(Game Balance) Late-game armour is too powerful

[Izicata]

I randomed myself up a character, teleported to the middle of a field, and wished for some light survivor gear + a survivor mask. The sort of gear a character can easily make after they've finished looting a city or two. No kevlar vests, no helmet, just reinforced light survivor gear and a mask. Note that I've got 6 strength, so my HP is lower than normal.

I then spawned a turret one tile away from me, and proceeded to not move.

Out of the 101 shots it fired before running out of ammunition, only 3 shots did damage. I healed myself back to full health and tried again; the next turret only managed to damage me once. The third turret actually was able to kill me after 23 turns of constant shooting and a couple headshots.

The armour values on most late-game gear are just too high. I was wearing relatively low armour gear, standing almost right next to a turret, letting it shoot me for dozens of turns, and I still had a hard time dying. In a realistic situation, you're going to be at least 5-10 squares away, killing the turret in a couple of turns, and wearing much heavier armour especially on the head.

I could understand if a computer-aimed 9mm SMG can't penetrate power armour or even just medieval plate mail, but it shouldn't be having this much trouble getting through something made out of curtains and salvaged Kevlar.

[Zireael07]

You got lucky - you know, turret headshots can kill even through a freaking POWER ARMOR HELMET!

[IOSYN]

That's because PA helms were/are bugged iirc in that they didn't cover the face and mouth, was it? can't remember.

I've spoken on this issue before about the lightest survivor suit being able to reflect most turret fire but honestly 9mm isn't really a round designed to penetrate body armor. Also it's more than likely that any kind of automated turret would aim for center mass, giving due allowance for covering fire/strafing fire patterns.

http://bit.ly/1cHPVMi
9mm FMJ trumped by kevlar.
5.56mm beats kevlar.

Ideally, power armour would defeat anything up to and including .308.
Anyway, I'm planning some 5.56 NATO and GMG turrets for the upcoming military expansion.

[Izicata]

Just tested it with regular basic power armour by standing right next to a turret; yes, you can still die if you get hit in the head, though it took four turrets worth of ammo to do so. What's weird is that I took absolutely no damage for 350 shots or so, then died in a single headshot.

PA helms were/are bugged iirc in that they didn't cover the face and mouth

Oh, so that's the issue.

I think what needs to happen is a reduction in armour value, as well as making the protection from that armour less random. Even if a bullet can't penetrate your armour, you should still be taking a certain amount of blunt force trauma from every shot. The linked video shows that the 9mm bullet was stopped by the Kevlar, but the water bottle behind still got knocked back and damaged. And, AFAIK, if you get shot wearing a bulletproof vest, you're still likely to get your ribs broken.

EDIT: Laser turrets will still damage you through light survivor armour, but I'm not sure if that's because lasers have more armour penetration or because lasers will set you on fire. Laser turrets have enough armour penetration to get through light survivor armour.

[IOSYN]

Agreed on the blunt force trauma, 100%. How to model that ingame though? Just extra pain?
Could probably make hostile laser turrets slightly more prevalent as well.
As to armour value reduction... I'd like more opinions on that myself before any changes but I'm thinking it should be more effective than a kevlar vest once reinforced, though still a notch down from where it is right now.

[Izicata]

You already take pain even if you take no damage, but I don't think that's enough. Blunt force trauma can kill, not just incapacitate.

I'd suggest that a small percentage of blocked damage should be converted into direct damage; the exact percentage would depend on the properties of the armour you're wearing. Maybe superalloy would let less damage through than regular steel, or heavier armour would absorb more of the impact, or armour made of a soft material and a hard material (e.g. leather and steel) would get a bonus to simulate a padding effect.

I agree that light survivor armour should still be more effective than a Kevlar vest. And, since (AFAIK) armour values are procedurally derived from the armour's material(s) and other characteristics, it'll still be more effective unless we change how armour values are calculated entirely. I'm just saying we should reduce some of the multipliers in that calculation.

Where is the armour value calculation code, anyway? I can't seem to find it.

[kevingranade]

With the current hp system it would be a certain amount of damage that only
the thickest armor could block.
Full suit of power armor should be effectively immune to pistol/smg fire,
maybe not the lightest tier of power armor though? The heaviest power armor
should be effectively immune to all but the most powerful rifle fire.
There's a whole scale in there that needs to be addressed.
Layered clothing and armor is trickier, since you have to worry about
stacking.

[Waladil]

What about giving all armors/clothings rigidity values which represents the maximum percent of incoming damage they can block? So simple clothes would have very low values (~20%), padded clothes somewhat higher (30-40%), then armored clothes (40-60%) and true armors 70+%. Heavy Power Armor would obviously have 100%, basic PA probably 90%, and light PA/powered RM12* 80%

This would also work well with layering armor, because each layer is encountering successively less damage and can only subtract a smaller total damage amount.

Example: A turret shoots a player wearing a shirt w/ 4 armor and 20% rigidity, two army jackets with 12 armor and 35% rigidity, and a suit of leather armor with 20 armor and 40% rigidity. The initial damage is 40. 40% of 40 is 16, so the leather stops 16 damage. The first jacket is taking 24 damage, 35% of that is 8.4, so it stops (rounded) 8 damage. The second jacket takes 16 damage, and stops 6. Finally, the shirt takes 10 damage, and stops 20% of that, and in the end the player's torso takes 8 damage. Nominally he had 48 armor and (now) ought to have been able to shrug off that hit.

*The RM12 should have a lower value when unpowered, but power armor provides its full protection even when unpowered.

[Izicata]

This has pretty much been fixed.