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[Wyvern]

From This Thread over in bug reports, it was observed that, if you have Impact Mitigation 1, the "+150 armor" completely replaces the normal 5% of base armor minimum value for armor strength.

Hmm. Looking at the code, it's going to be whichever is higher - 5% of the ship's max armor (without the +150), or the modified effective armor rating at the point of impact (150 with IM, 0 otherwise). I'm still not 100% sure what I'm looking at as far as the pictures, but does this explain it?

This makes some sense to me - even with an Onslaught XIV with Armored Weapon Mounts and Heavy Armor, your base armor is still "only" 2425, and you'd need over 3000 base armor for the 5% minimum to be greater than 150.
(Even if I would have - like the people who reported this as a bug - have expected the minimum armor to be 5% of base + 150.)

What I'm curious about is how this interacts with Evasive Action 3.  Would that Onslaught end up with a minimum armor strength of 225 (150 * 1.5), or 182 (2425 * .05 * 1.6)?

(And, posting this over here in discussion, because this question doesn't belong in the bug reports forum.)

[Alex]

Evasive Action's bonus is in the same stage of the calculation is the IM bonus; both affect the "effective" armor value, which is then compared to the minimum, and the larger of the two is used.

(And, posting this over here in discussion, because this question doesn't belong in the bug reports forum.)

(Edit: just wanted to say, I really appreciate this.)

[bobucles]

The +150 armor is active at all armor levels, giving a huge damage reduction across the board. It's a top tier defensive talent. It looks like the 150 armor floor is true.

When armor gets completely stripped, the +50% armor bonus no longer applies. But having just a single shred of aluminum foil will give a considerable boost in defense.

I have most interactions figured out in the signature.

[SCC]

Spoiler

[close]

You can notice that, when attacking the bare hull in those screenshots, damage is reduced to 39 across the board. As Alex explained, when attacking bare hull armour level used for damage reduction is chosen between 5% of original armour (not modified in any way with skills) and 150 armour of IM1, with the latter being bigger than the former, unless you have upwards of 3000 armour on a ship.

I also just discovered that EA3 doesn't apply in any way when shooting the bare hull, but IM3 does apply, in the regular way (double dipping), meaning pulse laser deals 34 damage, instead of 40. It doesn't make a big difference at this stage, though. It's just confusing that hull behaves kinda like armour, but not exactly.

[bobucles]

Yes, IM3 does double dip when the ship still has health on its armor plates. The attack has less armor penetration, AND the attack deals less armor damage. It's not quite as good as the straight up 150 power of IM1, but it's still a strong talent point.

[SCC]

I said that IM3 applies even when armour is completely gone, whereas EA3 does not.

[bobucles]

Ah yes, it tests out. For the assault chaingun, it's about an extra 10% hull power. I'll fix the calculator.

[Terethall]

The game really needs to warn newbies that frag damage is much worse than tooltips make it seem. And also, some kind of indication as to the situations that armor-affecting skills apply most to. "Makes low-armor ships much tougher" and "Greatly reduces the impact of fragmentation damage" and "makes high-armor ships much tougher" would be really, really helpful.

[Megas]

The game really needs to warn newbies that frag damage is much worse than tooltips make it seem.

Generally true, but Locusts does so much damage (and the missiles so reliable that they are very hard to stop) that it will outright kill frigates and put a big dent even to battleships if armor is stripped away.

[Terethall]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying frag balance is bad. Locust is my large missile slot waifu.

[bobucles]

The only real issue with frag damage is the multipliers are half as large as HE/kinetic, so the damage number obviously needs to be twice as big. Just change the multiplier to fit with everything else. 50% anti armor/shield, 200% anti hull. Then cut the damage in half so that it looks like any other weapon stat line, easy.

[SCC]

That would have the issue where it's unclear where, if anywhere at all, fragmentation damage deals its nominal values, with no bonuses and penalties applied. On this basis, it might also make vulcans and flaks appear worse than they actually are.