Know your Damage Types

[Suricata79[IS]]

Whilst talking in new players a few days ago someone asked how you can tell what damage type a mob is using. I responded by letting them know that the colour of the numebrs indicates the damage type, immediatly a few people responded thanking me because they'd never realised this. I dug though my Archive's from live and found the colours as they were in live, hope this helps people when choosing what resists to use!

Plasma Damage, Does extra damage to shields, also has a DOT = Purple numbers

Chemical Damage, Does extra damage to hulls, also has a DOT = Green numbers

Explosive Damage, Mostly only missles = Red numbers

Impact Damage, Projectiles only = Dark yellow/orange numbers

EMP Damage, Drains shield and reactor (does not damage hulls IIRC) = White numbers

Energy Damage, Beams only = Blue numbers

I'm not sure if this is how is is on the Emulator, but thats how it was on Live atleast. Hope thats of help to some people :-)

[blattu]

this does help

thank you

[Vinzent Zeppelin[IS]]

As it is now, impact, energy and explosive all show up the same colour, yellow. To complicate matters, some mobs, especially higher-level ones, seem to use explosive beams. Something to watch out for.

[bondct]

while we are on the subject of damage types let me toss in my understanding of it (which could be dead on wrong) and maybe someone can fill in the missing spaces... cuz based on my understanding, I always wondered why getting in all the damage types was so hard...

Lets start out with... there is no such thing as explosive, plasma, emp, chemical... etc... its only mouse clicks and math in a virtual simulation so in the end, its really all just damage.. that said, lets also assume every shot hits for now, since hit/crit is a different subject...

I always thought that Explosive was the base damage type since all the damage was done at time of impact and that explosive would have a value of 1 (1 x the damage capacity of the weapon before modifiers).

All other damage types should just have a modifier above or below that to signify the characteristics of the weapon as to how it effects hull vs sheilds (so an emp weapon might be +2 shields and 0 hull). As for damage over time isnt that really just fire one missle get 3 free (or however many ticks) in the case of missles? I mean plasma or chemicals are not really eating the hull... so it would be something like (plasma=.25 for 4 ticks lets say AND auto fire time would be .25 of normal and repeat 4 times in the case of 4 ticks?)

well not being a coder that is how I kinda rationalized it... anyone?

[Suricata79[IS]]

while we are on the subject of damage types let me toss in my understanding of it (which could be dead on wrong) and maybe someone can fill in the missing spaces... cuz based on my understanding, I always wondered why getting in all the damage types was so hard...

Lets start out with... there is no such thing as explosive, plasma, emp, chemical... etc... its only mouse clicks and math in a virtual simulation so in the end, its really all just damage.. that said, lets also assume every shot hits for now, since hit/crit is a different subject...

I always thought that Explosive was the base damage type since all the damage was done at time of impact and that explosive would have a value of 1 (1 x the damage capacity of the weapon before modifiers).

All other damage types should just have a modifier above or below that to signify the characteristics of the weapon as to how it effects hull vs sheilds (so an emp weapon might be +2 shields and 0 hull). As for damage over time isnt that really just fire one missle get 3 free (or however many ticks) in the case of missles? I mean plasma or chemicals are not really eating the hull... so it would be something like (plasma=.25 for 4 ticks lets say AND auto fire time would be .25 of normal and repeat 4 times in the case of 4 ticks?)

well not being a coder that is how I kinda rationalized it... anyone?

The DPS if the different wepon types is about the same, its just how they do that damage, so a plasma or chemical attack will do 1 large bit of damage followed by a few small ticks afterwards. EMP, Chemical and Plasma all do better damage to certian systems, such as reactor, hull and shields which has to be factored in. So althoguh the base is pretty much the same for all damage types, how they actual apply it is what differs, which can be a big deal depending what types of mobs you are fighting. For example, biological mobs have no hulls, so plasma is generally better to use on them for the bonus damage.

The other thing to look out for is the damage numbers when you are attacking a mob, some obs have partial resists to some damage types and some have full resists. I can't remember if it was Tengu or Voltoi that were completely immune to impact damage for example.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was either impact or energy that hada chance of interupting a mobs skills as well?

[Tyran]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was either impact or energy that hada chance of interupting a mobs skills as well?

Plasma could also interrupt a mob's skill. The interrupt was caused by something taking a certain amount of it's max shield points in damage over a period of time. So explosive, energy and impact interrupted more often, but hitting low mobs with plasma had the same effect.

As for the way chem and plasma damage is applied. Plasma was 4 or 5 ticks, and chem was definitely one or two more ticks.

EMP did not do more than explosive damage. It's added effect, the drain reactor once shields are down, was devastating. Two shots of your typical type zet EMP ammo and a 5000energy reactor was down to zero. Useful in PvP perhaps but useless in PvE.

[Terrell [BT]]

The DPS if the different wepon types is about the same, its just how they do that damage, so a plasma or chemical attack will do 1 large bit of damage followed by a few small ticks afterwards. EMP, Chemical and Plasma all do better damage to certian systems, such as reactor, hull and shields which has to be factored in. So althoguh the base is pretty much the same for all damage types, how they actual apply it is what differs, which can be a big deal depending what types of mobs you are fighting. For example, biological mobs have no hulls, so plasma is generally better to use on them for the bonus damage.

The other thing to look out for is the damage numbers when you are attacking a mob, some obs have partial resists to some damage types and some have full resists. I can't remember if it was Tengu or Voltoi that were completely immune to impact damage for example.

Tengu were immune to Impact, Voltoi were immune to energy.

[Suricata79[IS]]

EMP did not do more than explosive damage. It's added effect, the drain reactor once shields are down, was devastating. Two shots of your typical type zet EMP ammo and a 5000energy reactor was down to zero. Useful in PvP perhaps but useless in PvE.

EMP was actually very useful in some PVE situations. When we did Bogeril raids on Pegasus we usualy had an EMP group whose main job was to keep the reactors on the mobs dry so they couldn't use special abilities, it really helped the effectiveness of the raid.

[Tyran]

EMP was actually very useful in some PVE situations. When we did Bogeril raids on Pegasus we usualy had an EMP group whose main job was to keep the reactors on the mobs dry so they couldn't use special abilities, it really helped the effectiveness of the raid.

I stand corrected, EMP is useless in PvE minus one raid

[pull4rise]

Explosive,Impact and energy were 1 big hit,semi-good for interrupting skills for mobs

Emp 1 big hit to shields and a bit of reactor when the shield was still up when the shield was down all dmg went to reactor,very good for interrupting skills

Plasma 5 hits as example when u did a 100 hit with plasma it was followed by 3 more 100 hits and a 50 hit at the end,not good for interrupting skills

Chemical 6 hits this type of dmg was very weird since it went for instance 100 the next hit 41 the one after that 220 and so on it went up and down,not good for interrupting skills

[ghent96]

Great post, Suri.

Supposedly, also in live:

Plasma was better vs shields & organics (burns them), weak vs hull & mech

Chem was better vs hulls and mechs (melts them), weak vs shield & organic

Explosive was better vs shields & mechs & damaging systems (concussive force), weak vs organic (too "soft" and bouncy)

Impact was better vs organics & hulls (punching holes in skin), weak vs shields

EMP was better vs shields & psi mobs (& reactor), weak vs everything else

Energy was slightly better vs shields & normal to everything else, slightly weak on hulls. If anything, maybe it is the "normal/base" damage type.

Interrupts were based on frequency of hit, damage amount, and hull remaining. This is why fast-firing beams were great, even for a JW, and why you were screwed on escape when your hull was low.

Now I know that may seem weird, if you realize that all mech mobs have both shield & hull, and all organics were only shields with no hull. That was a byproduct of original game mechanics, and how the server calculated damage. Supposedly all the resists were based on your shield. Once the shield is gone, so are all resists, and the hull takes more "normal" damage, unless it is impact or chem dmg, or a mech mob hit by explosive. On organics, they're all shield, but impact still works well on them (plasma best), because first & foremost they are organic mobs.

If we need a story of some sort to confer an unusual, non-standard resistance upon a mob, then that's always possible. BUT! The devs need to ask themselves why they want to do that, first. Is there a legit need, or is it on a whim, or because it sounds cool, or "because I said so"?

Edited May 21, 2010 by Ghent

[Falstar [MOD]]

The DPS if the different wepon types is about the same, its just how they do that damage, so a plasma or chemical attack will do 1 large bit of damage followed by a few small ticks afterwards. EMP, Chemical and Plasma all do better damage to certian systems, such as reactor, hull and shields which has to be factored in. So althoguh the base is pretty much the same for all damage types, how they actual apply it is what differs, which can be a big deal depending what types of mobs you are fighting. For example, biological mobs have no hulls, so plasma is generally better to use on them for the bonus damage.

Currently Plasma and Chem do the same base damage, it is just spread out. So lets say you have an explosive missile that does 96dmg (total including level bonus etc). if you change that same missile out with a Chemical would do 16 dmg/tick for 6 ticks to the sheilds. When it got to the hull it would do 16+modifier(2-4, more if the mob is debuffed). If you started out with Plasma, that missile would do 16+(2-4 or more depending on debuffs). Once it got to the hull, it would only do 16/tick and no bonus. So, if you use your missiles correctly, you could get 12-24(or more if debuffed) more damage per launch.

It would make more sense if it a larger portion of damage on impact, followed by the DOT effect, but at least currently that is not how it works.

Good post, I'd move it to the knowledgebase if there were an appropriate spot for it.

[bolt212]

Actually if I remember correctly, in live it was:

Energy/Impact/Explosive = yellow damage (The only way to tell the difference was whether you were getting hit by beams/projectiles/missiles)

Plasma = Purple

Chem = Green

EMP = white

CRITICAL = RED.

I don't remember any blue damage in live.

[Suricata79[IS]]

Gonna go though some of my videos and see if I can verify some of the more obscure damage types

Criticals did show as red, but not the damage, just the text 'Critical' would appear in red amongst the damage numbers.