Ship Damage - some empiral data, and observations

[Erik Rutins]

That would make armor purely ablative. In this case it has a chance to survive the hit and keep on working, which makes it potentially more resilient, but also means that a lesser hit could take it out, so also a bit less predictable. It also leaves room for weaker weapons to chew through armor with some lucky rolls. However, we are investigating to see what's going on in Shadows. It's possible that armor is currently broken, in which case it will be fixed ASAP.

[invaderzim]

Level 3 Shockwave Torpedo from range 100:

strikes target with remaining strength of 20 (4 distance loss), Armor Reactive rating (2) reduces damage to 18
chance to destroy armor component is 100% (Armor Standard Rating = 10, damage of 18 divided by 10)

How do ion weapons work? From my experience ion weapons ignore armor and shields and only disable weapons, engines and possibly hyperdrives. So with ion weapons, can we substitute ion defense for armor in this example?

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: invaderzim

Level 3 Shockwave Torpedo from range 100:

strikes target with remaining strength of 20 (4 distance loss), Armor Reactive rating (2) reduces damage to 18
chance to destroy armor component is 100% (Armor Standard Rating = 10, damage of 18 divided by 10)

How do ion weapons work? From my experience they only disable weapons, thrusters and possibly hyperdrives. Since the basic ion cannon does 20 and they scale up to 30, does every point blank ion hit have a 100% chance to disable a weapon or engine assuming that ion defense (or maybe even damage control) isn't present?

I know from my own tests that they don't appear to disable hyperdrives. It also seems each Ion Cannon can disable 1-2 components each time they hit. They don't seem to hit 100% of the time, even when defenses aren't present.

[Larsenex]

Lots of great information here. Thanks Erik for clarification!

[invaderzim]

I know from my own tests that they don't appear to disable hyperdrives. It also seems each Ion Cannon can disable 1-2 components each time they hit. They don't seem to hit 100% of the time, even when defenses aren't present.

Yeah I've been wondering about this. I think the game shows a little lightning bolt and makes a zap sound when an Ion Cannon hit is effective. I've often boarded ships and found their hyperdrives to be temporarily disabled, but I'm not sure if this was a result of the Ion Cannon or simply a side effect of boarding.

[Plant]

Written in the Galactopedia; " an enemy must then destroy all armor before it can damage the target itself."

Reading the explanation, there is nothing written on whether or not this is should be true or not.

The explanation given is for armour destroyed, but not for component damaged/destroyed when armour exists.

The issue isn't the chances of armour being destroyed, but that you can damage components without any or indeed all of the armour being destroyed.

The only explanation I can find is;

"For normal components, the remaining damage is reduced by the SIZE of each destroyed component, until the damage is exhausted (i.e. single shot can damage multiple components). Damage that hits normal components (NOT armor components) is also reduced by the damage reduction percentage first, then the remaining damage amount destroys components. "

...implying that a single shot doesn't need to destroy any armour components in order to damage a component.

[Cauldyth]

From Erik's explanation:

Armor protects other components from damage. The only instance where other components should be damaged before armor is in the case of a hit from a gravitic weapon, which bypasses armor.

So yes, apart from gravitic weapons, no normal components should ever be damaged until all armour components have been destroyed.

[Lev13]

I can also confirm that railguns seem to damage components before all armor is gone on my game

[turtlefang]

Thank Erik -

That is roughly how I would have expected it to work although without some of the more interesting details at the individual weapon level.

[Ramrod851]

ORIGINAL: Spacecadet

Interesting.

I always thought that it worked with somewhat of a "Hit Point" behavior.

For example:

Level 3 Impact Assault Blaster from range 100:

strikes target with remaining strength of 9 (3 distance loss), Armor Reactive rating (2) reduces damage to 7
chance to destroy armor component is 70% (Armor Standard Rating = 10, damage of 7 divided by 10)

In this case I thought the Armor would be reduced to 3 points after this this impact (9 - 2 = 7, then 10 - 7 = 3), and that the next hit would basically take out the remaining Armor value and have 4 damage left to apply to the next component.

thats actually how it works on average. With big numbers of ships and armor you couldnt tell the difference other than some armor maybe is partly damaged.

[Erik Rutins]

Some good news - there was a bug that was added in the last month or so of Shadows development. It is now fixed and a new update will be available tomorrow, including some other good fixes and improvements.

[turtlefang]

Erik -

Thank you for the fast response.

Osito -

Great work on the analysis in identification and pin pointing the problem so it could be addressed.

[Larsenex]

Great Job! I am nearly 3/4 thru my 3rd play of updated games. Time to restart a new one this time and go for some armor.

[Cauldyth]

Hooray! Soon time to armour up my cruisers! [:)]

[Plant]

You mean that in Legends, armour was useful? What have I been missing!

[Bingeling]

Useful? I normal quantities it protects against rail guns, and is a small buffer that allows a ship to get away once its shield runs out. Which again can allow for a somewhat more aggressive setting when it comes to deciding at what percentage ships should flee.

[elanaagain]

Given all the details in this thread about armor, reactive armor; might the community particiapte in creating, writing a ship combat doctrine summary? All the math is great , but its scattered, etc. For example I have started with a summary I use.

Attempt at weapon vs armor ship doctrine

Against (reactive) armored target:

Level 1 Maxos Blaster @ range 100:
strikes w str of 4, (some distance losses), ArmReact(2) reduce damage to 2 [->destroy armor =20%].

Level 1 Rail Gun @ range 100:
strikes w str of 6 (no distance losses), ArmReact(2) reduce damage to 4 [->destroy armor = 40%].

Notes: rail guns, missiles = [50% reduction destroying armor), damage is 2 [->destroy armor =20%]. (Armor Standard Rating = 10, damage of 2 divided by 10)

Therefore, rail better @ range 100.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Level 3 Impact Assault Blaster @ range 100:
strikes w str of 9 (3 distance loss), ArmReact(2) reduce damage to 7 [->destroy armor =70%].
(Armor Standard Rating = 10, damage of 7 divided by 10)

Level 3 Shockwave Torpedo @ range 100:
strikes with str of 20 (4 distance loss), ArmReact(2) reduce damage to 18 [->destroy armor =100%].
Armor Standard Rating is 10, therefore ->damage of 18 divided by ArmReact (10) = 100%

Note: Rail guns less accurate, much shorter range.

THEREFORE shockwave better than impact assault blaster.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rail guns [intended counter =] armor, ^speed/^maneuver, ECM.

Gravitic weapons [intended counter=] speed/maneuver -> (missiles, torpedoes significantly outrange GravWeap), ECM, larger size, repair bots.

Phaser weapons better at penetrating armor: ArmReact=50% vs phaser strike.

Targeting unarmored (or no armor left) ships?
normal components, remaining damage reduced by SIZE of each destroyed component, until damage is exhausted (i.e. single shot can damage multiple components). Damage hits normal components (NOT armor components) also reduced by damage reduction percentage first, then remaining damage amount destroys components.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

How would this be expanded to other weapons, etc?

[DarkThug]

Wow!! This is great !!!!

So many valuable info. great enough to flush out a long time lurker for 3 expansion here [:D]

We finally unveil how an armor actually work in DW !! never though it to be this complicated lol. However, If this is the case, I wonder what is the point of summing up all armor rating in design screen ? to confuse us ? ^^"

[paShadoWn]

Had someone tested railgun chances to penetrate shields? I tend to blow up bases with about 40 armor and 3k of shields with railguns before depleting a third of shield.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: paShadoWn

Had someone tested railgun chances to penetrate shields? I tend to blow up bases with about 40 armor and 3k of shields with railguns before depleting a third of shield.

I do believe they tested that at some point, yes,