Rifleman Archive

Owing to what Korbyn added to my Armor Piercing Bug thread on the main forums, I've been sifting around the Armorsmith forum a bit. I'll recap their Armor Piercing method of calculation as briefly and simply as I can here.

Every level of AP a weapon has subtracts 50% of the total resistance that armor does.

Bone Armor = 20% resistance.
Laser Rifle does 200 damage.
20% x 0.5(AP1) x 0.5(AP2) = 5%.
So Bone Armor 20% resist, when hit with an AP2 weapon, only works as a 5% resist.

Apparently then the damage taken is affected by the "mitigation" levels, which is your secondary stat (until now believed only to affect the HAM cost of performing certain special actions) in the damaged HAM bar.

Under this system, AP NEVER gives an increase in damage. It's also really hard to test and calculate, but also MAKES SENSE as to why the AP never factors in for vulnerabilities. 0% resist multiplied by anything is stil 0%. Heh. But what is noteworthy is that under this system, armor is practically WORTHLESS against anyone with AP2 or higher.

What bothers me about ths system is that it kind of DOES make sense. Which means that it could be right.

Which means that the T-21 isn't getting any kind of a damage bonus from AP3, and is even more of a worthless piece of s**t than we thought it was. Grrrrrrr. I need to go smash stuff now. And we need an answer to how the **edit** AP/AR system is supposed to work.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=631084

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Aden_Nak wrote:NOTE TO DEVS: No in-game system should require this much work to figure out.

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No, I completely disagree. It's not like you have to do the math *while* playing the game. It makes everything more interesting.

I don't like the idea that the T-21 is supposed to jack the laser rifle in all cases. I'm happy the laser rifle is the workhorse against weakly armored targets. The T-21 will still be godly when cutting down heavily armored targets.

The T-21 is also the gun to use when you need consistent damage, e.g., for bleeds.

The T-21 should be the big bad baby you pull out when big bad things start showing up as red on your radar screen.

I don't understand why people are complaining... in this case, nothing even got changed!!! It's always worked this way. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. My T-21 has always given about the same damage against a unarmored target. So basically, people misunderstood the game mechanic and thought it was bugged, were informed they were wrong, and then STILL decide to call it a nerf? How cynical can you get?

The AP is working in PVE

Thereare bugs related with the vulnerabilities of a mob, other than that, its works very well.

The AP works, because i'm killing 6khp+ mobs with low ARin one shot with my T21 when i'm lucky, if it didnt worked, it would be mathematically impossible.

Zhug

Master Rifleman - Weaponsmith

.. but you were talking about pvp I guess...

...tired..

Zhug

Master Rifleman - Weaponsmith

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jnat wrote:

The AP is working in PVE

There are bugs related with the vulnerabilities of a mob, other than that, its works very well.

The AP works, because i'm killing 6khp+ mobs with low AR in one shot with my T21 when i'm lucky, if it didnt worked, it would be mathematically impossible.

Zhug

Master Rifleman - Weaponsmith

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I agree, it DOES seem like it works in PvE. But if I am to believe what I read, it's not working that way anywhere.

I have a headache.

Aldeon's in agreeance that there is something wrong with AP in PvP, and I'm sure it will be one of the first things he tests when the correspondent terminals are in. (if they aren't already)

Two pictures for your veiwing pleasure.

The first is AP2 vs a mob with energy resist, note the damage of conceal shot on the combat window, and how it increases above the mobs head.

http://www.zen23690.zen.co.uk/AP2%20Vs%20Energy%20Resist.jpg

The second is AP2 vs a mob with NO energy resist, note the lack of a damage increase when comparing the combat window to theoverhead damage.

http://www.zen23690.zen.co.uk/AP2%20Vs%20No%20Energy%20Resist.jpg

Until someone shows me otherwise I will continue to believe that AP does increase damage unless you are facing a target with no resist to the damage type you're doing,then the AP bonus magically vanishes.To me thatsounds very much like abug.

What you just did there was .5 times .5 which is .25. So you are saying a ap 2 weapon is less effective then a ap 1 weapon. I would guess I ap 2 weapon would decrease the resists by 75%.

No, no, it works. Actually do the math.

If you take 1/2 away from something, and then take 1/2 away again, you're taking 3/4 away.

Taking 3/4 or 75% away is the same as multiplying by .25.

Yeah I see what you did now, I didn't read your post close enough. I thought you did the .25 first then added it in then subtracting it and all that jazz.

This is trivial to disprove in-game. There are mobs with 100% resists (many high level nightsisters have 100% energy resist and light armor). Use a higher-AP weapon on a 100% resist mob, and the mob will take no damage. This is inconsistent with the explanation of how the system works which is provided here (according to the system, it should take half damage if the AR of the weapon is 1 greater).

*slaps his forehead*

*slaps it again*

Noules. . . you're right. Ha ha. The only way to conform this system to the game is to say that 100% resists have a separate code.

Though an AT-ST would probably be a great test. It has 70% Energy Resistance. But it also has Heavy Armor, and I'm not sure what effect that has on the % of armor Piercing would reduce. I would ASSUME that Light AR causes Piercing to work for 50%, Medium AR causes Piercing to work for 25%, and Heavy AR causes Piercing to work for 12.5%. So that being said, a normal shot of 200 from a T-21 should hit an AT-ST for 47% of it's total damage. So 94. Of course, that is BASE damage, and assuming that AR3 MOBs only suffer at 12.5% reduction in their armor per AP level.

A few assumptions, but reasonable ones, I think.

I need to spend more time on the Armorsmith Forum.

NOTE TO DEVS: No in-game system should require this much work to figure out.

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Seflyn wrote:
Until someone shows me otherwise I will continue to believe that AP does increase damage unless you are facing a target with no resist to the damage type you're doing,then the AP bonus magically vanishes.To me thatsounds very much like abug.

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The Womprat in the 2nd picture is listed as "vulnerable" to Energy.

I shoot stuff all the time that is not "vulnerable" to energy, but also has no resists vs. energy. The multiplier is there.

So from the looks of your picture, "vulnerable" negates the AP bonus.

Also, from the looks of your picture, "vulnerable" does not mean what 95% of the player base would assume it to mean based on the dictionary definition and based on previous experience with other computer games.