Question about Corrosive Shell experimental affect

[Holeypaladin]

Does the Corrossive Shell experimental affect increase the Absolute Damage received from plasma weapons? The wording is vague, and it's hard to tell if it only reduces resistance to kinetic, thermal, and explosive damage, or if it also increases the damage dealt by modified Guardian plasma chargers which deal exclusively Absolute damage (and a lot of it, considering their small size).

[Agony_Aunt]

It lowers the hull hardness by 20% for the duration of the effect. It doesn't reduce resistance to just those 3, its an absoloute reduction for all weapon types.

[Toxicity]

From the wiki:
"Corrosive Shell is an Experimental Effect that can be applied to a weapon through Engineering. It consists of experimental rounds that temporarily weaken Armour Hardness and increase all damage taken, at the cost of a 20% reduction in ammo capacity. While the effect is active, *incoming damage from all sources is increased by 25%*, and all attacks receive a +20 bonus to their armour piercing value.[1]

The effects of Corrosive Shell do not stack on a single target, and therefore it is most efficient and cost-effective to only apply it to one weapon per ship. Furthermore, the type and size of the chosen weapon does not alter how the effect is applied or its duration."

[Holeypaladin]

Originally posted by Toxicity:

From the wiki:
"Corrosive Shell is an Experimental Effect that can be applied to a weapon through Engineering. It consists of experimental rounds that temporarily weaken Armour Hardness and increase all damage taken, at the cost of a 20% reduction in ammo capacity. While the effect is active, *incoming damage from all sources is increased by 25%*, and all attacks receive a +20 bonus to their armour piercing value.[1]

The effects of Corrosive Shell do not stack on a single target, and therefore it is most efficient and cost-effective to only apply it to one weapon per ship. Furthermore, the type and size of the chosen weapon does not alter how the effect is applied or its duration."

Wiki isn't always accurate, but if this is true, then it's a definite must on every single damage build. Thanks!

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Holeypaladin:

Originally posted by Toxicity:

From the wiki:
"Corrosive Shell is an Experimental Effect that can be applied to a weapon through Engineering. It consists of experimental rounds that temporarily weaken Armour Hardness and increase all damage taken, at the cost of a 20% reduction in ammo capacity. While the effect is active, *incoming damage from all sources is increased by 25%*, and all attacks receive a +20 bonus to their armour piercing value.[1]

The effects of Corrosive Shell do not stack on a single target, and therefore it is most efficient and cost-effective to only apply it to one weapon per ship. Furthermore, the type and size of the chosen weapon does not alter how the effect is applied or its duration."

Wiki isn't always accurate, but if this is true, then it's a definite must on every single damage build. Thanks!

Not a must, but close.

Most of my combat ships have a high capacity turreted MC, but not all of them.

Some builds just do so much damage that corrosive isn't even needed :D

[ждун]

Originally posted by Holeypaladin:

then it's a definite must on every single damage build. Thanks!

No!

To clarify things, it does not reduce resistances! It reduces armor hardness on the target.
Each ship has certain fixed armor hardness. Basic rule the bigger the ship the more armor hardness. There are exceptions though, FDL for example has higher armor hardness than anaconda.

Sidewinder has 20
Krait MKII has 55
Type 10 has 75

This is evaluated against weapon armor piercing. Basic rule: The larger, the better piercing.
size 1 MC has 22
size 2 MC has 37
size 4 MC has 68
there are exceptions, railguns, PA's and missiles have fixed armor piercing no matter of size.

without corrosive effect damage is reduced, if armor hardness of the target is exceeding the armor piercing rating of the weapon.
For example, firing with size 1 MC at a Krait MKII hull:
22/55 = 0.4
So a small MC deals only 40% of its dps against krait MK II hull BEFORE the resistance calculation which comes on top of that.
This means small MC will deal very little damage against large ships with high armor hardness and high resistances.

Now if we apply corrosive effect, it reduces the armor hardness of the target by -20
So it would be 22/35 = 0,63 (63%)

But if we use a huge MC, its armor piercing is higher then the hull hardness of the target
68 > 55 so the huge mc would deal 100% of its dps against krait MK II hull

corrosive would not change that in that scenario, because 68 is still > 35 so its still 100% dps.

railguns for example have 100 armor piercing no matter of their size, means they penetrate any hull likewise and always deal 100% dps because the highest armor hardness in the game is 75 (type-10). Applying corrosive for railguns makes no sense.

Same thing with Plasma Accelerators, they have 100 armor piercing at any size, hence not profiting from corrosive at all. They always deal 100% dps.

Basically you can say that you profit most from corrosive when firing small weapons against large ships, and you have no advantage at all when firing big weapons against small ships. Also you have no advantage with Plasmas or Rails.

[ждун]

corrosive is useful if you use middle or small MCs, Cannons, Lasers against hulls, but mostly against larger targets and less against small targets as their armor hardness would be low anyway.

corrosive is almost useless when you use only huge weapons, and is completelly useless for rails or PA against hulls.
For example Huge MC with 68 armor piercing would deal 100% dps against most ships anyway with or without corrosive, besides Type-10 and even there it would help only very little. (90% without corrosive). PA will always deal 100% damage, with or without corrosive.

[Holeypaladin]

So the wiki is essentially wrong, and there's no +25% damage multiplier in addition to the -20 armor hardness?

[ждун]

Originally posted by Holeypaladin:

So the wiki is essentially wrong, and there's no +25% damage multiplier in addition to the -20 armor hardness?

yes, definitely. They are referring to Mark Allen statement which they are misinterpreting.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-to-have-a-good-time-using-multi-cannons.250470/#post-3888564

anyone hit by it has their armour reduced for a few seconds, meaning that they take (numbers subject to change) 25% increased damage from *ALL* sources and all attack against them get 20 bonus armour piercing - that target effect won't stack.

Mark is answering the question whether corrosive effect is stacking, but it is not his intention here to explain how corrosive effect is working and he is being unprecise here. If you take it too fundamentalistic he also stated that it reduces armor and increase damage AND also increases armor piercing, which is definitely not the case. He simply says that its not stacking and tries to clarify that not only the weapon that applies the effect benefits from it.

So
it is a debuff applied to the target.
While it is active the targets armor hardness is reduced by 20.

effectively it can increase damage the target receives UP to 25% under certain conditions (when shooting with small weapons at large ships). But if you wanted to be precise it does not increase damage it receives, instead it simply makes the armor weaker and reduces its ability to mitigate received damage.

[Holeypaladin]

Originally posted by ждун:

Originally posted by Holeypaladin:

So the wiki is essentially wrong, and there's no +25% damage multiplier in addition to the -20 armor hardness?

yes, definitely. They are referring to Mark Allen statement which they are misinterpreting.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-to-have-a-good-time-using-multi-cannons.250470/#post-3888564

anyone hit by it has their armour reduced for a few seconds, meaning that they take (numbers subject to change) 25% increased damage from *ALL* sources and all attack against them get 20 bonus armour piercing - that target effect won't stack.

Mark is answering the question whether corrosive effect is stacking, but it is not his intention here to explain how corrosive effect is working and he is being unprecise here. If you take it too fundamentalistic he also stated that it reduces armor and increase damage AND also increases armor piercing, which is definitely not the case. He simply says that its not stacking and tries to clarify that not only the weapon that applies the effect benefits from it.

So
it is a debuff applied to the target.
While it is active the targets armor hardness is reduced by 20.

effectively it can increase damage the target receives UP to 25% under certain conditions (when shooting with small weapons at large ships). But if you wanted to be precise it does not increase damage it receives, instead it simply makes the armor weaker and reduces its ability to mitigate received damage.

If only the wiki editors were this eloquent. In short, it's a situational debuff that's useful for ships that use low-penetration weapons against high-armor targets. But completely useless for high-penetration weapons and Absolute-damage weapons.