So how does defense work now?

I'm struggling to work it out, and can't find any info that matches what I'm actually seeing in beta 6.

So I thought attacker and defender would roll 1-8 if their attack/defense was 8.
Then simply subtract the attack from the defense score = damage done.

However that's clearly not what I'm seeing in the numbers in battle.

I just had a battle where my 3 ships took a lot of missile hits, all defended and showing 0-8 damage in orange (I had 12 defense, attacker had 16 - there were only a few hits)
And yet, none of them actually took any damage.
Then there was a red figure of 16 where it actually took 16 damage.

Even more strange, the defender had 8 kinetic armour, against my 4 attack.
I had many 0-4 damage hits, all in orange and doing 0 actual damage, then after 7 hits it's like he had no armour.. Every hit there after was only in red and started actually doing damage.

7 hits doesn't match the 8 armour, and the total damage added up to much more than 8 - but assuming the armour was destroyed, hence having no further effect - there was a chain of at least 6 hits, all fully damaging.
It also didn't show the little armour symbol in the middle any more.

So can anyone shed any light on it?
I'm assuming it's working as intended, but it's hard to tell.

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it seems to me that defences act like extra hit points that get taken off first if they match the weapon type of the attacker.

They seem to absorb all damage until completely depleted and then damage applies to the hull.

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Hm yes I've just done some really good testing.

- Attacks ALWAYS seem to do their max damage against a lack of any defense.
- Defense does roll to see how much damage it reduces.
- It 'seems' to subtract that damage from the defense strength (for that battle only, not permanently)
- Even if you only have 1 point of defense left and take say 50 damage to it, you still wont receive any damage, it will only reduce the defense to 0.

Think that about sums it up

Some odd bits..
- It doesn't always subtract the correct amount - Just now I took 10 defense damage and yet 11 was taken off..
- 0 damage sometimes subtracts 1 defense, sometimes nothing at all (maybe that's by design)

One thing I take from this..
- Having a REALLY high defense could be pretty good in that it will barely take any damage each hit, compounding the advantage.
Although that ship will likely be attacked last since it wont have much threat trading off all the weapons to fit the defense.

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Quoting CreepyD,

reply 2

Some odd bits..

- It doesn't always subtract the correct amount - Just now I took 10 defense damage and yet 11 was taken off..
- 0 damage sometimes subtracts 1 defense, sometimes nothing at all (maybe that's by design)

I strongly suspect that these are rounding issues. The UI only shows whole numbers for damage and HP, but I suspect that the game itself is tracking fractional values that are just being rounded for display.

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Weapons are only stopped by their corresponding defense - mass drivers/armor, missiles/point defense, beams/shields. Defenses are worthless against two of the three weapons, and damage is very tedious to repair. It's also impossibly expensive to 'refit' your ships if you have, say, shields and need point defense, so that means taking the time to research, the time to build and the time to fly your ship to the combat zone - or just accepting that your ships have effectively no defenses and will take massive damage in every attack. Hence, attacking a starbase or a shipyard is going to cost you, even if you have researched good weapons, a bigger hull and a stout defense - unless you research ALL THREE defenses, in which case you have to give up having a drive or having weapons.

A handy mod would give a defense some value against two weapons and full ability against the third. It's not like you would expect, say, armor to be ignored by a missile or a beam. "Hmmmmmmmm. That missile looks nasty. I'll just stand aside and wait for a mass driver to hit me. if the people in the ship get killed, well, too bad for them - it's just not my job."

The best current strategy seems to be to load up on weapons and not carry any defense at all, making them effectively disposable one-shots. Bet that raises crew morale.

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