I'm trying to find any factor that determines what mass armor has. I know that three types are double the mass of the first non free armor. I can't figure out the factor that makes mass a thing. At least not from simple variables from things like EDSY. It is from surface area or less known factors?
As far as I can tell, it's a largely arbitrary balance and gameplay consideration; there is no particular formula.
Some ships have bulkheads so heavy that they significantly degrade the performance of the ship, others have bulkhead upgrades that are such a small fraction of total ship mass you'd have to be nuts not to take them. There is a vague tendency for combat oriented vessels to have proportionally lighter bulkheads, but there are numerous exceptions to this.
Some ships have bulkheads so heavy that they significantly degrade the performance of the ship, others have bulkhead upgrades that are such a small fraction of total ship mass you'd have to be nuts not to take them. There is a vague tendency for combat oriented vessels to have proportionally lighter bulkheads, but there are numerous exceptions to this.
As far as I can tell, reinforced bulkheads originally had a mass that was 7.5% of the parent ship's hull, and military (and reactive/mirrored) bulkheads had 15%. In cases where this resulted in a decimal value (e.g. Adder), the mass was rounded to the nearest ton.
Of course, that was only for the ships that were available when the game launched 5 years ago, and only as those ships existed 5 years ago. Nowadays, most ships seem to deviate from this rule for one of 2 reasons:
TL;DR: There was a rule, then old things got changed and new things got added, then the rule was selectively ignored for a while. It's a bit of a mess.
Of course, that was only for the ships that were available when the game launched 5 years ago, and only as those ships existed 5 years ago. Nowadays, most ships seem to deviate from this rule for one of 2 reasons:
- The ship received a reduction to hull mass, but the mass of its bulkheads did not change (e.g. Orca, Type-7, Type-9)
- The ship is design derivative of an existing ship, and therefore has the same bulkhead mass as the ship it was derived from (e.g. Viper IV, ApsS, Corvette)
TL;DR: There was a rule, then old things got changed and new things got added, then the rule was selectively ignored for a while. It's a bit of a mess.
The cutter is also oddly light. It's only 60t for the reactive armor. Some of the big ships are like this also. It should be around 165t. I guess it got a buff.
I'll assume they needed stuff for PVP balancing or something. If they didn't use it they could change it to a more realistic surface area thing. That might make sense. Even if hard to determine. They could always tweak something about manevuering thrusters silently to adjust so stats make sense. Until we get those stats of course. Then they could add more realistic positions for nodes that determine it and change it however needed. I would think minute changes and leverage per node would allow basically any balance. Assuming that doesn't exist of course.
I'll assume they needed stuff for PVP balancing or something. If they didn't use it they could change it to a more realistic surface area thing. That might make sense. Even if hard to determine. They could always tweak something about manevuering thrusters silently to adjust so stats make sense. Until we get those stats of course. Then they could add more realistic positions for nodes that determine it and change it however needed. I would think minute changes and leverage per node would allow basically any balance. Assuming that doesn't exist of course.
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The Cutter and Corvette bulkhead masses are identical to the same bulkheads from the Anaconda. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I think that this might be a result of the original role of these ships being "a rival to the Anaconda" and the Anaconda's bulkheads being copy-pasted with the rest of the ship loadout (particularly on the Corvette).