Calculate Penetration Damage (and Penetration Resistance) per Tile

Dalas120

With penetration becoming a more important game mechanic (because of the railgun), I want to suggest changing the way that penetration damage is calculated.

Right now penetration is only evaluated per room, which causes strange interactions. For example, a 3x3 square of corridors will get impacted 3 times by a passing cannons shell, but a 3x3 sensor array will only get impacted once. A large cannon shell will penetrate a 2x2 square of laser blasters if the lasers are facing towards/directly away from the cannon, but will fail to penetrate if the the lasers are facing either to the left or the right of the cannon. Interactions will get even stranger as weapon penetration increases.

IMO penetration damage and resistance should be evaluated on each tile instead of on each room. This is already the way that splash damage is calculated, and (in my opinion) would both be more realistic and make penetration more consistent. Damage and resistance values would need changes to keep the penetration mechanic at the same power level.

image https://i.imgur.com/WfdcPIH.png

image https://i.imgur.com/BBFGjst.png

image https://i.imgur.com/gT399vj.png

jbox1

Dalas120 You have a point, but consider that the penetration depends on what walls the bullet is passing through. In real life, it would be realistic a bullet would be slowed more by 3 walls than 2, so having penetration calculated by room is more realistic.

nop

I thought it was intentional that shots penetrating all the way through a ship do less damage than those that "detonate" inside? What Dalas120 examples aren't showing is that when there are parts behind the ones that were penetrated, which is usually the case unless you clipped an edge or the ship is very small, they also take damage and increase the total. Not representated is the case where large cannons are supposed to do best: ripping through the meat of a ship. Corridors being curiously good at stopping penetration seems strange, but stacking enough corridor to stop a cannon shell is still more expensive than a single armor tile and you still take more damage.

If there's a balance issue, what is it exactly? What if cannon shells passed through corridors without stopping or damaging them at all, or maybe a small amount of damage to offset 100% penetration?

Dalas120

jbox1 Possibly, but then why is penetration still calculated per room for big areas of corridor (that have no walls between rooms)? And shouldn't smashing through the equipment inside a room matter a lot more (for calculating damage) than the walls between rooms?

jbox1

Dalas120 ik, just making excuses XD

Mc2

Walt you changed it because shels had stange buggy behaviour, king of bouncing to strange directions efect, passing trough shields and armour tiles or traveling extremely long distance (do not remeber exactly but change done with 13.2 - 13.36 changes ?).

Dalas120 Per room calcualting in corridors is wierd, but room itself contain some equipment or just space, maybe penetration level for room can more differ, like engine room full of devices much lover penetration level in comparison to room with beds for crew only and so on.

Walt

Funny, that's how it used to work. I can't remember why I changed it. I'll think about changing it back.

Lafiel

Penetration in real life does not just make a hole into the wall. The wall pieces become spalls, shrapnels and plasma which disperse into the room damaging it and set fire off. Spall lining may prevent larger spalls from flying around but won't stop shrapnels or plasma. That's why effective space protection shielding consists of few dozens of layers of armor in order to stop each stage of debris flying into the ship.

Walt

Mc2 you changed it because shels had stange buggy behaviour, king of bouncing to strange directions efect, passing trough shields and armour tiles or traveling extremely long distance

Those bugs were unrelated to how penetration is calculated though, and were fixed separately.

Mc2

Walt Than, no one knows why you changed it. But penetration per room make more sense than per tile anyway, so its corect 😃

Walt

Mc2 But penetration per room make more sense than per tile

I think that's probably why I changed it, although the current algorithm doesn't make much sense for corridors. It causes some weird balance though, as Dalas points out.

Walt

nop I thought it was intentional that shots penetrating all the way through a ship do less damage than those that "detonate" inside?

This will be true of the upcoming railgun, but none of the current vanilla weapons "detonate" when they run out of penetration.

Dalas120

nop I don't think there's a balance issue, at least not a meaningful one. But I do think that it feels counterintuitive. Two single armor blocks, for example, will stop a railgun round twice as effectively (and take twice the damage) as one double armor block. Balance-wise I don't see anything wrong with that, but it definitely feels strange.

TurboTwinky28

I highly agree with Mc2. To add a more realistic, more code complicating, feel, damage and pen should vary based on # of crew in the room (bodies catch shrapenal and slow down projectiles) and on what the room is (different rooms have different interiors. Ie, monitors for sensors are more dense than beds from barracks)

minimurgle

TurboTwinky28 To build off of that if a battery room is penetrated there should be a small chance (5% per battery?) of destroying the batteries contained. Of course that should work for the ammo and any other resources like those that get added. Then stuff like part density could further effect the likelyhood of destroying resources.
Also I'd like to point out that while 5% seems low that's 1 out of 20 batteries. Taking into account that everything holds multiple resources and will be taking multiple cannon shots 5% could be too high.