Armor and armor pen... Whats the math?

[Darth Montu]

Well...?

Ships have armor ratings and weapons have pen rating... How does these numbers effect damage done?

For instance, a huge beam laser does 65 armor pen iirc, and the type 10, with the most armor rating has 75. Does that mean a huge beam laser hitting an unshielded type 10 does 65/75 of its damage to hull...before resist?

 

[metatheurgist]

Armor penetration is armor bypass. In your example the armor would stop (75-65) 10 points of damage. I am unsure of the precedence of resists.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Most people have no idea. Me neither. Breach does damage to modules I believe. Might be capped but what do I know. Stuff got changed so often you had to try and find what works best. Just ask for the latest meta and grind out engineers accordingly.

 

[Morbad]

News - Discussion with Mark Allen on damage and defenses

Greetings Commanders, Recently and over time, we've seen a fair amount of discussions regarding game mechanics, such as damage and defenses. Mark Allen joins us today to discuss such! There's been a fair bit of discussion and several questions/issues raised about the damage mechanics in Elite...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Armor penetration is armor bypass. In your example the armor would stop (75-65) 10 points of damage.

The protection is a ratio; penetration over hull rating.

A weapon with 65 armor penetration vs. a 75 hull rating would do ~87% of it's full damage.

No weapon can do more than full damage from excess penetration value.

Breach does damage to modules I believe.

Listed breach damage is the portion of full weapon damage the weapon will do to a module, assuming the breach chance (based on target hull percentage vs. the weapons breach change range) is successful and a module location is intersected. A weapon with a high breach chance damages modules more often and one with high breach damage relative to standard damage does more of it's damage to hit module (or modules in the case of splash, explosive, or super penetrators) and less to hull when a module it hit.

Armor penetration value doesn't change breach chances, but it will help overcome hull rating's damage resistance, which does apply to modules.

As noted by Mark Allen, penetration depth is a factor of the weapon and the thickness of the ship involved. Neither APV nor hull rating have any impact on penetration depth.

 

[dm06]

No weapon can do more than full damage.

Could you please comment damage and negative resistance?

 

[Morbad]

Could you please comment damage and negative resistance?

Clarified my post.

Negative resistances to a given damage type can increase weapon damage, but having higher APV than hull rating cannot.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Well...?

Ships have armor ratings and weapons have pen rating... How does these numbers effect damage done?

For instance, a huge beam laser does 65 armor pen iirc, and the type 10, with the most armor rating has 75. Does that mean a huge beam laser hitting an unshielded type 10 does 65/75 of its damage to hull...before resist?

sort of yes

Let's say you're fighting a ship with 50 hull hardness (Armour).with a weapon & armor penetration value of 50, damage of 10. This means you will do 10 damage per shot to that ship.
If the weapon had an armor penetration value of 25, and the damage still 10, then you would inflict 5 damage per shot to that same ship - The highest armor value in the game is 75 on the t-10

Certain weapons are better than others like cannons with their higher armor pen values, but Plasmas/Rails have maximum armor penetration at 100. however duly note damage will be reduced further based on the resistances of the ship after they have been reduced by hull hardness

Hence my quest for small plasma's ^^

This only applies to Hull damage, shield damage is related to resistances.

and all small weapons have an appalling Armour penetration number, especially when you compare it with the hull hardness fudge factor number, even on small ships unless your attaching a sidewinder or Hauler, EVERYTHING has a damage reduction, even an EAGLE reduces damage vs small laser & multi cannon weapons!!!!!

and then vs large ships with high hull hardness fudge factors you may as well equip celery sticks to your hardpoints.

and we haven't even spoke about resistance stacking yet!! so your 10 damage is soon 0.0000000000001 damage (exaggerated for point)

Balance does not exist.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

sort of yes

Let's say you're fighting a ship with 50 hull hardness (Armour).with a weapon & armor penetration value of 50, damage of 10. This means you will do 10 damage per shot to that ship.
If the weapon had an armor penetration value of 25, and the damage still 10, then you would inflict 5 damage per shot to that same ship - The highest armor value in the game is 75 on the t-10

Certain weapons are better than others like cannons with their higher armor pen values, but Plasmas/Rails have maximum armor penetration at 100. however duly note damage will be reduced further based on the resistances of the ship.

Hence my quest for small plasma's ^^

This only applies to Hull damage, shield damage is related to resistances.

and all small weapons have an appalling Armour penetration number, especially when you compare it with the hull hardness fudge factor number, even on small ships unless your attaching a sidewinder or Hauler, EVERYTHING has a damage reduction, even an EAGLE reduces damage vs small laser & multi cannon weapons!!!!!

and then vs large ships with high hull hardness fudge factors you may as well equip celery sticks to your hardpoints.

and we haven't even spoke about resistance stacking yet!! so you 10 damage is soon 0.0000000000001 damage (exaggerated for point)

Balance does not exist.

It's no wonder players try to rush for the biggest guns.

 

[Aashenfox]

Nobody really knows the math, but morbad's info is accurate as to the mechanic.

 

[Jukelo]

Most people have no idea. Me neither. Breach does damage to modules I believe. Might be capped but what do I know. Stuff got changed so often you had to try and find what works best. Just ask for the latest meta and grind out engineers accordingly.

In-game outfitting explains all the weapon values. Of course if you had played the game since Frontier reworked the outfitting screen to show these details you would have known (what was it, 2016? Of course it was around the time they added the Engineers so ...)

 

[zimms]

In-game outfitting explains all the weapon values. Of course if you had played the game since Frontier reworked the outfitting screen to show these details you would have known (what was it, 2016? Of course it was around the time they added the Engineers so ...)

Not entirely true, the game doesn't tell you the exact formulas.

Of course if you were around the forum when Frontier posted them you would have known.

 

[Jukelo]

Not entirely true, the game doesn't tell you the exact formulas.

Of course if you were around the forum when Frontier posted them you would have known.

I was, and Mark Allen's explanations line up with the IG descriptions, precisely because those descriptions were added as a result of the interest we showed in understanding the mechanics.
The IG explanation for AP is pretty straightforward even without an outright code block detailing the formula:

In other words, Damage mod = (AP / Armor), with Damage mod capped at 1.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

In-game outfitting explains all the weapon values. Of course if you had played the game since Frontier reworked the outfitting screen to show these details you would have known (what was it, 2016? Of course it was around the time they added the Engineers so ...)

Ah yes, I remember. I remember a wide variety of inexplicably different categories of stats on the equipment.

 

[Para Handy]

Can we get the forum to force UK English spell-checkers? All these missing U's make my eyes hurt.

 

[Jukelo]

Can we get the forum to force UK English spell-chekers? All these missing U's make my eyes hurt.

Or just any English spell checker?

 

[Para Handy]

Or just any English spell checker?

touché (hoisted by my own petard {lack of proof-reading} - amended now - lol)

 

[Darth Montu]

sort of yes

Let's say you're fighting a ship with 50 hull hardness (Armour).with a weapon & armor penetration value of 50, damage of 10. This means you will do 10 damage per shot to that ship.
If the weapon had an armor penetration value of 25, and the damage still 10, then you would inflict 5 damage per shot to that same ship - The highest armor value in the game is 75 on the t-10

Certain weapons are better than others like cannons with their higher armor pen values, but Plasmas/Rails have maximum armor penetration at 100. however duly note damage will be reduced further based on the resistances of the ship after they have been reduced by hull hardness

Hence my quest for small plasma's ^^

This only applies to Hull damage, shield damage is related to resistances.

and all small weapons have an appalling Armour penetration number, especially when you compare it with the hull hardness fudge factor number, even on small ships unless your attaching a sidewinder or Hauler, EVERYTHING has a damage reduction, even an EAGLE reduces damage vs small laser & multi cannon weapons!!!!!

and then vs large ships with high hull hardness fudge factors you may as well equip celery sticks to your hardpoints.

and we haven't even spoke about resistance stacking yet!! so your 10 damage is soon 0.0000000000001 damage (exaggerated for point)

Balance does not exist.

I would call this balance. Why should small weapon be expected to penetrate the armored hulls of large warships? Small weapons, small power. Its your choice what ship you use, and the only thing holding you back is your own time to grind the credits. Want more powerful weapons? Want that hull pen? Get a bigger ship.

This is why i grinded out a corvette.

 

[zimms]

Can we get the forum to force UK English spell-checkers? All these missing U's make my eyes hurt.

U what mate?

 

[KarmaCop]

Wow! 'Some interesting info here which I shall peruse at my leisure later.

I'm a management accountant with an A level in 'Pure Maths with Stats' & further training in many business intelligence software applications for analytics...even with these skills/advantages, I really couldn't be bothered to investigate these mechanics in detail; however, I'm so glad someone has done the hard yards for us & subsequently, had the altruistic bent to share the gleaned knowledge in a relatively simple & palatable form.

+1 to those dorky pioneers; on behalf of all my fellow lazy & generally half-@ssed pilots...we salute you!

touché (hoisted by my own petard {lack of proof-reading} - amended now - lol)

I'm really not the type to kick a man when he's down but...

"Proofreading" is one word.

Sorry.

#KillAllGrammarlyUsers

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I would call this balance. Why should small weapon be expected to penetrate the armored hulls of large warships? Small weapons, small power. Its your choice what ship you use, and the only thing holding you back is your own time to grind the credits. Want more powerful weapons? Want that hull pen? Get a bigger ship.

This is why i grinded out a corvette.

LOL grind credits have you heard yourself?

ah yes the same corvette which still has a penalty applied to its weapons vs a Mamba/FDL/Vette/Cutter/T-10, some folk on this forum honesty....

You ask how it all works and then proclaim to understand balance? you can work the rest of the resistance meta & engineering out for yourself if that's your attitude... hopefully someone can demonstrate it in open vs your corvette.

toodle pip