The balancing process

[draba]

• Subtract the weapon's armor penetration from armor's armor rating (this effect also applies to the armor's damage reduction).
• Incoming damage amount has damage reduction subtracted from it, to a minimum of 50% of the original damage. This value is rounded randomly using RoundRandom, if it goes to zero damage is cancelled and the deflected effect plays.
• Roll for damage deflection based on armor rating. If it passes, damage is cancelled and the deflected effect plays.
• There's a chance to convert sharp damage to blunt: 100% at 2dmg lerping to 0% at 12dmg.
• Armor takes damage based on the original weapon damage.

After this is done we'll have to rebalance some weapons (specifically weapons with weirdly low per-shot damage, like the assault rifle and LMG, and extremely armor-prevented now. They need to change from ~7 to ~11 damage per shot. Charge rifle should go from ~11 to ~13.) Alternatively we could look at just forcing AP on some of these weapons, but I'd prefer to keep things "pure" if possible and use direct AP definition only for really special weapons.

Here's my spreadsheet analysis.

Definitely functional, but I think it's favors deflection too much compared to reduction.
If you are shot by a greatbow/bolt-action, have decent/strong armor and deflection doesn't trigger there isn't much difference compared to being naked(guaranteed 15/16 cut).
A chicken pecking 1-2 blunt through the best available armor isn't threatening, but looks really silly.
With these kinds of chances definitely still wouldn't use direct combat unless I'm completely unprepared.

I think the "to a minimum of 50% of the original damage" part  is unnecessary.
Could decrease deflection chances and raise DR instead, lerped 50%-100% of DR is used against every attack.
Even reworking deflection to work as a 10%-100% DR roll could be fine(and easier to understand).
That way really weak weapons vs strong armor scenario is more consistent and heavy weapons aren't all or nothing.
I understand that occasionally taking big hits is a design goal, this system still allows that.
They just won't come from shoddy bows

[XeoNovaDan]

I'd honestly be in favour of an occasional 'AP multiplier' stat for weapons like the charge rifle and assault rifle simply because they're very good weapons as they are, especially the latter. If their damages were to be buffed, they'd become quite overpowered; other weapons like the LMG would be made completely redundant.

[Mihsan]

The design notes. Still under consideration.

I just want to point at the one system that I find reasonable and working. It is from Fallout games (original one... Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics have the same). There armor has two stats: threshold and resistance. Threshold substracts it's value from incoming damage and might even turn it to zero. Resistance reduces it's % from damage. There is also "armor class" thing, which basicaly gives better chance to dodge.

I still remember how good and correct armor felt in that game from leather jacket to power armor. Leather armor would not save you from damage (since it had almost no "threshold"), but it had some resistance ang great dodge. Metal and combat armor could ignore some light damage from knives and pistols. And to kill a dude in power armor you would need some high-end weapon because of both high threshold and high resistances.

[Some_stranger]

Hello.  Long time lurker and player.  I'd like to make a few comments.

I really do like the way this 1.0 is going.  There are a few things I think could be different.  For weapons, what you could do is make it so there's a separate stat for weapon penetration.  The armor would have a ratio of say, 10% up and down.  As long as the penetration is 1% above the (armor - sharp), it will penetrate and leave a bleeding wound.  The median will offer 50% damage and stop the projectile.

For example:

2 raiders fight a man wearing an armor vest with 0.50 Sharp Protection.  One has an autopistol with 0.46 penetration and the other has a survival rifle with 0.54 penetration.  The survival rifle hits him in the torso, penetrates the vest, and does 90% damage and causes a bleeding wound.  If it had 0.55 Penetration, it would do 100% damage.  The autopistol hits him in the torso, is stopped by the vest, but bruises the pawn for 10% damage.  If it had 0.45 penetration, it would be stopped by the vest and do 0% damage. 

The reason for this is because the vest is 0.50 (Armor - Sharp) with a 10% gradient up and down for defense.  10% of 0.50 is 0.05.  This means it technically is a vest that protects from 0.45-0.55 but is perfect from 0.45 downward.

This adds a gradient to armor.

Also, completely unrelated to this but, I'm a huge supporter of what you do and have also bought your book.  It feels like it's very much created for people in the scene and I've brought it with me on my travels to Europe.  Thanks again for all you do.

[Ser Kitteh]

Can someone do a TL;DR of the new system Tynan just proposed? The technicalities alude me.

[draba]

I just want to point at the one system that I find reasonable and working. It is from Fallout games (original one... Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics have the same). There armor has two stats: threshold and resistance. Threshold substracts it's value from incoming damage and might even turn it to zero. Resistance reduces it's % from damage. There is also "armor class" thing, which basicaly gives better chance to dodge.

I still remember how good and correct armor felt in that game from leather jacket to power armor. Leather armor would not save you from damage (since it had almost no "threshold"), but it had some resistance ang great dodge. Metal and combat armor could ignore some light damage from knives and pistols. And to kill a dude in power armor you would need some high-end weapon because of both high threshold and high resistances.

Yep, I like that system myself and others mentioned it, too.
Also really simple, Rimworld is a pretty casual game so I think that's a big plus.

[Tynan]

I like the DR/DT system. It's also used in UnderRail, which we were looking at.

There are some downsides though:
-Weapons with zero effect on a given armor. If enemy has such armor, it may be frustrating. If you do, may be boring. Can anyone comment on experiences in Fallout with this?
-Spam. Assuming any damage occurs, a high DR means that attacks may end up doing lots of tiny bits of damage. It's fine in some games but in RW each damage is a separate wound, and if they're spammed it can look bad and cause other issues.

Still thinking on it.

[lancar]

I like the DR/DT system. It's also used in UnderRail, which we were looking at.

There are some downsides though:
-Weapons with zero effect on a given armor. If enemy has such armor, it may be frustrating. If you do, may be boring. Can anyone comment on experiences in Fallout with this?
-Spam. Assuming any damage occurs, a high DR means that attacks may end up doing lots of tiny bits of damage. It's fine in some games but in RW each damage is a separate wound, and if they're spammed it can look bad and cause other issues.

Still thinking on it.

Having played both UnderRail and all of the fallout series, I know of this. UnderRail especially is guilty of heavy weapon imbalance due to the enemy either killing you instantly or barely scratching you no matter what they do. I think part of the issue is that you're just one man and it's make or break in every battle, the other part is the lack of armor degradation.
This would introduce a problem in Rimworld, as if armor degraded heavily during the scope of a single battle (in order to actually kill someone in a bulletproof suit by simply overwhelming the suits HP with a craptonne of bullets) your own colonists would go through vests and power armor like nobodies business, even with a minor skirmish.

Honestly, however, i don't see that as unsolvable if armor could be repaired without having to make the whole thing a-new from scratch.
Repairable armor would mean that during the scope of a single battle, your vest may be eventually riddled with holes and barely protect you anymore, but in time for the next encounter you could patch it back together again at very little (or no) resource cost. Each colonist could do this automatically at some pre-determined point in the day, or as ordered, or even instantly (magically) when combat ends. However, just like in Diablo (IIRC) your armors max-durability would be reduced.

This way you could overwhelm bulletproof enemies with enough bullets, just like bulletproof materials IRL, rather than just punching through them right off the bat with a high caliber sniper rifle.

But, of course, this would introduce yet another layer of complexity into the whole deal.

[Tynan]

Thanks lancar, it does sound like it has some of the issues one would expect.

OK, Piotr brought up some issues with my previous system (it requires 3 stats for multi-stuff weapons since stuffs affect blunt/sharp/heat damage differently). I wrote another candidate system. Still thinking on this. Here's the latest candidate. I kind of like this one.

----

Three-way roll armor system:

Armor has an AR (armor resistance) stat the same as now. AR maxes at 200%. Also same as now: There is separate AR for sharp, blunt, and heat.

Attack has an AP (armor penetration) stat which defaults to the damage as a percent (e.g. 11 damage ->  11% AP), but which can be overridden by a stat definition for special cases.

When armor interacts with an attack:

1. We subtract AP from AR.
2. We generate a random number from 0-100.
   2a. If it's over the AR, the damage applies directly.
   2b. If it's under AR but over AR/2, damage is diminished. This means:
      2b1. Damage amount reduced by 50% (rounded random; if this round to zero we treat it as a deflect).
      2b2. If damage is sharp, it converts to blunt.
   2c. If it's under AR/2, damage is deflected entirely.

Analysis:

We'll have to balance armor ratings up a bit (to exactly 4/3 of current), but that's okay. Power armor will have almost exactly 100% protection, which is nice and round.

100% AR will not let almost any damage hit directly, but blunted damage will hit. Direct damage will only happen due to weapon AP stat.

200% AR cannot be damaged at all except due to weapon's AP stat. Or, until the armor itself is destroyed.

[Akyla]

If I read that correctly there can be 3 outcomes:
- full damage
- 50% damage
- no damage

With the distribution depending on armor AR and weapon AP.

Optionally, the 50% damage reduction could be changed to an armor based DR value. Either as a percentage or as a flat value.

[DariusWolfe]

At risk of adding even more complexity, I'd really like to see a way to repair armor, and have damage mitigation do damage to the armor at a rate that scales with the damage mitigated; when a shot is completely blocked there's still a cost because a ballistic plate may block a sniper rifle round, but it's probably not going to do it more than once. This would also add a time/materials cost to maintaining your armor, and armor could still get destroyed during a long, intense battle, so you'd still have to replace it from time to time, which was, I recall, your reason for not implementing a repair system in the past.

A similar system on weapons would also make sense; Minor damage (<5-10%) would require time only to fix, reflecting general maintenance (cleaning/honing, generally) but greater damage would require materials, and would be in line with your barrel-replacement mechanic for turrets.

[Canute]

Why do you want an Armor piercing ?
You can have an Armor resitance from max 200%, but 100 to 200 is just buffer and has no deflection chance.
Damage done = Int (Weapon damage  * (1 - AR) )
At 100% AR no damage is taken. But the Armor HP get lowered by the absorbed Damage.

But if you like it complex why not using the CE mechanic ?

[draba]

With your latest candidate: against 100% power armor heavy weapons still have a decent chance to do full damage.
Potentially taking full powered sniper hits through power armor discourages direct combat.

A somewhat similar 3-tier system with a bit of a cushion:
- armor has a damage reduction value
- reduction is subtracted from damage, in case result is <=0 it was a complete deflection
- if remaining damage is <reduction it is halved and converted to blunt
- otherwise simply apply remaining damage


In Fallout 1-2 heavy armor did make you invincible to small arms(barring some crits IIRC), but heavy kinetic weapons with AP ammo did get a decent chunk through it even with dermal implants.
Don't think having a similar dnyamic in Rimworld would be a problem as heavy firearms, blunt melee, fire and explosions could all deal with armor pretty well(for players there are always deadfall traps with the 30+ damage).
If you get a raid where somehow nobody can damage you that could be a nice power trip. Still, even tribals have clubs and there will be possibly expensive wear&tear.

Since only strong weapons have a chance getting through in the first place there wouldn't be that many wounds. If that's a concern you can do a roll for DR on every instance of damage.
That way DR can be overall higher and the variance means that some small instances fall below DT, large ones kill you so they don't accumulate

Weapon AP could reduce DT/DR by x/y, if damage is <2xDT the part that gets through is blunted.

[ashaffee]

Personally I hate the idea of armor that makes combat less risky. I like the idea of armor that scales with weapons more. I want the risk at all times if I don't play properly colonist will die. I like the fact that I have to struggle through the death of my colonist.

[Albion]

Quick question Tynan with your new system:
If I get legendary power armor with 200% sharp protection. Am I invincible?
Because the way I read it means that unless someone shoots me with a gun that has more than 100 damage or 100% AP it is impossible to roll for anything else than deflect which means all damage gets negated.
I could probably still get damaged by heat or blunt but any bullets will be negated.