Some feedback on the new Heath pool system
Published on Saturday, February 17, 2024 By
Hey guys,
first of all: I love Rebellion and I really like the direction Sins 2 is going!
I tested the new damage system recently and got interested on the topic of weapon-health interaction in sins 2 in general.
After reading the latest patch note I tried to see how exactly the system worked and made myself a graph plotting the damage modifier to piercing:
Defending Ship: Hacka, durability = 350 scalar_per_durability = 1 (x=piercing)
Defending Ship: Cobalt, durability = 100 scalar_per_durability = 1 (x=piercing)
With this charts to start i checked additional factors like Supplycost or Recurces cost in this sheets (calculated effectiveness TEC Loy vs TEC Loy with scalar 1):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D3YD_-X8nutUqzEdv299slAN9HziBEqYor3btErQZ9I/edit?usp=sharing
In my understanding of the current Damage system high Piercing is key regardless of the targets Durability.
Therefore I would summarize the current concept with a clear winner of Med missiles:
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you get bonus damage against most of the targets
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Good cost effectiveness (supply and Resources)
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on mass hard to counter
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High alpha for high value Targets
I expect more death blobs and no real counterplay of enemy fleet compositions.
My mental idea would be like this:
I'm a Tank with 100 durability. if i have enemies shooting at me with small arms the make net to no damage at all. As the piercing power increases, damage goes up. As soon as I use the right gun for the Task I get 100% Damage done. After the piercing is enough I would think the damage and piercing is still increasing but the effectiveness to apply it to the target drops. I imagine it is like an over penetration of projectiles. yes you still penetrate but it won't explode at the right time therefore doing less damage.
That's why i would suggest a graph like this:
The Idea is you need the fitting weapons for the right targets to have your maximum damage potential. An advantage i would see is the possibility to create an arms race with research and having specialized weapons for different health pools.
E.g.
There is a Capital ship:
500 Durability
4000 Hull
2000 Armor
200 Armor Strength
3000 Shield
-380 Shield Strength
If we begin with Damage against shields i would calculate like this:
EffectiveDurability = Durability + ShieldStrength - Piercing
The low durability would make huge weapons less effective and encourage smaller ships with smaller guns to take down the shields. The lower you can push the durability the more you force your enemy to downsize the howl fleet to Bombers Light frigates etc.
Next is the Armor
EffectiveDurability = Durability + ArmorStrength - Piercing
As the effective Durability is high you force bigger guns or missiles to receive huge amounts of damage (shields reversed).
Hull is a mix of both but as Armor and Shields are regenerating you still need a good fleet mix.
How would this look like?
Light Frigate has 120 piercing and 7.5 DPS:
Shield EffectiveDurability = 500-380-120 = 0
Perfect fit = 100% damage
Armor EffectiveDurability = 500+200-120 = 580
580 remaining is way to much to be effective = 20% Damage
Hull Durability = 500 - 120 = 380
380 remaining is to much to be effective = 35% Damage
Titan has Beamweapons 500 Pircing and 50 DPS
Shield EffectiveDurability = 500-380-500 = -380
Overpenetration = 80% damage
Armor EffectiveDurability = 500+200-500 = 200
200 remaining is to much to be effective = 60% Damage
Hull Durability = 500 - 500 = 0
Perfect fit = 100% damage
with this system you could give the Races a distinct counter size of ships to be effective:
Advent shield focus would mean you bring more smaller ships to fight
Tec more heavy and big ships
Vasari you would like to have a medium sized fleet focused.
Therefore you have to prepare per race and can get caught in bad shape if you are getting attacked.
With research you can enhance your armor durability or decrease your shield durability, but also increase piercing of the weapons. That means if you are 2 research options ahead with durability compared to piercing you could incoming damage by 30% which is more worthwhile than 20% increasing HP but if the enemy catches up to 1 research option you only receive 10% less damage and you have better options with HP upgrades.
This would increase the meaning of research options and a tech advantage.
My main advantage of the system is there are no hidden multipliers so if you know the concept of the graph there is no math needed to understand what to do to coulter certain enemy compositions.
I would love to hear some feedback on my thoughts.
Sorry for some not polished sentences, i'm not an english native speaker.
Have fun!