[For bigtino] Thread about heavy armor

Time for some math!

Comparing the kevlar vest (SOAK 5) with the basic battlesuit (SOAK 8) against a skilled attacker (2d6 from skill for the damage), with both target and attacker being Grade 5... the battlesuit wins in pure damage numbers. Providing that the only relevant exploits the attacker has are Deadly Strike and Aim, no configuration of attack/aim/exchange for damage provides a higher expected damage value against the battlesuit than a different configuration against the kevlar vest for a single attack. Though for standing still and attacking twice (and having Deadly Strike), the kevlar vest does expect to receive a little less damage (combined 8,75 points versus 9,752 points).

My calculations do not take into account any special ammunition, but if the basics yield expected results, I would suggest it is the ammunition that needs to be looked at, not the basic armor rules.

Also, whether it is worth paying several times as much for heavy armor is a different question. It does leave the character more vulnerable to being tripped, disarmed, etc., but in exchange it offers several more upgrade slots. Perhaps, then, the way to equalize the armors is to create more cheap upgrades to highlight this capability of heavier armor. This would also combat the disparity between higher quality light armor and lower quality heavy armor, as each upgrade gets its price adjusted.

I love me some stats!

Looking at the numbers again, I noticed that there is single shot scenario where heavy armor is worse: a normal attack when the attacker does not have the option to Aim for some reason and does have Deadly Strike.

I'm going to see about crunching the numbers for some other scenarios later.

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Dalamar said:

Time for some math!

Comparing the kevlar vest (SOAK 5) with the basic battlesuit (SOAK 8) against a skilled attacker (2d6 from skill for the damage), with both target and attacker being Grade 5... the battlesuit wins in pure damage numbers. Providing that the only relevant exploits the attacker has are Deadly Strike and Aim, no configuration of attack/aim/exchange for damage provides a higher expected damage value against the battlesuit than a different configuration against the kevlar vest for a single attack. Though for standing still and attacking twice (and having Deadly Strike), the kevlar vest does expect to receive a little less damage (combined 8,75 points versus 9,752 points).

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Am I reading your PDF wrong then? It looks like any time you have a 50% (or less) chance of hitting the light-armored target, the heavy-armored target has higher expected damage. The example of Aim+Exchange+Deadly strike does an expected damage of 6.12 vs. heavy armor and only 2.23 vs. kevlar. More importantly, using just a regular attack + deadly strike, the person in heavy armor takes an expected 6.36 damage compared to only 5.25 in regular armor. This is a very important point of evidence that heavy armor isn't good enough.

raspberryfh said:

Am I reading your PDF wrong then? It looks like any time you have a 50% (or less) chance of hitting the light-armored target, the heavy-armored target has higher expected damage. The example of Aim+Exchange+Deadly strike does an expected damage of 6.12 vs. heavy armor and only 2.23 vs. kevlar. More importantly, using just a regular attack + deadly strike, the person in heavy armor takes an expected 6.36 damage compared to only 5.25 in regular armor. This is a very important point of evidence that heavy armor isn't good enough.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I have to agree here. I would hardly say these numbers support heavy armor. In the Aim and Aim/Deadly Strike category, the Battlesuit has a little over 1 less expected damage than the kevlar vest. That's the only time the Battlesuit actually outperforms the kevlar vest, and it isn't by much.

The other scenario where the battlesuit does better (aim and high ground) is just an attacker misreading the situation - they can simply choose to trade for damage and then have the same expected damage against the battlesuit as they would have against the kevlar vest without trading for damage.

I think what stands out to me, though, is the "Aim" category vs. the "Aim and Exchange" category. The only difference between these two categories is whether the attacker chooses to exchange to-hit dice for damage, which is an easy call to make depending one whether your target is wearing light or heavy armor.

Aim
-Without Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 1.7 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 1.1 more damage.

Aim and Exchange
-Without Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 2.5 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 3.9 more damage.

In fact, this can be done for any of these scenarios. The problem with that chart is that it considers all of the possibilities as equal, when in fact, most of them are just decisions that are pretty easy to make. "Is the target in heavy armor? I choose to exchange for damage." And the choice to pick when targeting a heavily armored foe almost always outperforms the choice to pick when targeting a lightly-armored foe. I've listed out the rest of the chart in the same way.

Normal Attack
-Without Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 0.11 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 1.11 more damage.

Normal Attack and Exchange
-Without Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 1.17 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 1.72 more damage.

Aim and High Ground
-Without Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 2.60 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 2.40 more damage.

Aim, High Ground, and Exchange
-Without Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 1.11 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 2.34 more damage.

Aim, High Ground, and Exchange Twice
-Without Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 2.03 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 2.74 more damage.

The only time heavy armor seems to actually outperform light armor is when the attacker has several situational advantages. But the kicker here is that, against a heavily armored target, the attacker could choose to attack twice instead of aim and attack, and then light armor once again comes out on top.

My conclusion here is that, given that the attacker chooses to exchange (or attack twice) against heavily armored targets and not exchange against lightly armored targets, all of the listed scenarios in that chart show the Kevlar Vest taking less damage, often in significant amounts.

raspberryfh said:

Am I reading your PDF wrong then? It looks like any time you have a 50% (or less) chance of hitting the light-armored target, the heavy-armored target has higher expected damage. The example of Aim+Exchange+Deadly strike does an expected damage of 6.12 vs. heavy armor and only 2.23 vs. kevlar. More importantly, using just a regular attack + deadly strike, the person in heavy armor takes an expected 6.36 damage compared to only 5.25 in regular armor. This is a very important point of evidence that heavy armor isn't good enough.

Click to expand...

While Aim+Exchange+Deadly Strike does more damage to the battlesuit, I don't think any attacker would do the exchange against the target in kevlar jacket. That means that when the attacker Aims (or has higher ground, since the odds are the same), the defender in kevlar expects to take 8,33 damage (for Aim+Deadly Strike) compared to the battlesuit's 6,12 (Aim+Exchange+Deadly Strike) or 7,23 (Aim+Deadly Strike) since those are the best results the attacker can expect against a given target in that situation. If the attacker can Aim or has higher ground, he will deal more damage against the target in kevlar vest. If he has high ground, he should definitely be firing twice instead of Aiming and firing once against either target.

I do admit missing the plain old attack with Deadly Strike on my comparisons, even though I noted that two regular attacks with one being Deadly Strike does lead to higher damage against the battlesuit. Not sure how I missed that.

bigtino said:

My conclusion here is that, given that the attacker chooses to exchange (or attack twice) against heavily armored targets and not exchange against lightly armored targets, all of the listed scenarios in that chart show the Kevlar Vest taking less damage, often in significant amounts.

Click to expand...

I agree with your premise, but not the conclusion you draw from it. If we take it for granted that the attacker knows the most optimal strategy for them to take in a given situation, then we should not be comparing the kevlar and battlesuit under the exact same modifiers. If the attacker has high ground, the different options available are: attack twice <-> Aim and attack once, and exchange <-> don't exchange.
The most optimal results against the target in kevlar comes from just shooting twice, resulting in a total of 11,12 damage, or 13,90 if they have Deadly Strike (which only applies on one attack per round).
The most optimal results against the target in battlesuit comes from shooting twice and exchanging, resulting in a total of 8,34 damage, or if they have Deadly Strike, shooting once without exchanging (to guarantee Deadly Strike) and shooting with exchanging, for a total of 11,40 damage.
If he chooses to Aim anyway, he should not exchange against the target in kevlar, so he expects to deal 6,57 damage, but should exchange against the battlesuit-wearer for an expected 6,36 damage.

So in that situation, the target wearing a kevlar jacket is expected to take more damage, provided the attacker does not do the stupid thing of exchanging attack for damage against someone in light armor.

As a side note, seeing as the kevlar jacket and battlesuit are within a couple of points of each other when the attacker does not exchange against the former but does exchange against the latter, it means that the defender wearing the battlesuit is less likely to suffer critical hits as the chance of triple-sixes also decreases.

Let's take out the situational modifiers then.

Comparing the damage of an attacker with deadly strike vs the two defenders you've used in your example...

If the attacker shoots twice at the light armored person, he will only connect once on average. His expected damage overall is 10.5.

If the attacker shoots twice at the heavily armored person, he is very likely to hit with both shots. His expected damage overall is 13.4.

In order to achieve about the same probability of actually hitting the target, the attacker tries aiming at the light-armored person. His expected damage then becomes 8.3.

Comparing the attack against a heavily armored person with either tactical decision that could be made against the person in kevlar, you still do more damage to the person in heavy armor. Heavy armor should provide better protection in almost all scenarios, not just the ones where your opponents have enough modifiers to profitably attack a light-armored person.

If you have a situational advantage, like high ground or crossfire, firing twice instead of aiming and firing is going to give mostly the same results as the "Aim" and "Aim and Exchange" - the only difference being you can only use Deadly Strike on one attack. Here are the results:

High Ground and Fire Twice
-Without Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 3.41 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 2.81 more damage.

High Ground, Fire Twice, and Exchange
-Without Deadly Strike, the Battlesuit takes 5.01 more damage.
-With Deadly Strike, the Kevlar Vest takes 6.40 more damage.

So again, if I see a target has heavy armor, I'm going to choose to exchange for damage, and the result is going to be considerably more expected damage than if I had fired at a lightly armored target and chosen not to exchange. The choice isn't tactical mastery, either - it should be, in-character, pretty easy to visually determine whether a target is wearing light or heavy armor, and the choice is obvious after that is determined.

But I agree with raspberryfh on the crux of the matter - heavy armor should protect its wearer better than light armor, and it simply doesn't. That the cheapest heavy armor costs twenty times as much as the most expensive (core) light armor just exacerbates that.

raspberryfh said:

Let's take out the situational modifiers then.

Comparing the damage of an attacker with deadly strike vs the two defenders you've used in your example...
[...]
Comparing the attack against a heavily armored person with either tactical decision that could be made against the person in kevlar, you still do more damage to the person in heavy armor. Heavy armor should provide better protection in almost all scenarios, not just the ones where your opponents have enough modifiers to profitably attack a light-armored person.

Click to expand...

Using these numbers, you've posited that in almost all scenarios, attackers will have Deadly Strike. I find that an odd supposition, seeing as there are numerous other exploits a character could have.
Likewise, this presumes that the attackers are skilled (2d6), equal Grade to the defender, and wielding one of the best rifles in the book.