12-01-2023, 07:25 PM
Damage Reduction
Damage Reduction (DR) is a simple game mechanic in which you subtract an amount from the damage that your ship is about to receive before applying the results. This stat is a representation of the Armor Belt from the Star Strike rules. The Armor Belt is defined as:
“An Armor Belt is normally composed of depleted uranium or similarly dense matter. It may also be made up of materials identical to that of the (hull). In any case, Armor Belts do not subtract from the volume available for installations inside of the vessel.”
The interesting thing to note here is that the Armor Belt doesn’t use up any of the available ship’s volume (the basic equivalent in Star Strike to the Silent Death slots). For the design system that Star Strike is using, this makes a lot of sense. If we think of a ship’s hull as a glass jar, the armor would be similar to an insulating wrap put around it to keep whatever is inside protected (whether from the glass shattering or from a warm sun trying to cause the cold contents to heat up). The wrap doesn’t affect how much or what the jar can hold inside it, it just exists on the outer edge. It was the right thing for Star Strike, not necessarily for Silent Death.
This Armor Belt also had a completely different effect on the game. The Armor Belt provided two different stat bonuses in Star Strike: Defensive Bonus and Hit Points. At the cost of making the ship more expensive to purchase, the ship would be harder it hit in the first place (Defensive Bonus or in Silent Death, Defensive Value) and last longer (Hit Points or in Silent Death, Hit Boxes).
In Silent Death: Metal Express (SD:ME), we get the following definition:
“The Damage Reduction number, on the other hand, represents the presence of various levels of armor plating. The thicker, or more protective the armor, the higher the Damage Reduction.”
As you can see, the definition is strictly one of armor plating and nothing else. While in Silent Death: The Next Millenium (SD:TNM) we get a couple of different definitions. The first from page 56 of the SD:TNM:
“Damage Reduction
Just because you’ve hit a ship doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually damaged it. All ships have some sort of ablative armor tacked onto their hulls, and many also have electronic shields designed to protect themselves against attacks.
To reflect this, each ship has a Damage Reduction value. This appears in a diamond in the upper right side of the hex.”
Here we see mention of not only of the armor, but also a mention of electronic shields. However this is a little different than what we see on page 83 of the same book:
“The Damage Reduction represents the ship’s armor and its hull’s toughness. Once the ship’s defensive screens and shields are beaten, the hull is the only thing protecting a ship’s crew.”
With this we see that the DR is still the ship’s armor, but now also its hull’s toughness. Additionally we are now talking about how those are the only things left after the ship’s defensive screens and shield are beaten, effectively taking them out of the equation again.
From all of this you can see how the definition of this stat, much like that of the Defensive Value, changes depending not only on which book you look at, but also where in the book you look. At the end of the day, the one consistent thing is that DR represents a ship’s armor.
When it came time to convert stats from Star Strike to Silent Death, the Damage Reduction was converted at a rate of +5 Armor Belt Bonus = 1 Damage Reduction. This appears to have held true for 6 of the 7 ships under 700-tons that were converted (Shryak Shuttle had a +20 Armor Belt bonus but a 5 DR). For the 4 ships above 700-ton, it appears the first +5 Armor Belt Bonus is subtracted and the remainder is converted.
With all of the background done, let’s look at the numbers. As always, we begin with putting the numbers into a spreadsheet. The numbers for the SPAC, TPAC, and Scout vessels all appear to match up. The lone outlier is the Shuttle, but only as it relates to slots, the cost values still line up with the other 400-ton craft. Unlike the Defensive and Drive Values, there doesn’t appear to be any break between a cheaper and a more expensive version of Damage Reduction.
I’ve put all of the Damage Reduction cost values (except for the Shuttle template) into the chart below.
The basic formula in use here is fairly simple and straightforward. Take the tonnage times the Damage Reduction Value and multiple that result by 0.005. Then take the final result and round it up to the nearest whole number. The lone oddity is the 50-ton, DR value of 1 with a cost of 0. This could be due to a need to make the 50-ton fighter line have a little more variance in it, resulting in a manual override of 0.
It is possible that there is an alternate formula in play here. If you instead round the result to the nearest whole number (as opposed to always rounding up), you can account for the 0 value in the 50-ton, DR of 1 line. This creates a situation where, in order to hit the 50-ton, DR of 5 cost (cost = 2), you must multiply the final result by 1.5. This creates a scenario where we have the beginning of a cheaper and more expensive Damage Reduction, very similar to the situation found in the Defensive Values and Drive Values. The only problem I see with this theory is that I cannot find any evidence in any of the other DR costs or slots for such a mechanic.
Jumping over to slots, we can see that again, things line up really well for the SPAC, TPAC, and Scout templates. As mentioned earlier, the slot values are different for the Shuttle templates. For Shuttles, the slots have a value that is ¼ that of SPACs and TPACs. We will set the issue of Shuttles aside for now and look at our chart.
As with many things related to this game, we are incredibly close to a perfect match, but just not quite. The formula that is used here is simple and straightforward. Take the tonnage times the Damage Reduction value, multiply that by 0.005 and multiple the result by 2. Finally, round up to the nearest whole number. Basically the slots are twice that of the cost.
Of course you will note that ugly orange number hanging out in the 50-ton line. I believe this is another instance of a manual override for the sake of having different numbers. According to the calculations, the slots number should actually be 2. This would leave us with a 50-ton DR 3 having a cost/slot value pair of 1/2 and a DR 4 also having a 1/2. The change allows us to have (in a visual chart anyway) two unique value pairs (1/2 and 1/3). The programmer in me is screaming that an override like this is not a good thing, but when the expectation is that someone will only make ships of the given tonnage on the charts – I guess I can kind of understand it (maybe).
It looks like Gunboats and Freighters match up incredibly well. However these hulls do present some interesting issues. On the surface, you can see that they have four damage tracks and so they need for instances of Damage Reduction on the ship. If you simply extend the basic formulas used for fighters and divide them by 4, you get the following cost values.
As you can see, we end up with four numbers that are orange, or not quite right. When running the formulas, the result ends up being one number bigger than the expected result. This hints at some missing component to the formula, one that is needed to shrink the result just a little bit, but not so much as to throw off the other results. To give you an idea of how touchy this can be, if we were to instead round the results to the nearest whole number (as opposed to rounding up), it does fix a few of the orange values, but it also creates more errors in the process. We end up losing more than we gain.
When we look at the slots chart, we can see a lot of matching (green) numbers in the upper left side of the chart. These numbers follow the same formula used for fighter slots, just divided by four. The numbers that are shown in orange come up a number higher than expected on the chart. However the numbers that are in yellow resolve to one less than the expected result.
To be honest, Gunboat damage reduction numbers are among the most frustrating sets of numbers that I’ve tried to replicate from the Next Millennium book. After all of the hours (days and weeks) I’ve spent on this set of numbers, I’m convinced of two things. 1) There is at least one, if not two, extra factors in the calculations that I’m missing and unable to figure out. 2) Rounding is again an incredibly important component in how these numbers are produced (both in how often things are rounded as well as when and how). I have tried so many different formulas, variables, and options that I’ve lost track of them and I’m certain I’ve repeated my tests at least 4 or 5 times.
If anyone out there has any insights into these or any other formulas they come across, please let me know. I really want to figure this out some day!!
For more information on this little obsession, please scroll through this forum for the following topics:
DSCR - Ship Defensive Values
DSCR - Ship Drives
THANKS
Damage Reduction (DR) is a simple game mechanic in which you subtract an amount from the damage that your ship is about to receive before applying the results. This stat is a representation of the Armor Belt from the Star Strike rules. The Armor Belt is defined as:
“An Armor Belt is normally composed of depleted uranium or similarly dense matter. It may also be made up of materials identical to that of the (hull). In any case, Armor Belts do not subtract from the volume available for installations inside of the vessel.”
The interesting thing to note here is that the Armor Belt doesn’t use up any of the available ship’s volume (the basic equivalent in Star Strike to the Silent Death slots). For the design system that Star Strike is using, this makes a lot of sense. If we think of a ship’s hull as a glass jar, the armor would be similar to an insulating wrap put around it to keep whatever is inside protected (whether from the glass shattering or from a warm sun trying to cause the cold contents to heat up). The wrap doesn’t affect how much or what the jar can hold inside it, it just exists on the outer edge. It was the right thing for Star Strike, not necessarily for Silent Death.
This Armor Belt also had a completely different effect on the game. The Armor Belt provided two different stat bonuses in Star Strike: Defensive Bonus and Hit Points. At the cost of making the ship more expensive to purchase, the ship would be harder it hit in the first place (Defensive Bonus or in Silent Death, Defensive Value) and last longer (Hit Points or in Silent Death, Hit Boxes).
In Silent Death: Metal Express (SD:ME), we get the following definition:
“The Damage Reduction number, on the other hand, represents the presence of various levels of armor plating. The thicker, or more protective the armor, the higher the Damage Reduction.”
As you can see, the definition is strictly one of armor plating and nothing else. While in Silent Death: The Next Millenium (SD:TNM) we get a couple of different definitions. The first from page 56 of the SD:TNM:
“Damage Reduction
Just because you’ve hit a ship doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually damaged it. All ships have some sort of ablative armor tacked onto their hulls, and many also have electronic shields designed to protect themselves against attacks.
To reflect this, each ship has a Damage Reduction value. This appears in a diamond in the upper right side of the hex.”
Here we see mention of not only of the armor, but also a mention of electronic shields. However this is a little different than what we see on page 83 of the same book:
“The Damage Reduction represents the ship’s armor and its hull’s toughness. Once the ship’s defensive screens and shields are beaten, the hull is the only thing protecting a ship’s crew.”
With this we see that the DR is still the ship’s armor, but now also its hull’s toughness. Additionally we are now talking about how those are the only things left after the ship’s defensive screens and shield are beaten, effectively taking them out of the equation again.
From all of this you can see how the definition of this stat, much like that of the Defensive Value, changes depending not only on which book you look at, but also where in the book you look. At the end of the day, the one consistent thing is that DR represents a ship’s armor.
When it came time to convert stats from Star Strike to Silent Death, the Damage Reduction was converted at a rate of +5 Armor Belt Bonus = 1 Damage Reduction. This appears to have held true for 6 of the 7 ships under 700-tons that were converted (Shryak Shuttle had a +20 Armor Belt bonus but a 5 DR). For the 4 ships above 700-ton, it appears the first +5 Armor Belt Bonus is subtracted and the remainder is converted.
With all of the background done, let’s look at the numbers. As always, we begin with putting the numbers into a spreadsheet. The numbers for the SPAC, TPAC, and Scout vessels all appear to match up. The lone outlier is the Shuttle, but only as it relates to slots, the cost values still line up with the other 400-ton craft. Unlike the Defensive and Drive Values, there doesn’t appear to be any break between a cheaper and a more expensive version of Damage Reduction.
I’ve put all of the Damage Reduction cost values (except for the Shuttle template) into the chart below.
The basic formula in use here is fairly simple and straightforward. Take the tonnage times the Damage Reduction Value and multiple that result by 0.005. Then take the final result and round it up to the nearest whole number. The lone oddity is the 50-ton, DR value of 1 with a cost of 0. This could be due to a need to make the 50-ton fighter line have a little more variance in it, resulting in a manual override of 0.
It is possible that there is an alternate formula in play here. If you instead round the result to the nearest whole number (as opposed to always rounding up), you can account for the 0 value in the 50-ton, DR of 1 line. This creates a situation where, in order to hit the 50-ton, DR of 5 cost (cost = 2), you must multiply the final result by 1.5. This creates a scenario where we have the beginning of a cheaper and more expensive Damage Reduction, very similar to the situation found in the Defensive Values and Drive Values. The only problem I see with this theory is that I cannot find any evidence in any of the other DR costs or slots for such a mechanic.
Jumping over to slots, we can see that again, things line up really well for the SPAC, TPAC, and Scout templates. As mentioned earlier, the slot values are different for the Shuttle templates. For Shuttles, the slots have a value that is ¼ that of SPACs and TPACs. We will set the issue of Shuttles aside for now and look at our chart.
As with many things related to this game, we are incredibly close to a perfect match, but just not quite. The formula that is used here is simple and straightforward. Take the tonnage times the Damage Reduction value, multiply that by 0.005 and multiple the result by 2. Finally, round up to the nearest whole number. Basically the slots are twice that of the cost.
Of course you will note that ugly orange number hanging out in the 50-ton line. I believe this is another instance of a manual override for the sake of having different numbers. According to the calculations, the slots number should actually be 2. This would leave us with a 50-ton DR 3 having a cost/slot value pair of 1/2 and a DR 4 also having a 1/2. The change allows us to have (in a visual chart anyway) two unique value pairs (1/2 and 1/3). The programmer in me is screaming that an override like this is not a good thing, but when the expectation is that someone will only make ships of the given tonnage on the charts – I guess I can kind of understand it (maybe).
It looks like Gunboats and Freighters match up incredibly well. However these hulls do present some interesting issues. On the surface, you can see that they have four damage tracks and so they need for instances of Damage Reduction on the ship. If you simply extend the basic formulas used for fighters and divide them by 4, you get the following cost values.
As you can see, we end up with four numbers that are orange, or not quite right. When running the formulas, the result ends up being one number bigger than the expected result. This hints at some missing component to the formula, one that is needed to shrink the result just a little bit, but not so much as to throw off the other results. To give you an idea of how touchy this can be, if we were to instead round the results to the nearest whole number (as opposed to rounding up), it does fix a few of the orange values, but it also creates more errors in the process. We end up losing more than we gain.
When we look at the slots chart, we can see a lot of matching (green) numbers in the upper left side of the chart. These numbers follow the same formula used for fighter slots, just divided by four. The numbers that are shown in orange come up a number higher than expected on the chart. However the numbers that are in yellow resolve to one less than the expected result.
To be honest, Gunboat damage reduction numbers are among the most frustrating sets of numbers that I’ve tried to replicate from the Next Millennium book. After all of the hours (days and weeks) I’ve spent on this set of numbers, I’m convinced of two things. 1) There is at least one, if not two, extra factors in the calculations that I’m missing and unable to figure out. 2) Rounding is again an incredibly important component in how these numbers are produced (both in how often things are rounded as well as when and how). I have tried so many different formulas, variables, and options that I’ve lost track of them and I’m certain I’ve repeated my tests at least 4 or 5 times.
If anyone out there has any insights into these or any other formulas they come across, please let me know. I really want to figure this out some day!!
For more information on this little obsession, please scroll through this forum for the following topics:
DSCR - Ship Defensive Values
DSCR - Ship Drives
THANKS
