How does this compare to armour hardening?

As far as I know the game mechanics have never been fully explained, but based on my understanding I believe there are a few errors here.



Calculating the damage reduction with one hardener in effect is easy enough.

1*(1-.6)=.4

The second hardener will apply to whatever damage got through the first. Using .87 as the stacking penalty mod

.4*(1-.6*.87)=0.1912

Which isn't really a huge difference, but it's a difference.

The bigger factor is that those hardeners can only be active for (with max skills) 30 seconds at a time. Then they're on cooldown for 45 seconds (max skills, prototype mod). So pretty much in keeping with CCP's vision of making vehicles very strong for thirty seconds, and then they die.



Doubling up on armor hardeners gives you about a 60% resistance. So instead of turning 1000 hp into 5000 ehp like a shield hardener, it'd turn it into 2500 ehp. On the plus side, it can do it for longer. In fact, with max skills the prototype hardener has a shorter cooldown than activation time, so if you're running two of them you can alternate and always have at least one running. It should also be noted that there is typically much more armor to harden.

this is why i love this community. there aren't too many other game forums where people use math like this. i (being a nerd myself) enjoy nerd talk.

The maths is correct. (EDIT: Nope, not the bit about double hardeners but the method of getting EHP from resist values is - Derp.)

However, there is still some ambiguity as to what the listed multiplier for armour and shield hardeners actually is, it could either be damage reduction (ie. a listed value of 0.4 results in 40% resists, actual damage = incoming damage * [1 - 0.4]) or a damage multiplier (ie. a listed value of 0.4 results in 60% resists, actual damage = incoming damage * 0.4).

In practice it means that we're not quite sure what value armour and shield hardeners will get - we know that one gets 40% resists and the other 60%, and we think that shields get 60% and armour 40% - but it could easily be the other way around.

After examining the math more accurately, I think you're right, but that CCP hasn't published if the resistance modifier is applied to the attack or the shields/armour. That is where the value needed to overcome the shields would change.

Go tanks!

These are active, right?

So my Sica can only be survivable for like thirty seconds right?

Sad Panda.

Maybe, but I might be too, unless CCP tells us we need a large amount of data to extrapolate the real effects! We can meet up in game to test it prehaps?

It would make sense, but when running tests, the math lines up with the modifier being applied to the shield value, and not the attack.

ie. my Limbus takes about 4 shots from a proto swarm with no damage modules, at 20% shield and 50% armour resistance. According to your math, it should take more like 7-8. But then maybe I'm looking at it wrong.