Issues & Questions Regarding Armor
grepdashv
Lord of the Bugs Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8487Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester
Lord of the Bugs Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8487Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">testing preformed using v1.03</div> I know that there are some similar topics to this one, but I'd really like to have these issues & questions addressed. Even if the manual and help text doesn't get updated immediately, it would be really nice to know how things are <i>supposed</i> to be.
1. <b>How exactly is damage dealt to a player?</b> Specifically, if a player has very little armor left, does some of the damage "overkill" the armor (cause it to have a negative value) rather than reduce the health?
2. When damage is dealt to a player, a percentage of the damage is applied to armor first. However, the <b>armor is only reduced by half the expected amount</b>. Example: If 20 damage is dealt to a player and if 30% of the damage is absorbed by armor, the expected outcome would be 6 damage to armor and 14 damage to health. However, only 3 points are removed from the armor. Is this the desired behavior, or is it a peculiarity of half-life that cannot be circumvented easily?
3. <b>What are the intended armor absorption rates</b> for alien and marine armor for each upgrade level? Since the armor amounts listed for carapace in the manual are incorrect in several cases, I wanted to know if the absorption rates had also changed after the creation of the manual.
4. <b>Upgraded carapace negates some damage</b>. Is this by design, or is it a bug? I recall that an earlier "armor bug" had to do with carapace upgrades still having an effect even when a player had no armor remaining. Such is not the case in v1.03, but carapace does negate damage as long as a player has some armor left. For example, if an upgraded pistol shoots a skulk with level 3 carapace, 20 damage should be dealt. Per item #2 above, we would expect that armor is only reduced by half of whatever damage is sent to it, and per the NS manual, we would expect that 60% of the damage will be sent to the armor. This would mean that 14 damage should go to armor and 6 damage should go to health. The armor would be reduced by 7 (half of 14), and the health would be reduced by 6. However, this is not what happens. Health is only reduced by 5, and armor is reduced by some fractional value between 4 and 5. Below is a chart of values reported by the HUD after single pistol shots fired in succession. Note that at "35 / 0", there is still a tiny amount of armor left, so the subsequent shot does not end up reducing health by 20 points. I validated that the pistol is indeed capable of dealing the full 20 points of damage to a skulk that has no armor left. This was accomplished by getting a skulk into the "17 / 0" state below and then healing it slightly in order to raise its health above 20. When in such a state, the skulk's health is indeed reduced by 20 points when shot by a pistol.
health / armor
70 / 30
65 / 25
60 / 21
55 / 17
50 / 13
45 / 8
40 / 4
35 / 0
17 / 0
5. Regarding nomenclature, <b>is the alien "armor" properly called "carapace"</b> even if it hasn't been upgraded? In other words, at the beginning of a game, all skulks start with "10 points of level 0 (unupgraded) carapace", correct?
1. <b>How exactly is damage dealt to a player?</b> Specifically, if a player has very little armor left, does some of the damage "overkill" the armor (cause it to have a negative value) rather than reduce the health?
2. When damage is dealt to a player, a percentage of the damage is applied to armor first. However, the <b>armor is only reduced by half the expected amount</b>. Example: If 20 damage is dealt to a player and if 30% of the damage is absorbed by armor, the expected outcome would be 6 damage to armor and 14 damage to health. However, only 3 points are removed from the armor. Is this the desired behavior, or is it a peculiarity of half-life that cannot be circumvented easily?
3. <b>What are the intended armor absorption rates</b> for alien and marine armor for each upgrade level? Since the armor amounts listed for carapace in the manual are incorrect in several cases, I wanted to know if the absorption rates had also changed after the creation of the manual.
4. <b>Upgraded carapace negates some damage</b>. Is this by design, or is it a bug? I recall that an earlier "armor bug" had to do with carapace upgrades still having an effect even when a player had no armor remaining. Such is not the case in v1.03, but carapace does negate damage as long as a player has some armor left. For example, if an upgraded pistol shoots a skulk with level 3 carapace, 20 damage should be dealt. Per item #2 above, we would expect that armor is only reduced by half of whatever damage is sent to it, and per the NS manual, we would expect that 60% of the damage will be sent to the armor. This would mean that 14 damage should go to armor and 6 damage should go to health. The armor would be reduced by 7 (half of 14), and the health would be reduced by 6. However, this is not what happens. Health is only reduced by 5, and armor is reduced by some fractional value between 4 and 5. Below is a chart of values reported by the HUD after single pistol shots fired in succession. Note that at "35 / 0", there is still a tiny amount of armor left, so the subsequent shot does not end up reducing health by 20 points. I validated that the pistol is indeed capable of dealing the full 20 points of damage to a skulk that has no armor left. This was accomplished by getting a skulk into the "17 / 0" state below and then healing it slightly in order to raise its health above 20. When in such a state, the skulk's health is indeed reduced by 20 points when shot by a pistol.
health / armor
70 / 30
65 / 25
60 / 21
55 / 17
50 / 13
45 / 8
40 / 4
35 / 0
17 / 0
5. Regarding nomenclature, <b>is the alien "armor" properly called "carapace"</b> even if it hasn't been upgraded? In other words, at the beginning of a game, all skulks start with "10 points of level 0 (unupgraded) carapace", correct?
Comments
still patiently waiting for answers...
Known issue, fixxed in 1.04c according to <a href='http://forums.joe.to/viewtopic.php?t=6790' target='_blank'>this</a>.
Specifically:
<!--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-->O Fixed rounding errors for level 3 arms lab upgrades for marine weaponry (thanks Kitsune and Comprox!) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See <a href='http://www.geocities.com/kitsune/ns-stats.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.geocities.com/kitsune/ns-stats.htm</a> for more in depth stats on this.
I do recall that CS had a similar damage calculation, so it might have something to do with HL's concept of armor. It was something like:
incoming damage reduced by 1/4 as long as there's armor remaining
damage X armor-piercing ratio = armor points lost
damage - armor lost = HP lost
I think armor-piercing values are constant in NS, but in CS it allowed different types of weapons to be more effective against armor. Since NS has so many different absorption rates, and the manual is not up-to-date, I don't think anyone but the devs really knows the math behind it.
I do recall that CS had a similar damage calculation, so it might have something to do with HL's concept of armor. It was something like:
incoming damage reduced by 1/4 as long as there's armor remaining
damage X armor-piercing ratio = armor points lost
damage - armor lost = HP lost
I think armor-piercing values are constant in NS, but in CS it allowed different types of weapons to be more effective against armor. Since NS has so many different absorption rates, and the manual is not up-to-date, I don't think anyone but the devs really knows the math behind it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yep, only the devs could possibly know how it works (and how it is supposed to work), so I'll keep patiently bumping until I get an adequate answer. (<i>Shawshank Redemption</i> anyone? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ) And actually, if you look again, you'll see that I'm asking about both non-upgraded and upgraded armor.
Carapace upgrade negates a certain % of incoming damage (10-20-30% pre 1.04e, 7/14/21 in 1.04e and later). You need at least one armor point to get the negation (in 1.03 and later, in 1.02 and earlier you always got the negation).
Armor absorbs a certain % of damage, and half the absorbed damage reduces available armor. Armor is stored with 2 decimals precision.
Health is reduced by whatever armor didn't absorb, fractions DROPPED.
If you don't have at least one point of armor, you take full weapon damage to health, minus twice whatever armor you had left (if you had some fraction).
If you had at least one point of armor, but absorbing leaves you with negative armor, twice the overflow is subtracted from your health.
All this and more in this <a href='http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~matso/armor.xls' target='_blank'>spreadsheet</a>.