Armor Penalties

[Cununculus]

The heavy armor and coats, especially the Granger Coats, have massive penalties for wearing them.

I am not against the penalties, however there are some items which are almost ´Jed-only´, or face an evasion of 0.

I currently have a Main Character with Strength 8, point and tag in armor and the feat armored warfare, plus used a token to boost armor skill.

Still the Granger point gives her -4 evasion.

That is not that bad, but I start to wonder what this coat is made of. Lead plating? ;-)

It is not something that has to be done right away, but during the review of gameplay balance it might be worth to look at some of the penalties some coats and armor currently have.

Jackets and lighter armor seem to be working fine.
As your character(s) evolve they get access to better armor and jackets.

For the switch towards coats and anything better than ballistic armor tagging armor or investing tokens seems to be necessary. (an observation, not a complaint)

Tl/dr; Could the penalties for wearing heavy coats be adjusted a little?

[khargal]

If ya evasion skill can't keep up with enemies, then your evasion becomes less and less relevant

[Cununculus]

True, but if kept at 20 or above it goes rather well untill you reach the droid fight.

Just managed to get the MC´s armor handling to 6 with the token from the factory, now there are no penalties anymore for wearing the Granger Coat.

Admittedly, I really like the Grangers, but their coat is a heavy burden.

There must be some symbolism in there somewhere.....

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Cununculus:

Could the penalties for wearing heavy coats be adjusted a little?

I think that the evasion penalty is actually too low, because it is still too easy to get a solid evasion and a high dr. It would be probably an option to give heavy armors a 'natural' armor bonus equal to twice their ap penalty and reduce their current dr by the same amount to get the same total dr, but with a partial resistance against the penetration effect of weapons. It would be probably also an option to implement a negative evasion value, which increases the enemy thc, to make the evasion penalty always important.

[khargal]

Checked my 3 main builds.
1. is running around in heavy ballistic vest, evasion 54-1. Fine for me, Granger coat goes to Jed
2. dedicated armor char is running around in damaged combat armor/old riot officer armor and old riot armguards. Granger coat again goes to Jed, penalty to evasion is -4/0
3. the same as 1 but lower evasion thus bigger armor. No penalty

Generally the problem of Granger coat is that usually you can have just 1 of it and it only works well with just one vest in the game.

[Ergil]

Getting the armor penalties and handling numbers "right" is extremely difficult, due to several interconnected issues.

First, there's a strong all-or-nothing element to armor. Suppose you're trying to decide between two chest pieces, one of which gives an extra 2 DR across the board at the cost of 10 evasion. That's probably a good deal... assuming the enemy attacks unaimed. If they use Aimed: Weak Spot the deal is significantly worse, and if they aim elsewhere you've given up 10 evasion for nothing. You're thus highly incentivized to either wear the heaviest armor that gives no penalties in each slot, or just the heaviest armor period, accepting all the penalties. Balancing an all-or-nothing choice is obviously tricky.

The above paragraph discussed a fixed character trying to decide between two armor pieces, which is not too different from planning a character and trying to decide between e.g. tagging Armor vs. tagging Evasion. However, the situation changes drastically when you're planning a party rather than a solo character. Now, in addition to worrying that putting on a heavier armor piece will make the enemies target a different body part, you have to worry about them targeting a different party member, in which case not only did you accept initiative and/or reaction penalties for nothing, but also whatever investment you made into armor handling was wasted or even counterproductive, having made the enemy target your squishier party member(s). This leaves every party member wearing the heaviest armor that gives no penalties in each slot as basically as only reasonable option.

Of course, if this situation is embraced as part of the design (or was intended all along), improving the armor system becomes a relatively simple matter of matching the increasing armor penalties to the expected increases in armor handling.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Ergil:

..., which is not too different from planning a character and trying to decide between e.g. tagging Armor vs. tagging Evasion.

You could also tag armor AND evasion, which makes a good balance even more difficult to achieve.

[Pink Eye]

Originally posted by Ergil:

First, there's a strong all-or-nothing element to armor. Suppose you're trying to decide between two chest pieces, one of which gives an extra 2 DR across the board at the cost of 10 evasion. That's probably a good deal... assuming the enemy attacks unaimed. If they use Aimed: Weak Spot the deal is significantly worse, and if they aim elsewhere you've given up 10 evasion for nothing. You're thus highly incentivized to either wear the heaviest armor that gives no penalties in each slot, or just the heaviest armor period, accepting all the penalties. Balancing an all-or-nothing choice is obviously tricky.

I think this is a pretty good take on the current state of things. Either you go all in on armor by dumping evasion. See:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2821314301
^12 evasion but makes it up by having very high DR values. With such values you'll be taking 0 damage from most sources of damage in Shuttlebay content - haven't tested the character at ECLSS content, nor overclocked implants; though from what I've seen of epepe's build it's very effective with overclocked subdermal armor.

Or you instead opt out of armor and go full on evasion. Trying to strike a balance between the two stats wouldn't be as effective.

Originally posted by Ergil:

improving the armor system becomes a relatively simple matter of matching the increasing armor penalties to the expected increases in armor handling.

However, regarding this, I don't think it'll really work because there are certain thresholds you need to be hitting with evasion if you wish to be reliable in it; meaning heavy armor users won't be hitting those thresholds unless they stay low/mid armor.

[khargal]

Originally posted by Pink Eye:

I think this is a pretty good take on the current state of things. Either you go all in on armor by dumping evasion. See:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2821314301
^12 evasion but makes it up by having very high DR values. With such values you'll be taking 0 damage from most sources of damage in Shuttlebay content - haven't tested the character at ECLSS content, nor overclocked implants; though from what I've seen of epepe's build it's very effective with overclocked subdermal armor.

Not enough money yet for armguard?

[Pink Eye]

Originally posted by khargal:

Not enough money yet for armguard?

I don't know. That build was from several months ago.

[Sleeping Viper]

How does the armour skill levelling up work anyways? Does it only go up with being hit/in combat or does running around in armour (comfortable or over your ability) cause it to go up?

[Mechalibur]

Originally posted by Sleeping Viper:

How does the armour skill levelling up work anyways? Does it only go up with being hit/in combat or does running around in armour (comfortable or over your ability) cause it to go up?

It's from getting hit or grazed. Full explanation:

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Each enemy has a budget of Weapon LP (learning points) and Utility LP. For example, an easy early game enemy will typically have a budget of 12 weapon LP and 18 utility LP.

Weapon LP is distributed out when an enemy dies, based on how much damage was done by each weapon. Let's say you kill Spike with a rifle and no one else contributed damage - after he dies, you'd get 12 rifle LP. Now let's say you take out half of Bulldozer's hp with your rifle, and Evans does the rest of the damage with his pistol. Once Bulldozer dies, you'd get 6 rifle LP and Evans would get 6 pistol LP. If you only did 1/4 of his hp, you'd get 3 LP, and Evans would get 9.

Utility LP is LP that goes to Armor, Evasion, or Critical Strike. You get Armor LP for every time you're hit by that enemy, Evasion LP for every time you evade an attack from that enemy, and Critical Strike is distributed among your entire party if you kill the enemy before they can make any attacks. Grazes contribute to both Evasion and Armor. So Bulldozer did 4 damage to you and Evans before he died, both of which were hits. You and Evans would each get 9 Armor LP in that case. Lets say Spike was killed before he could take a turn, and you had yourself, Evans, and Faythe in the party. In that case, each of you would get 6 Critical Strike LP.

You also get a little bit of Critical Strike LP whenever you get a crit on your turn. This is independently awarded and doesn't come out of any budgets.

[Sleeping Viper]

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Originally posted by Sleeping Viper:

How does the armour skill levelling up work anyways? Does it only go up with being hit/in combat or does running around in armour (comfortable or over your ability) cause it to go up?

It's from getting hit or grazed. Full explanation:

Originally posted by Mechalibur:

Each enemy has a budget of Weapon LP (learning points) and Utility LP. For example, an easy early game enemy will typically have a budget of 12 weapon LP and 18 utility LP.

Weapon LP is distributed out when an enemy dies, based on how much damage was done by each weapon. Let's say you kill Spike with a rifle and no one else contributed damage - after he dies, you'd get 12 rifle LP. Now let's say you take out half of Bulldozer's hp with your rifle, and Evans does the rest of the damage with his pistol. Once Bulldozer dies, you'd get 6 rifle LP and Evans would get 6 pistol LP. If you only did 1/4 of his hp, you'd get 3 LP, and Evans would get 9.

Utility LP is LP that goes to Armor, Evasion, or Critical Strike. You get Armor LP for every time you're hit by that enemy, Evasion LP for every time you evade an attack from that enemy, and Critical Strike is distributed among your entire party if you kill the enemy before they can make any attacks. Grazes contribute to both Evasion and Armor. So Bulldozer did 4 damage to you and Evans before he died, both of which were hits. You and Evans would each get 9 Armor LP in that case. Lets say Spike was killed before he could take a turn, and you had yourself, Evans, and Faythe in the party. In that case, each of you would get 6 Critical Strike LP.

You also get a little bit of Critical Strike LP whenever you get a crit on your turn. This is independently awarded and doesn't come out of any budgets.

Ahh ok, thank you