Organic armor fix

[Suicide Junkie]

Unless anybody has further comments, I'm going to set the organic armor regen ability to half in P&N.

This gives 10% of your hitpoints back each turn, for a full healing stored up before weapons fire begins, and at best, a 20HP/KT armor effect.

BioCrystal armor, and Psy Armor will have approximately 8% per turn.

[Rich04]

Just though I would give my two cents on the matter. I have no problem with the way it works now. Against NPC races it may be a huge advantage but vs human players it is almost worthless. Personally I love organic tech. But toneing the regen down will probally make it totally useless vs humans. As an alternative perhaps give OA the repair one component ability if you tune it down. Crystal Armor shield regen ability is useful pretty much all thru the game.
Just my opinion.

[Suicide Junkie]

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Against NPC races it may be a huge advantage but vs human players it is almost worthless. Personally I love organic tech. But toneing the regen down will probally make it totally useless vs humans. As an alternative perhaps give OA the repair one component ability if you tune it down. Crystal Armor shield regen ability is useful pretty much all thru the game.

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Note: for the regenerative effect between turns, you can take the "living ships" trait, and save on C&C space while you're at it.

When you look at the numbers, this is what you get:

Minimum strength: 5HP/KT
- guaranteed strength against non-piercing weapons
- as good as Armor III

Nominal Strength: 10HP/KT
- Must have at least one armor segment remaining after first volley
- Better than shields without ShieldRegen (8Hp/KT)
- equivalent to Armor Tech 8 (PlasmaProjection II)

Maximum Strength: 20HP/KT
- All armor components must heal after each volley of fire. (ship takes small hits over 30 turns of combat)
- Ultimate protection, 2.5x stronger than Phased shield 5's, 40% stronger than Plasma Armor 5's

This organic armor will operate basically the way you expect during the first volley of fire, and only begin to fail the second or third time the components are smashed.

Now, you also have to consider Bio-Crystal armor, which combines these hitpoints & regen capabilities with the shield boosting effect of Crystalline armor.

Light Cruisers can support 5 BCA's, and subtract 60 damage from all incoming attacks. That is some serious strength, rendering a lot of weapons ineffective.

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Does this convince you at all?
I am still open to making changes if you can show me how it will work better.
At the very least, I might copy the organic armor with changes, and let the players decide which type of armor to pay for.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 20 August 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

10 to 1 is a very high ratio. To combine that with regeneration makes an incredibly tough armor that might be difficult to balance against various weapons without a round of 'inflation' that could unbalance other things. I have only given crystalline armor the 10 to 1 ratio in my techs, though shields go as high as 20 to 1 and so it's not so out of place. But, crystalline armor doesn't regenerate... Combining crystalline and organic armor attributes is obscene. Either make it an artifact only tech or only give it to some "evil empire" that threatens to conquer the universe in some specially prepared scenario. I would frankly refuse to play against another human who had such tech.

What MM should have done with organic armor is made the first levels only regenerate AFTER combat. This "basic" organic armor would function more or less like shields, and would still be a signifigant advantage in the early stages of the game. Only at higher levels should it actually regenerate in combat.

For a real interesting twist there ought to be an organic armor like they had in Babylon 5 that 'learns' about what damages it. Each time it was hit by a weapon type, it would 'learn' something and the next hit would do less damage! Now that's evil! Combined with regeneration it might be invincible to anything but "ignores armor" or "ignores shields and armor" weapons. Maybe it needs to be exclusive of regen. The accounting for this on the code level would be a nightmare, though. Each ship would have unique resistances that would take up a huge amount of space and combat code could get very bloated. Sigh...

I like the idea of 'living ships' but the game doesn't properly support it with it's current abilities. The "repair component" ablity will be applied to any and all ships present together. There ought to be a special ability "self repair" that only affects the ship it is mounted in. It would be fairly easy for MM to do that. Then you could have the "living ships" by making special hulls with that ability in the VehicleSize.txt file.

Now, if we can just get the "damper field" so we can have ships with superb armor and no shields to compete against the ships with shields like thay have in MOO.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 August 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

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10 to 1 is a very high ratio. To combine that with regeneration makes an incredibly tough ...

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No, I'm afraid you misunderstood.
The 10 Hp/Kt includes the regeneration effect.

The minimum strength is pure hitpoints, in case you get destroyed in a single turn.

The Nominal strength is if your armor just barely survives the first attack.
It will regenerate once and be out of OA points, then be destroyed a second time, permanently.

The Maximum strength is if all of your armor components are left intact (or healed) after every turn, then destroyed on the 30th turn.

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I would frankly refuse to play against another human who had such tech.

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You should note that they will be spending 3000 racial points, and the regeneration ability is halved from normal SE4 on even the pure organic armor.
This means that your ships will only have to destroy each armor component twice if you hit them right away, and four times if you leave the ship till turn 30.
Also, the combination Organic/Crystalline combo loses efficiency, getting 60% of each ability (for a 20% bonus over having pairs of pure armor).
The combo armor can only regenerate 2&1/2 times during battle, and so should be easy to destroy, since even at best, it has less than 12Hp/KT.

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Now, if we can just get the "damper field" so we can have ships with superb armor and no shields to compete against the ships with shields like thay have in MOO

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I have tried to make armor ships equal, yet different.
Standard armor in P&N v2 will give you up to 14HP/KT. Shields give 8Hp/Kt, with the heavy generators putting out 10Hp/Kt and costing a boatload of radioactives.

Thus, armored ships will win against shielded ships, all else equal.
However, once you have won the first battle, your ship(s) will have to head home for repairs or be destroyed easily.

In general, armored ship are good for defending, suicide runs or pivotal battles.
Shields are excellent for scouts and campaigns, where there will be multiple small battles.

The winner between armor and shields is entirely dependent on the strategic situation.

[Rich04]

My concern is with all the weapons that 'ignore' armor. They are as common as flies in human games and seem to be ever increasing in modified AI's.
What I would like to see is a reason to keep using OA all thru the game. Scattering and Stealth provide bonuses, Crystal provides shield boosting even vs weapons that ingnore armor making secondary weapon fire easier to defend against.
OA's ability is useful for a while in the beginning but as soon as large fleets of 50+ ships show up (common in the few PBW games I have played)its armor is shredded like a cats claws on toilet paper. (Or the ship is gutted anyway by weapons ignoring armor.)
This is why I think it needs 'something' more than regen to make it unique/useful.
Perhaps adding this ability at higher Organic tech levels. (They go up to six anyway.)
The Living Ships idea is great. Though it is starting to get pricey. (Perhaps giving OA the repair ability if you only take both.)
There is another mod out there (Zippy's I think) that gives repair to OA. It doesn't seem to imbalance things. Repair bays are still more efficient.
As for ships repairing each other. That seems natural, one creature helping another. Transfusing vital fluids between ships, extending repair feelers etc.
Farscape has done this on occasion with the mother helping its offspring heal.

[Suicide Junkie]

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My concern is with all the weapons that 'ignore' armor. They are as common as flies in human games and seem to be ever increasing in modified AI's.

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We have:
Null-Space - low damage, slow reload. Buckytube Gel soaks up this damage very well.
Ionic dispersers - ships have up to 40 engines, and LCs usually get 15 or so. Ships are much more resistant to these weapons in P&N2. If you are still worried, use durable or premium engines.
Tachyon weapon disruptors - add some level 3 BuckyTube Gel or a tachyon damper, and your ship will be safe
Shield Disruptors - Use Hardened-Mini SGs, or the Heavy SGs. No worries. Level 2 BuckyTube gel helps here, too.

Did I miss anything?

ISTM, with Organic armor and some buckytube gel, you're sitting with a very tough ship.
Ion attacks are half as effective (relative to unmodded SE4 or P&N1) on LCs, and even weaker against larger ships.
The BT Gel will take quite a few hits from any other "fancy damage" weapons before too many internals are lost, and the organic armor protects well against normal damage.

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OA's ability is useful for a while in the beginning but as soon as large fleets of 50+ ships show up (common in the few PBW games I have played)its armor is shredded like a cats claws on toilet paper

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Big fleet actions will definitely get organic armor toasted.
What you want in that situation is a bunch of Plasma Armored ships which can soak up 14HP/KT (or 20HP/KT for premium armor) before being annihilated during the initial volleys.
With enough PlasmaArmor ships, your fleets will be whittled down to the point where the organic armor will be effective.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 21 August 2001).]