just some big brainfart regarding to damage types and creating "superweapons" and countering them.
right now theres a simple damage and hitpoints system in LT without any variations on that, so every weapon does the same damage on every shield and armor, and every shield and armor is equally effective agains every weapon
here i'll outline some method of generating damage types and counters to them dynamically
every weapon has one or more
<effect, magnitude, cause>
value tripletts
the tripletts create a relationship between an effect a weapon has on its target, its magnitude and the physical mechanism which has caused that effect
or to say it more clearly: what it does and how it does that
so for example a basic laser weapon would have as base values
<damage, 20, laser>
so this weapon causes 20 damage with type laser.
a shield or armor with a matching cause parameter would defend with its full capacity against laser weapons.
so a laser weapon with 20 damage does 20 damage vs a laser shield.
any mismatch of the types causes the shield (or armor) to be less effective.
so a laser weapon vs a plasma shield could do twice as much damage, or whatever turns out right for balance.
those effects could also "stack".
so a weapon might has and stats on it
<shield penetration, 100%, quantum interference>
<damage, 20, laser>
so it would penetrate shields which dont protect against quantum interference and damage the armor with laser damage.
there could be other effects than shield penetration and damage, engine interference, sensor interference etc.
Shields and armor could have different kinds of effects
Absorption, mitigation, reflection, conversion to energy...
this would create a tech race which is not only quantitative (more damage, more hitpoints) but also qualitative.
No "oh, no! They developed a new weapon with 2% more effective DPS" but instead "oh no! They developed a new "quantum interference" weapon against which our shields are useless!"
shields can have multiple affinities, to prevent oscillation between a low number of damage types.
each effect could also have its own looks and sensor spectrum, to make visible which types your enemy uses
there could also relationships (laser shields only take 1.5 damage vs plasma weapons) between types be created (procedurally of course) but this would possibly create a big messy and complicated web of relations
i think this system could be the basis of a complex system of damage types which is still relatively easy to gasp.
hoping to see some replies soon
Post
Sat Aug 30, 2014 4:52 pm
#1
damage types and interactions
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Sun Aug 31, 2014 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.