Fresh Armor/damage Calculations...
Kitsune
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7843Members
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7843Members
Okay, my last round of armor observations were done without the knowledge that armor damage is halved in HL. That rather skewed the results of things, so for everyone's fresh perusal, here are the numbers, updated with the new facts.
Total damage before death for:
Humans (normal)/armor upgrades 1/2/3
Marine 143/167/200/250
Hvy Marine 500/560/620/680
Kharaa (normal)/(carapace level 3)
Skulk 90/130
Gorge 143/250
Lerk 86/150
Fade 286/450
Onos 714/900
These numbers do NOT take into account the current Kharaa damage bug, since that's supposed to be fixed in 1.03, so what you see here is the way things should be after the patch. So, with those numbers, here's the percentage benefit that each group is getting for those upgrades:
Marine 75%
Heavy Marine 36%
Skulk 44%
Gorge 75%
Lerk 74%
Fade 57%
Onos 26%
The real winners of the armor game are the light marines, Gorges, and Lerks. All three of them survive a huge deal more punishment than usual with boosted armor. Fades are on the fence; one with defense chambers nearby would benefit nicely from the armor, but one with no support could go for regen instead without hurting too badly for it. Onos don't gain any real benefit from the added armor, and Skulks will die in any event if they catch a shotgun to the face, regardless of any upgrades.
The marines are an odd case. Light marines will always be dead before their armor is gone, so giving medpacks to them will prolong their life signifigantly. Healing fifty points on an armor-3 marine boosts their total damage capacity from 250 to 370 points! Heavy marines, on the other hand, always lose their armor first, and aren't very hurt by the time it's all gone, so welding them benefits them greatly, while healing is less signifigant. So if you want to protect your investments, commanders, drop medpacks on your jetpack marines, and always pair up your HA boys with welders.
[Edit: Fifty points of healing on light marines raises their total damage to 214/250/300/370, approximately a 50% increase in their life expectancy across the board. Not bad for one medpack, huh? Likewise, every point of armor that's welded back onto heavy marines gives two more points of damage, until the marine eventually keels over from the 5% not absorbed by the armor after taking 2,000 total damage. Kharaa similarly benefit richly from being healed, so be liberal with those defense chambers and healing spray, Gorges.]
The armor/health dichotomy isn't really an issue for the Kharaa, since their healing doesn't discriminate between health and armor. For the few where it might be an issue, unupgraded aliens will die before their armor is depleted, and upgraded Lerks still die before their armor is gone, thanks to their pathetic health.
I hope this helps any commanders and aliens who are wondering just how much mileage they'll get from their upgrades. Short version: humans will benefit hugely, Kharaa mileage varies by species.
This is all assuming that the half damage to armor thing isn't a bug, if it is and it gets fixed, just disregard this whole thing and go back in time to get my first message on the topic.
Total damage before death for:
Humans (normal)/armor upgrades 1/2/3
Marine 143/167/200/250
Hvy Marine 500/560/620/680
Kharaa (normal)/(carapace level 3)
Skulk 90/130
Gorge 143/250
Lerk 86/150
Fade 286/450
Onos 714/900
These numbers do NOT take into account the current Kharaa damage bug, since that's supposed to be fixed in 1.03, so what you see here is the way things should be after the patch. So, with those numbers, here's the percentage benefit that each group is getting for those upgrades:
Marine 75%
Heavy Marine 36%
Skulk 44%
Gorge 75%
Lerk 74%
Fade 57%
Onos 26%
The real winners of the armor game are the light marines, Gorges, and Lerks. All three of them survive a huge deal more punishment than usual with boosted armor. Fades are on the fence; one with defense chambers nearby would benefit nicely from the armor, but one with no support could go for regen instead without hurting too badly for it. Onos don't gain any real benefit from the added armor, and Skulks will die in any event if they catch a shotgun to the face, regardless of any upgrades.
The marines are an odd case. Light marines will always be dead before their armor is gone, so giving medpacks to them will prolong their life signifigantly. Healing fifty points on an armor-3 marine boosts their total damage capacity from 250 to 370 points! Heavy marines, on the other hand, always lose their armor first, and aren't very hurt by the time it's all gone, so welding them benefits them greatly, while healing is less signifigant. So if you want to protect your investments, commanders, drop medpacks on your jetpack marines, and always pair up your HA boys with welders.
[Edit: Fifty points of healing on light marines raises their total damage to 214/250/300/370, approximately a 50% increase in their life expectancy across the board. Not bad for one medpack, huh? Likewise, every point of armor that's welded back onto heavy marines gives two more points of damage, until the marine eventually keels over from the 5% not absorbed by the armor after taking 2,000 total damage. Kharaa similarly benefit richly from being healed, so be liberal with those defense chambers and healing spray, Gorges.]
The armor/health dichotomy isn't really an issue for the Kharaa, since their healing doesn't discriminate between health and armor. For the few where it might be an issue, unupgraded aliens will die before their armor is depleted, and upgraded Lerks still die before their armor is gone, thanks to their pathetic health.
I hope this helps any commanders and aliens who are wondering just how much mileage they'll get from their upgrades. Short version: humans will benefit hugely, Kharaa mileage varies by species.
This is all assuming that the half damage to armor thing isn't a bug, if it is and it gets fixed, just disregard this whole thing and go back in time to get my first message on the topic.
Comments
I love Foggy's witty replies!
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I.E. LMG:
ROF : 10 per second
Base Damage : 10
Upgraded (1/2/3) : 11/12/13
Accuracy(kinda a guess on distance in HL) : 2 ft/ 0.7 meter diameter at 30 ft/10 meters
Something like that, but for all the wepons, then you might be able to get them to sticky this for newbies that say things never die/die to easily.
Skulk: 90/186/106%
Gorge: 143/357/150%
Lerk: 86/214/149%
Fade: 286/643/125%
Onos: 714/1286/80%
...so you'd be insane to take anything other than Carapace with such a huge boost in overall health. In order for the other two defense options to be worthwhile at all, that bug needed fixing. But don't worry, alien-lovers, I've played on a 1.03 beta server and while I did notice that my Skulks were dropping more easily than before, we still put the smackdown on the humans once we got that second hive. Skulks can still munch their way through marines, Fades are still bad news, only now the Skulks actually have to use a semblance of tactics instead of just running straight at the guy down a hallway, and the Fades aren't quite so monstrously unkillable compared to the humans.
Skulk 90/173/92%
Gorge 143/357/150%
Lerk 86/214/149%
Fade 285/714/150%
Onos 714/1185/66%
Since the armor on the Kharaa lasts through most of (or all of, in the case of Gorges and Lerks) their lifespan, removing the 30% negation on the remaining health when the armor is gone has a minimal effect on their total durability. That puts carapace right back into the throne of the indisputably best defense upgrade in my book.
[Edit: Whoops, just found out the manual was wrong about Fade armor and that it was 150 instead of 125. Wow, lookit those numbers rise!]
I think the path is as follows:
100 pts of damage:
30% carapace negation: 70 hits
60% applied to armor: 42 hits
50% armor negation: 21 hits
Total armor loss: 21
40% applied to health: 28 hits
So, you need to apply 100* 150/ 21 hits or 714 pts of damage to get the armor to zero.
At that point, the Fade would have exactly .. eh .. zero hits! left.
Now, testing shows that the Fade still have some life left when armor runs out. It seems very probably that damage to health and armor is rounded down - from experience, a pistol does 5/4 damage per shot against a Fade. That would probably mean an LMG vs a Fade does 2/2 damage - ie, 75 shots to get the armor down to zero, and then 5 more shots to get the next 50 health, for a total of 80. Pre-patch, those 50 health would take 50/7=8 shots, for a total of 83 shots.
Do compare this to a regen Fade. Regen returns about 5 hits per second. A non-carap Fade will take 7 hits to health and 1 hit to armor from every LMG hit. Not only is that twice as much damage in total, but the health runs out in only 200/7=29 LMG shots - at which time it would have 91+ armor left.
Is five hits per second worth the 510 pts less damage it can take? IMHO, no way. In my experience, Fades with regen is only good for shoot-n-scoot acid rocketing.
Which happens to be how I play Fade. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I love options, and despite the overwhelming evidence that carapace is better, I still choose regen more for Fade because of my playstyle. Often I don't find those defensive chambers close enough to the line of fire.
The carap fade is much more versatile. If a GL guy escorted by a HMG guy comes up, the carap fade can blink in, swipe the GL guy (using him as a shield against the HMG guy), then blink out. As a regen fade, chances are you would be dead if you tried.
The carap fade can just move up to a TF, crouch and ignore the turret fireing on him while he chops down the TF in a fifth of the time a regen fade could do the same job.
A group of carap fades can take out the dreaded quad of HA/HMG/Welder by combining acid rockets with close combat (and preferably umbra from a lerk).
I do know that whenever I as a marine hear the splashing sound of regen coming from a fade, I know I have an easy battle on my hands.