Armor decay, how does it work

[Witte]

Originally Posted by AlphaGeek

I don't think we know enough about game mechanics for a truly effective armor comparison other than to take the numbers in the specs at face value. Too many random and unkknown factors to use the planet Calypso surface as a lab.

AFAIK, nearly all factors are known.

There are simply too many unknowns in the game mechanics, such as:

Can (or Does) armor absorb a random amount of the total hit before passing damage to the avatar?

No, it always absorbs full damage. You can simply test this by hunting a mob that does less damage your armor protects. You will notice you get 1HP hit every time.

Is armor able to absorb an entire hits worth of damage and leave the occupant none the wiser that the hit even happened?

No, when an armor absorbs all damage, you will still recieve 1 damage point. This has been thoroughly tested, for more info, see Doer's sig.

Set your way back machines to the days of paper and dice RPGs, and look at the rules for those. With comuters doing the math, the complexity of the combat system may be even more than something like... say... Iron Crown Enterprises "Arms Law" combat system and still perform as rapidly as it does.

There are many ways the game could be designed that would allow for armor to take durability into account. Since the only way we really have to track it is "avatar damage vs armor repair cost" we'll never really know what's happening to the outside of that protective shell we don when we go hunting.

AG, gamer since 1978

Since emperical data about this subject is overwhelming, and can be reproduced without any error, we can conclude how the system works with very big certainty. But its always good to have sceptic people around, so still tnx for the feedback .

[Doer]

Originally Posted by JulzD

Ok, how about this: say you get hit by Acid damage but your Armor only protects from Impact and Penetration. See that the damage types are different.

Question: Does the armor still decay, even though it does not absorb Acid damage?

If your armor doesn't protect against a damage type, it doesn't decay. I had a situation once where i thought the armor would decay if the plate on it did protect (even though the armor didn't) but i haven't tested that since then and it was a long time ago and i was probably wrong anyway.

AlphaGeek: While i agree in principle with what you're saying, we have the advantage of context here (MA and other EU systems) as well as the knowledge that in software design and in software execution, more complexity is more work, and therefore we can probably apply Occam's razor. That said, if treating the armor decay system as a black box gives us almost identical results each time, we don't really care what's inside -- or whether the cat is alive, dead, or undead. Mmmm...mixed metaphors.

Edit: Nvm Witte answered in much less enigmatic terms.

[aridash]

Originally Posted by Witte

Beta version is online now. See http://www.pe-wiki.info/Chart.aspx?chart=MobLevel

To do:

Avarage damage+decay
Figure out plate/armor order


Order I used now is first armor then plates.

2 important questions raised here. First do we know that plate decay fits the curve, secondly do we know how damage is absorbed by the armour and plate combination.

[Coop_]

Originally Posted by Witte

Since this is an issue that keeps returning all the time, I decided to make a wiki page about it. see:http://www.pe-wiki.info/Chart.aspx?chart=ArmorDecay

More details are in the discussion tab. If you have additional info, or any questions, feel free to reply .

If i understand your work correctly, this has some stunning conclusions about how to use (or not use) armor.

Take the example of ghost armor:
With its 84 total protection, its minimum decay would be 0.84 pecs, right?
If you are mining away on TI, and get jumped by a globster doing 100% acid damage, for each hit you will pay the 0.84 pecs even though you are only protected 1 HP! That 1 HP of protection sure is a nastry trick by MA :/

So when in ghost, run away from all those snabes, or kill them before they spray you!

Please let me know if my understanding is off somehow.

[Tangine]

Hi.
Thank you very much for your work on this important matter. I was wondering if you had found out the role of the durability figure that is displayed on armor stats. I think this figure is irrelevant since the change in armor decay back in VU 7.7, but since we had discussed this quite a while ago here Armor decay : i don't give up..., i wondered if you had a definitive answer about this.
+rep for the job anyway. I knew BAHQ leader Rony had come up with a similar chart but as far as I know it didn't include the concept of a minimal decay specific to each armor set : this solves a lot of irregularities, and if i understand this right, it explains why it can cost a lot to hunt small mobs with a big armor.
This certainly justifies buying several armor sets to adpat to the size of the mobs you hunt...

[MG Mighty]

Originally Posted by Coop_

If i understand your work correctly, this has some stunning conclusions about how to use (or not use) armor.

Take the example of ghost armor:
With its 84 total protection, its minimum decay would be 0.84 pecs, right?
If you are mining away on TI, and get jumped by a globster doing 100% acid damage, for each hit you will pay the 0.84 pecs even though you are only protected 1 HP! That 1 HP of protection sure is a nastry trick by MA :/

So when in ghost, run away from all those snabes, or kill them before they spray you!

Please let me know if my understanding is off somehow.

Tested decayed on Ghost and it seems to be this way.
~0,840 PEC even if the ammount protected is less than the total possible protection.

(It was 839 V.Sweat bottles of decay for a 1 hit of Daikiba young that gave me 1 damage= it wasn't a critical)

It also can explain why the decay of Salamander against Ambulimax is ~0,750 PEC
-------------------------
Armor decay does have a relation with the tt value of the armor.
At least it was proven that an armor with less than full tt will decay less in the cases that the lower tt value mean that it is protecting less; other relations with tt value of an armor might be found. There are examples where armor decay isn't explained by any formula when comparing the decay of 2 diffenrent armors.

My mistake; I was the one who was WRONG

[Witte]

Originally Posted by aridash

2 important questions raised here. First do we know that plate decay fits the curve, secondly do we know how damage is absorbed by the armour and plate combination.

Yup, both need to be found out. Will do some testing tomorrow if i find the time.

Originally Posted by Coop_

If i understand your work correctly, this has some stunning conclusions about how to use (or not use) armor.

Take the example of ghost armor:
With its 84 total protection, its minimum decay would be 0.84 pecs, right?
If you are mining away on TI, and get jumped by a globster doing 100% acid damage, for each hit you will pay the 0.84 pecs even though you are only protected 1 HP! That 1 HP of protection sure is a nastry trick by MA :/

So when in ghost, run away from all those snabes, or kill them before they spray you!

Please let me know if my understanding is off somehow.

Yes correct. exactly how it works.

Originally Posted by Tangine

Hi.
Thank you very much for your work on this important matter. I was wondering if you had found out the role of the durability figure that is displayed on armor stats. I think this figure is irrelevant since the change in armor decay back in VU 7.7, but since we had discussed this quite a while ago here Armor decay : i don't give up..., i wondered if you had a definitive answer about this.
+rep for the job anyway. I knew BAHQ leader Rony had come up with a similar chart but as far as I know it didn't include the concept of a minimal decay specific to each armor set : this solves a lot of irregularities, and if i understand this right, it explains why it can cost a lot to hunt small mobs with a big armor.
This certainly justifies buying several armor sets to adpat to the size of the mobs you hunt...

I have done allot of testing in the past also with armor of 10% 30% 60% etc etc, of their TT value. I could not find any influence of durabulity in any way. It did show however, that protection is linear to TT value. So at 50% tt value, protection is also 50%. And decay is always according to protection offered. So low tt armor decays less when it gets a full damage hit.

[Doer]

Originally Posted by Coop_

If i understand your work correctly, this has some stunning conclusions about how to use (or not use) armor.

Take the example of ghost armor:
With its 84 total protection, its minimum decay would be 0.84 pecs, right?
If you are mining away on TI, and get jumped by a globster doing 100% acid damage, for each hit you will pay the 0.84 pecs even though you are only protected 1 HP! That 1 HP of protection sure is a nastry trick by MA :/

So when in ghost, run away from all those snabes, or kill them before they spray you!

Please let me know if my understanding is off somehow.

That's right. All of those semi-uber armors with just 1 protection in one area are decay magnets when facing certain mobs.

Edit too slow again.

[Tangine]

OK... so my next question would be : does this minimal decay apply anytime, with no consideration for the condition of the armor ?

I think of one very bad possible case : having a nearly completely damaged shadow armor, that protects close to nothing when you get hit. But since its total protection is 184, you would still have 1.84 pec decay every time you get hit (by an exarosaur young for instance or by any mob under 20 damage since 20 damage is approximately what it takes to get 1.84 decay), as long as the damage type fits the armor ? So basically you would pay for the decay on armor, and maybe also need to fap ? (assuming that a very damaged shadow armor would not protect above 20 damage, which i have no clue about) That would make it even more urgent to have armors fully repaired, and check that you hunt mobs in proportion to your armor...

On a sidenote I wonder if anyone has done a chart on how protection is affected by armor condition (that was part of my question to MA long time ago, and I haven't heard of an answer to it yet) ?


dit : you just answered my question.

Just to make sure, the minimal decay is then calculated on actual armor protection and not theoretical (official) protection, right ? Like if we have let's say an angel armor at 50% condition, it will have 60 total protection instead of 120, therefore its minimal decay will be 0.6 pec.

[Witte]

Yes. minimal decay counts no matter what the armor condition is.

Your sidenote qeustion is answered in my previous post

edit: Minimal decay will stay constant, and is the based on the maximum protection possible by that armor in full condition.