aliens

Author Topic: Questions on damage and armor  (Read 5879 times)

Offline Twoofee

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Questions on damage and armor
« on: June 03, 2020, 07:23:06 pm »
I've played this mod for 10 hrs now and have a few questions.  I'm sure that some of these questions could be answer on the wiki but for some reason I'm having problems loading up the site, so I'm hoping you'll help me out instead.

1. What's the difference between damage type?  I know that different species have different resistance to different damages and that i can see it in the ufopedia once i research it, but for example I read on here that cutting damages ignores armor or parts of the armor, i don't recall the ufopedia having that info.  Unless I have to research it...

2. How does armor affect things?  I thought it might be like vanilla x-com where armor is just subtracted to damage (for the most part) but i found inconsistencies in that way of thinking.

3. The power bonus, do you just add that to the bullets power, or is it a added percentage (i.e. bonus of 30 would be +30 or +30%)

4. I assumed that melee dodge is the percentage to dodge a melee attack, but what is melee dodge penalty?

Offline anothrgamer1234

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2020, 06:42:43 pm »
I have an unrelated question- does anything in the game deal E-115 damage? I've looked at the wiki, but it seems no attack uses that damage type at all.

Offline Doc

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2020, 11:40:44 am »
3. The power bonus, do you just add that to the bullets power, or is it a added percentage (i.e. bonus of 30 would be +30 or +30%)

Added to the bullet power. IE: Base DMG + (Skill x Modifier). 

Not 100% on your other questions, hopefully someone else knows.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2020, 03:05:12 pm »
I've played this mod for 10 hrs now and have a few questions.

Velcome to my kastle. :)

I'm sure that some of these questions could be answer on the wiki but for some reason I'm having problems loading up the site, so I'm hoping you'll help me out instead.

I'll check the wiki issue over the weekend. It'snot actually ran by me (yet), so it'll take some time, sorry.

1. What's the difference between damage type?  I know that different species have different resistance to different damages and that i can see it in the ufopedia once i research it, but for example I read on here that cutting damages ignores armor or parts of the armor, i don't recall the ufopedia having that info.  Unless I have to research it...

Most damage types function the same way, so the only gameplay difference is how different armours are done, since each armour has individual resistances against all damage types. However, certain damage types have special rules, for example explosive damage has an area of effect and a special roll (50-150% instead of 0-200%), incendiary creates fire, etc. This is mostly vanilla.

2. How does armor affect things?  I thought it might be like vanilla x-com where armor is just subtracted to damage (for the most part) but i found inconsistencies in that way of thinking.

There are two values: armour value and resistances (15 of them).

Armour value subtracts from damage you receive. If you get hit for 25 damage and you have armour 15, then you take only 10 damage. Note that some weapons have properties which modify this, for example armour piercing ignores some of your armour.

Armour resistance is a percentage value which is a multiplier for damage you take from this particular type. So for example if you take 10 damage from a laser and your armour has 80% laser resistance, then you only take 8 damage.

3. The power bonus, do you just add that to the bullets power, or is it a added percentage (i.e. bonus of 30 would be +30 or +30%)

Added, like Doc said.

4. I assumed that melee dodge is the percentage to dodge a melee attack, but what is melee dodge penalty?

It's a penalty for dodging attacks from behind or the sides. Most units only get full dodge bonus when attacked from the front.

Offline Slaughter

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2020, 03:03:51 am »
I didn't know melee attacks from sides or behind are easier. Might wanna put that in the Field Manual section.

The way Resistance/Armor works reminds me of what the original Fallouts did with DR/DT. DT is hard armor reduction, and then DR is soft armor reduction based on percentage. The difference here is that X-COM armor value is universal, whereas every single damage type in Fallout had its own DR/DT in each armor.

Know what would be cool? Taking a page from Fallout and adding JHP/AP ammo for some weapons. Shotgun is already ammo rich, how come we can't blow those unarmored bitches with dum-dums?

Maybe giving X-COM the ability to use its engineers more early on, by crafting their own "Wildcat Bullets"?  Fallout New Vegas did that. I'm sure there's some cool load recipes out there we can use on the net. Maybe X-COM can loot recipes from Cults?

Then the possibility of using... Exotic components in bullets. Like... Quillboar Spike Flechettes? Megascorpion poison bullets? Elerium arrows for the prospective Oliver Queens of X-COM ("YOU HAVE FAILED THIS PLANET!" *shoots arrow*)?

(I just realized Flechette guns would be cool. Black Ops?)

Tracers would be cool too, but no idea how to make them different.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2020, 03:08:59 am by Slaughter »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2020, 10:23:41 pm »
Know what would be cool? Taking a page from Fallout and adding JHP/AP ammo for some weapons. Shotgun is already ammo rich, how come we can't blow those unarmored bitches with dum-dums?

I don't understand what exactly you propose. Care to elaborate?

Maybe giving X-COM the ability to use its engineers more early on, by crafting their own "Wildcat Bullets"?  Fallout New Vegas did that. I'm sure there's some cool load recipes out there we can use on the net. Maybe X-COM can loot recipes from Cults?

WTF is that?

Then the possibility of using... Exotic components in bullets. Like... Quillboar Spike Flechettes? Megascorpion poison bullets? Elerium arrows for the prospective Oliver Queens of X-COM ("YOU HAVE FAILED THIS PLANET!" *shoots arrow*)?

These ideas range from "possible" to "possible but silly" :)

(I just realized Flechette guns would be cool. Black Ops?)

Tracers would be cool too, but no idea how to make them different.

What the hell would these do?

Offline Slaughter

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2020, 01:08:36 am »


I don't understand what exactly you propose. Care to elaborate?

WTF is that?

These ideas range from "possible" to "possible but silly" :)

What the hell would these do?

1. More ammo diversity for guns.

For example, handgun bullets usually come in Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP) and Armor Piercing (AP).

JHP bullets don't have pointy or ball shaped points, but rather a hollow point. These are often called "Dum-Dum" bullets. These bullets are meant to break and expand upon entering a body, delivering extra damage.

AP is there to pierce armor, like kevlar. They are crafted to penetrate through obstacles and keep going through.

JHP and other similar ammo is generally used by police forces and found in handguns and SMGs, and in some hunting rifles. They are good against unarmored targets, but they can't penetrate body armor or other obstacles - which is often good for police, because it also means they won't go through walls and hit civvies.

AP is generally seen in armed forces, operators, etc. They go through obstacles, but they can also overpenetrate and just keep, which means they won't impart all energy into the target.

Military Rifle JHP bullets do exist, but because the Geneva Convention prohibits expanding and exploding bullets in war, few militaries stock them. Only a few small factories make that. Besides, military rifles use FMJ bullets and these, at rifle speeds are often strong enough to make JHP unecessary. Besides, JHP would make them lose range and accuracy at longer distances.

(Rifles have JSP instead, not sure how good they are)

There's also +P rounds, as in More Pressure. Every gun can take X pressure before bad things happen to it. But sometimes, the gun can take more pressure than the round makes. Or maybe you brought a stronger gun made for +p ammo. So you buy or make a +P round and fire a stronger bullet of the same round.

There's also ball ammo, but I'm not sure how to rate it.

There's also weirder stuff. Did you know 7,62 x 51 NATO DUDS were made and tested? Depleted Uranium Sabots for 7,62 guns. Aparently, those were great armor piercers.

2. Wildcatting. Ok, so some people load bullets by themselves for reasons, like saving up money. That's called Handload. Some people make their own special, different loads, in small quantities. That's what we call a "Wildcat Round". For example, you could take a shotgun shell, and replace the shot with fewer, bigger balls.

3. Well, those were examples. Soviets made poison gas bullets, for example.

(honestly I just wish we got more cool stuff from autopsies and live captures. I had an idea involving spiders myself)

4. Flechettes. You know, not sure. AFAIK the main advantage of flechettes is that you can carry more rounds, and they are pretty good at penetrating armor.


Honestly, someone very good at this could inform you better than me. Where's the gunloving /k folks?

Offline HT

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2020, 11:05:19 am »


4. Flechettes. You know, not sure. AFAIK the main advantage of flechettes is that you can carry more rounds, and they are pretty good at penetrating armor.


Honestly, someone very good at this could inform you better than me. Where's the gunloving /k folks?

I believe that's because there's the "small" issue that alien-tech based weaponry inevitably outperforms human one, no matter what. That's the point.
At best you can create a stopgap with alien alloy ammo, but that's a temporary measure for specific adversaries, one which is eventually displaced once you unlock better alien ballistic-type weaponry (ie: Gauss).

Then, once you get plasma, you can forget about everything else, as usual.

There ARE flechette guns though, but they're a rare alien weapon.

Offline Slaughter

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2020, 11:29:57 pm »
I believe that's because there's the "small" issue that alien-tech based weaponry inevitably outperforms human one, no matter what. That's the point.
At best you can create a stopgap with alien alloy ammo, but that's a temporary measure for specific adversaries, one which is eventually displaced once you unlock better alien ballistic-type weaponry (ie: Gauss).

Then, once you get plasma, you can forget about everything else, as usual.

There ARE flechette guns though, but they're a rare alien weapon.
Of course, alien-based tech is better and will eventually supercede our good ol' guns. But I think the beauty of it, in this mod, is that we humans are doing our best to bring our technological A-game and trying to scrap every "super cool but obscure" tech we got, to throw at the aliens and close the gap. Like Pulse Detonation Engines.

Wanna know a common scene in movies that I always hated? Soldiers arrive, fire a few shots from a M16, shots bounce or the thing just regenerates, and everyone declares the monster/alien/super-people are invulnerable. Therefore some general ripper decides to go with nuking. Like, what? Its a freaking M16. We got body armor that tanks it.

Offline anothrgamer1234

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2020, 09:10:23 am »
I have an unrelated question- does anything in the game deal E-115 damage? I've looked at the wiki, but it seems no attack uses that damage type at all.

Repeating this question. It seems odd that so many things seem to have resistance to a damage type that doesn't actually exist. Is it just not implemented yet?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2020, 12:03:56 pm »
Repeating this question. It seems odd that so many things seem to have resistance to a damage type that doesn't actually exist. Is it just not implemented yet?

No, this is still unused at the moment.

Offline anothrgamer1234

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Re: Questions on damage and armor
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2020, 05:28:16 pm »
I thought so. I was thinking things like Elerium Missiles and Elerium Bombs would have it, since the name made me assume that it would be used with Elerium-based attacks.