Author Topic: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?  (Read 4598 times)

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Offline TMarkos (OP)

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Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« on: February 04, 2016, 06:02:39 PM »
I've been testing damage templates for beam weapon armor penetration and the results I'm getting for lasers are very odd.   Imgur album of results here:

https://imgur. com/a/YjeRI

Notice how lasers start developing longer steps than 3 at high damage levels.   The most damaging laser is penetrating 4 and 5 levels vertically rather than the standard 3.   Can anyone come up with a consistent mechanic to explain these results?
 

Offline Rich.h

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2016, 07:05:42 PM »
I haven't played with lasers of that sort of damage level but I was always under the impression that a laser just did a single line of damage equal in layers to the damage output of the laser.

EDIT: Did some digging in the wiki and found an actual explanation of how damage is applied with beams and missiles, it would seem like the beam patterns you came up with are working according the wiki.

http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Armor
« Last Edit: February 04, 2016, 07:13:15 PM by Rich.h »
 

Offline TMarkos (OP)

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2016, 07:24:21 PM »
Quote from: Rich. h link=topic=8305. msg85883#msg85883 date=1454634342
I haven't played with lasers of that sort of damage level but I was always under the impression that a laser just did a single line of damage equal in layers to the damage output of the laser.

EDIT: Did some digging in the wiki and found an actual explanation of how damage is applied with beams and missiles, it would seem like the beam patterns you came up with are working according the wiki.

hxxp: aurorawiki. pentarch. org/index. php?title=Armor
Haha, check the edit logs - I wrote that and then did this testing to make sure I wasn't wrong at higher levels, which I apparently was.   Those rules I have in the wiki stop applying once the beams develop vertical steps of more than 3 squares, which happens at only 30 or so damage.   The slope actually changes, which is not something those rules account for.
 

Offline Jackal Cry

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2016, 02:41:15 PM »
I don't understand why we don't know the damage templates with certainty. Surely at some point over the last five years Steve has told us what the templates are? I don't see why they need to be a secret.

Steve, if you see this, could you just tell us what the templates are for each weapon and each damage value?
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2016, 03:41:14 PM »
Missiles and PCs have a damage template of a square power. Lasers have a damage template of a cubed power. Railguns and Particle beams have a template of the 4 power (like the 3 deep template of the laser but steeper at 4) . The image in the armor wiki page describes how the sideways damage is done as well. Its hard to describe for the actual math but you see it when you look at the damage of a strength weapon does.
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Offline Vandermeer

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2016, 06:23:38 PM »
Since no one, including the wiki has yet supplied the accurate penetration depth formulas (though most people here know them from other posts since forever..):





And soon to come in 7.2, the most devastating of all:



So this means a missile warhead of 4 will harm 2 layers. A warhead of 9 - 3 layers, and a 25 warhead is 5 layers. Note that this of course means that you need a 25 warhead to punch through 4 layers of armor (dealing only 1 point of internal damage with that 5th row though).

With lasers for example you have a stretched out, but still essentially square expanding structure, so that is why there is multiplication inside the root. A 3 damage laser pierces through sqrt(3*3)=3 layers as obvious, and a 6 damage laser does 4.{something}, so that is 4. (5 damage would however only be sqrt(15) and not make it)

I find these calculations mostly useful the other way around though, which is planning armor strength. I won't spoiler you, but there are certain attack strengths you can count on out there, and having the exact armor strength that can tank one of those is only sensible planning.
So to figure out what your armor can block, reverse the formulas..


Against lasers that means that x armor layers are at minimum needed to block these y laser powers:

3 blocks 3
4 blocks 5.333, so that is a 15cm with 6
5 blocks 8.333, meaning that a strength 9 laser hit will be enough to pierce 4 armor, so you need 5 from then on.
6 blocks 12, which means up until then 5 armor were enough, so 5 layers also block 20cm laser with strength 10
7 is 16.333, so 6 layers are barely enough to ward against the 25cm~-16 damage laser
8 provides enough against the damage 24 size 30cm lasers
9 is needed against damage 32
11 against 42
22 against 168
88 layers against 2598

More would be vanity, especially considering that shock damage switches into the deal much earlier. With lances coming, up to 51 might also look kind of convincing, depending on how much and how strong use AI make of those.(I dare to predict however: not too much)

///edit: Had to correct wrong armor calculations.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2016, 09:25:29 PM by Vandermeer »
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Offline Mor

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2016, 09:54:45 PM »
Since no one, including the wiki has yet supplied the accurate penetration depth formulas (though most people here know them from other posts since forever..):

So, you are saying that this is has been known for forever and posted about in the past, but those post get lost and you repost.. rinse and repeat into madenasss.

As for the wiki\manual, it won't going to update it self, and yes you can make that change happen: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Armor#Penetration_Mechanics
 

Offline PaxMondo

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2016, 09:58:18 PM »
I find these calculations mostly useful the other way around though, which is planning armor strength.

Thanks for this ...
 

Offline Vandermeer

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2016, 03:39:02 PM »
So, you are saying that this is has been known for forever and posted about in the past, but those post get lost and you repost.. rinse and repeat into madenasss.

As for the wiki\manual, it won't going to update it self, and yes you can make that change happen: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Armor#Penetration_Mechanics
YwesSir!
Well, or I would, but the thing is I have never edited a wiki ever, so there is that barrier every time for me to actual learn this. Procrastination says next time, and someone else will surely get this. :P
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Offline db48x

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2016, 04:58:17 PM »
YwesSir!
Well, or I would, but the thing is I have never edited a wiki ever, so there is that barrier every time for me to actual learn this. Procrastination says next time, and someone else will surely get this. :P

It's no harder than typing in a forum post :P
 

Offline Herodotus4

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2016, 10:31:50 PM »
The wiki talks about maximum damage for a type of hit, is that a hard cap? Because I built an experimental missile with a power 240 power warhead, would that default to 100 power?
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #11 on: June 01, 2016, 12:38:56 AM »
I'm not sure what you're referring to, could you link that page of the wiki?
A power 240 missile will always cause 240 damage, though some will be absorbed by shields and some by armour. Everything after that is applied to components using the damage allocation table, destroying those components, when all components are destroyed the whole ship is lost.
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Offline 83athom

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #12 on: June 01, 2016, 07:40:03 AM »
I understand. He is referring to the cap on the damage template to armor. There is a point to stupidly powerful weapons that instead of making another armor level wide, it simply does one more deeper (one armor piece wide). It does not reduce the amount of damage, it just makes it better penetrating. So if you had a ship that could absorb a ~300 damageshot to the armor, you would see a massive triangle with a line going strait down at the end.
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Offline iceball3

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Re: Strange Damage Template for Lasers?
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2016, 06:29:52 PM »
I understand. He is referring to the cap on the damage template to armor. There is a point to stupidly powerful weapons that instead of making another armor level wide, it simply does one more deeper (one armor piece wide). It does not reduce the amount of damage, it just makes it better penetrating. So if you had a ship that could absorb a ~300 damageshot to the armor, you would see a massive triangle with a line going strait down at the end.
That's a thing? Nifty!

I'm not sure what you're referring to, could you link that page of the wiki?
A power 240 missile will always cause 240 damage, though some will be absorbed by shields and some by armour. Everything after that is applied to components using the damage allocation table, destroying those components, when all components are destroyed the whole ship is lost.
If I recall correctly, the wiki seems to hint that a ship can actually be destroyed long before all components are lost.
Just found it, actually.
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Internal_Damage
"Damage that attempts to reallocate 20 times without finding intact components to apply to will destroy the ship. Any components which are still intact upon ship destruction may be found via salvaging the resulting wreck."