Return to “Suggestions”

Post

Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#1
after compartmentalised armor and armor in general lately came into focus lately in the forum, i find that i could finally write this ideaup.


the basic idea is that objects (ships, stations, evtl asteroids) have an internal structure composed out of multiple "sub meshes"

these meshes dont have to be represented in the model thats used to show the object to the player,
and only have to be used for the damage calculations


the second idea is that damage gets applied in a straight line, a vector, through all the meshes it traverses, based on the distance it takes to get through the object.
if all the damage is "used up" before the shot exits the current mesh, no further raycasting is done and the shot "ends" in that mesh.


the last core principle is the relation between 2 values.
hardness and penetration.

these 2 values work against each other
an armor with high hardness can stop a shot by absorbing all its damage, taking damage to the armors hitpoints.
high hardness decreases the likelyhood of a shot penetrating the mesh, but increases the damage done to it.

a weapon with high penetration can pass through armor without dumping all its damage into the armor.
high penetration causes the weapon to inflict less damage per distance traveled, but heightenes the likelyhood that the shot hits a deeper system.

the relation between the values is a multiplicative variable on the damage done per distance traversed.

Damage = (hardness/penetration) * [balancing constant] * [damage value when entering mesh] * [Distance through mesh]

if that value is higher than the damage when entering all of the damage gets applied to that component and further collision checks can be foregone.


so now how does this actually work behind my big words? :lol:
Image every shot draws a line through the ship thats hit, and looses strenght as it goes and applies the strenght it loses as damage to the hit object.

so the damage applied is dependant on the form of the target and the direction of the impeding shot.

for example in the upper image
the red shot does less damage to the armor layer, as it spends less time in it.
it has higher chance to penetrate the armor.

the blue shot on the other side, spends more time in the armor layer, and thus does more damage to the armor
but is has less chance to actually penetrate the armor



this interactions give us a couple possible scenarios.
Image the green, uppermost shot has a very low penetration value, and dumps all its damage into the dark blue armor layer.

the red, middle shot has an average penetration value, it gets through the armor layer, the lightblue structure and applies its last damage into the green subsystem.
average damage to all the hit objects, the armor, structure and the subsystem.

the violet, lowermost shot has a very high penetration and punches through all of the ship, but does comparably low damage on it because of its high penetration value.



this whole system would create a natural way to create armor piercing weapons and counters to it.

have a 2 stage armor piercing missle, which creates as first stage a high penetration, low damage effect which penetrates armor
and as second stage a high damage, low penetration effect which damages systems below the penetrated armor.


also effects like this one would come naturally from the mechanic.
the beam destroys the high-hardness armor on the one side, passes through the low-hardness interior and bursts out of the now-destroyed high hardness armor.


the "downside" of that sheme is that it requires (limited) internal modeling of ships, but it would not need to be very precise.


thoughts, questions, critique?
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#3
It does allow for some very fun combat optimization techniques. Depending on the prevalent weapons in the area, you have to think about how to optimize your defenses against them. I don't think exposing all these meshes to the player would be a bad thing, either! Just gives the player more concrete control over his armor systems.

How would "hardness" and "penetration" (huehue) apply to shields, though? Or are they only values that we care about after the shields are out?
Spacecredentials: looks at stars sometimes, cheated at X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, killed a titan once.
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#4
fatmop wrote:It does allow for some very fun combat optimization techniques. Depending on the prevalent weapons in the area, you have to think about how to optimize your defenses against them. I don't think exposing all these meshes to the player would be a bad thing, either! Just gives the player more concrete control over his armor systems.
i wouldnt hide them from the player, they just dont have to change how the ship actually looks.

the ship as shown in the graphics engine is still just a single mesh/object and not a bunch of objects put onto each other.

of course it could and should be shown to the player

at least in the ship design window, where he could define armor thicknesses and mount point positions

i thought of something similar to this, at least for targetting subsystems
fatmop wrote: How would "hardness" and "penetration" (huehue) apply to shields, though? Or are they only values that we care about after the shields are out?
on first iteration i'd say that shields have effectively infinite hardness.


on second thought we could appy similar values for shields too.

have a nice shield-penetrating weapon, it just doesnt penetrate armor and only scratches the paint on the surface.


fatmop wrote:(huehue)
you have a better word? :P
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#7
One of the things that makes Traveller complex but interesting was that armor of all types has a penetration ("pen") value. This affects both damage mitigation and scanning difficulty. I wouldn't mind a simplified version of that in LT.

The question of shot direction affection internal systems... hmmm. Would that tend to make every ship be designed as a sphere with the most critical systems near the sphere's center? Or does the idea of high-penetration weapons eliminate the value of burying key systems the deepest?

What if "high-pen" (for weapons) was defined to mean "more likely to reach the center of any armored ship?" Then I think you would have a reason to bury systems deep within every ship... though i'm not sure that would be a desirable thing if you like variation in ship appearances.

This does raise the idea of "deflection" technology that could be researched and produced and sold, though: shields and armor that are optimized to cause weapons fire to bounce off harmlessly.

Which raises a final question: can an unguided kinetic or energy shot that misses its designated target hit a different ship? Should LT allow "friendly fire?"
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#8
Given what we saw in the prototype, it looked like shots were their own little entities, and whatever they hit, friend or foe, would suffer the effects. I don't see why friendly fire, especially accidentally wandering into a firing line, should be arbitrarily "turned off." If anything, having friendly fire active gives more value to organized fleet formations and careful positioning.

And no I don't really have any better terminology. Penetration and hardness are the standard terms and everyone knows what they mean. They just also mean other things that happen to be hilarious.
Spacecredentials: looks at stars sometimes, cheated at X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, killed a titan once.
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#9
Flatfingers wrote: The question of shot direction affection internal systems... hmmm. Or does the idea of high-penetration weapons eliminate the value of burying key systems the deepest?
no, burying things still has value.

when you layer your important stuff under less important stuff the less important soaks up damage, maybe before it reaches the module you want protected.
Flatfingers wrote: What if "high-pen" (for weapons) was defined to mean "more likely to reach the center of any armored ship?"
well, for now high penetration means more likely to punch through an object, and not just more likely to reach the center.
because: how should a particle beam know that it is supposed to dump its energy right into the flimsy reactor controls and not to continue further along?

Flatfingers wrote: Would that tend to make every ship be designed as a sphere with the most critical systems near the sphere's center?
[...]
Then I think you would have a reason to bury systems deep within every ship... though i'm not sure that would be a desirable thing if you like variation in ship appearances.
that is a very valid concern :think:

Flatfingers wrote: This does raise the idea of "deflection" technology that could be researched and produced and sold, though: shields and armor that are optimized to cause weapons fire to bounce off harmlessly.
like, armor with high damage mitigation?
Post

Re: Advanced (Internal) Damage Modeling

#11
This kind of reminds me of taht one video tech demo that was posted here where it showed everything internal and used a laser to cut a car in half and you could see everything on the inside...

I wish I remember that post/video. :(
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.

Online Now

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests

cron