Shipwright Archive
Thread: Armor Decay is nuts
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Bailicus
Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:12 pm
#27
I agree about just tearing through mk2 armour. Any level armour higher crafted mass wise means your skimping elsewhere on your ship. The mass is sickening. As mentioned before its the shields which recharge which are expected to soak up most of the damage. If your ships taking a beating enough for shields to be stripped in seconds then your have bitten off more than you can chew and are outgunned and ideally should be jumping somewhere safe. God knows I've done it many a time =)
I would be happy for the Amrour hitpoints to stay constant and the Hitpoints of the armour to be the "condition" of the armour, defining its lifetime.
WyrrWomble
IB inbreed
Infinity
I would be happy for the Amrour hitpoints to stay constant and the Hitpoints of the armour to be the "condition" of the armour, defining its lifetime.
WyrrWomble
IB inbreed
Infinity
Kaleborn
Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:22 am
#28
They can do different things with armor I guess. I kinda like the thought of it decaying a little bit each repair. To simulate how it get's 'beat up' with all the constant blaster fire.
I wonder if they reduced the decay to 1% of it's original max value with each repair if that would balance out?
So a 1000 effectiveness armor would lose 10 pts every time it get's repaired...
I think the going rate for any other item is something like 42 repairs(or is that 42 deaths) before they fall apart right? Doing the 1% thing on armor would still keep it well ahead of the curve as far as frequency of replacement. You'd probably want to replace it soon after 25 repairs (25% armor loss) or so.
Not having the armor stat decay at all would be even sweeter (only hp or condition decays), but I'd settle for a simple reduction in frequency. And lowering it's resource requirements a bit so SW could drop price slightly wouldn't hurt either... 
Message Edited by Kaleborn on 11-20-2004 02:24 AM
KaylBreinhar
Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:30 am
#29
I don't even use L6 armor anymore because my ultra-impressive pieces decay to all high hell and gone. The PROBLEM is even if the damn armor gets SCRATCHED, let alone blown the hell off, it takes a huge chunk of a percentage off.
I reserve them for when I KNOW my ass is going to get singed. Nowadays I use my L4 REed armor based off the 2047 mass Sienar Light Military "Yadda Yadda" armor.
If they're going to make armor this goddamned brittle, they need to make the SW-made stuff as good as the looted so we can buy it by the goddamned CRATE.
***Oh yeah, a tip - NEVER EVER GODDAMNED EVER REPAIR at stations that are limited repair unless you have no choice (even if you have no choice, LANDING and repairing the armor with a kit, or completely breaking down the ship to a deed and transporting the old-fashioned way, is preferable). You'll get dinged for TWO decays, one when they repair to 75%, and the other when you repair at a better equipped station.
There should be an option to "Just repair the engine and reactor, thanks" option to save them from touching the armor and causing MORE decay.
I reserve them for when I KNOW my ass is going to get singed. Nowadays I use my L4 REed armor based off the 2047 mass Sienar Light Military "Yadda Yadda" armor.
If they're going to make armor this goddamned brittle, they need to make the SW-made stuff as good as the looted so we can buy it by the goddamned CRATE.
***Oh yeah, a tip - NEVER EVER GODDAMNED EVER REPAIR at stations that are limited repair unless you have no choice (even if you have no choice, LANDING and repairing the armor with a kit, or completely breaking down the ship to a deed and transporting the old-fashioned way, is preferable). You'll get dinged for TWO decays, one when they repair to 75%, and the other when you repair at a better equipped station.
There should be an option to "Just repair the engine and reactor, thanks" option to save them from touching the armor and causing MORE decay.
Message Edited by KaylBreinhar on 11-20-2004 08:42 AM
PetaByte32
Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:57 am
#30
Kaleborn wrote:
They can do different things with armor I guess. I kinda like the thought of it decaying a little bit each repair. To simulate how it get's 'beat up' with all the constant blaster fire.
I wonder if they reduced the decay to 1% of it's original max value with each repair if that would balance out?
So a 1000 effectiveness armor would lose 10 pts every time it get's repaired...
I think the going rate for any other item is something like 42 repairs(or is that 42 deaths) before they fall apart right? Doing the 1% thing on armor would still keep it well ahead of the curve as far as frequency of replacement. You'd probably want to replace it soon after 25 repairs (25% armor loss) or so.
Not having the armor stat decay at all would be even sweeter (only hp or condition decays), but I'd settle for a simple reduction in frequency. And lowering it's resource requirements a bit so SW could drop price slightly wouldn't hurt either...
Message Edited by Kaleborn on 11-20-2004 02:24 AM
How about if your guns or engines or reactor stats dropped each time they took damage to simulate them getting blasted? Kinda suck then huh?
Tyranus
Scythe
Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:11 pm
#31
Totally agree. The problem here is that while every ship component has armor and HP, those two values are not part of the component effectiveness. In the case of armor, that's not true. As a newly-crowned Alliance Ace, and as a Master SW, this is totally bogus. I'd sooner take the hit on some sales then have people just say "sod armor, it decays too fast" and not buy at all.
Kaleborn
Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:45 pm
#32
ugh, big long reply to you Tyranus. But the forum gods ate it up... *sigh* I'll just summarize...err. sorta lol
1. I hate the current setup as much as you. I've written a couple long diatribes saying how broken this is. From a game design standpoint however, having 1 type of item behave differently than others, and in a way that introduces "realism" (for lack of a better word): Is kinda 'neat' in terms of introducing variety, flavor or what have you. I'm not defending a broken punishing game mechanic *as it exists now*...i'm defending the concept that having a different game system within the game, as long as it's fair, isn't a bad thing in and of itself.
2. I'm not sure if the current armor scheme is "as intended" by the devs. I think it just flew under the radar.
3. If it IS "as intended" than I concocted a design (1% decay and lower resource cost) that would still maintain the current scheme and be slightly less punishing for consumers.
4. The more I though about it the more I realize that any "decay on repair" scheme for armor simply WILL NOT WORK. Not without being unfair to consumers or being just a pain in the ass to players and devs to make it fair. Reasons:
-You will always needto swap out armor after only 15-25% decay to justify it's mass andto simply do better in high-level zones
-What a terrific waste of resources. An item gone after only 25% of it's use. How about reselling it? No one will buy a high-mass lvl 8 tech piece of armor that has is already 'used up'. You could lower/decay it's Mass as well...but there's the slight issue of it's Tech level. Can't sell it to lower level people without ALSO introducing yet ANOTHER game mechanic that reduces tech level.
-Okay, you've reduced mass and tech level just to give players a way to TRY and sell this item off. All you're doing is cutting into SW markets now.
Nope. Way too much effort, time and bizarre programming schemes just to make a decay-on-repair item worthwhile enough to justify it's initial resource cost to produce. So Devs: Please just make armor behave like every other component and maintain it's effectiveness as a lvl # item through it's entire lifespan.
As I said, I'm almost convinced that this isn't 'as intended' by the devs. Certainly not the ramifications of the current scheme at any rate. Ie: Lost sales to SW and fewer fliers in space due to the huge unbalanced cost of just one single component on a ship.
Message Edited by Kaleborn on 11-21-2004 01:47 PM
Message Edited by Kaleborn on 11-21-2004 01:48 PM
MonsofoLexius
Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:08 pm
#33
PetaByte32 wrote:
First this isnt a thread against decay. I am all for it. So please dont autoflame me.
Armor Decay is good except it affects the "Armor Hitpoints". This means I have had to make 30 panels just for my ship alone. Add to that the guild's needs and I am going crazy making armor. Once armor gets to 2/3rds its pretty much junk compared to stuff one level lower so have to replace.
I would like to see decay only affect the actual hitpoints of armor and not the "armor hitpoints". Or maybe allow us to make armor in the factories. People go through armor more then anything else.
Tyranus
I agree. Totally. Options?
- Leave as is, lower QTY of resources, allow to craft in factories
- Change it so HP "decay" not armor until HP are below say 200 or something, then armor decays significantly.
As a shipwright we must have a market to sell. And many people I know just use looted armor (as I do in my lower mass craft) because it goes sooooo fast they dont even bother to buy. We need to adjust this so Armor is worthwhile (saved components, keeps you in fight, etc) but is not gone after a day or 2 of fighting (or one of the ties with the rear guns) so people will acually purchase it
anubusx77
Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:48 am
#34
Ok.. Leave it as it is. Then where everybody is a MSW and you dont make any money then what are you going to do? As i see it my alt going to be a SW just to make armor and i guess since there such a big demand for it ill sell it make money also so when the sever has a crap load of SW remember that you guys wanted it this way to make a bunch of money off a broke system.
thecolonelcardaks
Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:45 am
#35
This may have been mentioned, but in the friday feature, on ALL items, the hitpoint stat is the
one that is supposed to decay, NOT the armor hitpoints, and that is only when the armor hitpoint
is completely gone and then you begin to affect the integrity of the armor itself. Although I don't
mind some light decay on the armor hitpoints itself (a solid market for armor) the majority of the decay
should be on the standard hitpoints only after armor has been completely reduced, with a reduced decay
rate on the armor itself.
PadiOne
Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:03 am
#36
Little-Green-Guy wrote:
stop complaining and leave it the way it is.its fine...
lmao @ the greedy little rodian. I wondered how long it would take you to chime in.
Business must finally be slowing down. You've got time to make armor. 
Seriously though, the problem currently is that if you have level 7 armor and get it shot up to 0AHP left, when you repair it, it has the mass of a lvl 7 but with lvl 5 AHP. (This may be slightly exagerrated. I haven't looked at the numbers for a while, but my point is that the first repair causes the biggest hit to AHP).
NasherUK
Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:54 am
#37
For PvP and risky stuff just dont bother with armor, use a cheap or already busted up ship. Most of the time once the shield is gone your dead anyway and its not worth decaying an expensive ship for some fun.
At least thats what everyone seems to be doing now
Message Edited by NasherUK on 11-24-2004 09:56 AM
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