Did Pdx change how armor works?

[Jormungandur]

Perhaps the subtraction mechanic was too hard to balance?

Armor was indeed changed to reduce a percentage of incoming damage rather than subtract a static amount, with balance and AI-behavior being the strongest reasons why. This solution does work a lot better but it also removes some potentially interesting differences between smaller and larger weapons of the same type. We might revisit the idea of static damage-reduction at a later point (though in a better/more functional way).

 

[Jormungandur]

I suspect that this is actually the problem. The more "interesting" the design space for ships, the harder it is to ensure balance and the harder it is to get the AI to make effective designs, analyze an opponent's fleet composition and make effective counters.

Yup. This is generally the conflict between designing a system and having AI use said system. The larger and more subtle the decision-space is, the harder it will be for any AI to make intelligent use of it. It's give-and-take on both ends usually.

 

[Jormungandur]

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to comment on this. I'm wondering if modding is another angle that makes it tough. Maybe you balance the weapon and defense system based on a certain set of principles, and design the AI to follow them. Then people mod in different set up numbers that requires a completely different way of thinking about it, and the AI is suddenly hopeless.

While we try to keep mods in mind, we can't really make sure that the AI will understand and act logically for any and all modded content that might be added. There's just too many possibilities to account for. What we do try is allowing modders to add ai-weights to things to make sure the AI at least interacts with stuff based on different parameters.