Proportions 2.4.2 released

[oleg]

Are you keeping EA as internal component ?
I still think it is better to make EA "normal" armor again. I modified my proportions' components.txt that EA is armor, EA1 has 60hp, ea 20, size 20;
EA2 - 70hp, ea 25; EA3 - 80hp, ea 30.

As I mentioned already, my major concern is that EA ability for any internal component converts all armor to EA. I think it is too unbalancing. As to stacking EA from different families - good question, I do not know yet.

[oleg]

PvK, according to Baron, EA abilities from different families/components do not stack. He posted this observation in "emissive armor" thread.

[PvK]

Thanks oleg. Yes, I was thinking of keeping EA as internal armor, but it might do well to also add a standard EA that is damaged first, has lower structure, and has higher EA ability than the other.

In general I think all armor should have some level of EA, even internal, because in general all armor "should" (IMO) reduce the amount of damage done, particularly by light hits, compared to unarmored ships. Currently this only takes place in Proportions due to the way partial damage is dropped between battles.

Moreover, the ability of armor to deflect and reduce damage shouldn't usually be able to be "shot off" a ship, and that certainly would almost never happen "first" (before other components) unless you had some sort of enveloping disintegration weapon (enveloping acid globule or something).

This new mechanic does throw a bit of a wrench in all previous balance calculations, though.

PvK

[oleg]

Amonkarie_AI_general.txt list 2K option is overbord - as a result, Amonkarie start wit 0 maintanace reduction and 400 spare points. I changed its maintainance from 115 to 108 in order to get exactly 2K race make-up

[PvK]

The Amon'krie, except for option 3, just spend points on characteristics rather than traits. I tried to design them to spend up to 5000 points, though the 0/2000/3000/5000 boundaries may often cross a characteristic. However I don't think that results in unspent points - I think the AI will spend up until it runs out of points, even if it can't reach the goal level in a characteristic.

Does that address it, or were you seeing something not covered by that (or am I wrong about the way the AI is spending points?)?

PvK

[oleg]

You are mistaken about how SE uses points: when it sees "maintanance := 115", it tries to add it to race characteristics and if it exceeds 2K (assuming 2K start), it ignores it completely. For every entry in AI_general.txt SE works like all or nothing. Amonkarie starts with 100 maintainance and 400 unused points.

[overminder]

I have a question. I just doneload Proportions and wanted to know why is basic life support large the normal if it can't take as much damage? Basic is 15k and only 1 DR while normal is 10k and 10 DR.

[Phoenix-D]

Basic is cheaper to build.

[PvK]

Thanks Oleg. Of course a work-around would be to go and add intermediate steps... humpf.

As for Basic Life Support, it saves a lot of cost but is less efficient in size and breaks as soon as it gets hit. So you can decide for each design whether it is worth the expense to gain a little space for other components, and to have a more durable ship.

PvK

[overminder]

Thanks. I wasn't paying attention to the cost at the time.