium, ...) would define how much hp that armor can handle and what it's nulllificaion is.

[discord]

*sigh* i am gone for a week, and everyone forgets about damage types, wich btw. is the answer to balancing all the shield/armor types, as different versions are not equaly good at stopping all kinds of damage.

and to point out, fundamentaly different shields/armor(since if you think about it, reactive/ablative armor types function differently from 'normal' armor.) are just that, but the 'real' difference comes when you take resistance against damage types into consideration...

oh, and hi, i'm back.

[noelte]

oh, and hi, i'm back.

Welcome back, i hope this time you will last longer.

[Ranos]

*sigh* i am gone for a week, and everyone forgets about damage types, wich btw. is the answer to balancing all the shield/armor types, as different versions are not equaly good at stopping all kinds of damage.

and to point out, fundamentaly different shields/armor(since if you think about it, reactive/ablative armor types function differently from 'normal' armor.) are just that, but the 'real' difference comes when you take resistance against damage types into consideration...

oh, and hi, i'm back.

Welcome back.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been forgotten, some people just don't want both armor and shields to have resistances. I think that they think it would cause ships to become too powerful. IMO, that is the best way to go to be able to have multiple different types of armor and shields.

[utilae]

The formula is still easy and I think it makes more sense to say damage done is 80% of normal compared to armor thickness is adjusted by -1.

Yes, I think that Impalers system just does it the same way, but at the cost of more hassle. It would be easier to modify damage, rather than armor, especially if armor determined the hp of a ship.

What strategy? The only thing that could benefit from Roulette shields are small ships that would get wiped out by a single hit from the gigantic guns of the late game. In other words, their only possible usefullness is in the late game. But that usefullness will never come because of Wall shields which will be able to take at least one if not 2 hits from the big weapons before failing. The only two viable options here are whether you want to have a gauranteed 30% reduction or take the risk of only a 15% reduction at the same time as a possible benefit of a 45% reduction. That is merely player choice. There is no strategy involved.

Player choice is strategy. If a player chooses really risky shields, then its there strategy. If a player chooses to put wall shields on small ships over roulettte shields, then its there strategy.

When you get down to it, all shields would be the same in that respect. To make all of the shields viable in the game, they must be balanced and be equally good choices. But unless all shields have HP, which in utilae's last update on the list, only Wall and Regen shields had HP, then the shields without HP will be overpowered because they will never run out.

Not necesarily. Wall shields stop all damage until hp runs out. They recharge at a slow rate (they should recharge to be usable again). I'm sure Moo2 used wall shields, although they recharged faster. Regen shields would have small amount of hp and would recharge very fast. Wall shields need hp because they are so powerful. To make screen shields less powerful we don't need to add hp, just lower the percentage.

One of the biggest arguements against resistances on shields and armor was that that would make double layered resistance. This would add more strategy to the game.

It would add more complexity. Too much strategic thinking will blow your mind. Here is an example of the problem:
ENEMY WEAPON: Heat 70 Kinetic 70 Energy 50
SHIELD: Strong: Corosive 50% Weak: Heat 50% Kinetic 20%
ARMOR: Strong: Kinetic 50% Heat 50% Weak: Energy 50%

Now, there since there are two layers of these counters, the weapon has to work harder to get through. First, the weapon will have its kinetic and heat damage increased by the shield. Next, the weapon will have its kinetic and heat damage reduced by the armor, while its energy damage is increased. It really is a mess. This is an extreme example, but basically people will just get armors that cover the holes in the shield and they will get shields that cover the holes in the armor. The main problem is that offense would be less powerful then defense at the same tech level. If we want battles to move faster, then weapons should be more powerful, although it would be better if both defense and weapons were equal, otherwise people would just research offense tech.

Yes but if they are all balanced then it doesn't matter which one you pick because by the time a battle is over, you should have taken the same ammount of damage regardless of which type of shield you have.

The thing about statistics is that it is not always correct. You say that by the end of the battle the same amount of damage is taken regardless of whether screen or roulette shields are used. Well, the possibility of a player with roulette shields rolling heaps of 6s is there. In which case that player would take very little damge at all, and they would have to be lucky.

Roulette shields though are far too risky because of the statistics. They would have a 66.667% chance of rolling 2-5 which would result in 20% damage reduction and then the 16.667% chance that there would be no damage reduction. That means that most of the time, damage would be reduced less than Screen and Flux shields. That is why I would never use Roulette shields.

I have an interesting idea. I want to take things to the extreme with roulette shields. Rather than a roll of 1 to 6. Why not a roll of 1 to 2? Like in roulette, black or red. So in this case 1=0% damage stopped, 2=100% damage stopped. Now rate that variation of the roulette shield. I expect similar criticism. Though now it is closer to wall shields, because like wall shields it stops all damage, though like wall shields it shuts down, though randomly and not based on hp.

[Ranos]

Player choice is strategy. If a player chooses really risky shields, then its there strategy. If a player chooses to put wall shields on small ships over roulettte shields, then its there strategy.

Choice between two items that work fundamentally the same and are only effected by what you do or the way they work is only a choice based on preferance. Choice between two items that work in different ways and are effected not only by what you do and how they work but also by what somebody else does and how their stuff works is a choice based on strategy.

In choosing between Screen and Flux shields, you are merely choosing whether you want to take a risk for a potentially greater benefit.

In choosing between Reactive and Polarized armors, you are having to make a strategic choice as to whether you want risk taking more damage from Basic Energy weapons and less from Kinetic weapons or take More damage from Advanced Energy and less from Basic Energy.

What it comes down to is if you are choosing whether or not to take a risk, it is merely a choice. If you are choosing between risks, then it is a strategic choice.

Not necesarily. Wall shields stop all damage until hp runs out. They recharge at a slow rate (they should recharge to be usable again). I'm sure Moo2 used wall shields, although they recharged faster. Regen shields would have small amount of hp and would recharge very fast. Wall shields need hp because they are so powerful. To make screen shields less powerful we don't need to add hp, just lower the percentage.

You never said Wall shields had a recharge rate. In fact, you said that unless a shield said it had recharge, then it didn't have recharge.

If Wall shields have a recharge rate, then you put Wall and Regen shields into the same mess as Screen, Flux and Roulette shields. They are the same, one just has lots of HP and a slow recharge while the other has little HP and a fast recharge. There is even less difference between them than there is between the other three.

If Wall shields have a recharge rate, then they and Screen shields would be about equal, even if Screens had no HP.

It would add more complexity. Too much strategic thinking will blow your mind. Here is an example of the problem:
ENEMY WEAPON: Heat 70 Kinetic 70 Energy 50
SHIELD: Strong: Corosive 50% Weak: Heat 50% Kinetic 20%
ARMOR: Strong: Kinetic 50% Heat 50% Weak: Energy 50%

Now, there since there are two layers of these counters, the weapon has to work harder to get through. First, the weapon will have its kinetic and heat damage increased by the shield. Next, the weapon will have its kinetic and heat damage reduced by the armor, while its energy damage is increased. It really is a mess. This is an extreme example, but basically people will just get armors that cover the holes in the shield and they will get shields that cover the holes in the armor. The main problem is that offense would be less powerful then defense at the same tech level. If we want battles to move faster, then weapons should be more powerful, although it would be better if both defense and weapons were equal, otherwise people would just research offense tech.

As Bastian said earlier, complexity is good as long as it isn't complicated. The math, which is the complexity part, would only be more complex if we used both Wall and Screen shields (Wall shields would be just as complex as if only armor had resistances, Screen shields would be even more complex than you mentioned). The explanation to the player would be simple and would be only slightly more complicated for Screen shields.

For the system to be blanced, Armor and Shields would not be able to have identical pluses and minuses (you could have + energy and - kinetic on armor but not on shields. You could on shields have a + energy and - corrosive).

Using Wall shields as an example, the smart player would choose shields that are strong against energy and armor that is strong agaist kinetic since that would help spread out strengths and give the player defense againstmore types of weapons. That same player should have the weakness of both be an identical damage type, both are weak against explosive. This would mean that the ship would last longer against both energy and kinetic and ony be weak against explosive.

Screen shields would work differently since damage would first be reduced by the shields and then continue on to the armor. With these, the smart player would concentrate their strength on a single damage type and spread out their weaknesses. This would cause damage to be reduced greatly for a single damage type and two others would only cause moderate damage.

Now for the math. Wall shields would be identical to armor. Final HP = Starting HP - (Damage * Resistance) or F = S - (D * R). If when shields fail, remaining damage gets transferred to armor, then another calculation would be required to adjust the remaining damage back to pre-resistance levels. Transferred damage = Final HP / -Resistance or T = F / -R. Final Damage would have to be a negative for this equation to be used so the resistance needs to be labeled as negative to adjust for a proper calculation. Once damage is modified, then the F = S - (D * R) equation would be used to calculate damage to the armor.

Screen shields would work differently but wouldn't be very much more complex. The first equation would be Modified Damage = Base Damage * Resistance * (1 - Absorbtion) or M = B * R * (1 - A). That modified damage is then applied to the armor using the same equation as above. The only real difference is that two calculations would be used for every hit instead of only one. That would change slightly if HP was added to Screen shields.

As you should be able to see, it really isn't a mess. If we make sure that armor and shields don't have identical resistances, then there will always be strengths and weaknesses on ships. Weapons would still be just as effective as before and there would be strategic decision making needed for shields as well as armor.

The thing about statistics is that it is not always correct. You say that by the end of the battle the same amount of damage is taken regardless of whether screen or roulette shields are used. Well, the possibility of a player with roulette shields rolling heaps of 6s is there. In which case that player would take very little damge at all, and they would have to be lucky.

You look at possibility, I look at probability. The possibility exists that a ship would never take any damage because a six would show up all of the time. The probability is that the ship will take 80% damage (using the max number you gave) 66.667% of the time, 0% damage 16.667% of the time and 100% damage 16.667% of the time. If you look at a single battle, these numbers wouldn't be exact. If you were able to record the results every single time and have a tally at the end of the game, would be very close to what I listed. In the end, what you got is ships lost because of hitting a 6 and ships saved because of hitting a 1 and some of them would have lasted longer in a crucial battle if you had been getting 30% from Screens.

I would rather get a gauranteed 30% than take those big risks. I think many other people would to. Think about it for a second, if you were playing in a game, what would you use, Screens or Roulette? Your answer will probably be Roulette on small ships and Screens on big ships. Think about this though, you research both and so must invest your rp equally in both. I use only Screens and am able to invest more into them. So while you are saving aproximately one out of every 6 small ships, I am able to destroy your capital ships which are less defended than mine.

I have an interesting idea. I want to take things to the extreme with roulette shields. Rather than a roll of 1 to 6. Why not a roll of 1 to 2? Like in roulette, black or red. So in this case 1=0% damage stopped, 2=100% damage stopped. Now rate that variation of the roulette shield. I expect similar criticism. Though now it is closer to wall shields, because like wall shields it stops all damage, though like wall shields it shuts down, though randomly and not based on hp.

While I think this is better than the original way, it then makes Roulette shields more powerful than the others. Where as Screen shields would start out absorbing maybe 10% of all damage and increase up to 30%, Roulette shields would always have an average of 50% reduction. This leaves it pretty much in the same boat as before but now it is a partial dupe of Screens and a partial dupe of Walls.

[utilae]

It is clear that screen shields, roulette shields and flux shields have there similarities. And even wall shields and regen shields are similar, so moving on to some new shields. Here are some more shield types I thought of. Critique away .

Delay Shield-All damage is blocked and absorbed into X. When X > Y, then the ship takes damage equal to X.
The delay shield uses a partial stasis field to temporarily hold off weapon damage. Damage is received at certain points to releive the stress taken by the shield (the shield can only hold off so much weapon damgage at a time).

Late Shield-All damage gets through. Next turn the ship recovers by 90% of the damage recieved last turn.
The late shield creates a field around the ship which serves to transport weapon damage through a dimensional tear, which allows weapon damage to strike the ship before the weapon damage is negated. Although the event of the weapon damage striking the ship occurs in the history of time, moments later time corrects, as if the weapon damage never hit the ship.

Overload Shield-Shield has hpX and hpY (both start at 0). When damage hits the shield the difference between hpX and hpY (if negative it becomes a positive) is how much damage gets through. The rest is distributed to hpX and hpY (explained next). 50% of damage goes to hpX or hpY (random). The other 50% goes to hpX or hpY (random).
The Overload shield is powered by the weapons that strike it. Although having weapon damage power the shield saves power, it creates inconsistancies in the makeup of the shield, leading to holes that allow weapon damage through. The holes may or may not get larger or might even repair themselves.

EDIT:
I have added the list of shield types to the freeorion wikki.
http://www.freeorion.org/wiki/index.php ... alk:Utilae

[discord]

on the subject of resistance, there are a couple of different ways to do it.

#1 static % of ALL damage gets negated.

#2 Static % of ONLY the damage that the armor can 'stop', effectively increasing the amount of damage it can 'stop' from hurting insides(only relevent if you go with a 'real' version of armor, that is somewhat similar to the one i suggested.)

#3 dynamic amount of % depending on how much armor is left.

#4 ...cant think of anything else right now.

//discord

[Ranos]

Delay Shield-All damage is blocked and absorbed into X. When X > Y, then the ship takes damage equal to X.
The delay shield uses a partial stasis field to temporarily hold off weapon damage. Damage is received at certain points to releive the stress taken by the shield (the shield can only hold off so much weapon damgage at a time).

Identical to Time Dialation shields except this stores the energy and deals it all at once at some point instead of dealing it over X turns/time.

Late Shield-All damage gets through. Next turn the ship recovers by 90% of the damage recieved last turn.
The late shield creates a field around the ship which serves to transport weapon damage through a dimensional tear, which allows weapon damage to strike the ship before the weapon damage is negated. Although the event of the weapon damage striking the ship occurs in the history of time, moments later time corrects, as if the weapon damage never hit the ship.

No offense, but utterly nonsensical and very hard to understand. The ship gets damaged but then most of the damage just magically (or scientifically, depending on your POV) disappears. Your explanation really makes no sense. If the damage is done, where does it go? You mention that it goes back in history maybe, its hard to understand what you are saying, and is actually fixed in the past while in the present, the ship is mostly undamaged. This shield is far too confusing and far too ridiculous, IMO.

Overload Shield-Shield has hpX and hpY (both start at 0). When damage hits the shield the difference between hpX and hpY (if negative it becomes a positive) is how much damage gets through. The rest is distributed to hpX and hpY (explained next). 50% of damage goes to hpX or hpY (random). The other 50% goes to hpX or hpY (random).
The Overload shield is powered by the weapons that strike it. Although having weapon damage power the shield saves power, it creates inconsistancies in the makeup of the shield, leading to holes that allow weapon damage through. The holes may or may not get larger or might even repair themselves.

The math behind this shield would seem to be very complex and may, I know nothing about processor power and how much it takes to actually slow a computer down, bog down the player's computer.

If I understand correctly, the first weapon hit goes in to storage X or storage Y (I think they should not be called HP because they don't function as hp but merely numbers for the use of calculations) the damage is divided by two and each half is randomly stored in X or Y. X could get half and Y could get half or one of them could get all of the damage. Every shot then looks at how much is in X and Y and if equal, no damage gets through and that damage is added to X and/or Y in the same manner as above. If different damage equal to the difference gets through and the rest is is added to X and/or why in the same manner.

To make this easier, lets say there is a weapon that does 100 damage. It is fired at the ship. X and Y are both 0 so no damage gets through. Damage is divided into 50 and 50 and then added to X or Y randomly. If X gets one and Y gets the other, both now have 50 stored and the next shot will be comletely blocked and divided. If X get both halves then X is now 100 and Y is 0 and every shot after that will get through because the difference is 100 and the damage is 100, so 0 damage is blocked.

Now, that right there is the problem. First off, I know that there will more than likely be multipe weapons used by each empire so the damage fired at the ship will not always be 100. The problem is, there will always be a weapon that does the most damage and all it takes is one hit from that weapon and the damage getting stored completely to X (or Y) for every shot from every weapon after that to get through.

This shield would not work.

@ discord

First off, depnding on the type of "real armor," it does not either keep damage out or let damage in but takes damage itself that may or may not let the next shot in. That is how Reactive armor works. Composite may work in the way you explain, but consider a shot that is strong enough to pierce armor, but not strong enough to go through the ammount of armor on the vehicle. The armor is now damaged but the shot did not bounce off or go through.

As for the ways of doing resistance,

1) This damage would be the simplest to calculate and explain to the player. The percentage is always the same. This system would be fine with me.

2) I am against this since I am against the only type of armor that this would work on.

3) This would also work but would add an additional calculation to armor when recieving damage and might be harder to explain to the player. If I understand correctly, if armor that has 1000 hp has 75% resistance to energy damage, then the first shot from a weapon that does 100 energy damage would be reduced to 75 and the armor would now be at 925 hp. The next shot would only be subject to a 69.375% resistance. This system could work but would quickly reduce the resistance percentage, which, IMO, would cuase the RPS system to fall apart.

I would prefer the first system but the third is a potential contendor.