I find it very odd that weapon damage against shields/armor should be calculated in such a complicated way... why not just enter the final, effective values for the damage? You wouldn't lose anything, but you'd be much freer in the creation of weapons... you could have weapons that have absolutely no effect on shields but eat up armor like candy... or shield-busting EMPs that don't even scratch armor...

Backwards compatibility could be ensured by a flag at the end of the resource, designating whether the damage values are to be calculated the old way or used straight.

An idea for a new version of EVO? :rolleyes:

-- Cinga

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How exactly is the weapon damage calculated?

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You enter values for Mass and Energy Damage, and the game takes all of the mass damage, plus 1/4 the energy damage to calculate the damage to armour, and vice-versa for shields.

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I like people. They taste like chicken.

Is it possible to put in negative weapon damage values (so you can have like a 1000 damage to shields and -10 damage to armor beam?)

PS To capture a ship without armor or help recharge your escort's shields, you could make a beam or pod using negative values in both boxes or just one.

No, it is impossible to have negative damage.
I tried it out.

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"I'm beginning to see the flowers from the wrong side"

-The prophet Zarquon, shortly before passing away

Hmm. You speak of EMP cinga... maybe to go along with EMP there could be temporary shutdown. Nail an Iggy with an EMP and shoot up its hull before its shields come back on again!!

Also an anti-matter cannon could do some shield damage (what are shields made of anyway??) but would literally CANCEL OUT hull. Thats what antimatter does.

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Originally posted by Mad Bomber:
**Hmm. You speak of EMP cinga... maybe to go along with EMP there could be temporary shutdown. Nail an Iggy with an EMP and shoot up its hull before its shields come back on again!!:D

Also an anti-matter cannon could do some shield damage (what are shields made of anyway??) but would literally CANCEL OUT hull. Thats what antimatter does.

**

Shields, logically enough, are made of energy. Antimatter doesn't cancel out normal matter per se ; it merely annihilates it in a huge energy release. The problem is that antimatter is a bit troublesome to be shooting out of a cannon; chances are more likely than not that it will hit a bit of normal matter on the way to a ship. Star Trek style photon torpedoes the the route to go if you want antimatter weapons.

But then I'm not a physicist, so I might be wrong.

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"His Strangelove All-Purpose Do-It-Yourself Defensive First Second or Third Strike Indestructible Fantastic State-of-the-Art B-Ware Offensive Attack Bomber can't compare with our M & M E & A Sub-Supersonic Invisible and Noiseless Defensive Second-Strike Offensive Attack Bomber."
- from Closing Time , by Joseph Heller.