Rifleman Archive

I've donesome testing on this and as I see it. This is how it works.

In PvP, you wear armor against pistoleers and maybe carbineers but not against Riflemen.

Couse if you dont wear armor and should have an AR of 0, you somehow get exluded from the whole system, so no damage bonus on you. if you wear armor the damage will be calcutalated of your AR1 status with whatever resists the armor has.

Im not 100% sure about this but it would kinda make since to how things work.

Don't get mad guys, but that makes sence. I know we want things to be better for us our game, but a damage increase would not make sence. Think of it like this....

I have ful plate armor on as a knight of old. Under my arms there is a spot where there is no metal plate protecting me. Someone hits me with a sword in that location, it hits my body directly with nothing absorbing damage. Thus it's no different if it hit me with out any armor on. No increase in how much it hurts, just no Decrease as if it hit me where I do have metal plate.

Personally I think that a heavy ap weapon should do more damage to an unarmored "victim" than just its base max. If a tank can hit another heavily armored tank with an ap round for say "1000 damage", that same round would turn a ground troup with even light armor into meat spray (lets say 2000 equivalent damage). This makes the T21 what it should be, the ultimate rifleman weapon, its max damage is less than a laser rifle, but its extra level of ap actually increases the max over that of the LR.

I say we do some tests.

X = any number greater than zero

1) verse armor AR1 with energy effectiveness X% and use a T-21 or laser rifle.

2) verse armor AR1 with energy effectiveness X% use a DL20 rifle

3) verse armor AR1 with a jawa rifle with stun vulnerability

4) verse armor AR1 with energy effectiveness X% and use some AP1 energy weapon, think carbine has some.

5) verse AR0 target with no effective resistances with a AP 0,1,2,3 weapon.

Shooting a T21 against an energy-vulnerable creature results in base damage.

Shooting a T21 against a create with any level of energy effectiveness, but no armor does result in the 1.95 damage multiplier being applied.

Shooting a T21 against an unarmored PC is treated the same as energy -vulnerable case That is we just get base damage, and the strenght of the weapon is ignored.

Shooting a T21 against an armored PC is treated the same as hitting a creature with the same level of armor, plus the 75%PVP reduction.

The combat window is effectively bugged and misleading. It shows only base damage, not modified damage. It should say "you hit for X(Y)" where x is base, and y modified damage.

Well, supposing they "fix" Armor piercing such that damage never exceeds 100%. It could put a dampener on things. T21 would more or less be useful only on AR3 but we don't see too many of those flying around (and when they do they're usually accompanied by 50-90% resistances). I foresee great pain for novice riflemen. Whom armed with a T21 will be shooting about 230(Avg damage)x1.5x2.5=690 per 6 or more seconds with headshots (it's been awhile so i don't remember all the multipliers). Novice riflemen would be twice as hard to lv, and it's already the hardest and slowest marksman profession to level.

It's a nice idea and all, however it will be a sad day for all of us if they fix the AP-AR without doubling our damage. We'll be severely underpowered, more novice riflemen will flee to pistolteer, commando and BH. But IF they double the damage output by our weapons to compensate for the Poor-Novice-Rifleman-Effect (PNRE) our T21 will be twice as effective against AR3 mobs while effectiveness against AR0 remains the same. Which is probably what they do not want.

The analogy of hitting a knight where there is NO armor is not the same as in this situation, because AP doesn't work that way.

The concept of AP isn't a way to hit where the armor doesn't protect. That'd be AE. Armor Evasion.

AP is Armor Piercing.

A better comparison would be that you have someone in a suit of armor. A sword with an AP of 0 would be relatively dull. A sword with an AP of 3 would be razor-sharp and more resiliant. If you were "slashed" or "stabbed" with both of these swords, which one do you reckon would do more damage if you weren't wearing armor?

They still don't have AP working right. That's becoming VERY aparent to me, as it should be to everyone else. The problem is that AP is our damage-dealing weapon attribute, and without it we are completely screwed.

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Some Dev Somewhere wrote:
"Here's how it actually works. That 50% reduction or 25% increase is applied to the protection of the armor, not the base damage. So if an armor with effectiveness of 30 has an AR1 and is hit with a weapon of AR2, it actually protects as if it had an effectiveness of 15 (30 * .5 = 15). Against a weapon of AR0, it protects as if were 37.5% (30 * 1.25 = 37.5). This 50% reduction or 25% increase is applied for each level difference. So if the armor had an AR2 it would protect as if it had an effectiveness of 46.9% (30 * 1.25 = 37.5 * 1.25 = 46.9.

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Just for an update:

The above is patently incorrect in the PvE case, and I can prove it.

The damage that is done to a critter is the Floaty Damage, i.e. the damage that appears over the critter's head when you shoot it. The Floaty Damage is obtained by multiplying the Base Damage (i.e. the damage that shows up in your battlespam) by a Resistance and Armor Factor (RAF), thusly:
Floaty Damage = Base Damage * RAF

The RAF can be calculated for any critter and any weapon based on the following formulas:

1) If the AP rating of the weapon is EQUAL TO OR HIGHER THAN the AR rating of the critter:
RAF = [(1.25)^N] * (1 - Resistance)

In this case, N is the AP rating of the weapon minus the AR rating of the critter.


2) If the AP rating of the weapon is LOWER than the AR rating of the critter:
RAF = [(0.50)^N] * (1 - Resistance)

In this case, N is the AR rating of the critter minus the AP rating of the weapon.

Some hypotheticals, based on in-game tests:

AP2 weapon vs. AR1 armor with 15% resistance

According to the Dev quoted above, this would work like an AP1 weapon shooting an AR1 critter with 7.5% resistance. If that were the case, the RAF would be:
RAF = 0.925

According to the accepted theory, the RAF should be:
RAF = [(1.25)^1] * (0.85) = 1.0625

This is easy for a Rifleman to test. Grab your trusty Laser Rifle and go to Corellia and find a Violent Krahbu. Violent Krahbu have Light armor (AR1) and 15% Energy Resistance. If the Dev is right, the Floaty Damage will be LESS than the Base Damage. If the Floaty Damage is more than the Base Damage, we will know that the Dev is wrong.

Here is real, actual test data from a Laser Rifle (AP2) vs. a Violent Krahbu (AR1):

Base      Floaty      RAF
--------------------------
1743       1852      1.063
 174        185      1.063
 676        718      1.062
 588        626      1.065
 947       1006      1.062
 892        947      1.062

AP0 weapon vs. AR1 armor with 15% resistance

According to the Dev quoted above, this would work like an AP1 weapon shooting an AR1 critter with 18.75% resistance. If that were the case, the RAF would be:
RAF = 0.8125

According to the accepted theory, the RAF should be:
RAF = [(0.50)^1] * (0.85) = 0.425

Grabbing my trusty DLT20a (AP0), I took some potshots at some Violent Krahbu (still AR1). Here's the test data:

Base      Floaty      RAF
--------------------------
282        120       0.425
250        107       0.428

Conclusion

The Dev quoted above seems to be unaware of how Armor Piercing and Armor Resistance actually works in the game.

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Some Dev Somewhere wrote:
Therefore, if a weapon attacks with a damage type of the armor's vulnerability, all of the damage goes through with no damage reduction, but no damage increase either. So it appears as if it is working as coded.

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He's correct in this case. If a critter is "vulnerable", the Base Damage is not affected by anything except resistances. This means that an AP0 weapon against an AR1 critter with appropriate vulnerabilities (e.g. Vulnerable to Energy vs. an Energy weapon) will not suffer any damage reduction from the Base Damage, but it also means that an AP3 weapon against an AR1 critter with appropriate vulnerabilities will not get a damage bonus from the Armor Piercing.

Volsted Gridban
4/4/4/0 Ranger, Master Rifleman,
Surveyor of planetary resources. Purveyor of animal resources.
Author of Volsted's Weapon Analysis Guide, Volsted's Power Fishing Guide,
and Volsted's Animal Resource Guide
Draining MMORPG combat mechanics through the Mighty Sieve of Mathematics since 1999

Yes, if you would read the whole thread we already proved it wrong

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AldeonAvardulin wrote:
Yes, if you would read the whole thread we already proved it wrong

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You and I appear to have differing definitions of what constitutes "proof."

It's one thing to say "The system doesn't work like you say, and here's a picture showing that it doesn't work like you say."

It's another thing entirely to say "The system doesn't work like you say. It works THIS way instead, and here's a bunch of real, actual data from in-game tests to prove it."

I prefer the latter over the former, personally. It's hard for the devs to argue with test data that proves them wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Well we have proof now whatever way they want it, so where is our AP fix?

Thanks for taking the time to run those tests Volsted.

If you look at those screenshots and a matter of posts down from it, the guy does a bunch of math showing how it works using those screenshots.

I posted it in the Correspondant forum, and they were confused and said to wait till the Combat Dev gets back to figure it out.