A Realization on missiles and armor

[AtomikKrab (OP)]

I was trying to work out how thick the armor on a pdc would need to be to survive a strike by a single warhead strength 3000 missile (1 size 100 missile all warhead at max tech level) when I discovered a simple way to do it. missiles will penetrate the square root of the strength of their warhead in layers. thanks to this I just simply plugged in 3000 and square rooted it to find out I need about 55 layers of armor to stop a conventional warhead from penetrating a pdc. laser warheads i'm not sure about since I don't really know how they work, so I just counted them as a strength 10000 warhead since they divide effective armor by 10 at the final tech level. (which I know is actually them spreading over less armor but gouging deeper) which would mean armor that is 100 layers deep would survive a single hit from a maximum strength laser warhead without damage to the internals.

Why am I talking about this?

well it makes it easy for me to see how strong I need to make my missiles to penetrate armor on a single hit since I can just square the layers of armor to find out the strength to break it.

just posting it because i'm a bit bored and stuff

[sloanjh]

I was trying to work out how thick the armor on a pdc would need to be to survive a strike by a single warhead strength 3000 missile (1 size 100 missile all warhead at max tech level) when I discovered a simple way to do it. missiles will penetrate the square root of the strength of their warhead in layers. thanks to this I just simply plugged in 3000 and square rooted it to find out I need about 55 layers of armor to stop a conventional warhead from penetrating a pdc. laser warheads i'm not sure about since I don't really know how they work, so I just counted them as a strength 10000 warhead since they divide effective armor by 10 at the final tech level. (which I know is actually them spreading over less armor but gouging deeper) which would mean armor that is 100 layers deep would survive a single hit from a maximum strength laser warhead without damage to the internals.

Why am I talking about this?

well it makes it easy for me to see how strong I need to make my missiles to penetrate armor on a single hit since I can just square the layers of armor to find out the strength to break it.

just posting it because i'm a bit bored and stuff

Ummmmm my recollection is that the damage templates for each damage type and strength of damage are defined in the DB, and go up to some maximum strength.  In other words, I'm not at all convinced that a strength 3000 warhead would do any damage at all!!  (It might just give an error.)  In other words, my recollection is that the damage patterns are hard-wired based on strength, NOT calculated using a formula that allows arbitrarily large damage strengths.  OTOH, Steve may have changed it since I noticed this.

STEVE - Do you want to comment on this?

That being said, you're right - the warhead strength required to do 1 point of penetration damage on the first hit to undamaged level-N armor is (N+1)^2  So a strength-4 warhead is required for level-1 armor, strength-4 for level-2, and so on.

ON THE OTHER HAND, missiles have (I think) one of the "shallowest" penetration patterns.  Beam weapons like lasers or plasma carronades (I think) do damage that's more of a rectangular shape, and so will penetrate more deeply.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Ummmmm my recollection is that the damage templates for each damage type and strength of damage are defined in the DB, and go up to some maximum strength.  In other words, I'm not at all convinced that a strength 3000 warhead would do any damage at all!!  (It might just give an error.)  In other words, my recollection is that the damage patterns are hard-wired based on strength, NOT calculated using a formula that allows arbitrarily large damage strengths.  OTOH, Steve may have changed it since I noticed this.

STEVE - Do you want to comment on this?

That being said, you're right - the warhead strength required to do 1 point of penetration damage on the first hit to undamaged level-N armor is (N+1)^2  So a strength-4 warhead is required for level-1 armor, strength-4 for level-2, and so on.

ON THE OTHER HAND, missiles have (I think) one of the "shallowest" penetration patterns.  Beam weapons like lasers or plasma carronades (I think) do damage that's more of a rectangular shape, and so will penetrate more deeply.

Damage is based on the damage templates in the database rather than a formula. However, if the damage caused is greater than the largest template, that largest template will still be used but the damage in each column will be multiplied by: Total Damage / Max Template Damage

So if the max damage template for missiles is for 100 damage and a missile hits for 300 damage, the 100 template will be used but the damage in every column will be multiplied by 3.

Steve

[MoonDragon]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

[ShadoCat]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

In Renegade Legion Interceptor?  

[waresky]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

In Renegade Legion Interceptor?   :mrgreen:

[MoonDragon]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

In Renegade Legion Interceptor?  

Is that supposed to mean something to me?

[Charlie Beeler]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

In Renegade Legion Interceptor?  

Is that supposed to mean something to me?

Interceptor is fighter v fighter game from FASA's Renegade Legion line of games.  It's been out of print since long before FASA folded.  But it was a common game for some of us when the discussions about how to functionally change armor a couple of years back.  


But answer your question, no the templates are not publicly documented.  If you have database access you can parse them out.

[ShadoCat]

Are the damage template shapes documented anywhere?

In Renegade Legion Interceptor?  

Is that supposed to mean something to me?

Old FASA game that used damage templates that Steve stol\\\\ was inspired by.