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[Goumindong]

Short thread for a short idea. Right now frag damage is kinda weak/pointless.  The main reason is that minimum armor reduces the damage from frag damage to pretty much nothing. This means that even when frag damage is supposed to shred hull it does not.

The solution is to remove the concept of minimum armor from the game and instead set a base hull armor amount. This could be different for each size category. But it would always be fixed. It might be modifiable(either reinforced bulkheads or blast doors could increase hull armor instead of hull%) but it would not depend on the ships armor value. 10/20/30/50 seems about right. (Equivalent to a 200 Armor frigate, 400 armor destroyer, 600 armor cruiser, and 1000 armor capital right now)

This has other potential advantages. A hull armor would not be an armor calc and so could use the hull damage number instead of the armor dmg number when determining penetration (or not). But the main one is that you could calibrate the number so that frag weapons that were meant to eat hull (like the thumper) were still good without making weapons that were not supposed to eat hull(like the Vulcan autocannon) eat hull.

As an aside: it’s probably better to reduce the dmg of frag weapons by 1/2 and then have them do 2x dmg to hull, 1/2 dmg to shield/armor. This makes it easier to look at them like you look at kinetic/explosive damage because you do the same sort of “off brand” calcs. But that is just me

[intrinsic_parity]

The first suggestions (flat min armor for ship classes) I think is a pretty big step too far if the goal is just to make frag damage a bit better. It doesn't just increase frag damage effectiveness, it also improves all damage effectiveness against hull, and is essentially a direct nerf to ships with heavy armor (which are already not necessarily the strongest ships). It's not clear from the suggestion how armor skills would be effected/implemented either, but I think it's sufficient to say that there would be much more significant balance implications than just improving the effectiveness of the thumper and similar frag weapons, and I think the ships that would be affected the most are ships that are already on the weak side at the moment.

[Grievous69]

Yeah this also makes zero sense to me, making slow tanky ships less tanky for no reason, that aren't even that great, and making high-tech glass cannons more tanky. I don't get it, all for making frag better? Not the way to do it imo.

The second one about making them deal 50% dmg to shields and armor but 200% to hull seems decent actually. Would make them easier to understand for new players. But doing that and reducing damage changes nothing tho, you'll be just back at square one having to rebalance all frag weapons as a bonus. So in the end I don't know if this is worth it since you don't gain much from it.

[Goumindong]

it also improves all damage effectiveness against hull, and is essentially a direct nerf to ships with heavy armor

Yes but by different amounts. Weapons with high led hit strength are effected less.

EG. Lets say we have a weapon with 100 hit strength vs 87.5 min armor/50 min armor and then compare to a weapon with 25 hit strength.

The 100 hit strength weapon gains 187.5/150 dmg for a 25% increase. The 25 dmg hit strength gains 112.5/75. A 50% boost! The assault Chaingun is barely effected, a 16% increase. It would be trivial to set a break point and boost hull to keep weapons at a certain penetration equal for armored ships.

Frag weapons almost universally have the lowest hit strength of weapons in the game. Its why min armor was introduced, because it disproportionately effected frag weapons with their low hit strength. The problem was that Vulcans killed ships hilariously fast once armor was cracked. Even kinetic weapons tend to have higher hit strengths vs hull. The weakest non PD kinetic hit strength is 25. With the majority being over 50. The strongest frag hit strength is 50. The lowest HE hit strength is 80. (AChaingun? 180. Heavy mortar? 220. Heavy Mauler? 400

All a flat hull armor does is temper that effect a bit

The second one about making them deal 50% dmg to shields and armor but 200% to hull seems decent actually. Would make them easier to understand for new players. But doing that and reducing damage changes nothing tho, you'll be just back at square one having to rebalance all frag weapons as a bonus. So in the end I don't know if this is worth it since you don't gain much from it.

Yes The idea there was entirely contextual the point was to get back to square one on damage (right now its 1,.25,.25. So if you halved damage and doubled the modifiers it would read just like kinetic/HE weapon but perform exactly the same as it does now)

That is why it was an aside

[SCC]

Short thread for a short idea. Right now frag damage is kinda weak/pointless.

Locusts are the best large missile, so that's a straight up lie.
For a more serious response, this would be a nerf to armour/hull tanking ships, which I don't want. Taking damage on hull already comes with the danger of disabling your weapons and isn't reusable, unlike shield tanking. It also provides an unintended benefit to HE weapons, which already tend to be in the minority. It's better to break shields quickly and deal less permanent damage, than fail at breaking shields and do no permanent damage at all, but armour damage reduction floor makes it so that even after the armour is broken, there's still incentive to fire HE weapons.

As an aside: it’s probably better to reduce the dmg of frag weapons by 1/2 and then have them do 2x dmg to hull, 1/2 dmg to shield/armor. This makes it easier to look at them like you look at kinetic/explosive damage because you do the same sort of “off brand” calcs. But that is just me

That would create an issue of frag damage doing default, 1x damage to... Exactly nothing in the game. Missiles are just hull and no armour. I'd rather have them do 1x damage to armour and shields and 4x to hull, since that would be breaking only one intuitive idea than two, those being "hull damage should be 1x" and "weapons should do 1x damage to something".

[Goumindong]

Locusts are not the best large missile... that would be MIRVs. Or maybe the hammer barrage they are pretty good also.

They are good though. But i dont think they would not be significantly impacted by this change since they are primarily “anti-small ship” anyway. 

For a more serious response, this would be a nerf to armour/hull tanking ships, which I don't want. Taking damage on hull already comes with the danger of disabling your weapons and isn't reusable, unlike shield tanking. It also provides an unintended benefit to HE weapons, which already tend to be in the minority. It's better to break shields quickly and deal less permanent damage, than fail at breaking shields and do no permanent damage at all, but armour damage reduction floor makes it so that even after the armour is broken, there's still incentive to fire HE weapons

Not sure what you’re trying to say here? Or how it provides a bonus to HE weapons. HE weapons get the least increase in damage to hull as a result of this change. They will still be very good/better than KE to shoot into hull... just less superior to frag damage as they are right now.

And it might actually provide a boost to armor tanking(Well for the enemy). If ships forgo HE weapons for Frag because they want to kill hull faster then there will be less HE damage around to crack armor. Which means it will last longer...

[Grievous69]

Ok ok I know it's not on topic but since you brought it up, hell no, MIRVs are so far from being the best. First they require ECCM to actually hit targets (that's a 25 OP missile plus an expensive hullmod), second they have only 10 ammo of which AI will fire at least 8 into random frigates that it won't even hit. I mean even on an Odyssey with built-in ECCM I think Hurricanes are a waste. And that says a lot.

[SCC]

Not sure what you’re trying to say here? Or how it provides a bonus to HE weapons. HE weapons get the least increase in damage to hull as a result of this change. They will still be very good/better than KE to shoot into hull... just less superior to frag damage as they are right now.

And it might actually provide a boost to armor tanking(Well for the enemy). If ships forgo HE weapons for Frag because they want to kill hull faster then there will be less HE damage around to crack armor. Which means it will last longer...

It's a relative bonus. If armour damage reduction affects the HE the least, this means HE becomes better than other damage types at chewing through armour, even though its damage still technically reduced. Since this stays true at armour damage reduction floor as well, it means that HE is still better at it. Without it, you'd rather have the bare minimum to get through armour (or torpedoes) and focus on kinetics even more, because HE wouldn't be any better at it.
For frag weapons, only Thumper and Locust would get any significant benefit from it. Thumper has other, more pressing issues, while Locust is good enough already.

[Megas]

Ok ok I know it's not on topic but since you brought it up, hell no, MIRVs are so far from being the best. First they require ECCM to actually hit targets (that's a 25 OP missile plus an expensive hullmod), second they have only 10 ammo of which AI will fire at least 8 into random frigates that it won't even hit. I mean even on an Odyssey with built-in ECCM I think Hurricanes are a waste. And that says a lot.

Totally agreed.  Also, PD stops MIRVs more easily than Locusts.

The only reason to use unboosted MIRVs in the first place is when the ship needs the range because it uses Gauss Cannons as its primary weapons, which means Locusts do not fire due to insufficient range.

As for Odyssey, if I use double plasma, then the synergy is empty because I need the OP to pump up caps and vents so it can brawl battleships.

[Megas]

As for the topic at hand, just raise the DPS of the frag weapons that need help.  So far, that just means Thumper, although I will not say no to even stronger Locusts or flak.

Vulcans are fine.  They are PD first and they excel (for their size) at anti-missile.  Ditto for flak.  Dual flak is also not too shabby at killing weak things.  Anytime I consider Thumper late in the game, I use dual flak instead.

Locusts is the best large missile except for Conquest or Legion Gauss Cannon builds and maybe those with both Missile Spec and ECCM.  MIRVs and ECCM cost way too much OP.  Locusts is affordable and effective.

[Yunru]

What is frags did a more standard damage layout instead?
2x to hull, 1x to armour, 0.5x to shields?

[Goumindong]

Not sure what you’re trying to say here? Or how it provides a bonus to HE weapons. HE weapons get the least increase in damage to hull as a result of this change. They will still be very good/better than KE to shoot into hull... just less superior to frag damage as they are right now.

And it might actually provide a boost to armor tanking(Well for the enemy). If ships forgo HE weapons for Frag because they want to kill hull faster then there will be less HE damage around to crack armor. Which means it will last longer...

It's a relative bonus. If armour damage reduction affects the HE the least, this means HE becomes better than other damage types at chewing through armour, even though its damage still technically reduced. Since this stays true at armour damage reduction floor as well, it means that HE is still better at it. Without it, you'd rather have the bare minimum to get through armour (or torpedoes) and focus on kinetics even more, because HE wouldn't be any better at it.
For frag weapons, only Thumper and Locust would get any significant benefit from it. Thumper has other, more pressing issues, while Locust is good enough already.

Still not sure what you’re saying. Armor damage reduction effects HE the least but this is just how Armor works and that wouldn’t be changing. What would be changing is that “minimum armor for hull DR” is a slightly lower and non-increasing value. Since armor dr effects HE the least it effects other weapons more... so lowering armor DR for hull increases the value of other damage types. Frag the most since it has, by far, the lowest hit strength.

[SCC]

so lowering armor DR for hull increases the value of other damage types.

So it devalues HE damage, which is what I've been saying. Current damage reduction favours HE and flat damage floor would still do so, but to a lesser extent, making other weapon types better than they are now. And it wouldn't significantly help Thumper, which is the only frag weapon that's underutilised now. Rather than make frag weaponry more appealing, it would make stacking kinetics more appealing.

[Goumindong]

You said “ It also provides an unintended benefit to HE weapons, which already tend to be in the minority”

And i was confused. I didn’t think your further post clarified well so I continued.

That being said I dont think that hull DR has that huge effect on KE. KE tends to have relatively large hit strengths compared to frag and compared to minimum armor amounts. A railgun has a hit strength of 50 and so only has 50% DR against the hull of a ship with 1000 base armor. It still does 36% damage to the hull of a skilless onslaught. Only light autocannons and the Needler line have hit strengths that are significantly effected by hull DR. And many have hit strengths far in excess of mattering. Mark IX has a hit strength of 100(53% Dmg vs onslaught). HVD 137.5(61% vs onslaught) and gauss (350! 80% dmg Vs onslaught. better than all but the heavy mauler and Hellbore!)

These damage reductions aren’t inconsequential but they also aren’t effected a tonne by this change. The HVD vs the onslaught goes up to 71%.

Though KE could do to have the max armor DR cap removed or increased/hit strength reductions.

[SCC]

You said “ It also provides an unintended benefit to HE weapons, which already tend to be in the minority”

And i was confused. I didn’t think your further post clarified well so I continued.

That being said I dont think that hull DR has that huge effect on KE. KE tends to have relatively large hit strengths compared to frag and compared to minimum armor amounts. A railgun has a hit strength of 50 and so only has 50% DR against the hull of a ship with 1000 base armor. It still does 36% damage to the hull of a skilless onslaught. Only light autocannons and the Needler line have hit strengths that are significantly effected by hull DR. And many have hit strengths far in excess of mattering. Mark IX has a hit strength of 100(53% Dmg vs onslaught). HVD 137.5(61% vs onslaught) and gauss (350! 80% dmg Vs onslaught. better than all but the heavy mauler and Hellbore!)

These damage reductions aren’t inconsequential but they also aren’t effected a tonne by this change. The HVD vs the onslaught goes up to 71%.

Though KE could do to have the max armor DR cap removed or increased/hit strength reductions.

This is all rather huge, actually, except for gauss cannon. Armour-less Onslaught can last 2-3 times as long if you don't take proper tools against it. This won't help it if it's losing already, but it can be the difference between life and death, if it has to last just a bit longer. And, in general, it means that taking hits from kinetic guns (and energy guns smaller than a heavy blaster) is not that significant, so even with armour badly damaged you can still let shields down and win through sheer tenacity. Too bad AI won't do that.
And then there's Impact Mitigation 1 that slaps a flat 150 for all ships, making even the wimpiest frigate take only half the damage of a gauss cannon.
Also, you forgot mjolnir.