Official SE:IV Gold Patch 2 thread...

[Rollo]

...Is the Emissive Armor ability stackable with itself, in teh manner that Crystalline Armor and Organic Armor works better and better the more of it you appky to a ship?...

No, it does not stack.

Also, is the Emissive Armor's ability in teh patch going to be per ATTACK, or per COMBAT TURN?

it is per weapon shot

Rollo

[Fyron]

Well... it doesn't stack literally. Take a 200 point shot, and EA with 50 HP and 20 Emmissive Ability. It hits the first EA, getting lowered by 20 points. Then, it does 50 dmg to the EA comp, lowering the remaining dmg to 130. It hits the next EA, getting lowered by 20 more points. The 110 remaining dmg applies to the EA, destroying it. The 60 remaining damage hits the next EA, getting lowered by 20 more points. The 40 dmg is then applied to the EA, but is unable to destroy it. So, the EA ability meant that only 2 EAs were destroyed and one almost destroyed, instead of 4 armors being destroyed. So technically, they stack, but not all directly into one super-emmissive pool. It is un-like Crystalline Armor in this respect.

[Baron Munchausen]

Emissive Armor is a delicate balance problem. If it is too powerful it will make you essentially immune to direct-fire weapons. If it is not powerful enough it is just expensive armor. The thing that makes balancing so tricky compared to SE III is mounts. Now you can multiply the damage of a given direct-fire weapon by 3, 4, or 5 times! Ideally, a given Emissive Armor needs to reduce the damage of weapons that are available at the same tech level but not completely cancel them. Figuring out how to balance research costs so roughly equivalent levels of EA are available for comparable research costs to the weapons is the trick. You have to factor in the changes that mounts cause, which is much tricker than the SE III system.

[jimbob]

IF: very nice. EA = good.

Beta Testers: let me see if I've got this right. For mounts we can now limit a mount type by i) family number, by ii) minimum amount of ship mass required (as we could before), by iii) maximum amount of ship mass above which the mount cannot work(which is new), and iv) we can limit the number of a particular component from 1 to 10!?

Did I miss any?

[Krsqk]

So...we need more levels of EA with higher emissive abilities? Should they match mounted or unmounted damage levels? Or do we need mount abilities for armor, too (although I can't see it being logical)?

[Baron Munchausen]

Jimbob: A mount may also be restricted by tech levels, just like components. So you could have a 'miniaturization' tech field that returns nothing but mounts that make certain components smaller. I hope no one would just make a 'generic' miniaturization tech that reduces everything, though. There ought to be special fields to research to miniaturize various kinds of technology, and there can be with family restrictions.

There are 'X per vehicle' restrictions available but remember that the AI generally doesn't observe these.

Krsqk: Yes, I think we need more levels of Emissive Armor with increased Emissive ability. I've completely re-arranged armor in my personal mod. Normal 'steel' or 'titanium' armor is a starting tech like the DUC. I mean, what kind of idiot race would not be able to make basic armor? But 'Advanced Armor' has all the goodies, and still requires Chemistry 1 like standard armor does in the unmodded game. Currently I've got six levels of EA and a couple of armor mounts to make larger armor for 'capital' ships.

[ August 13, 2002, 05:00: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Rollo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Well... it doesn't stack literally. Take a 200 point shot, and EA with 50 HP and 20 Emmissive Ability. It hits the first EA, getting lowered by 20 points. Then, it does 50 dmg to the EA comp, lowering the remaining dmg to 130. It hits the next EA, getting lowered by 20 more points. The 110 remaining dmg applies to the EA, destroying it. The 60 remaining damage hits the next EA, getting lowered by 20 more points. The 40 dmg is then applied to the EA, but is unable to destroy it. So, the EA ability meant that only 2 EAs were destroyed and one almost destroyed, instead of 4 armors being destroyed. So technically, they stack, but not all directly into one super-emmissive pool. It is un-like Crystalline Armor in this respect.

No, it doesn't work that way. In said example the 200 point shot would be reduced to 180. Thus destroying 3 armor (3*50=150) and 30 damage leftover unable to destroy a forth armor.

Rollo

[Fyron]

What? Are you saying that multiple emmissive armors do not apply their abilities? That doesn't seem right.

[Atrocities]

Thanks Richard for posting this.

[ August 13, 2002, 09:21: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by Rollo:
No, it doesn't work that way. In said example the 200 point shot would be reduced to 180. Thus destroying 3 armor (3*50=150) and 30 damage leftover unable to destroy a forth armor.

Rollo

Which essentially means, noone will ever want to put more than one EA slab onto a ship, it would be better to spend the space and resources on armor that provides more direct hp/kT.

I think reducing the EA reduction, and making it fully and completely stackable, would have been preferable (instead of three armors giving 10/20/30 emission, what about five armors giving 2/4/6/8/10 emission?).

Combined with armor-specific mounts, and "10 per ship" limits on armor, even the standard 10/20/30 EA can be made to work just fine, fully stackable.

If the EA ability can be modded to be 100% stackable, that is in fact how my mod owuld handle it. One can only hope the next patch will render "fully stackable EA" a game-setup decision, like turning Intelligence Projcects on or off is, right now.