This is not a bug, Carapace adds a bit to the armor level on the first level only and gives 20% damage absorption, with an additional 20% damage absorption for each additional level (but no more armor increases)
material is still there.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> way to go! you replied without reading the thread!
the debate here is about NEGATION! I.E. part of the dammage simply flys into the air and is not subtracted from armor OR health.
I think we should just ignore it, it seems pretty balanced as it is. Was it a bug? A feature? Who cares? It's pretty balanced so lets leave it at that <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> way to go! you knock me without comprehending a thing i said
absorption = negated
I.E. 20% per level is completely removed before anything is applied to armor or health as per manual.
Thanks for the unintelligent reply though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
if discovering a big, obvious, balance-impairing bug leads to bans and "wtf, nobody cares" replies, I don't want to be the one to discover the next bug
It's a little late for this, but I retract my previous statement.
Anyways, it's obviously true that there is damage negation like you guys said so, and these naysaying forum bums are all crazy.
But I also don't think that there's a simple solution to this. Comepletely removing the negation wouldn't be a good thing, skulks absolutely NEED carapace as it is now to survive.
Fades, Onos, and gorges however are possibly unbalanced with carapace. As they get a lot of carapace when they're already tough without it.
<!--QuoteBegin--Wyked+Nov 24 2002, 11:35 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wyked @ Nov 24 2002, 11:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->absorption = negated<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you believe that absorb means the same thing as negate, especially in Half-life and its mods, then you are still sorely misunderstanding how absorb works. Now, please, this time, pay attention. It has been explained numerous times in this thread. If I, or anyone else who has explained it, am not explaining it well enough, please tell us, and we will try to explain it better.
Now, you take the full amount of damage dealt. Take the percentage absorbed (for a just-spawned skulk, 30%), half it, and apply it to the armor (so 15% of the entire damage amount goes to the armor, 15% seems to disappear in our example). Take the remaining percentage (100 minus the percentage absorbed, or 70% for the un-upgraded skulk), and apply it directly to health, no tweaks required.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I.E. 20% per level is completely removed before anything is applied to armor or health as per manual.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All damage is accounted for in my example. But let's say that you are right. Why does a newly spawned skulk, with 30% absorb, actually ABSORB damage, rather than negate it? Why, with carapace on, is damaged both negated at 10% per level AS WELL AS absorbed at the +10% per level given by <a href='http://www.natural-selection.org/manual/alien_evolutions_carapace.html' target='_blank'>the manual</a>?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Thanks for the unintelligent reply though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was that necessary, when, in fact, his reply comprehended the situation far more than your own? Please, read the entire thread before replying to it. There is a wealth of information available here.
-Ryan!
"Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." -- Bernard Baruch
So much hatred! <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
And what of Terminataur's testing? He verified this two weeks ago. I, doubting it myself, tested with him two days ago and gave the results. We had tested it on every alien and every weapon except the HMG, and decided to state what is occuring, a 30% negation. So we gave the results for one alien and one weapon, as more would be redundant. Again, I encouraged everyone to test this themselves.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, didn't mean to leave all of you out. I thank all of you who did testing... I don't have a LAN, otherwise I would have tested. After all, math without hard data (like what I did) is not much better than nonscientific speculation.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The easiest way to test the bug is to have the marine drain the armor completely, then allow the alien to restore HP to full, but with 0 armor. Then attack. Because there is no odd armor absorbtion to work in, it is easier to verify. But even with armor there, the negation can be predicted and verified, because of the decimal math that goes on behind the scenes. The gorge's damage reduction is indeed 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, but the strangest stuff that happens is when the alien has full health and armor. Damage against health does not seem to work the same way that damage to armor does - as you could see, the calculated damage against armor (=Absorption*(1-Negation)/2) was precisely equal to measured damage against armor, but there was small but significant deviaton between calculated and measured damage against Health based on testing. Everyone who has tested has observed 13 damage to health at the no-upgrades level... it really SHOULD be 14 damage, and a difference of 1 is too big to be explained by a simple (single stage) rounding error.
I'd guess that, because damage to Armor is always halved, the game keeps extra precision in Armor values, so the damage numbers come out to exactly what is calculated. On the other hand, damage to Health is usually integral, so the game probably keeps everything at integer precision, even while the numbers are being manipulated by upgrade and armor levels. If there are enough calculation steps in the damage calculation code, the rounding errors could add up enough to turn 14 into 13. That's just my speculation though.
PS: If the low-precision Health values turns out to be true, then damage to health should be incorrect (lower than intended) for Marines as well. In fact, if this is true, damage to health is probably slightly (0-1 point) lower than it should be in <b>every</b> Half-Life mod. Of course, the damage per shot in most Half-Life mods (CS and DoD come to mind) is so high that one missing damage point doesn't matter at all.
Something gives me the impression that the Devs are ignoring this post on perpose and just letting us rot. <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
That's the weird part BoddoZerg. Unupgraded, 70% of the damage done by the Pistol should got to health, but 70% of 20 damage is <b>exactly</b> 14. There is no rounding to make an error on. This is especially odd when you look at the numbers for lvl 2 Carapace in which the amount of health damage predicted and actually taken are identical.
<!--QuoteBegin--Inexorable+Nov 25 2002, 02:06 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Inexorable @ Nov 25 2002, 02:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->That's the weird part BoddoZerg. Unupgraded, 70% of the damage done by the Pistol should got to health, but 70% of 20 damage is <b>exactly</b> 14. There is no rounding to make an error on. This is especially odd when you look at the numbers for lvl 2 Carapace in which the amount of health damage predicted and actually taken are identical.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah, it puzzles me. There shouldn't be any rounding error. Stranger yet, when your armor is depleted, the pistol deals the full 20 damage, not 19. !!??!?!
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Agreed; the missing damage point from a pistol at default armor is confusing.
I'd like to formally apologize to Terminotaur for doubting his research into this bug; my post a few pages back verifying his findings was an attempt to do that as well (though I neglected to say "Term was right" in that post). So now, for everyone: Term was right.
I'd like to point out that absorbtion is the correct term for what should happen...
The armor does indeed absorb the damage, but those arguing that absorbing would mean it would <i>add</i> to the armor, you're <u>wrong</u>. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The armor does indeed <i>absorb</i> the negative damage (however, due to the armor bug, mysteriously, and IMO, wrongly, <i>negates</i> some). The terminology '<i>absorbtion</i>' in other games (specificly some of the RPG genre, for example) is incorrectly used, and it should be '<i>invertion</i>'.
Causing damage to a shield, with the shield gaining the <i>negative</i> damage as a <i>positive</i> value would not be <i>absorbing</i> the damage, it would be <i>inverting</i> the damage done.
'Scientific' Summary: Where A is the shield of the target, X is the damage being inflicted on the target, Y is the health of the target, and Z is the ammount (edit: multiplier? percentage?) of the action performed. In the case of X being damage, it is a negative value, for example - '30 damage' is a value of '-30', and because we're talking about the mathmatic effect on damage on aliens in a videogame and whatnot... These equasions might not be 100% correct, becuz I'm sleepy, but I'm confident enough..<ul> <li>formula of armor performing inversion; A+((X*Z)*'-1')=A Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y<li>formula of armor performing absorbtion; A+(X*Z)=A Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y<li>formula of armor performing negation; A+((X*Z)*'0')=A Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y</ul> Layman's Summary:<ul> <li>If the armor absorbs a bit of damage, it means it took a bit of damage, and the damage it didn't take, you took. <li>If the armor inverts some damage, that means that the armor heals from the damage, and you take the rest of the damage. <li>If the armor negates some damage, that means that the damage that goes to the armor is gone, and the armor doesn't get hurt, and you take the rest of the damage.</ul>
And what of Terminataur's testing?...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, didn't mean to leave all of you out...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sorry for even dragging it back out. It was a knee-jerk reaction from IRC, in which a few were saying "OMG COIL PROVED TEH ARMOR BUG!!1!1"
Look at the posts. Term discovered it, but didn't provide the numbers. I provided some numbers, but the writer in me decided to "spice it up" by throwing in a whole pile of words. Making it so unbelievably cumbersome I wish I had just given up. coil provided the numbers in a concise, easy to read table. And lent a bit of credence to it all.
I know I should just let this die, as the bug should already be fixed for 1.03 (haven't tested it yet, though), but I just needed to say sorry if I seemed a bit hostile.
-Ryan!
Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality. -- George Santayana
I think there isn't anything more to be said on this. Several members of the NS community have noticed the bug, several have provided evidence to prove it. And....
To quote Flayra - "This is fixed in v1.03."
Which kinda makes the purpose of this thread null and void. Lock ?
Aaronvroom vroom der party startahJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7020Members
Maybe there is some "base level" below 0 that still stays with the alien (because it is, uh, attached)? I don't know. Devs will have to answer whether this is a bug, or intentional, or if it is not intentional, maybe it makes sense anyway <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
This is not a bug, Carapace adds a bit to the armor level on the first level only and gives 20% damage absorption, with an additional 20% damage absorption for each additional level (but no more armor increases)
material is still there.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
way to go! you replied without reading the thread!
the debate here is about NEGATION! I.E. part of the dammage simply flys into the air and is not subtracted from armor OR health.
I think we should just ignore it, it seems pretty balanced as it is. Was it a bug? A feature? Who cares? It's pretty balanced so lets leave it at that <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
way to go! you knock me without comprehending a thing i said
absorption = negated
I.E. 20% per level is completely removed before anything is applied to armor or health as per manual.
Thanks for the unintelligent reply though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyways, it's obviously true that there is damage negation like you guys said so, and these naysaying forum bums are all crazy.
But I also don't think that there's a simple solution to this. Comepletely removing the negation wouldn't be a good thing, skulks absolutely NEED carapace as it is now to survive.
Fades, Onos, and gorges however are possibly unbalanced with carapace. As they get a lot of carapace when they're already tough without it.
Well, I don't know.
If you believe that absorb means the same thing as negate, especially in Half-life and its mods, then you are still sorely misunderstanding how absorb works. Now, please, this time, pay attention. It has been explained numerous times in this thread. If I, or anyone else who has explained it, am not explaining it well enough, please tell us, and we will try to explain it better.
Now, you take the full amount of damage dealt. Take the percentage absorbed (for a just-spawned skulk, 30%), half it, and apply it to the armor (so 15% of the entire damage amount goes to the armor, 15% seems to disappear in our example). Take the remaining percentage (100 minus the percentage absorbed, or 70% for the un-upgraded skulk), and apply it directly to health, no tweaks required.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I.E. 20% per level is completely removed before anything is applied to armor or health as per manual.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All damage is accounted for in my example. But let's say that you are right. Why does a newly spawned skulk, with 30% absorb, actually ABSORB damage, rather than negate it? Why, with carapace on, is damaged both negated at 10% per level AS WELL AS absorbed at the +10% per level given by <a href='http://www.natural-selection.org/manual/alien_evolutions_carapace.html' target='_blank'>the manual</a>?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Thanks for the unintelligent reply though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was that necessary, when, in fact, his reply comprehended the situation far more than your own? Please, read the entire thread before replying to it. There is a wealth of information available here.
-Ryan!
"Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
-- Bernard Baruch
But I'm very confused. Grammar and correct word usage is such a **obscenity**.
And what of Terminataur's testing? He verified this two weeks ago. I, doubting it myself, tested with him two days ago and gave the results. We had tested it on every alien and every weapon except the HMG, and decided to state what is occuring, a 30% negation. So we gave the results for one alien and one weapon, as more would be redundant. Again, I encouraged everyone to test this themselves.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, didn't mean to leave all of you out. I thank all of you who did testing... I don't have a LAN, otherwise I would have tested. After all, math without hard data (like what I did) is not much better than nonscientific speculation.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The easiest way to test the bug is to have the marine drain the armor completely, then allow the alien to restore HP to full, but with 0 armor. Then attack. Because there is no odd armor absorbtion to work in, it is easier to verify. But even with armor there, the negation can be predicted and verified, because of the decimal math that goes on behind the scenes. The gorge's damage reduction is indeed 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, but the strangest stuff that happens is when the alien has full health and armor. Damage against health does not seem to work the same way that damage to armor does - as you could see, the calculated damage against armor (=Absorption*(1-Negation)/2) was precisely equal to measured damage against armor, but there was small but significant deviaton between calculated and measured damage against Health based on testing. Everyone who has tested has observed 13 damage to health at the no-upgrades level... it really SHOULD be 14 damage, and a difference of 1 is too big to be explained by a simple (single stage) rounding error.
I'd guess that, because damage to Armor is always halved, the game keeps extra precision in Armor values, so the damage numbers come out to exactly what is calculated. On the other hand, damage to Health is usually integral, so the game probably keeps everything at integer precision, even while the numbers are being manipulated by upgrade and armor levels. If there are enough calculation steps in the damage calculation code, the rounding errors could add up enough to turn 14 into 13. That's just my speculation though.
PS: If the low-precision Health values turns out to be true, then damage to health should be incorrect (lower than intended) for Marines as well. In fact, if this is true, damage to health is probably slightly (0-1 point) lower than it should be in <b>every</b> Half-Life mod. Of course, the damage per shot in most Half-Life mods (CS and DoD come to mind) is so high that one missing damage point doesn't matter at all.
Yeah, it puzzles me. There shouldn't be any rounding error. Stranger yet, when your armor is depleted, the pistol deals the full 20 damage, not 19. !!??!?!
I'd like to formally apologize to Terminotaur for doubting his research into this bug; my post a few pages back verifying his findings was an attempt to do that as well (though I neglected to say "Term was right" in that post). So now, for everyone: Term was right.
The armor does indeed absorb the damage, but those arguing that absorbing would mean it would <i>add</i> to the armor, you're <u>wrong</u>. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The armor does indeed <i>absorb</i> the negative damage (however, due to the armor bug, mysteriously, and IMO, wrongly, <i>negates</i> some). The terminology '<i>absorbtion</i>' in other games (specificly some of the RPG genre, for example) is incorrectly used, and it should be '<i>invertion</i>'.
Causing damage to a shield, with the shield gaining the <i>negative</i> damage as a <i>positive</i> value would not be <i>absorbing</i> the damage, it would be <i>inverting</i> the damage done.
'Scientific' Summary:
Where A is the shield of the target, X is the damage being inflicted on the target, Y is the health of the target, and Z is the ammount (edit: multiplier? percentage?) of the action performed.
In the case of X being damage, it is a negative value, for example - '30 damage' is a value of '-30', and because we're talking about the mathmatic effect on damage on aliens in a videogame and whatnot...
These equasions might not be 100% correct, becuz I'm sleepy, but I'm confident enough..<ul>
<li>formula of armor performing inversion;
A+((X*Z)*'-1')=A
Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y<li>formula of armor performing absorbtion;
A+(X*Z)=A
Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y<li>formula of armor performing negation;
A+((X*Z)*'0')=A
Y+((X*Z)-X)=Y</ul>
Layman's Summary:<ul>
<li>If the armor absorbs a bit of damage, it means it took a bit of damage, and the damage it didn't take, you took.
<li>If the armor inverts some damage, that means that the armor heals from the damage, and you take the rest of the damage.
<li>If the armor negates some damage, that means that the damage that goes to the armor is gone, and the armor doesn't get hurt, and you take the rest of the damage.</ul>
And what of Terminataur's testing?...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, didn't mean to leave all of you out...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry for even dragging it back out. It was a knee-jerk reaction from IRC, in which a few were saying "OMG COIL PROVED TEH ARMOR BUG!!1!1"
Look at the posts. Term discovered it, but didn't provide the numbers. I provided some numbers, but the writer in me decided to "spice it up" by throwing in a whole pile of words. Making it so unbelievably cumbersome I wish I had just given up. coil provided the numbers in a concise, easy to read table. And lent a bit of credence to it all.
I know I should just let this die, as the bug should already be fixed for 1.03 (haven't tested it yet, though), but I just needed to say sorry if I seemed a bit hostile.
-Ryan!
Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.
-- George Santayana
Get a life pls...
A game is a very serious matter.
To quote Flayra - "This is fixed in v1.03."
Which kinda makes the purpose of this thread null and void. Lock ?