Armour & penetration

Chris · 2015-03-23T15:05:35

In WWII there was a strange balance between tank armour and guns. Sides were examining what thickness of armour the opponent uses and install a gun just right to penetrate it but without excess. The idea was that if 70mm cannon could penetrate enemy armour the 85m cannon would be a waste (too heavy, too expensive for no additional/marginal gain). I'm thinking of using such system. The premise here is that the player observes (spys, combat reports) the enemy ships design (armour) and try to install guns able to counter these armours (just right guns, not the most powerfull possible). In addition it would encourage the player to have different forces vs different enemies (vs enemy that tend to build ships with high armour a high penetration gun fleet would be used, while a cheaper/faster fleet would be used vs enemies that have low armour). Post anything related, I just want to talk about it :) How it could be done: The assumption here is that combat is automated & abstracted, AI captains fire at each other following just general orders of the player. Variables: * ships have Armour rating, it's two numbers like "Armour:5-3" (since armour can be of different thickness in front/sides/rear) * weapons have Penetration rating, it's one number like "Penetration:4" * weapons have Damage rating, it's independent from Penetration (but usualy high damage guns would also have high penetration) * weapons have FireRate rating, basicly smaller guns with low penetration & damage can fire more often (these don't necessarily have to be cheaper) Mechanic: * each turn/battle phase there is a roll on current Armour of the target (between max/min), it's affected by maneuverability (more maneuverable ships can position themselves better than heavy one and assure they face them front, where their armour is the thickest), tactical skills of the captain (can outsmart enemy captain and position the ship better), level of targetting computers (able to target more vulnerable parts of enemy armour) * if the Penetration is higher or equal to Armour of the target the hit deals full damage, if it's lower it deals half damage, if it's less than 1/2 of the Armour it deals no damage at all Ships composition: * this system dictates that each ships should have at least two gun types, the main gun useful for at least scratching high armour targets and smaller/point defence guns that fire fast but are effective against low armour targets only Other idea: Quite similar, but ther Armour has three numbers (front/sides/back) like "Armour:8-3-2" or "Armour:5-2-2". It's less intuitive but more in the mood (everyone understands that whatever vehicle it is it's more armoured on front, less on sides and the least on the rear). Althrough, maybe it's not so intuitive for space ships?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Acharis March 19, 2015 09:17 PM

10 comments, last by Orymus3 9 years, 9 months ago

ferrous

6,164

March 23, 2015 02:46 PM

Well said Gian.

To bring it back around to space time fun. "unarmored" could just be ships with light enough armor that the explosive blast penetrates*. The infantry of the stars are basically drones, fighters and bombers, maybe some of the really lightly armored corvettes, maybe troop transports if you're going to do boarding parties. Or civilian ships, depending on the scenario.

Depending on how you plan on modelling damage, if you are doing it somewhat physics based, you could have the explosive shells damage everything in a radius after penetrating their target, hitting all nearby systems, while a non explosive round would just travel farther through in a straight line. Or if it's done all statistically, just have the chance of hitting multiple systems with the explosive rounds be higher than the non-explosive ones.

*Yeah, the physics of explosions in space, there is little to no blast wave, so it'd have to be shrapnel or whatever, you could spawn smaller bullets/fragments when the shell explodes, like the old Chmmr ships from Star Control.

Orymus3

18,866

March 23, 2015 03:05 PM

I tend to prefer systems where projectiles' efficiency is governed by a global set of rules, as opposed to a global set of variables. I find it more appealing as a player as well.

Could you expand on this further, I'm not sure I follow. If I am parsing it correctly, using your example above, those shield types would all be the same across all ships, ie there would not be a RefractiveShield strength X, but just RefractiveShield.

What I mean, is to have a variety of shields where each has a different balance:

Shield A:

Deals more damage over time

Limited slow effect

No Refraction

Shield B:

Deals NO damage over time

no slow effect

Great refraction

Shield C:

Deals moderate damage over time

Great slow effect

limited refraction

Etc.

That way, you can pick whichever fits the best with your playstyle. A dodger/dogfighter will probably go for a straight "refraction" or slow, as it will pull out before the projectiles hits, whereas a tank might go straight for the highest mitigation (damage over time) possible.

Some shields would allow for intermediate results which are better against unknown situations (handle most situations) but are never optimal. This mitigates risk and puts emphasis on player skill, etc.

Armour & penetration

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