[Help Request] Understanding mitigation?

U should test it. It may be that the mitigation goes up when the round hits the target, even thou the damage has already been calculated at the begining of the shot and the fate of the ship is already decided.

I've created a spreadsheet (so has amish) to take account increasing and decreasing mitigation, hull and shield regen between fire, and damage  decrease due to armor and shield mitigation (and combo of) and still can not get it to follow actual results. 

Spreadsheets say that assailants should win in 1v1.  Theres a missing factor that I'm not getting that allows a lum to win with 200+ hp

Have you factored in passive regeneration rates on the shields/hull?

The previous thread is found here:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/365992

Amish's spreadsheet takes into account shield regen, hull repair, armor, and shield mitigation.  I found it hard to play with, because it appears to be hand calculated, but maybe it's just because OO Calc can't open the file correctly.  I don't think JJ posted his spreadsheet yet, but his post seem to indicate that it was the case.

Not sure what the conclusions are exactly, but here are the problems encountered thus far:

1. Neglecting all reduction and regeneration, assailant should win by ~20s. (JJ, opening post).  Does not predict the right winner.

2. Taking into account hull repair, shield regen, armor, and shield mitigation; and adding a 2s delay to mitigation decrease, illum wins by ~150 health (Amish, reply #7).  Does not predict the winner shield mitigation numbers.

3. Taking into account hull repair, shield regen, and shield mitigation only, assailant should win by ~20s (with_an_e, reply #9).  Does not predict the right winner.

The test appear to indicate that shield mitigation is based on damage prior to shield mitigation and armor rather than the reduced number.

It's possible that the developers don't really want the players to know the precise game mechanics, possibly to discourage long theorycraft discussions or to reserve the ability to make tweaks to the system without making large chunks of user knowledge obsolete.

I've calculated damage done to shield with mitigation, shield and hp regen, mitigation increase and decrease (with and without mitigation lag before mitigation decreasing), combo damage of shield and hp,

I first tried just using excel simulation but when comparing with actual results its way off. I have tried to adjust mitigation decrease lag without success. Tried damage mitigation after and before increase in mitigation. Also took a shot with damage not being mitigated after reaching hull. Nothing seems to work

In actual simulation it took the lum 21 shots to take out the assailants with 200+ hp remaining.  Lum shield mitigation was around 51% before destruction and assailants was 41%.

I would just like to understand how mitigation works exactly

Me and my calculator still do not make sense of what it being noticed ingame. I too predic the assailant winnig in a 1v1.

mitigation is the game developer's method to keeping us in the dark...

herm... what if armor is applied to damage before shield mitigation? i know that makes no sence... but were running out of combinations, right?  (in other words... reduce the damage by 5%, and THEN do the shield mitigation up by 10 damage, down by 1.25% thing.

or... mabye armor does not apply while the shields are still up? would make more sence...

herm... what if armor is applied to damage before shield mitigation? i know that makes no sence... but were running out of combinations, right?  (in other words... reduce the damage by 5%, and THEN do the shield mitigation up by 10 damage, down by 1.25% thing.

or... mabye armor does not apply while the shields are still up? would make more sence...

Are you guys testing with stock ships, or with some upgrades? Maybe Assailants just suck w/o the phase-missile upgrades... could be design. Are you adjusting for who gets the first shot? Is rate of fire equal? What about the side beams, does the AI utilize them at all (to fire between forward beam recharges)? Are you testing in game or just going by statistics from a file (maybe stats don't tell the whole formula)? Maybe there's a bug in the code that determines how dmg is applied?

Sorry that I can't really help you guys math things out, but mebbe if I throw bulk comments at you it will make something click in your brains. If you want me to stop, just say the word.

-Itharus

They each have 2 armor, which is a armor reduction factor of 1/(1+2*0.05)=1/1.1=0.909090... round to 0.909*78=70.9 damage per shot, or 7.09 shield mitigation per shot.  That would be less than the 6*1.25=7.5 shield mitigation decrease over time, meaning the illum's shield mitigation should decrease around 0.4% per shot while the assailant hits the illum's armor.  This would bias the test toward the assailant.  We need factors that bias toward illum.

Armor not applying is how RA made his chart.

Dont try to understand it, just disable it :D 

I have done so (also increased ship HPs a little bit to compensate) and I think the game is better without it, more action packed and less complicated and unrealistic, and and most importantly the battles dont take eons like before ( I actually see more than one explosion at a time ), but still you are able to retreat or call reinforcements in time ( without mitigation its just a matter of dmg/hp ratio)...

Interesting.  I'd never thought of playing it with the mitigation disabled, which would put Advent at a huge disadvantage.  Is there a mod out there for that?

Most of these guys only play it online, so the chances of their ever playing a modded game like that are very slim, unfortunately.  Even the Go Big or Go Home capital ships only mod never took off and custom maps are rarely played.  Sadly, onilne multiplayer just doesn't have the player counts that this game deserves and thus can't really support an active online multiplayer modded games and custom maps community.  Many people tire of the AI and desire real opponents, which is why they play online; come join the fun sometime and see what playing with real teammates and opponens might be like. 

Yet another shameless plug for MP by Dirty!!!!!

Of what Ive seen look at the increase it seems to happen after based on the infocard. But Im not sure how reliable that is. 

Has the distance between the ships been factored in? you have to remember that illums hit a target once they fire and assailants have slooooow missles...

Actually, I've always thought that the way mitigation works sounds far more realistic than having a big impenetrable energy bubble blocking physical objects.

It's quite possible to run a charge through the hull of a ship (or any material), we do it now. It can help shield from certain types of radiation/other charges. It's kinda like polarizing a thing. Shield Mitigation as we know it is just some charge they've discovered that they can tweak the harmonics of to essentially reorganize the material a bit (or just fill the empty spaces) at a subatomic level that strengthens the armor so long as the current is in place... they alter that current to fit the weapon impacts and blah blah to increase the dmg resistance.

Anyhoo... /sidetrack

I have modded it myself its not that hard thing to do. Just set it to steady base value with no increase or decrease. That way you can also indirectly alter all ship hps by changing the value. The only thing you may need is to increase hps of capitals/battlestations a little bit, because they lost their higher miti advantage and maybe buff the advent up.

I wonder, what is the purpose of mitigation anyway... The game is more fun and dynamic without it I think. And whats wrong with concentrating fire on one target? (thats what devs were trying to prevent probably).. It wont put anyone at an advantage, everyone can do it and its not overslowing the gameplay down and unrealistic like miti... I dont think this kind of tweaking is needed or worth it...

Maybe I will upload the mod when I get to my home computer. It also includes better ship movements physics (decreased max speed, increased maneuverability, acceleration and turn rate to make at least some tactical maneuvers possible.. It now feels little bit more like Tiberian Sun, not orbiter.. But its better gameplay-wise I think..)

Actually, I would predict that removing mitigation would put vasari at the greatest disadvantage.  Shield mitigation applies equally to damage done to shields and to hull.  Removing it will make both shields and hull deplete at a faster rate.  The only advantages Advent would lose are 1. a late game research that increases their max shield mitigation by 4%, which is about a 10% damage reduction for frigates and structures and around 12% for capital ships. 2. marginally total shields regenerated because battles are now shorter.  Compare this to what the Vasari would lose.  Currently, they can have phase missiles that give up to 30% penetration, which increases their damage output by over 30% because it also ignores mitigation.  Removing shield mitigation means the first 6 phase missiles research are worthless against any ship that has less than a 7:3 shield:hull ratio, i.e. they're worthless against anything except guardians.

with_an_e, for some reason that just triggered the most random ass thought in my head.

Why is it that phase missiles travel so slowly to their target? They are PHASE missiles, they enter phase space and pop out just before hitting the target without bothering to deccelerate, right? But the dang things move soooooo slowly in-game.

Which leads me to ask this: Is the damage applied the moment the phase missile fires? Or does it take travel time into account and apply the damage when the projectile hits the target? If the latter, then imo, therein lay the problem. Speed up those missiles!

Edited for spelling with_an_e's name wrong.

I think that the damage is calculated at the time the burst is fired, but then the damage is applied in one of two ways-

BACKLOADED and OVERTIME. BACKLOADED damage types will apply damage after all particle effects for a weapon burst have hit the target, OVERTIME will apply the damage incrementally as the particles hit the target. OVERTIME is usually used on beam weaponry in the game, though the Advent SB's laser batteries have OVERTIME damage, so do the Orky's Disintegrators.

Wouldn't that explain it then?

Mitigation goes up the more damage you receive, right? If the advent is doing the dmg over time, it's coming in smaller increments, so wouldn't the mitigation increase on the target be smaller? Where as the Vasari chunk hits hard all at once, and so is subjected to a higher mitigation... no?

Ok, here is how it works in the most detail you could possibly ask for - the actual code.

First, everytime there is a damage application, the following is called:

void IDamage::UpdateShieldBonusGrowth(float totalDamage)
{
 if((IPlayerOwned::GetEntityPlayerOwnerIndex(thisEntity) != -1) && (thisEntity->GetIDamagePtr()->GetMaxShieldPoints() > 0.f))
 {
  const PlayerShieldData& playerShieldData = thisEntity->GetIPlayerOwnedPtr()->GetPlayer()->GetIPlayerPtr()->GetDef()->shieldData;
  m_shieldBonus += playerShieldData.shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage * shieldDamage;
  float max = this->GetPreBuffMaxShieldMitigation();
  assert(max < 1.f);
  m_shieldBonus = Math::Min(m_shieldBonus, max);
  assert(Math::IsFinite(m_shieldBonus));
 }
}

Then on a regular schedule, the following is called:

void IDamage::UpdateShieldBonusDecay(float timeElapsed)
{
 startProfiler(_T("UpdateShieldBonusDecay"));
 if(IPlayerOwned::GetEntityPlayerOwnerIndex(thisEntity) != -1)
 {
  const PlayerShieldData& playerShieldData = thisEntity->GetIPlayerOwnedPtr()->GetPlayer()->GetIPlayerPtr()->GetDef()->shieldData;
  m_shieldBonus -= playerShieldData.shieldAbsorbDecayRate * timeElapsed;
  float min = playerShieldData.shieldAbsorbBaseMin;
  m_shieldBonus = Math::Max(m_shieldBonus, min);
 }
 stopProfiler();
}

We <3 you blair!!!

edit... now... what are the values of those constants... and what are those functions called do...

hmm I would make more sence out of it in math equation form.

But from what i think I can understand is that it increases 1% and lowers 1%..... I think. Just some of those lines i have never seen before. Anyone else mae any sense of this?