Ranger Archive

It's identicle to the way armor works on players. a higher effectiveness on a creature means that it is more resistent to that damage type.

Okay, so the "Special Protections" list isn't any different than the "Effectiveness" list other than the fact the percentages are higher?

Correct. They are essentially the same.

Only armorsmiths (and maybe bio-engineers) need to worry about the difference when crafting the armor.

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Riety wrote:

Actually, I am pretty sure that the Effectiveness is how well that type of attack will do against that creature. If a creature has 50% effectiveness for Energy,an energy weapon will do tons of damage.

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Hate to burst your bubble on this one.. but here's how you do the test. Find the creature of your choice, with a medium ham let's say roughly 2k or higher. Equip a weapon that you can use properly, and then attack that creature, watch the numbers that appear over its head (if you have that option turned on under ctrl+o) and watch your combat window.

Now, unless the weapon your using has a AP rating, your going to suffer damage reduction to that damage type. The thing you want to look for is Vulnerabilities.. When a creature is vuln to something, that means the damage you hit for in the combat window, is the damage it takes.

When your against all odds, say against NS or SMC's and you don't have something that they are vuln to or weak against. spam specials. Bleeds and Burns still do damage to them even if they are resistant to your damage type.

• Not the other way around.

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NRaas wrote:

"The thing you want to look for is Vulnerabilities.. When a creature is vuln to something, that means the damage you hit for in the combat window, is the damage it takes."

ImperiumDiem is completely correct on this one.

Effectiveness is defined as: The effectiveness of the armor against the specified weapon damage type.

• Not the other way around.

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I was talking to my guild about that just yesterday. I think it is bone headed to have an effectiveness AND a special protection section if they are the same things. Shame on you Devs. On that note, has anyone suggested that there should be a hover cursor option on the creature (and NPC) examine window? That we we could tell what those thing actually mean? I.e. I examine a creature and in the window,I can hover over "effectiveness" and get the definiton for it. This could work for the damage types as well, but those are pretty straight forward. I would be nice to see a definition of what the special attacks do, as well. Just thinking about stuff, not sure exactly how useful it would be.

Effectiveness and Special Protection are not the same thing.

I had this explained to me by one of my guildie combat gurus.

Effectiveness only has a chance to take effect. I do not know what the formula for this is, or the average percentage. I've come to ignore "Effectiveness" as it is not a reliable contributor to damage reduction. The same principles are applied to armor.

What is important to pay attention to is Special Protection. Special Protection is a percentage of the damage which is reduced every single time. Effectiveness does not reduce damage every single time, so isn't nearly as important.

I have tracked this and discovered it to be verifiably reasonable. Critters with high effectiveness still take large amounts of damage from my shots. Critters with high (or any) special protection take a notably decreased damage.

Go to SWG Home Page and check out

Manual -> Advanced Guides -> Armour Fundamentals

It explains what all the percentages are, I must admit I was quite confused at first, but reading that will let you sort it out