found some more info about the new armors in the combat upgrade.

greetings Alas.

Combat Upgrade Armor System

Overview

The goal of the Combat Upgrade armor system is to encourage players to use all of the different types of armor; by making them both part of the overall upgrade and to keep them competitive.

For the combat upgrade to be successful we must change the way armor functions in SWG. We will also upgrade some outstanding issues with the entire crafting process. The goals driving the changes to armor in the combat upgrade are:

• We want to normalize the degree of protection that armor provides as well as add a heightened incorporation of factional armor into the field of play.
  
  
• We want armor to protect players, while at the same time providing a series of tactical choices that should be made prior to combat.
  
  
  
• We would like to distinguish combat roles through armor appearances by the use of various hindrances and profession skill modifiers that mitigate those hindrances.

 

The new system provides a much more interactive series of choices than currently exists with armor. These choices will begin with preparation, as players decide which armor to wear, and will end in quick, on the fly decisions on the battlefield over which weapon modes to use. Dividing armor into new categories and normalizing the degree of protection offered when the armor is crafted will alter the past situation where there was a clear "always best" and clear "always worst" armor choice.

Defining Basic Weapon Changes

To understand the basic armor types and functions, we need to look at some basic weapon changes.

In the combat upgrade we have decided to alter the interaction between weapons and armor to provide some interesting tactical choices. To accomplish this end we have added several new features to weapons and armor. The primary change seen in weapons is the removal of the armor piercing system and addition of an energy level setting on a player's weapon. This energy level plays a very significant role when used against the various armor types. Below is a new chart illustrating the new energy levels:

Weapons all have an energy level value and we will enable the players the ability to change this value for certain weapons on the fly. To provide different weapons with different utility certain weapons will have a mode switching option. While some weapons will have mode options many will remain single mode of fire weapons. The goal is to avoid a "one best type" of weapon or armor from evolving. The mechanism to change the value will be through a radial menu option while weapon is unequipped. The terminology is slightly different on melee weapons yet the game play model will remain the same. For example a focus beam which is designed to punch through assault type armors will share the same benefits as a melee vibro weapon set to high intensity versus assault type armor. Both are designed to puncture assault armors. Basic Hand to Hand damage when not wielding a weapon at all is slightly different from the other 3 modes in that it will have no inherent advantage or disadvantage versus armor.

Now that we have touched on the basic weapon categories, we can look at the different types of armor categories.

Armor Categories

Under the new system, armor will be divided into four new categories: None, Reconnaissance, Battle, and Assault. Each category has its own set of unique appearances. Currently there are three appearances for each category, but under this system we will be able to add as many as we would like later on. Each category will mitigate damage to a greater or lesser degree based on the weapon mode of the attack it is currently defending against. In all cases, however, the armor will reduce the damage received by some amount- there will be no situations in which wearing armor actually results in the wearer suffering more damage than an unarmored person would.

Armor Types:

None - Provides no additional damage mitigation

Reconnaissance - Designed to disperse focused energy (mode 3), but weak against standard damage types (mode 1).

Battle - A general purpose style of armor that is not as good as either of the extremes against specific damage types but which has a lesser weakness.

Assault - Hardened armor designed to protect against standard damage (mode 1). Its drawback is that it is weak against focused energy damage types (mode 3).


Armor Stats

The old armor system is comprised of Special Protections, Protections and Vulnerabilities. We have altered the names and meaning of them in the Combat Upgrade. We felt it was definitely necessary to rework the system based on knowledge and experience gained from working with the old system.

The damage mitigation stats on armor are being changed completely in the combat upgrade. While the names of the stats will remain the same, we have devised a new number range and backend meaning. The new types are General Protection and Specific Protections. General protection will range from 0 to 6,000. The general protection of armor will be the baseline stat that reflects how much absorption armor can take against all incoming damage. The Specific Protections will be broken out into familiar damage types of kinetic, acid, heat and so on that ranges from -1200 to +1200. The sum of the general protection and specific protection will provide final damage protection of your armor. For an example, armor with 5320 general protection and 300 acid protection would have a total protection of 5620 vs. acid.

How exact amount of damage mitigation that provided at each protection amount is something that will be looked at very closely in our Combat Upgrade testing. Based on these initial numbers, however, one can see that most of armor's protective value will be made up by general protection, while the specific protection portion will provide about 20% of the armor's value.

Encumbrance, the second functional characteristic of armor, will continue to have an impact. We have redefined how encumbrance works as we were not happy with the severe potential punishments that were possible by wearing armor. Rather than reducing both drain and regeneration stats, it will now only reduce the relevant drain stat. We have also added four new hindrance types that will be mitigated by various profession skills. These hindrances will not be able to be altered during the crafting process and will remain a fixed value on the armor to maintain an overall balance. This will enable us to envision what level of armor we see everyone wearing at a specific stage of their advancement. A player will take full set armor hindrances for wearing any piece of armor of a particular type and the highest hindrance stat will take precedence. We wanted to ensure people do not try and beat the system by mixing and matching high and low hindrance items, hence why we added the rule about the highest hindrance value determining your overall hindrance level. Encumbrance to the drain stat however will remain cumulative for the total amount of pieces you actually wear.


Race Normalization

Armor in SWG is also subject to a unique problem that is due to movie canon limitations. According to movie canon, certain player races cannot wear certain pieces of armor. For example, Trandoshans cannot wear gloves or boots, and Wookiees cannot wear boots. This has led to a situation where these races can get one-shot killed in combat because they have a form of what is commonly known as an "armor hole." This happens because on a basic level of combat calculations, the body was divided into multiple hit locations. Once a target has been determined to have been hit by a weapon the game determines what portion of the body has been hit, for example, the hands, bracer and biceps were all valid and separate hit locations.

The proposed system will remove the hands and feet as valid hit locations. We will need a new type of armor clothing to prevent the additives of clothing enhancements and/or already disallowed bio components. These pieces will still remain crafted by Armorsmiths. This should encourage the use of some of our least used races because they are no longer suffering a massive combat disadvantage.