Armour Nerfs

[Steelpoint]

Bottom post of the previous page:

The HoS coat does not have slowdown, they were talking about how riot armour has slowdown.

[ChangelingRain]

Steelpoint's stuff only got merged because he wasn't active in the IRC to get yelled at for having stupid ideas. This has been rectified.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Cheridan has put up a revert PR, https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/10689

To provide clarification to anonus' jibe

[Incomptinence]

Cheridan of all people complaining about popular opinion being overridden? Proper values were fine, insistence that the nerf values which were mostly unnoticed are some sort of divine revelation from upon high or populist support is just obfuscation.

[lumipharon]

The better question to ask instead of (did anyone notice a difference with nerfed armor), would be (did you decide not to use stuns, knowing that armor was weaker?).
That is the argument people are using for why nerfing armor makes sense, even though armor values in no way effect the effectiveness of stuns, so that should be the question that is asked.

[Steelpoint]

I've asked people in game and the only people who noticed are sec players, and they dislike the change

[Steelpoint]

Also I was active in IRc as that's how I talked with people and got it merged from that discussion

[Malkevin]

Just going to remind people of this

Security was perfectly fine to play as back when armor was RNG and antagonists were far more overpowered than they are now.

You know, I thought when Skorvold changed the armor from two dice rolls to a fixed straight up damage reduction whilst still using the same armor values that that meant the effectiveness of armor ended up getting increased by a large margin.

So today I decided to dig up the old armor code and make a calculation item that runs that armor_check code 1,000 times to get some 'real world' data (and because I suck at maths), so I could see what the proper percent values.

Code: Select all

/obj/item/device/flash/rng
	name = "RNG test for old armor"
	var/arnumber = 0

/obj/item/device/flash/rng/attack_self()
	var/total = 0
	var/aver = 0
	var/blocked = 0
	var/partblo = 0
	var/pene = 0
	var/tdam = 0
	var/pdam = 0

	arnumber = input("Insert old armor value to calc","Armor Val",arnumber)

	world << "Calculating average for [arnumber]"

	var/i
	for(i=0, i<1000, i++)
		var/absorb = 0
		if(prob(arnumber))
			absorb += 1
		if(prob(arnumber))
			absorb += 1

		if(absorb >= 2)
			blocked += 1
			world << "[i]. Blocked ([blocked])"
			continue
		else if(absorb == 1)
			partblo += 1
			world << "[i]. Absorbed ([partblo])"
			continue
		else
			pene += 1
			world << "[i]. Penetrated ([pene])"

	if(!i)
		world << "Whoops! Something broke!"
		return 0
	else
		total += blocked
		total += partblo/2
		aver = (total / i) * 100
		tdam = (pene*10)+(partblo*5)+(blocked*0)
		pdam = i*10
	world << "----------------------"
	world << "Iterations: [i]"
	world << "Blocked: [blocked] - damage [blocked*0]"
	world << "Absorbed: [partblo] - damage [partblo*5]"
	world << "Penetrated: [pene] - damage [pene*10]"
	world << "Total: [total] - damage [tdam] out of potential [pdam] ([(pdam-tdam)/100]%)"
	world << "Average for Armor val [arnumber]: [aver]%"

The results were surprising.
Turns out... armor values are basically exactly the same as they used to be, the only difference is that damage reduction is persistent so you don't occasionally get fucked over by the RNG letting all the attacks through.

Iterations: 1000
Blocked: 410 - damage 0
Absorbed: 488 - damage 2440
Penetrated: 102 - damage 1020
Total: 654 - damage 3460 out of potential 10000 (65.4%)
Average for Armor val 65: 65.4%

Iterations: 1000
Blocked: 651 - damage 0
Absorbed: 321 - damage 1605
Penetrated: 28 - damage 280
Total: 811.5 - damage 1885 out of potential 10000 (81.15%)
Average for Armor val 80: 81.15%


So any perceived OPness of security (I have no idea where this has come from) has absolutely fuck all to do with armor, because armor in the long run is doing the exact same thing that its done for four years.

Nerfing security is treating the symptoms not the disease.
The problem is that antags have been made weaker, a lot weaker.
You know what used to make me shit my pants as sec? Oldling - new ling is completely pathetic, the only sting they can do against me is cryosting, which is even worse than 'death' sting was.
Revs lost uplinks.
Traitors lost parapens and e-bows (working ebows anyway)
Nuke Ops lost a lot of their round start gear and instead got a load more TCs, which the Ops keep pissing away with Vonderveapons like mechs and borgs - powerful things but if someone's smart enough to grab the counters to those things your investment is suddenly up in smoke and the five of you ill equipped mooks now need to assault the station.

Nerfing armor isn't the solution to making lethals less shit compared to stuns because lethals are always going to be shit because lethals are shit at killing people.
Stop pussy footing around the issue and make stuff that kills people actually good at killing people.


And traitors always had a good weapon against sec, which was the revolver. If people weren't buying it is was because there were other issues with the revolver, like how much the ammo cost.

[Steelpoint]

Its likely the revert PR will be merged.

[Amelius]

Cheridan of all people complaining about popular opinion being overridden? Proper values were fine, insistence that the nerf values which were mostly unnoticed are some sort of divine revelation from upon high or populist support is just obfuscation.

My sides though.

> Refused to even consider giving ops their implants back, despite several pages of dozens of people telling him how terrible a change it was.
> Didn't have an argument.
> Acted like Pap during a hissy-fit
> Tried to delete the thread discussing it because it made him look like an imbecile.
> Now pretending to be acting on behalf of the players.

Pfhahaha. Is 'think of the players~!' the new 'think of the children~!'

FYI: I'm neutral on this. I do believe the HoS needs to be fairly robust, armorwise. At the same time, I don't want to rebuff armor across the board or anything like that.

[Cheridan]

Cheridan of all people complaining about popular opinion being overridden? Proper values were fine, insistence that the nerf values which were mostly unnoticed are some sort of divine revelation from upon high or populist support is just obfuscation.

My sides though.

> Refused to even consider giving ops their implants back, despite several pages of dozens of people telling him how terrible a change it was.
> Didn't have an argument.
> Acted like Pap during a hissy-fit
> Tried to delete the thread discussing it because it made him look like an imbecile.
> Now pretending to be acting on behalf of the players.

Ops have implants back now because I told iamgoofball to readd them. Fuck off.

Is this how its going to be? I try to work off what people think and they still drudge up shit and play political adhom cards?

[Falamazeer]

Ok, ad hom free criticism.

The newest numbers proposed and merged by steelpoint were a happy middle ground, Accounting for the criticism at the early draft to justify the revert for the mostly well recieved final numbers is not acting in the interests of the consumer opinion.

But thanks for having implants readded. it sure is appreciated.

[Arete]

Ops have implants back now because I told iamgoofball to readd them. Fuck off.

Is this how its going to be? I try to work off what people think and they still drudge up shit and play political adhom cards?

If you're legitimately trying to work off what people think, you're not doing a very good job of that at all.

[Cheridan]

Ok, ad hom free criticism.

The newest numbers proposed and merged by steelpoint were a happy middle ground, Accounting for the criticism at the early draft to justify the revert for the mostly well recieved final numbers is not acting in the interests of the consumer opinion.

But thanks for having implants readded. it sure is appreciated.

It's not "a happy middle ground", it's literally higher than they were pre-nerf.

If you're legitimately trying to work off what people think, you're not doing a very good job of that at all.

The whole reason I opened the revert PR is because a number a people came forward to me who were unhappy with the change. So I open it and I get Steelpoint calling me a hypocrite and playing ad-hom political cards. Sweet. I'm done with that shit and I'm done with his biased PRs.

[Falamazeer]

And after accounting for penetration it accounts to less than it was, but more than the nerf.

You did read the thread did you not?

[Scott]

Why make penetration pointless?

[Falamazeer]

Pre nerf gr coat armor = list(melee = 65, bullet = 30, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0)
Nerfed great coat armor = list(melee = 30, bullet = 30, laser = 30, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 0, rad = 0)
SP great coat armor = list(melee = 55, bullet = 40, laser = 50, energy = 10, bomb = 25, bio = 10, rad = 0)




So overall Melee down by 10, bullet up by 10 (Accounted for via penetration) and bio 10, for reasons I can't guess at, and still disagree with.
Not sure how this is supposed to be higher than pre-nerf, looks lower unless I am failing hard at looking at PR history.

[lumipharon]

The penetration thing is dumb though.
Only a few guns (like the revolver) have penetration.

So even if the revolver v coat is the same, it's still power creep against every other projectile weapon, for no apparent reason.

I was fine with the changes other then buffing bullet resist above pre-nerf levels though.

Now we just have to fix ALL THE OTHER ARMORS in the game, since we've now got godHOS, with all the other peons with their weak sauce armor.

[Falamazeer]

Then penetration needs to be fully implemented and finished, because it's a clever way of increasing a weapons usefullness on armored foes without making it do disgusting amounts of damage to unarmored crew.

[lumipharon]

Penetration itself is a great system (hell, I suggested it), but balancing the hos coat around the fact that ONE gun has some AP, is dumb.

[Falamazeer]

Totally agreed, and I reiterate "then penetration needs to be fully implemented"
Same with bullet stamina drain for that matter, because right now it's a bit silly that it takes as many shots to down a clown as a captain.

[Steelpoint]

In this current climate of controversy, and the hint that I might be getting banned from github, its impossible for us or myself to work out a good way to implement armour penetration and armour values.

[Steelpoint]

Also Aran just merged Cheridan's nerf PR.

No idea where this leaves us. I think the only positive outcome from this is that the riot armour does not have slow down, but is still bad to use due to the limited protection.

[lumipharon]

Wat.

[Steelpoint]

Even though I've been banned from git that does not mean the issue of armour is gone. I would still like to see what people think about the subject.

I still think the DS and ERT armour needs to be returned to their prenerf values, or at the very least the DS.

I also still think we came to a good middle ground on the HoS armour before the reverts.

But what are your opinions?

[Amelius]

I still think the DS and ERT armour needs to be returned to their prenerf values, or at the very least the DS.

ERT maybe, but DS? The problem with DS is that they've been buffed quite a bit. They (apparently, according to OOC a while ago, it's been a long while since I've seen them myself) get a stack of nanites that make them unstunnable, top-tier equipment which is firingpin locked so you can't even kill them with their own weaponry (fucking firing pins, why), and ridiculous regeneration, regenning 10 brute, burn, tox, rad, etc. a tick, making them literally unkillable with 90% armor resist no matter how unrobust they are.

DS are supposed to be robust, but not invincible.

[Steelpoint]

I did not know anything about these nanites, last time I checked the nanites were a ERT thing given to the ERT Med Officers as a limited supply hyprospray meant to help in rapidly healing people.

If someone did give the DS access to these nanites I can see why some would call into question their armour.

I think removing their nanite access would be acceptable, they are not meant to be healing people and their first aid kits should prove sufficient for healing.

[lumipharon]

Those nanites are fucking gay as shit, other then that though, DS have actually been nerfed.
Aside from the huge ass armor nerfs, their guns have piss poor ammo now.

They used to have like, 300 shots in a pulse rifle. That got cut down to like, 30 or something stupid.
I brought it up and the ammo count got buffed a little bit, but when ever you see DS these days, almost always (unless they get dunked hard) they end up running out of ammo and just have to use their e-swords, within 5 minutes.

[Falamazeer]

Hey steelpoint, I was using the armor values earlier to show cheridan that he was wrong about your values being higher than pre nerf
and I noticed bio was up by ten from zero.

why is that?

Edit:seemed accusatory, my bad, I mean why give them bio, and what does 10 bio even give you?

[Steelpoint]

Whose's Bio was up?

If its the HoS armour I think its because one of the two hos armour pieces (Hat or Clothing) did have 10 bio so I simply applied it to the other item.

Its not that important though.

Also I do agree the Pulse Rifles were nerfed, before hand they had around 200 rounds but now they have around 80.

Edit: I doubled checked and the HoS hat does have 10 bio but the HoS coat does not (originally) have 10 bio.

[oranges]

DS are an IC way for admins to end the round with no arguments, please don't claim they somehow need to be counterable.

[Steelpoint]

If I had my way I would likely just get rid of the nanites the DS were given, rebuff their pulse rifles to have 200 to 300 rounds and return their armour values to their original position.

[Falamazeer]

If its the HoS armour I think its because one of the two hos armour pieces (Hat or Clothing) did have 10 bio so I simply applied it to the other item.

Its not that important though.

Edit: I doubled checked and the HoS hat does have 10 bio but the HoS coat does not (originally) have 10 bio.

thankee for the explanation, just seemed out of place, but it's just irrelevant after all.

[Scott]

Isn't Bio for resisting viruses or am I wrong?

[Steelpoint]

Yeah Bio's just used for defence against virus's, but I have no idea what impact Bio has on that aspect so eh.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

100- [Your total bio protection] is your % chance of catching a non-blood transfer disease whenever you're exposed to the conditions that would trigger you getting the disease.