Emissive Armor

Baron Munchausen · #1 September 26th, 2000, 01:38 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dmm:
Thanks for clearing that up. I hadn't noticed that emissive armor also has a good amount of regular damage-taking ability. That makes it better than I thought, but still too heavy IMHO. 'Course I stopped in disgust at level II, so maybe it gets more competitive.
Consider: 1x emissiveII gives 20+40=60 protection, while 2x armorIII gives 140 protection. Yet the weight is the same, the cost is MORE for the emissive (1x500 vs. 2x50), and you had to research two more tech levels for it. Emissive is only worth it if your opponents are fitting out their ships with large numbers of wimpy weapons (and well into the game, too).

If you're getting 70kt of damage for regular armor you must be using demo .51 still? The .56 demo reduced the value of armor somewhat. Besides the difference in armor values, I think that the 'emissive armor' ability just plain doesn't WORK in the current public demos -- either of them. The next demo will have it working properly and you'll see what its worth. Lots of things are getting fixed and adjusted for the next release.

jowe01 · #2 September 26th, 2000, 10:17 AM

Also, if damage to armor is random (or from left to right [is it ?] and the emissive armor is to the right), the value of emissive armor increases dramatically for heavily armored ships. The reason is that it reduces each hit by its "reflection" capacity. If hit damage exceeds that capacity, only the remainder is deducted from the "hit points" of the armor components. Now, if that damage is attributed randomly, there is a fair probability that the "normal" armor will be damaged, not the emissive one. The emissive armor will survive to again reduce damage from the next hit. This way, on ships with one single emissive armor and lots of normal armor, the expected (!) hit absorbing capacity of emissive armor may be well above its cost-equivalent in normal armor.

dmm · #3 September 26th, 2000, 04:56 PM

No, if I understood B. Munch. correctly, emissive armor mixed with regular armor will only reflect damage away if it gets hit. It's not like a mini-shield. One piece of emissive doesn't make the whole ship emissive. So if you have 9 regular armors and 1 emissive, the emissive will only protect you 1/10 of the time, on average. As the British say, "In for a penny, in for a pound." Either use just emissive or don't use it at all.

dmm · #4 September 26th, 2000, 05:17 PM

p.s. I do have the .56 demo. My damage resistance numbers were for ArmorIII.

(In case anyone out there is as unobservant as I am, I will point out that the demo tells you the Version number in the lower left corner when you start it up. Took me a while to find that.)

Baron Munchausen · #5 September 26th, 2000, 05:21 PM

No, emissive armor is not a "blanket" protection for your ship. It only protects itself. Damage distribution is random. The only control on damage distribution is 'armor' or 'not armor'. While you have armor, damage is distributed randomly among armor components - except when a weapon that skips armor is being used. When armor is gone or an armor ignoring weapon is being used, damage is distributed randomly among non-armor components. So, mixing emissive and standard armor is likely to result in a lot of your standard armor getting destroyed just like it would without any emissive armor.

I would point out, though, that what you described is an interesting concept that might be added as a special component. It's what I would call a "damper field" and would make a fascinating alternative to shields. If all direct-fire weapons firing on your ship were reduced by say 25 percent off the top, AND you had good emissive armor, would you need shields?

If you have good weapons yourself, the other guy could be toasted long before your armor is gone. Ever play Master of Orion II and tangle with the Antareans? They had damper fields on their ships.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 26 September 2000).]

Jeb · #6 September 26th, 2000, 05:23 PM

While we're at it, another question: is each weapon on a ship counted as a separate attack, or is the whole volley considered one attack? In other words, say I have a cruiser with 10 meson bLasters that do 10 points of damage each. Does emissive armor treat that as 10 (harmless) 10 point attacks, or as one 100 point attack?

If it treats each attack separately, maybe there could be a new component that makes all of a ship's attacks count as one volley. The datalink in "Starfire" worked something like this, and it would be a lot more useful than that ancient tech component that's in the game now allowing ships in a fleet to share experience.

Baron Munchausen · #7 September 26th, 2000, 05:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Jeb:
While we're at it, another question: is each weapon on a ship counted as a separate attack, or is the whole volley considered one attack? In other words, say I have a cruiser with 10 meson bLasters that do 10 points of damage each. Does emissive armor treat that as 10 (harmless) 10 point attacks, or as one 100 point attack?

If it treats each attack separately, maybe there could be a new component that makes all of a ship's attacks count as one volley. The datalink in "Starfire" worked something like this, and it would be a lot more useful than that ancient tech component that's in the game now allowing ships in a fleet to share experience.

With a ship each weapon is a seperate attack. With most units (satellites, weapon platforms) each weapon is a seperate attack. With FIGHTERS I think that all units fire together in a single attack, which is really interesting because looking at the damage power of 'small' components you'd think they would be helpless against emissive armor. I've not seen fighters attack a ship with emissive armor yet - I have barely used fighters. Maybe someone else has.

The attack 'consolidator' idea is an interesting one. Would be a good addition to the ancient ruins tech fields.