game is lacking the most basic explanations

[info]

how does armor work?

how does albedo work?

nothing on forum, nothing on wiki. nothing on google.

[peterebbesen]

You are looking for complexity beyond what is described in the in-game tooltips, finding none described anywhere, and concluding that the game lacks explanations... rather than concluding that the game works in the way that is described in the in-game tooltips.

You have reached the wrong conclusion.

It does, in fact, work in the way it is described in the in-game tooltips.

1. Armour (thickness of armour) and albedo (how reflective it is) are properties describing units, they don't mechanically "do" anything inherently

2. Some weapons deal different damage depending on these properties, most do not

3. This is explained in the tooltips for the ships that have weapons that deal different damage

4. Armour and albedo does nothing except what is decscribed in the in-game tooltips, same as for mass, energy use, engine, speed...


Some weapons do increased damage to units with mass use higher than X or lower than X
Some weapons do increased damage to units with albedo higher than X or lower than X
Some weapons do increased damage to units with armour higher than X or lower than X
etc.


E.g. everybody's favourite frigate, the Mugger, has a Reactive Fusion Bomb weapon that deals D damage and X times increased damage to units with armour >= 90mm.

This is the only modifier to the Reactive Fusion Bomb, so the world consists of things the Mugger deals D damage to (armour < 90mm) and those it deals X*D damage to (armour >= 90mm)

This damage output can then be further modified by environmental factors (standard examples: firing from under forcefield or buildings on planet increasing damage output) and by the target (standard example: units like the space plane that take reduced damage from enemies that are a certain distance away)

[info]

Originally posted by peterebbesen:

You are looking for complexity beyond what is described in the in-game tooltips, finding none described anywhere, and concluding that the game lacks explanations... rather than concluding that the game works in the way that is described in the in-game tooltips.

You have reached the wrong conclusion.

It does, in fact, work in the way it is described in the in-game tooltips.

1. Armour (thickness of armour) and albedo (how reflective it is) are properties describing units, they don't mechanically "do" anything inherently

2. Some weapons deal different damage depending on these properties, most do not

3. This is explained in the tooltips for the ships that have weapons that deal different damage

4. Armour and albedo does nothing except what is decscribed in the in-game tooltips, same as for mass, energy use, engine, speed...


Some weapons do increased damage to units with mass use higher than X or lower than X
Some weapons do increased damage to units with albedo higher than X or lower than X
Some weapons do increased damage to units with armour higher than X or lower than X
etc.


E.g. everybody's favourite frigate, the Mugger, has a Reactive Fusion Bomb weapon that deals D damage and X times increased damage to units with armour >= 90mm.

This is the only modifier to the Reactive Fusion Bomb, so the world consists of things the Mugger deals D damage to (armour < 90mm) and those it deals X*D damage to (armour >= 90mm)

This damage output can then be further modified by environmental factors (standard examples: firing from under forcefield or buildings on planet increasing damage output) and by the target (standard example: units like the space plane that take reduced damage from enemies that are a certain distance away)

firstt of all, I am looking for an explanation of what something is. not beyond anything.

if the game has a stat that exists just to react with some other stat, THEN TELL US.
it is idiotic and frustrating to assume people who are curious and literate aren't spending ages trying to find out what XYZ does. if it turns out it does nothing, and the game just didn't tell you, they may be upset.

basically: there are no tool-tips for those. THERE ARE NO TOOLTIPS for albedo, or armor or anything really, except the ships themselves. this SUCKS.

not even the tutorial says anything. spending time looking through those is time I could have spent playing the game.


and don't talk to me like I'm a 5 year old. I know what albedo is. Me know EEEngrish.

[Nuc_Temeron]

It does tell you. Also, his response was 100% accurate and highly detailed. It is unclear why you are so furious.

[GophTheGreat]

It is rather unintuitive at first to anyone coming from other games so perhaps it *is* worth pointing out somewhere that Albedo, Armor, etc. don't actually do anything inherently.

But yeah, the way to approach those stats is to look at a ship you want to kill/counter, make note of its various stats, and then comb over your own fleet or available capturables to find ships that do special things with those stat thresholds from the ship.

[berandro]

Inappropriate rage aside, I partially agree with the OP. I didn't know armor thickness did nothing by itself until I saw a post about it on the forums. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this information is nowhere to be found in-game. And the information that is available (some weapons do more damage to ships with armor thickness up to or above Xmm) is presented only on other ships, which is not a good practice. In a silly comparison, it's like having a vending machine that accepts coins but writing the operation instructions on the coins.

[GophTheGreat]

Also, if you hold "R" when mousing over a vessel, it tells you which ships have a bonus against that ship and which ships you counter with that ship.

[Major.Pain]

Every single ship you see in the game, you own, your allies, your enemies and every single structure tells you via a detailed tooltip that pops up when you hover over said entity what its purpose is and what it is good at attacking, if anything.

Every time you hover your cursor over an ememy and hit R the tooltip changes to show you what ships you have that are good at attacking it and also in faded text what ships you have discovered but which have not yet added to your Fleets which are also good at attacking said entity.

If you see a warning popup of a Wave or planet being attacked in the top left of the screen hovering over it and pressing C will bring you a tooltip of what the threat consists of and by pressing R you can see what you have to best counter/deal with said threat.

The game has a whole world of rock, paper, scissors with modifiers and caveats going on and can be played at speed without having to pause and go searching through pages in a wiki because most of this is provided on the fly through simple popup tooltips.

Once you get used to reading the tooltips the game does an awesome job of giving said information on the fly at your finger tips because there are that many varieties of ships and conbinations of fights having all this just laid out in a in game wiki would be infuriating and compared to how the first game handled this information with a reference type spreadsheet it head and shoulders the better option.

[Big Hat Logan]

Thanks for the tip with the R key. I missed that somehow.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Big Hat Logan:

Thanks for the tip with the R key. I missed that somehow.

"somehow"

My one complaint about these hotkeys is that they can be confusing. You can "Ctrl-click" something, and "C-click" something. You can also "Right Click" something, and "R hover" something. Makes me wonder if Chris did this on purpose to confuse people.

So I don't doubt that you missed it. It's not very obvious in the first place. I only learned it by reading the very bottom of the tooltip in the small print.

[Ovalcircle]

Thanks for the feedback that the game did not adequately explain things. The devs are planning to add an in-game Tip clarifying this.

[info]

Originally posted by GophTheGreat:

Also, if you hold "R" when mousing over a vessel, it tells you which ships have a bonus against that ship and which ships you counter with that ship.

bulls**t.

I have used the R tool instantly and constantly. the info on R directly contradicts the tooltip of ships themselves.

this is why I wondered if albedo and armor had additional effects.

(made up exmple) I see "does 5x vs max 50mm armor" but R says it does 3x damage. so what is it?


reading this thread it really seems like I am the only one who ever noticed these inconsistencies.

and they're in 50% of ships I checked. It almost feels like most time I check R I see numbers not consistent with the normal tooltip.

[Ovalcircle]

Do you have a specific example of an R-Tooltip inconsistency?

[info]

concussion corvette: says 8x but R says 6x
ramifier: 6x bonus and 9x bonus (albedo - mass). R says 5x, 13x and 8x bonus -- presumably 13x is where both apply -- the 6x and 9x bonus. -- not exactly what I'd expect

to the analytical eye, it certainly seems like there's a factor that subtracts from the bonus. I assumed high armor or high or low albedo ("easier targeted" vs "reflects away certain wavelengths"(?) ) should impact damage somewhat

but todays patch notes clearly state that there is no impact. maybe planned? and R states planned?

I'd really, really prefer if the game tried to be logical with its bonuses: more armor should, almost always, be good.
same with mass. mass in space is safety.

right now it seems (and I religiously check all ships I come across) that more armor is a detriment in most cases and more mass almost always

[Ovalcircle]

Confirmed a bug. If you hover your own units and look at the R-Tooltip, it only takes into account the base bonus multipliers. Relayed to the appropriate people.

[peterebbesen]

Originally posted by info:

concussion corvette: says 8x but R says 6x
ramifier: 6x bonus and 9x bonus (albedo - mass). R says 5x, 13x and 8x bonus -- presumably 13x is where both apply -- the 6x and 9x bonus. -- not exactly what I'd expect

This has a very simple explanation - I think it is bugreported already, but if not I really should get around to doing so.

'R' always shows the multiplier for mark 1 regardless of the mark of the ship focused, and since the multiplier can increase with mark level the list shown when you use 'R' tells you the right targets for increased damage, which is what is primarily needed to make informed decisions, but does not list the right multiplier for mark > 1.

E.g. Concussion Corvette's multiplier is 6 at mk.1. and increases by 1 per mark, so the 8x corvette from your example is mk. 3.