The way armor works (bonus suggestion: melee rework)

Started by DestroyX, September 08, 2015, 04:57:01 AM

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DestroyX

heyho :D

i stumbled over a thread that completely explains how armor works in this game today, which was quiete a strange discovery honestly.

at the moment, if you have 100% armor, it actually means you get 50% damage reduction and 50% chance to withstand the damage altogether.
while this is okay, gameplaywise, it gets kinda wierd if you take smaller weapons into account.

a guy in a complete power armor (which should be, lets be honest, a damn beast) should not be able to die from 10 guys with pistols.
such low damage weapons shouldnt even be damaging, not even to the armor itself.
so why dont introduce a stat like armor mitigation, which either reduces the damage by a flat amount, or (which i like better, because balance) set a minimum treshold at which damage can be applied, so the weapon needs, as an example, at least 5 damage to do anything to the colonist, aswell as the armor. (said damage is calculated before reduction)

this could also be applied to melee combat, so you cant be stunlocked by some random guys with clubs anymore, would make melee quite a bit more viable, since it heaviely relies on overwhelming you with sheer numbers.

tl;dr -> armor mitigation could lead to some pretty desirable results, please correct me if i'm wrong^^

part two would be a bigger gamechanger, a quite intersting one, however.

it aims for the biggest part at the melee system, which is really unbalanced at the moment, mostly due to said stunlocking, where overwhelming numbers are wailing at you, leaving you unable to even run away.

a possible fix would be to restrict each square to one pawn at max.
of course, if the square contains an ally, you can still move through him, so you dont get some mad pathing hassle, but in melee, you cant have 50 tribals on one square wailing on a colonist, because the way tribals work are obviously to form  a blob of attack arms on contact with each other :'D.
alternatively, you can still restrict the max number of the pawns who can either attack or stand on a single square, so there are lets say a maximum of 5 guys who can attack you at the same time, from the same tile. (this, again, allows stunlocking tho. so to make it viable, if we take the power armor vs tribals again, damage mitigation, or maybe even a stun resistance stat, which i would be in for, too, would be a desirable addition)

so yeah, i'm done now^^

last but not least i want to thank you for always trying to improve your game, it brought me tons of fun (and depressing) hours :D

i really hope my suggestions will be thought about, however, if you think they are bad for the game in its state it would still be nice if you could give me a short feedback why, because that would be just as interesting for me^^


Mrred1

Great idea. I agree the armor system is a bit strange...and how 50 guys can becon one tile...
"Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings." ~ Robert Bloch ~

DestroyX

because, on contact, they turn into a blob, because rimworld is obviously based on futurama :D


on a serious side tho, some more thoughts about this would be really nice to hear^^

Johnny Masters

#3
Last year I've thrown around and made a thread or two on a similar idea of reworking damage and melee. The power armor is a solid case on how shallow it's currently implemented, although i made a case on how this is also obviously bad on how pawns break apart doors and walls made of stone with punches. Not cool.

So yeah, +infinite to damage rework. It definitely needs a flat number thrown somewhere besides a % reduction.

Also agree on melee. There's a thousand ways to make melee better than it currently is, but preventing the logical error of allowing so many bodies in a single space should be priority.

Too bad Tynan hasn't made too many comments on the subject (if at all). if anyone has any quotes on this feel free to post it here.

DestroyX

yeah, it would be really interesting to know, what he thinks about the whole concept.

however, it seems like he isnt really around these days in the forum, maybe he's in his holidays or something.


Thane

Yep he's on holiday until after Christmas-ish. If I understood his post on it correctly. But at the moment I never really bother to armor my soldiers. It's pointless, the stuff degrades faster than butter in a pan and it's almost worth it's weight in Gold. Almost literally! At 35.00 a piece for gold, decent body armor is 20-40 pieces and if we are talking 1 gold ore is equivalent to a real world ounce......
It is regular practice to install peg legs and dentures on anyone you don't like around here. Think about that.

DestroyX

dang, i should be a dev too :D

well, i wanted to do a heavy armoured melee squad once.
it works fine vs ranged enemies, since they are split, and cant do much vs shields.
however, vs other melee enemies, even if they are only tribals its kinda useless, just because the defensive stats are so wierd.
you get stunlocked all the time, which is the biggest problem.
and i really wish there would be a block and/or parry mechanic, since, call me crazy, but i totally think that a swordsmaster (even without a damn power armor) would have no problem dealing with 5 guys who can barely hold the right end of their club in your general direction.

tl:dr  right now melee stats dont matter. mass matters, skills dont

Panzer

I dont think a damage threshold like you suggested will be implemented, it makes armor way too powerful and works against the whole drama setting Tynan is trying to create. Less dead colonists, less tragedy.
Im pretty content with how armor works now, except that armor is considered clothing and those whiny pansies complain when a beat up piece of protection ruins their good looks. Armor should be exempt from that, you dont whine around when something helps you stay alive.
Other than that it would be nice to see an increase in availability, weapon traders should at least have one vest for sale, because they re friggin combat suppliers, goddamnit ;D

I do like the idea of removing pawnstacking though, the tribal deathball that clubs you to death in a single salvo is just ridiculous and not realistic, doesnt fit in with the sim part of the game.
In the meantime, notice that you can create your own deathball, just move a drafted colonist over another one, when they overlap undraft & draft the moving one to reset the pathing, and tadaa you successfully stacked your guys. You can repeat this an infinte number of times, works ridiculously well with masterwork plasteel longsword fighters since you can oneshot limbs with that.
Shows that there is still a long way to go with combat balancing, since removing pawnstacking might mean that you need to adjust weapondamage, accuracy or pawn health once again :P

Panzer

Talking about melee rework, I think it would help a lot if the base melee hit chance is decreased, dont have the exact number in my head, but I think it is around 70% for a healthy pawn with lvl 3 in melee (correct me if Im wrong), just way too high. There is no merit in leveling melee since mass will always beat class with these settings.

RoboticManiac

Stunlocking melee makes perfect sense- Even if you have a flipping longsword, you're not going to be able to stop three guys from jumping on top of you and curb stomping you.

And I'd like for armour to be a flat reduction in damage; simply because it's easier for players to understand without taking out calculators.

DestroyX

well, in the end it still comes down to skill.

mass doesnt matter if your enemies can barely hold a weapon and got cataracts in both eyes, so they should be glad if they can at least swing it in your general direction.

yet, a bunch of crippled unskilled guys have no problem beating up an experienced elite soldier in a full power armor.
dont know about you, but this certainly doesnt make a lick of sense to me^^

Boston

^ That is actually how it worked in the Middle Ages, with plate armor

Very few weapons could reliably deal damage through full steel plate armor, so an acceptable tactic involved swarming the guy, knocking him over, and slotting a knife in between the plates.

DestroyX

on the other hand, i'm not too sure if middle age weapons vs middle age armor is the same as neolithic weapons vs futuristic armor^^

Boston

Why not? A knife between armor plates is still a knife slotted between armor plates......

Darkfirephoenix

Quote from: Boston on September 19, 2015, 09:37:25 PM
Why not? A knife between armor plates is still a knife slotted between armor plates......
Unless it's a airtight Power Armor made out of hightech future materials. I highly doubt that the makers of power armors would overlook the "knife between armor plates" problem (unless ofc the knife itself is made out of hightech materials and made with the target of piercing power armors)