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- May 6, 2020
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- 58
Some clarification: Pure voxel damage means the penetration (in number of layers) after all plates in the test have had their HP zeroed (by shooting a laser through all of them at a different spot) Then the weapon being tested is shot once at the stack of plates (at a different spot from where the laser was shot) and the number of plates receiving voxel damage from the shot is counted as the number of "penetrated" plates for that particular combination of weapon, material and plate size.
Before this week's update, larger plates have always had some advantages over smaller ones even if these plates add up to the same overall area and use the same amount of material. In other words the larger the plate, the less pure voxel damage the plate will receive. However, there was usually a threshold to the relative advantage in that the pure voxel damage won't get smaller if the plate is larger than 144*288 (ofc the exact point where the damage plateaus cannot be accurately measured, but that's what I found for most common armor materials). The old system is honestly ridiculous on its own because you can have two walls of the same material and total mass, but with different plate sizes, and end up with completely different penetration values. But wait, the new update makes it even worse.
With the new update, the minimum armor values are nerfed to the ground, which makes the aforementioned problems worse. The threshold value for minimum pure voxel damage is much higher now. Through my own testing, anything smaller than a 432*432 receives more pure voxel damage and for unknown reasons, the jump between 144*432 and 144*288 is massive (1 penned 1 damaged vs 4 penned 1 damaged). This update further pushes the meta towards larger plates and this time only the largest size gives you full protection.
Having such an extreme large plate meta has a few major downsides. First this seriously limits the choice of plate sizes for future gameplay where most ships are expected to operate out of the safe zone and can be expected to be fired at. This will essentially push everyone to just use 432*432 if they want the best protection and create more boxy designs on average. Second, the decrease in minimum armor values while maximum armor values remain largely unchanged (or at least receive a smaller nerf) means that the overall damage system is shifting towards more HP based rather than voxel based. One of the biggest selling points of Starbase is its voxel damage, and this damage system is actively ruining it.
Some may say that this makes large ships better, which is untrue. Large ships often have to have holes in their shell to make room for external features like triangle or box thrusters for maneuvering (whereas smaller ships use maneuver thrusters which don't create holes in the armor), weapons, turrets, doors, etc. And even in a larger ship there's no guarantee that the ship's size will happen to be a multiple of 432cm, so there will always remain a large amount of area covered by smaller plates. These areas will be disproportionally weak for no reason despite having the same material and thickness.
So here's several possible ways forward with varying difficulty from a development point of view.
1. Plate merging. Adjacent plates facing the same side are merged into one, sharing their voxel count and thus their HP. Voxel damage is also shared if a shot lands too close to the edge of one plate, a part of the crater will bleed over to the next plate. This allows smaller plates to still count as a larger one, which provides much more creative freedom since 432*432 isn't necessarily the only option anymore. Voxel damage sharing also prevents the small plate meta from coming back since 16 24*24 plates works the exact same as a 96*96 plate in terms of damage, except that the 16 small plates can be arranged freely as long as they are touching each other. This is probably going to be hell for programmers tho.
2. Plate size threshold based on weapon type. For example, the crater an AC makes is roughly 72cm in diameter, so for example any plate above 144*144 will receive the same pure voxel damage, while a plate below that size will receive a bit more since it is more likely that those plates will receive an edge shot. This is to keep most common sized plates will usable while preventing small plates being OP again.
3. Revert to previous minimum armor values or higher. This will cause the pure voxel damage to start plateauing on smaller plates.
Before this week's update, larger plates have always had some advantages over smaller ones even if these plates add up to the same overall area and use the same amount of material. In other words the larger the plate, the less pure voxel damage the plate will receive. However, there was usually a threshold to the relative advantage in that the pure voxel damage won't get smaller if the plate is larger than 144*288 (ofc the exact point where the damage plateaus cannot be accurately measured, but that's what I found for most common armor materials). The old system is honestly ridiculous on its own because you can have two walls of the same material and total mass, but with different plate sizes, and end up with completely different penetration values. But wait, the new update makes it even worse.
With the new update, the minimum armor values are nerfed to the ground, which makes the aforementioned problems worse. The threshold value for minimum pure voxel damage is much higher now. Through my own testing, anything smaller than a 432*432 receives more pure voxel damage and for unknown reasons, the jump between 144*432 and 144*288 is massive (1 penned 1 damaged vs 4 penned 1 damaged). This update further pushes the meta towards larger plates and this time only the largest size gives you full protection.
Having such an extreme large plate meta has a few major downsides. First this seriously limits the choice of plate sizes for future gameplay where most ships are expected to operate out of the safe zone and can be expected to be fired at. This will essentially push everyone to just use 432*432 if they want the best protection and create more boxy designs on average. Second, the decrease in minimum armor values while maximum armor values remain largely unchanged (or at least receive a smaller nerf) means that the overall damage system is shifting towards more HP based rather than voxel based. One of the biggest selling points of Starbase is its voxel damage, and this damage system is actively ruining it.
Some may say that this makes large ships better, which is untrue. Large ships often have to have holes in their shell to make room for external features like triangle or box thrusters for maneuvering (whereas smaller ships use maneuver thrusters which don't create holes in the armor), weapons, turrets, doors, etc. And even in a larger ship there's no guarantee that the ship's size will happen to be a multiple of 432cm, so there will always remain a large amount of area covered by smaller plates. These areas will be disproportionally weak for no reason despite having the same material and thickness.
So here's several possible ways forward with varying difficulty from a development point of view.
1. Plate merging. Adjacent plates facing the same side are merged into one, sharing their voxel count and thus their HP. Voxel damage is also shared if a shot lands too close to the edge of one plate, a part of the crater will bleed over to the next plate. This allows smaller plates to still count as a larger one, which provides much more creative freedom since 432*432 isn't necessarily the only option anymore. Voxel damage sharing also prevents the small plate meta from coming back since 16 24*24 plates works the exact same as a 96*96 plate in terms of damage, except that the 16 small plates can be arranged freely as long as they are touching each other. This is probably going to be hell for programmers tho.
2. Plate size threshold based on weapon type. For example, the crater an AC makes is roughly 72cm in diameter, so for example any plate above 144*144 will receive the same pure voxel damage, while a plate below that size will receive a bit more since it is more likely that those plates will receive an edge shot. This is to keep most common sized plates will usable while preventing small plates being OP again.
3. Revert to previous minimum armor values or higher. This will cause the pure voxel damage to start plateauing on smaller plates.
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