Development Info Josh Sawyer on the Road to Better Armor Systems

[WhiteShark]

I'm too lazy to find the post again but I agree with what someone said earlier: why is DR even necessary? Why should heavier armor offer a % reduction on top of its already no doubt generous flat reduction against things like missile strikes? The only purpose I see is to create a dichotomy where quick, light weapons do better against DR and slow, heavy weapons do better against DT... but from a realism standpoint any armor heavy enough to offer DR would offer high DT as well, so it ends up moot.

That being the case, if one wanted to include DR and DT precisely to create that dichotomy, the best option would be to make them come from different sources. DR could be magic/psychic/technological shielding - or perhaps it could be the effect of a dodge stat in a deterministic system. DT can be granted by armor as per usual. You would have to create some reason that the DT heavy armor guy can't also have DR shielding, but that's easy enough especially if it's magic/psychic.

Of course, I don't know if that's any better than just having separate damage types and resistances to create the same sort of dichotomy.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Honestly everything about the setting of Eora is cool as fuck, down to the Dutch VOC equivalent, 16th century wars of religion and nobles, byzantine politics. My main issue is not what Josh had in mind for Eora and the story or Gods. Its just how shit is presented which is a fucking failure. Some bad and clearly rushed aesthetic decisions, although it retains some little mystery the setting goes out of its way to try to spit the lore out, and pillars 2 ruins the gods even more. Its like a setting made with love by one guy in which then other people playing it are critical role faggots and act as modern people if that makes sense. The way the ezquimo ranger girl talked for example, in another time there would have been an attempt to make her sound more tribal, not necessarily UNGA BUNGA primitive but different. She just sounds like a modern person. But yeah fuck pallegina.

What really hurts is the disappointment.

The outer line aesthetics (artstyle, elements) is good, but the underlying foundation is very rotten. From the very beginning, it was built in a way to be pretentious garbage for people who attach many labels to their identities. Just see how they used "Queens and Kings." or other post-modernist identity filth that fills both games to the brim.

 

[Fenix]

Beacuse warrior so strong when hit by fist or weapon it will be like massage that rejuvinates.

That nano-suit from crysis - simply consumed energy and used it for it's own needs, something like that.

 

[Alex]

Of course, then you get the case where the amount of material penetrated is greater than the amount which exists, so now you have an overpen and all the extra unused damage exits out the back of the target.

Yeah, that is a glaring omission from the article, but we have to tackle the issues one at a time. My point was that anything like Fallout's DR, which reduces damage by a percentage, would need to be something out of "super science". At least as far as I understand; I mean, if someone sees a physical justification for such thing, I would love to hear it, because this is not something I understand all that well. I think some kinds of special (but not super science) material might reduce the incoming damage by having the cross section area connected in such a way that the energy is diffused over a greater area than the shape of the bullet, effectively making the bullet lose energy as if it was of higher calibre. This would reduce more damage the bigger the calibre, but not affect faster bullets differently. I think something like Fallout's DR might also make sense for laser damage (at least if it is not over a certain amount), as armour might deflect a percentage of received light; although I understand this would be a meaningful amount only for very technologically advanced armour.

 

[WhiteShark]

Are there any other talks of this sort that people recommend? Sawyer didn't really break any new ground here but I did enjoy the discussion.

 

[Fenix]

I think some kinds of special (but not super science) material might reduce the incoming damage by having the cross section area connected in such a way that the energy is diffused over a greater area than the shape of the bullet, effectively making the bullet lose energy as if it was of higher calibre.

There is new helmets in Ru, which are hollow and filled with some kind of resin, which as I understand transmit energy to whole or at least significant part of resin in helmet in case of bullet impact. From new (5-10 year old) suit Ratnik I think.

 

[gaussgunner]

Does "Damage Reduction" as Fallout uses the term even make any sense from the fictional standpoint? I mean, let's assume what is possibly the simplest case of damage; that done by firearms. There is a really good article for GURPS that tries to capture the idea of what the abstract idea of damage means in this case here. Also, not only is this case simpler to consider, it actually represents a good portion of the attacks that will happen in game.

Anyway, the article holds that damage is proportional to the volume displaced by the bullet. That is, the more the bullet penetrates and the greater its cross-section area (which is squarely proportional to its calibre), the more damage it causes. Two bullets of similar calibre, construction and material will penetrate more or less the material according to the initial speed of the bullet. If a certain bullet fired at 850m/s penetrates 5mm of a material, then firing it at 1700m/s should roughly allow it to penetrate 10mm of the same material, and it should have roughly double the damage of the previous attack.

Now, if we hold this abstraction to hold, the issue here is that if there is such a thing as damage reduction like there is in Fallout, then the (approximated) linearity between speed and penetration wouldn't hold. If 5mm of a certain armour managed to absorb 10% of the energy of an attack on top of reducing the speed of the bullet to 0, then a bullet with twice the speed wouldn't penetrate twice the thickness of the armour, but rather approximately 9.5mm. And three times would penetrate approximately 13.6, and successively less and less because for every 5mm of thickness, the attack gets a damage reduction of (1 - (0.9)^n).

Of course, this kind of thing could be explained with some kind of "super science", but then it should be reserved for the more advanced armours, not something you could get from a leather jacked.

Short answer: no.

Body armor is rated to stop a round from a 9mm, 5.56, 7.62, or .30-06. That's basically a damage threshold. The more the bullet's force exceeds the armor rating, the more damage it does. It also breaks up the armor material, reducing its threshold in a small area. A 3-round burst can defeat armor at close enough range to hit the same spot 3 times. The first shot might feel like a punch, the next shot deforms the armor and breaks ribs, and the third is the kill shot.

 

[Tacgnol]

DT is fine but it should be broken down into categories. Not just flat DT against all damage types.

Plate armour for example is going to make you basically immune to slashing/edge attacks and provide very good protection from most thrusting/tipped attacks, but provide less protection from bludgeoning attacks.

KCD actually handles this quite well on paper as it's usually the job of your padded underlayers to protect you from bludgeoning attacks whereas your hard armour layers provide most of your edge and point protection.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

"Queens and Kings."

Isn't that just because woedica is the main god bitch? Dont get me wrong the game is compromised here and there, but I dont think its a WOKE fucking game. Again I feel like its a great setting fucked by pretty talentless modern handling.

 

[motherfucker]

If a certain bullet fired at 850m/s penetrates 5mm of a material, then firing it at 1700m/s should roughly allow it to penetrate 10mm of the same material

It doesn't work that IRL, so what's your point?

 

[Alex]

If a certain bullet fired at 850m/s penetrates 5mm of a material, then firing it at 1700m/s should roughly allow it to penetrate 10mm of the same material

It doesn't work that IRL, so what's your point?

I didn't have much of a point besides that, but if you want to take the issue further...

Since the rules in RPGs aren't abstract, but rather have the added issue of representing something, either as it is in real life or as it could be perceived in a certain kind of fiction; then it is important that rules aren't added without some kind of basis. One source of such basis would be physics, especially for games that are either down to earth in their fiction (not a whole lot of those) or those that want to present some aspect as down to earth (which I do believe was the case in Fallout with its guns). Talking about abstract rules like DR and DT without considering why they would work like that, either by using something like physics to make an argument like I tried, or by using some important aspect of the desired outcome of the rules, of the abstraction used, misses the point of RPGs.

 

[motherfucker]

TLDR

In real life, there is 3 damage components to a bullet hit:

1. Penetration(DT)
2. Shock from the impact(DR)
3. Bullet breaking up and the fragments flying in your face(Usually not portrayed since it's easy to mitigate)

As a military/tacticool nerd I feel DT/DR is a decent approximation of what actually happens. Keep in mind it's not only about making it realistic, but also about making it fun, so the system should be easy to tweak(and therefore simple) and allow for a wide range of viable weapons. Imagine a firearms game in which anything aside from 5.45/5.56 sucks balls.

Since we're here, what I feel could be a noteworthy addition is varying the damage impact of a hit. Bone/organ damage and what not. Easy to implement, too, I mentioned Rimworld before, it does that as well.

 

[Chippy]

TLDR

In real life, there is 3 damage components to a bullet hit:

1. Penetration(DT)
2. Shock from the impact(DR)
3. Bullet breaking up and the fragments flying in your face(Usually not portrayed since it's easy to mitigate)

As a military/tacticool nerd I feel DT/DR is a decent approximation of what actually happens. Keep in mind it's not only about making it realistic, but also about making it fun, so the system should be easy to tweak(and therefore simple) and allow for a wide range of viable weapons. Imagine a firearms game in which anything aside from 5.45/5.56 sucks balls.

Since we're here, what I feel could be a noteworthy addition is varying the damage impact of a hit. Bone/organ damage and what not. Easy to implement, too, I mentioned Rimworld before, it does that as well.

Yes but the autism never ends. I remember my history teacher telling me at school that early firearms caused more damage because they rebounded off the human skeleton. Do we put that in as well? THen there was that film with Mark Wahlberg when he was a solldier in the middle east, and they said infection from bullets was more dangerous than being shot.

So I'd agree with you that the priority needs to be on fun. And you mitigate facts and realism by making games with cyborgs and regenerative mutants that can get shot by miniguns for several minutes and walk away as long as their health wasn't depleted below 1 hit point and they have 1 reneration per round.

Unfortunately this guy ended up in the driving seat for some reason.

 

[motherfucker]

So I'd agree with you that the priority needs to be on fun. And you mitigate facts and realism by making games with cyborgs and regenerative mutants that can get shot by miniguns for several minutes and walk away as long as their health wasn't depleted below 1 hit point and they have 1 reneration per round.

Unfortunately this guy ended up in the driving seat for some reason.

I mean, there is certainly a method to Sawyer's autism, his only problem is he's a nogunz soyboy SJW BLM cumguzzler never goes far enough in his strive for realism. I'm gonna talk about modern infantry combat but I'm sure medieval stuff has its own aspects which would work similarly.
Suppose you got a RTWP system with combat similar to Wasteland 2(getting downed, bleed outs etc), except the damage is a lot higher so getting hit even once is dangerous. Then you add suppressing mechanics(accuracy penalty when being shot at) and lower base accuracy(nobody hits shit IRL).
At that point you basically have IRL combat which calls for IRL tactics, e.g. the tried and true "one shoots - other moves". If somebody gets downed, they need assistance ASAP, so somebody needs to get to them(they'll need fire support btw), drag them into cover and give them medical care. If a part of the squad gets pinned down, you'd have to concentrate fire on the assailants so the pinned guys can retreat.
So boom, with just a few number tweaks and fairly simple mechanics you got yourself a lot of intense but meaningful micro fit for a tactical RPG. I now realize I strayed too far from the original topic, whatever, my point is: you should by all means go for abstractions, but if you're going for an intricate system, then the less abstractions you got, the better. Way too often it is assumed that "realistic=unfun", but once you try it, you realize that the answer to unfun systems is more realism, not less.

 

[Alex]

TLDR

In real life, there is 3 damage components to a bullet hit:

1. Penetration(DT)
2. Shock from the impact(DR)
3. Bullet breaking up and the fragments flying in your face(Usually not portrayed since it's easy to mitigate)

As a military/tacticool nerd I feel DT/DR is a decent approximation of what actually happens. Keep in mind it's not only about making it realistic, but also about making it fun, so the system should be easy to tweak(and therefore simple) and allow for a wide range of viable weapons. Imagine a firearms game in which anything aside from 5.45/5.56 sucks balls.

Since we're here, what I feel could be a noteworthy addition is varying the damage impact of a hit. Bone/organ damage and what not. Easy to implement, too, I mentioned Rimworld before, it does that as well.

This is interesting, but I don't think the modelling in question for DR is appropriate. Again unless I don't understand the basics of the physics involved (which I am actually open, but I would like an explanation of how it fits with the model of the link I posted earlier. The issue here is that the total energy absorbed by the armour is not at all proportional to the initial energy, but rather a static value. What I think would be appropriate is if a percentage of the absorbed damage (DT) was in turn made into "shock", in which case a high DR could mean the armour is better not because it is able to absorb a fixed percentage of energy from the attack, but because a greater part of the absorbed energy would be "dissipated" harmlessly, without either hurting the user or messing with his aim. But I think "shock" is not modelled in Fallout anyway, so...

(...snip)

Yes but the autism never ends. I remember my history teacher telling me at school that early firearms caused more damage because they rebounded off the human skeleton. Do we put that in as well? (snip...)

But, being serious, I ask because I find the issue of modelling interesting, and I've actually been thinking about how damage could or should be represented in RPGs. Of course, you can't model everything, and in fact, how much you want to model into your game will vary wildly from game to game. But unless there is a good fictional reason for it, you probably shouldn't be adding concepts that don't match reality in first place. For instance, HPs in Fallout and most other games are a bad abstraction, without much thought or consistency about what a hit point is. The reasons have been talked about many times, how wounds don't really compound in a linear manner with each other, how someone with low HP shouldn't be able to run, aim and fight as well as someone who is in full health. How having hp increase with "levels" make it even worse; in fallout, the same drug that might bring back a character from the brink of death could, several levels later, fail to close up a skin deep wound for instance.

But despite all that, HP still makes sense in the sense that it allows attacks to compound in a way that is at least not outlandish, and allows for the kind of combat that we might like; at least in the sense that we want the player to be able to face several foes without much chance of him becoming paraplegic from any stray shot. If Fallout had a realistic wound and aiming system, that would change completely how the combat would need to be interacted with. Some might even prefer a game like that, but that is besides the point; my point is that it can make sense to use abstractions that don't reflect actual real world physics, but rather the "genre" of the game. I don't see much of an argument for percentual DR on this aspect either, though.

 

[motherfucker]

What I think would be appropriate is if a percentage of the absorbed damage (DT) was in turn made into "shock", in which case a high DR could mean the armour is better not because it is able to absorb a fixed percentage of energy from the attack, but because a greater part of the absorbed energy would be "dissipated" harmlessly, without either hurting the user or messing with his aim.

You're gonna laugh, but this is exactly what I talk about right before you linked your article:

DT/DR is sure nice, but how about DT/DT? Rimworld's CE mod has a system like this, basically there's sharp pen and blunt pen, and corresponding resistances for armor. Sharp pen gets checked first(a simple subtraction), and what is resisted is then converted into blunt pen and added to a blunt pen check. So partial penetration is possible, damage without penetration is possible(aforementioned fatigue from Van Buren), it's not even tied to damage. I wish a proper game tried a system like this.

Although it's worth mentioning that unless we're talking really small shrapnel/buckshot, any kind of shot taken to your vest will put you on your arse, the question is whether it's gonna be a broken rib, a serious bruise or something minor. So flat DT on absorbed energy will need some hardcore math to work properly(like an exponential function), thus DR is an acceptable simplification(imo). But nonetheless, as I said above, I think separating penetration and damage is the proper way, and then an organ system+bleeding can replace HP(you'd be surprised how few places in a human body are actually lethal). Fallout tried a bit of that with crippling, but it ended up being a silly gimmick more than anything else.

 

[Volourn]

RPG Armour doesn't need to be super complex.

At its most basic, D&D AC works fine. Through, dex maxes for heavier Armour or 2e Armour being better versus different weapon types works too.

If you want a 'deeper' armour system that works, FO does the job.

No need to get cute, and over the top.

KISS = keep it simple stupid

 

[ItsChon]

Underrail's DT/DR system is perfect, though its Dodge/Evasion system could use some work in regards to making it more viable. Dodge/Evasion improving armor along with perhaps adjusting the cap on how much you can lower THC% does the trick I think, along with collapsing it into one skill to make investing into it actually worth it.

I'm fine with AC, but I do think it's a simpler system than DR/DT, and it should be restricted to D&D/RTwP style games.

Sawyer is not nearly as smart or as intelligent as he thinks he is, what else is new.

 

[Zeriel]

It's quite brave of Josh to talk about improving systems when he's only ever made them worse. Perhaps he's hoping to one day achieve the impossible?

 

[vortex]

Armors are not really that important if combat is good. I wish Pentiment delivers that.

 

[Marte1980]

IMO the main point that allows the creation of compelling game systems, whatever they are (armor, damage types, damage formulae, combat mechanics, etc.), is that they should all absolutely respect the lore of the game, which should come first, instead of irrelevant concepts like balance. To explain what I mean by that, I could use FF Tactics as an example. In that game, there are characters and classes that completely destroy combat balance and the game ia absolutely better because of it. Nerfing God of Thunder Cid (or rather his class) to bring him in line with the others would have completely destroyed the lore of the game or, if they changed the lore to compensate, it would have simply neutered the player experience. Another example could be why D&D 2 to 3.5 are good systems, while 5 sucks. In a high fantasy setting, it makes absolutely sense that, in general, magical classes have an edge over the others. From a lore perspective, it's not an accident that Irenicus was a mage and not a normal fighter. The fact that some classes are objectively better than others also makes the world more believable. There are obviously different ways to respect the lore, which depend on the game as a whole too. For example, Age of Decadence is another game that has achieved that (IMO), by specializing classes towards different approaches to gameplay, making them very distinct (thus making sense), but still fun to play. In that game, a merchant is obviously much weaker than a mercenary at fighting, but that makes absolutely sense, because a merchant shouldn't really choose fighting as his main action to resolve a situation.

 

[Mangoose]

IMO the main point that allows the creation of compelling game systems, whatever they are (armor, damage types, damage formulae, combat mechanics, etc.), is that they should all absolutely respect the lore of the game, which should come first, instead of irrelevant concepts like balance. To explain what I mean by that, I could use FF Tactics as an example. In that game, there are characters and classes that completely destroy combat balance and the game ia absolutely better because of it. Nerfing God of Thunder Cid (or rather his class) to bring him in line with the others would have completely destroyed the lore of the game or, if they changed the lore to compensate, it would have simply neutered the player experience. Another example could be why D&D 2 to 3.5 are good systems, while 5 sucks. In a high fantasy setting, it makes absolutely sense that, in general, magical classes have an edge over the others. From a lore perspective, it's not an accident that Irenicus was a mage and not a normal fighter. The fact that some classes are objectively better than others also makes the world more believable. There are obviously different ways to respect the lore, which depend on the game as a whole too. For example, Age of Decadence is another game that has achieved that (IMO), by specializing classes towards different approaches to gameplay, making them very distinct (thus making sense), but still fun to play. In that game, a merchant is obviously much weaker than a mercenary at fighting, but that makes absolutely sense, because a merchant shouldn't really choose fighting as his main action to resolve a situation.

You craft your lore to your gameplay. The player experience is defined by highly involved interaction with the damn game - this is not a visual novel - so gameplay always fucking matters in a game. Hire a good writer to handle this shit ffs

The reason FO and PST are highly welcomed is because the a good bulk of the gameplay is non-combat. If FO and PST were combat-heavy, they would be the shittiest RPGs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's quite brave of Josh to talk about improving systems when he's only ever made them worse. Perhaps he's hoping to one day achieve the impossible?

He's good at recognizing problems but absolutely terrible at fixing them.

 

[Zeriel]

If you can't fix the "problem", maybe it's not a problem at all.

 

[luj1]

He's good at recognizing problems

No evidence for this whatsoever