Do Ships Have Tougher Hulls From Certain Angles?

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Just curious.

I always figured the underbelly and rear would be weaker than the front and top of a ship (in general).

I posted an idea a while back about being able to manually adjust and add the hitpoints to various sections of your ship. But I never actually stopped to think that the ship was just 1 section. Lol

My original idea is here if you're interested.
The idea is overly complex, but could be simplified quite a bit, and still have a similar result.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Truesilver]

I'm not aware of any true structured testing but my very strong impression is that the only relevance of location of damage to a hull is via subsystem locations.

The hull itself is simply a uniform hitpoint pool.

Apart from my general experience and testing of related matters, when I carried out structured ramming testing using shieldless ships, angles and locations and ship shape made no difference to the damage.

Also, Mark Allen (damage supremo at FDev) has never mentioned location affecting damage other than via subsystems, including in his lengthy interview concerning the same.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I'm not aware of any true structured testing but my very strong impression is that the only relevance of location of damage to a hull is via subsystem locations.

The hull itself is simply a uniform hitpoint pool.

Apart from my general experience and testing of related matters, when I carried out structured ramming testing using shieldless ships, angles and locations and ship shape made no difference to the damage.

Also, Mark Allen (damage supremo at FDev) has never mentioned location affecting damage other than via subsystems, including in his lengthy interview concerning the same.

If that's the case, I think they missed an opportunity there!

Location based damage or atleast damage resistance opens up a lot in terms of gameplay.

While the shield shunting feature got hit on the head due to control issues (I guess?), a passive armour/hull toughness based on location, would work really well, because you can't just shunt armour around mid flight. That'd be done in outfitting, so something you need to think about in advance...
For example "I'm a trader, I'm likely to be legging it, I'll put the maximum amount of armour to the rear, keep those engines safe!"... or "I'm going to be face tanking most of my targets, so I'll need my armour points army the front"..., etc.

I keep using MechWarrior's armour and structure system as example, because it allowed smaller, more agile Mechs to get behind and peck at the larger slower ones to death. Lol
It's a fun system, IMHO.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[shadragon]

I keep using MechWarrior's armour and structure system as example, because it allowed smaller, more agile Mechs to get behind and peck at the larger slower ones to death. Lol

The damage model is uniform in Elite, but small ships can still use weapon blindspots to do as you describe. Pilot skill is a huge multiplier in combat.

 

[Sylow]

If that's the case, I think they missed an opportunity there!

Location based damage or atleast damage resistance opens up a lot in terms of gameplay.

While the shield shunting feature got hit on the head due to control issues (I guess?), a passive armour/hull toughness based on location, would work really well, because you can't just shunt armour around mid flight. That'd be done in outfitting, so something you need to think about in advance...
For example "I'm a trader, I'm likely to be legging it, I'll put the maximum amount of armour to the rear, keep those engines safe!"... or "I'm going to be face tanking most of my targets, so I'll need my armour points army the front"..., etc.

I keep using MechWarrior's armour and structure system as example, because it allowed smaller, more agile Mechs to get behind and peck at the larger slower ones to death. Lol
It's a fun system, IMHO.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

.
I think a key difference is already in the names. In one game and world it is "hull", in the other it is "armour".
.
For indeed, in the world and lore of Mechwarrior or Battletech, it makes sense to have directional armour. After all, armour has the one and only purpose to absorb damage from enemies. Mechs move on a planets surface, so with significally less degrees of freedom than in space. A mechwarrior can be expected to place and use his armour to prevent damage to internal systems. And indeed, in MWO one skill any good pilot has is to roll damage, to distribute it over the mech or absorb it with still well armoured sections, while protecting those parts of the mech which already were damaged.
.
So for MWo it is perfectly fine, i wouldn't have it any other way. But in contrast, in this game we're speaking of a spaceships hull. In terms of gameplay, the hull is there to absorb damage, and most often this damage again is hostile fire. But a shapceships hull is not designed to only absorb enemy fire. It is there to hold the ship together and protect it against anything, be it the stress of hyperspace or supercruise, be it heat and radiation when being too close to a star or also pressure and temperature differences when landing on a planet. (Sure, currently the game doesn't support landing on planets with atmosphere, but that's a matter of not being implemented yet. It is supposed to come in the future and within the games lore, where planets are settled, ther must also be a transportation to them, which is just not coded yet. )
.
In conclusion, if a ships hull is supposed to protect against all these threats, instead of being there solely to absorb enemy fire, i would immediately sack any spaceship designer who leaves some parts of the ship with noticeably less protection than the rest of the ship. The two games have different ways of handling damage, and for each of them it actually is fine. They make sense based on the lore and what is being simulated.
.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

<Snip>
In conclusion, if a ships hull is supposed to protect against all these threats, instead of being there solely to absorb enemy fire, i would immediately sack any spaceship designer who leaves some parts of the ship with noticeably less protection than the rest of the ship. The two games have different ways of handling damage, and for each of them it actually is fine. They make sense based on the lore and what is being simulated.

Very good points.

What if, hull and armour were separated.
Hull stays as is, and is one pool of hitpoints. Works exactly as it does now. You get a nice comfortable 100% on your hull status. 0% = boom.

Armour gets its own set of areas to cover, and you can adjust the HP in these areas out of a pool of points.

Hull is still doing its job, keeping the ship in tact from general space-ness, and the armour is there to soak up damage.
Once it's gone, you'd need to keep damage off of that particular part of the ship, to prevent damage getting through to the hull.

Then, if you've engineered your ship to have Uber armour, say a total 3000hp, anyone attacking you doesn't need to chew through 3000hp, they just need to find your weak spot.

Or something. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Ralph Vargr]

See: Traveller Book 6, High Guard. Also, the design tables for GURPS Vehicles.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

At first I thought you were talking about deflection angles and such... I thought whoa man, that's way out of scope for this game. Next thing you know we'll be buying spall liners for our cockpits and reactive armor will degrade in pinpointed areas as individual plates blow out...

Frankly as far as angle goes in general, I don't know how it works. With general weaponry it doesn't seem to make much of a difference where you hit the target. I'll leave the rest of the discussion up to the experts though.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Just curious.

I always figured the underbelly and rear would be weaker than the front and top of a ship (in general).

I posted an idea a while back about being able to manually adjust and add the hitpoints to various sections of your ship. But I never actually stopped to think that the ship was just 1 section. Lol

My original idea is here if you're interested.
The idea is overly complex, but could be simplified quite a bit, and still have a similar result.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

I made the experience, that if a ship i already damaged completepy at a specific area, it can't be more damaged there.
Take for example Anacondas. If an opponent anaconda is facing you and you keep shooting him, at some point he doesn't take anymore hull damage from the front and you need to get a new position to fire at him from uo /down or at the rear end to finish him off.
This leads to the conclusion that a half-destroyed ansconda is still able to fly if modules are still operable but they are maybe less protected by the hull

 

[Truesilver]

Frankly as far as angle goes in general, I don't know how it works. With general weaponry it doesn't seem to make much of a difference where you hit the target. I'll leave the rest of the discussion up to the experts though.

The angle is relevant in so far as subsystems are concerned only.

Every time a shot strikes a hull, the game engine draws a line through the 3D model of the hull and thus determines which subsystems, if any, could be struck by that line.

The penetration distance of the weapon is then determined (entire depth of ship for a rail gun, less for other weapons).

Once distance and angle have been determined, if any subsystems are in the line and in 'range', the game determines damage (to an external module) or breach % roll followed by (if successful) damage to an internal module.

In the case of any weapon except a super penetrator rail gun, high yield explosive cannon, penetrator dumbfire or penetrator torp, the first module struck is the end of the matter (whether breached, or not).

The super penetrator rail gun however deals full damage to every module in the line (which, because it is a rail gun, goes the full length of the ship).

The other, explosive, weapons, appear to spread damage to all modules within a splash area.

Note that although all of the above is generally helpful in PvP, it can sometimes be quite unhelpful in PvE, most especially when rail guns or plasma end up losing a lot of damage into irrelevant NPC modules, actually increasing TTK and giving the impression of doing random damage (it's actually just the extent to which the raw damage of each hit is being applied to subsystems, of course).

 

[Deleted member 115407]

The angle is relevant in so far as subsystems are concerned only.

Every time a shot strikes a hull, the game engine draws a line through the 3D model of the hull and thus determines which subsystems, if any, could be struck by that line.

The penetration distance of the weapon is then determined (entire depth of ship for a rail gun, less for other weapons).

Once distance and angle have been determined, if any subsystems are in the line and in 'range', the game determines damage (to an external module) or breach % roll followed by (if successful) damage to an internal module.

In the case of any weapon except a super penetrator rail gun, high yield explosive cannon, penetrator dumbfire or penetrator torp, the first module struck is the end of the matter (whether breached, or not).

The super penetrator rail gun however deals full damage to every module in the line (which, because it is a rail gun, goes the full length of the ship).

The other, explosive, weapons, appear to spread damage to all modules within a splash area.

Note that although all of the above is generally helpful in PvP, it can sometimes be quite unhelpful in PvE, most especially when rail guns or plasma end up losing a lot of damage into irrelevant NPC modules, actually increasing TTK and giving the impression of doing random damage (it's actually just the extent to which the raw damage of each hit is being applied to subsystems, of course).

Wow, that's really interesting and explains a lot! Thanks!

 

[SeaFireliv]

The angle is relevant in so far as subsystems are concerned only.

Every time a shot strikes a hull, the game engine draws a line through the 3D model of the hull and thus determines which subsystems, if any, could be struck by that line.

The penetration distance of the weapon is then determined (entire depth of ship for a rail gun, less for other weapons).

Once distance and angle have been determined, if any subsystems are in the line and in 'range', the game determines damage (to an external module) or breach % roll followed by (if successful) damage to an internal module.

In the case of any weapon except a super penetrator rail gun, high yield explosive cannon, penetrator dumbfire or penetrator torp, the first module struck is the end of the matter (whether breached, or not).

The super penetrator rail gun however deals full damage to every module in the line (which, because it is a rail gun, goes the full length of the ship).

The other, explosive, weapons, appear to spread damage to all modules within a splash area.

Note that although all of the above is generally helpful in PvP, it can sometimes be quite unhelpful in PvE, most especially when rail guns or plasma end up losing a lot of damage into irrelevant NPC modules, actually increasing TTK and giving the impression of doing random damage (it's actually just the extent to which the raw damage of each hit is being applied to subsystems, of course).

WW2 flight sims such as IL2 Sturmovik work in a very similar way except they actually do have different areas where the aircraft is stronger or weaker on certain sides.

 

[Tarman]

If that's the case, I think they missed an opportunity there!

Location based damage or atleast damage resistance opens up a lot in terms of gameplay.

While the shield shunting feature got hit on the head due to control issues (I guess?), a passive armour/hull toughness based on location, would work really well, because you can't just shunt armour around mid flight. That'd be done in outfitting, so something you need to think about in advance...
For example "I'm a trader, I'm likely to be legging it, I'll put the maximum amount of armour to the rear, keep those engines safe!"... or "I'm going to be face tanking most of my targets, so I'll need my armour points army the front"..., etc.

I keep using MechWarrior's armour and structure system as example, because it allowed smaller, more agile Mechs to get behind and peck at the larger slower ones to death. Lol
It's a fun system, IMHO.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

Till your AC20 ammo gets lit up and blows your own torso out.

;______;


Wait, that's still fun.


Yeah, I'm right with you for how much fun the damage model is for MechWarrior builds. I would like more layers added onto Elite ship kitting, and distributed armour would be an interesting one imo. There actually can't be too much garage work on these things for me, really.

 

[relayer]

I keep using MechWarrior's armour and structure system as example, because it allowed smaller, more agile Mechs to get behind and peck at the larger slower ones to death. Lol
It's a fun system, IMHO.

Till your AC20 ammo gets lit up and blows your own torso out.
Wait, that's still fun.
Yeah, I'm right with you for how much fun the damage model is for MechWarrior builds. I would like more layers added onto Elite ship kitting, and distributed armour would be an interesting one imo. There actually can't be too much garage work on these things for me, really.

First, nothing beats blowing off an Annihilator's arms and snickering at the resultant toothless mech. Then giving him a laser to the knee.

Also, nothing like taking down an Atlas with a 30-40t mech. It takes awhile but is soooo satisfying

Alrhight, to the question: I understand the hull argument, but I've wondered why we can't target and blow off a ship's weaponry. It's outside the hull...

 

[Truesilver]

Alrhight, to the question: I understand the hull argument, but I've wondered why we can't target and blow off a ship's weaponry. It's outside the hull...

We can! Not only are all hardpoints and utilities targetable once shields drop, as external modules they do not require the hull to be breached first and receive only half MRP protection.

Although fun with plasma, there are some weapon sets, such as stacked packhounds or seeker missiles plus the emissive special, that make this rather OP. Here's a demo video I made of the problem:

[video=youtube_share;njDy9ZhTFOQ]https://youtu.be/njDy9ZhTFOQ[/video]

 

[Sylow]

Although fun with plasma, there are some weapon sets, such as stacked packhounds or seeker missiles plus the emissive special, that make this rather OP. Here's a demo video I made of the problem:

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Aye. And there's also a lot to learn about that if you want to. Placement matters a lot.
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For example, that video comes from some beta testing, where we thought that pack-hounds are the core of the probem of FDS/FAS/FGS actually being problematic hulltanks. It turned out, that it's not exactly like that. (Sure pack hounds feel stronger, but in the first 18 seconds of constant firing they are barely ahead to normal seekers. But then the difference between seekers and pack-houds fire/reload cycle kicks in, making pack hounds vastly superior for sustained fire. ) The problem is in the ships hardpoint placement.
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So many people cheered loudly for these ships closely grouped weapons. But it also means that just one seeker missile hit can often already result in weapons malfunctioning and a second one to disable them. Due to them being external, module reinforcement packages barely slow this down. In contrast during we found another ship to be an awesome hulltank: the imperial clipper. Thanks to its "terrible" placing of hardpoints and utility slots, a missile usually doesn't manage to know out more than one item, often even none. So a shieldless clipper can keep going long after a FAS/FDS/FGS would have retreated due to not having weapons any more.
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Also, as others already mentioned: the art of positioning is strong in this game, if you fly a smaller ship. You really don't want to get into another ships frontal arc. I think that this is enough of an incentive to use good positioning here.
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What rather could be discussed is on its effectivity. Against a competent enemy, knowing to use the reversky and FAoff, it's rather hard to permanenty stay outside of his firing arc. But this is a bit of thin ground, making it significally easier for small ships to stay outside of a big ships firing arc would make them binarily undefeatable in a 1 on 1 against a big ship. This would massively impact the meta and kill big ships, so it's not a desireable way to go.
.

 

[CMDR Dreamstate]

Before they do anything else with hit points or hit locations, I think they need to revise how much health individual modules have... as in, they seriously need to increase most base-internal hit points of many modules by 100% to 150% - simple because it is way to easy to sub-system target and wreck lone modules.

A shield booster has more health then some weapons and some internal modules, such as the fighter hangars... a utility on the outside of your ship has more health than some modules inside your ship...

... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

 

[Sylow]

Before they do anything else with hit points or hit locations, I think they need to revise how much health individual modules have... as in, they seriously need to increase most base-internal hit points of many modules by 100% to 150% - simple because it is way to easy to sub-system target and wreck lone modules.

A shield booster has more health then some weapons and some internal modules, such as the fighter hangars... a utility on the outside of your ship has more health than some modules inside your ship...

... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

.
So? I can imagine that a number of internals of a fighter plane are more fragile than its cannon. I see no problem of logic here.
.
Also:
1. If you feel that that one or another part of your ship is too fragile, there's usually an engineer who's ready to help you by reinforcing it.
2. A lot of the ultra-fragile stuff seen around in contrast is a players own decission. If you use an engineering option which reduces integrity, it's not the module to be blamed that it's now fragile.
3. For internal modules a module reinforcement package does miracles. It also helps a bit with weapons and utilities, but does much more with internals. And you can even stack them to have really tough internals...
.
I think we're good here.

 

[clinton]

We can! Not only are all hardpoints and utilities targetable once shields drop, as external modules they do not require the hull to be breached first and receive only half MRP protection.

By "half MRP protection" do you mean half the damage bypasses MRP, or the resistance of MRPs is halved?

i.e. do four D rated MRPs offer 1-(1-0.6/2)^4 = 76% protection OR 0.5*(1-(1-0.6)^4) = 49% protection?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

.
I think a key difference is already in the names. In one game and world it is "hull", in the other it is "armour".
.
For indeed, in the world and lore of Mechwarrior or Battletech, it makes sense to have directional armour. After all, armour has the one and only purpose to absorb damage from enemies. Mechs move on a planets surface, so with significally less degrees of freedom than in space. A mechwarrior can be expected to place and use his armour to prevent damage to internal systems. And indeed, in MWO one skill any good pilot has is to roll damage, to distribute it over the mech or absorb it with still well armoured sections, while protecting those parts of the mech which already were damaged.
.
So for MWo it is perfectly fine, i wouldn't have it any other way. But in contrast, in this game we're speaking of a spaceships hull. In terms of gameplay, the hull is there to absorb damage, and most often this damage again is hostile fire. But a shapceships hull is not designed to only absorb enemy fire. It is there to hold the ship together and protect it against anything, be it the stress of hyperspace or supercruise, be it heat and radiation when being too close to a star or also pressure and temperature differences when landing on a planet. (Sure, currently the game doesn't support landing on planets with atmosphere, but that's a matter of not being implemented yet. It is supposed to come in the future and within the games lore, where planets are settled, ther must also be a transportation to them, which is just not coded yet. )
.
In conclusion, if a ships hull is supposed to protect against all these threats, instead of being there solely to absorb enemy fire, i would immediately sack any spaceship designer who leaves some parts of the ship with noticeably less protection than the rest of the ship. The two games have different ways of handling damage, and for each of them it actually is fine. They make sense based on the lore and what is being simulated.
.

Hull hardness, armour, resistance. Different loadout options that are supposed to change something, without ever properly explaining. Every couple of patches thorough rework of weapons, equipment and how they work. Mostly undocumented.
I gave up following that stuff - not to mention the crap the engineers brought into the equation.