Starvoid dev diary #7 - Mechanics: Damage and armor types

[RasmusDavidsson]

Whoa!

Is it time for this again? We have incredibly much to do here at Starvoid right now because of... ye. Secret reasons. But you'll notice soon enough.

This week's post is gonna be a shorter one. And it will be about mechanics. Unfortunately, I'm having a very hard time to be short when it comes to mechanics, but I'll see what I can do. Let's have a quick guide in the game's different damage and armor types.

Damage vs Armor
It's not too complicated. All weapons and all abilities that deal damage have a damage type associated with them. The damage type is then compared to any target's armor type upon dealing damage, consulting a table to take out a damage multiplier used for that damage type against that armor type. This makes different damage types more or less effective against different armor types.

Damage types
The different damage types in the game (right now – this has been changed already a few times):

• Physical – Any normal attack, such as bullet firing guns or a metal sword. Balanced damage, is reduced by heavy armor and is weak against superheavy.
• Shotgun – Pretty obvious – Shotguns deal this damage. It is very effective against light armor but is much weaker against heavier armor types.
• Energy – Lazers! Or plasma blades. Or anything in that class. Effectively cuts through heavy armor and decent against most other armor types.
• Impact – Explosions and blunt force weapons deal this. Is decent against all armor types but falls off against the heavier armor types. Not as much as normal physical damage though.
• Armor piercing – Very effective against superheavy armor, good against heavy armor, but loses power against all other targets.
• Acid – Usually deals low damage but over a long time. Is good against all armor types.
• Fire – Usually also deal damage over time, bit faster then acid. Is extremely effective against light armor but very weak against heavier armor types.
• Electric – Is only reduced by superheavy armor, but is still decent against it. Effective against all other. Attacks usually electrocute targets too, slowing them.
• Absolute – Dark matter based attacks. The bane of all commanders. Absolut damage ignores all armor, including commander force fields.

Armor types
And the different armor types that we currently have (nothing certain here either!):

• Commander – Commanders have a unique armor type, making them resistant to all damage types except for absolute damage.
• Light – Light units are usually many with low health, making them weak to area of effect attacks. They also take increased damage by scorching damage types, such as shotgun and fire. They do however take reduced damage from energy and armor piercing damage.
• Medium – This is the most balanced armor type. Does not take increased damage from any damage type and armour piercing attacks are weakened against them
• Heavy – Heavy droids have heavy armor, making them take reduced damage from many different damage types. They do hower suffer increased damage from energy damage which specilizes on cutting through it.
• Superheavy – Tanks etc have this. Takes much reduced damage from several damage types, but takes much increased damage from armor piercing attacks.

Alright. Let's not go any deeper into this at this time. I was thinking about posting the current exact table, but I'll save that for later – it is still being tweaked a lot.

There are of course more mechanics that affect how much damage the unit actually suffers in the end, but I'll leave that veiled in mystery for the time being.

Oh, almost forgot to attach an image - totally unrelated, but it's Makami Desert in fog of war. Looks pretty peaceful... (click to enlarge)

Thank you all for reading! See you next week!
-
Rasmus Davidsson, Game Director at Starvoid

[Xerkis]

I’m sure looks can be very deceiving. No wonder the travel agent sold me the vacation package so cheap to the Makami Desert.


With all those different possible combinations on just a one-on-one game would be incredible. But then to throw in that there is how many players on the other side. . . . . starts to make me see how planning out the Contracts are very vital. Need to be able to have a good mix so as to counteract whatever you are faced with.

This is great stuff.

[Vir7ue]

Will there be directional damage? I think this would be a good feature for the more armored units (eg. tanks taking more damage from behind) because it would make battles a lot more tactical and positioning more vital.

[RasmusDavidsson]

Of course there is directional damage

The heaviest units - vehicles and some of the very heavy infantry (such as Destroyers) have a weak rear armor which makes them take increased damage when attacked form behind. There are also several weapons that have additional effects when attacking from behind, such as assassin weapons for commanders dealing additional backstab damage and anti-tank weapons that disrupts enemy tanks struck in its rear, slowing them and reducing their rate of fire. There are also frontline droid units that are able to generate a force field in front of them, taking much reduced damage to their front.

[Vir7ue]

Wow that is awesome... this game is sounding like a dream come true!