Always wear protection....

New Charged Zynthonite C1 Armors

by: George Argyropoulos

a/k/a Dragon_Bane  

New in this raid is the Charged class of armors. There is some confusion about this and bits and pieces are floating around so I'll write a quick overview of it. I'll leave the comparative math out of it for now as that would depend heavily upon the targets that you would engage.

With new armors come new statistics. Let's look at them individually:

Charge Type - This is the type of damage that this armor will 'absorb'. Currently we have only two available; Explosive and Penetrative.

Armor Pool - This is the overall amount of damage which the armor can absorb before losing its 'charge'. Once this threshold is reached, damage is treated as normal towards your ship.

Damage Reduction - This is the amount of 'one-shot' damage the armor can absorb per projectile.

Minimum Damage - This is the minimum pass through damage that is imparted directly against your hull for each projectile absorption. There is no further mitigation of this damage. I believe this is the first time Kixeye has released minimum pass-through numbers.

For the examples following, we will use this mythical Zynthonite Charged C1-G Armor:

Charge Type: Unicorn
Armor pool: 10.000
Damage reduction: 100
Minimum Damage: 10

A few things to consider about this mechanic... The armor is now the first damage mitigating calculation after evade. In other words, resistances do not apply when calculating the absorbed damage. So, if you get hit by a Unicorn for 100 damage, 100 is absorbed and since the total is zero, 10 Minimum Damage is applied and that damage goes directly against your health. The Minimum Damage does not get treated to any other calculation. It does not get reduced by resistances, it does not get deflected, nothing. It is actual irrevocable damage.

If you get hit by a Unicorn for 200 damage, 100 is absorbed and the other 100 is then subject to the traditional damage calculations of resistance and deflection. Unlike the Minimum Damage, any damage that exceeds the absorption of the armor is calculated as damage normally would be. In other words, anything that exceeds the capacity of the one-shot absorption is treated as normal damage as if the armor did not exist.

You can stack the armors on a ship, but the only thing that compounds is the Armor Pool amount. You do not compound the Damage Reduction total. So if you had 2 C1-Gs above, you would have a total of 20,000 in your Armor Pool, but your Damage Reduction would still be 100.

The armor also does in fact re-charge. If you retreat from a battle and come back in, the armor will be recharged. And before anyone thinks they have a brilliant idea. No you can't use it to zombie a fleet and think this will work. The design team is not that stupid. The overall charge for each armor is directly tied to the percentage of health of the hull to which it is equipped. For example, if you are at half health, the Armor Pool is half of what it would normally be. In the example above, your Armor Pool would go from 10,000 to 5,000 if your ship was 50% damaged when combat started.

Additionally, the Damage Reduction is not a separate mechanic. Using the example above, if you enter the battle with only 10 health, your Damage Reduction will not be 100. It will be whatever is left in your Damage Pool.

This armor can NOT be used on conqueror hulls.

The armor WILL have a status bar showing the rate of depletion during combat.

And the last item on the list is the repair time. There is none. Zero. Zip. This is, of course, offset by the temporary nature of the armor. It can be used up, and quickly if you are facing a high DPS hull. It is lighter than the D5 equivalents as well and looks to be an interesting addition to the toolbox.